Nature and Science Speak about God

Nature and Science Speak about God

1990 7 July 16-22 Nature and Science Speak about God (2381) 3

The first proposed solution asserts that there is no problem to solve except the metaphysical one of human consciousness, which has occasionally itself been considered an illusion! The hypothesis of illusion has been lately revived in physical science by Sir James Jeans who states that from the concepts of modern physics ‘the universe cannot admit of material representation, and the reason, I think, is that it has become a mere mental concept.’ (The Mysterious Universe, p. 169.) Accordingly, one may say that illusory trains apparently filled with imaginary passengers cross unreal rivers on immaterial bridges formed of mental concepts.

The second concept, that the world of matter and energy arose of itself out of nothing, is likewise too absurd a supposition for any consideration.

The third concept, that the universe existed eternally, has one element in common with the concept of creation; either inanimate matter with its incorporated energy, or a Personal Creator, is eternal. No greater intellectual difficulty exists in the one concept than in the other. But the laws of thermodynamics (heat) indicate that the universe is running down to a condition when all bodies will be at the same extremely low temperature and no energy will be available. Life would then be impossible. In infinite time this state of entropy would already have happened. The hot sun and stars, the earth with its wealth of life, are complete evidence that the origin of the universe has occurred in time, at a fixed point of time, and therefore the universe must have been created. A great First Cause, an eternal, all knowing and all powerful Creator must exist, and the universe is His handiwork.

The adjustments of the earth to life are far too numerous to be accounted for by chance. Firstly the earth is a sphere freely poised in space in daily rotation on its polar axis, giving the alternation of day and night, and in yearly revolution around the sun. ‘These motions give stability to its orientation in space, and, the 23.5 degree axial of orbit, or ecliptic, about the sun results in long winter nights and long summer days alternating between both polar regions and causing seasonal variations in climate’.1

The habitable area of the earth is thus doubled and our Earth sustains a greater diversity of plant life than would be possible on a stationary globe.

Secondly, the atmosphere of life-supporting gases is sufficiently high (about 500 miles) and dense to blanket the earth against the deadly impact of twenty million meteors that daily enter it at speeds of about thirty miles per second. Among many other functions the atmosphere also maintains the temperature within safe limits for life; and carries the vital supply of fresh water-vapor far inland from the oceans to irrigate the earth, without which it would become a lifeless desert. Thus the oceans, with the atmosphere, are the balance-wheel of Nature.

1. Encyclopaedia Britannica, Vol. I, p. 954.

Four remarkable properties of water, – its power of absorbing vast quantities of oxygen at low temperatures, its maximum density at 4 degrees C. above freezing whereby lakes and rivers remain liquid, the lesser density of ice than water so that it remains on the surface, and the power of releasing great quantities of heat as it freezes, – preserve life in oceans, lakes and rivers throughout the long winters.

The dry land is a stable platform for much terrestrial life. The soil provides the minerals which plant life assimilates and transforms into needful foods for animals. The presence of metals near the surface renders the arts of civilization possible. Surely Isaiah is right (45: 18 R.S.V.) in saying of God: ‘He did not make it a chaos: He formed it to be inhabited.

The diminutive size of the earth compared with the immensity of space is sometimes disparagingly referred to. If the earth were as small as the moon, i.e. one-fourth of its present diameter, the force of gravity (one sixth that of the earth) would fail to hold both atmosphere and water, and temperatures would be fatally extreme. If double its present diameter, the enlarged earth would have four times its present surface and twice its force of gravity, the atmosphere would be dangerously reduced in height, and its pressure would be increased from 15 to 30 pounds per square inch, with serious repercussions upon life. The winter areas would be greatly increased and the regions of habitability would be seriously diminished. Communities of people would be isolated, travel and communication rendered difficult or almost impossible.

If our earth were of the size of the sun, but retaining its density, gravity would be 150 times as great, the atmosphere diminished to about four miles in height, evaporation of water rendered impossible and pressure increased to over a ton per square inch. A one-pound animal would weigh 150 pounds, and human beings would be reduced in size to that of, say, a squirrel. Intellectual life would be impossible to such creatures.

If the earth were removed to double its present distance from the sun, the heat received would be reduced to one-fourth its present amount, the orbital velocity would be only one-half, the winter season would be doubled in length and life would be frozen out. If its solar distance were halved, the heat received would be four times as great, the orbital velocity would be doubled, seasons would be halved in length, if changes could even be effected, and the planet would be too parched to sustain life. In size and distance from the sun, and in orbital velocity, the earth is able to sustain life, so that mankind can enjoy physical, intellectual and spiritual life as it now prevails.

If in the origin of life there was no design, then living matter must have arisen by chance. Now chance, or probability, as it is termed, is a highly developed mathematical theory which applies to that vast range of objects of knowledge that are beyond absolute certainty. This theory puts us in possession of the soundest principles on which to discriminate truth from error, and to calculate the likelihood of the occurrence of any particular form of an event (pp.19-23).

A tendency to take human existence too much for granted is easily corrected by considering for a moment the proposition that since the earth is moving continuously at a velocity of one thousand miles per hour (and although our feet are in contact with the ground, we are all of us hanging with our heads down in space.) we ought to be cast off centrifugally into outer space, just like so many grains of sand flying off a rotating bicycle wheel. An alarming idea, isn’t it! But, of course, nothing of the sort happens, because, fortunately for us, the gravitational force of the earth and the atmospheric pressure together hold our bodies safely in position on the earth’s surface. This bilateral action keeps us clinging to the earth’s surface no matter in which hemisphere we happen to be. The pressure which the atmosphere exerts upon the human body is the rather surprising figure of 15½ lbs (about 8 kilograms) per square inch. But we do not feel the effects of such intense pressure, because the blood in our bodies exerts an equal pressure in the opposite direction.

On the basis of his own observation and studies, Newton came to the conclusion that all bodies exert a mutual attraction. But he had no answer to the question, ‘Why do bodies attract one another’? He himself confessed to having failed to offer any explanation for this. On this point, A.N. Whitehead, the noted American mathematician and philosopher, says:

By admitting this fact, Newton has expressed a great philosophical truth, that is, if nature is inanimate, it can give no explanation to us, just as a dead man cannot narrate any incident. All rational and logical explanations are ultimately the expression of a purpose, whereas no ontology can be ascribed to a dead universe.’1

To the words of Whitehead, we might well add the Qur’an that if the universe is not under the supervision of any intelligent mind, how is it then invested with such profound meaningfulness? The earth completes one rotation on its axis in twenty-four hours. In other words, it is rotating on its axis at a speed of one thousand miles per hour. Suppose its speed were reduced to two hundred miles per hour – which is quite possible, our days and nights would then be prolonged to ten times their present duration. The heat of the summer would become scorching and would reduce the entire vegetation of the planet to ashes during the day time, and whatever survived the heat would be shriveled up by the severe cold during the excessively long nights. Just one change in one set of conditions would bring total devastation in its wake. Other changes could do the same: The sun, which is now our source of life, could become the most terrible scourge if, for example, the distance between the earth and the sun – approximately 9 crore 30 lakh miles – were reduced by half, then its 12 thousand degrees Fahrenheit surface temperature would cause this paper to burst into flames. Conversely, if the distance were doubled, the earth’s surface would become too cold to allow any life to survive. A star ten thousand times bigger than the sun would keep the entire earth roasting hot, like an oven. The earth’s inclination in space at an angle of 23 degrees is one of the greatest of marvels to man, because that is what causes our seasons, making the greater part of the earth habitable and providing a greater diversity of plant life. Had the earth’s axis been perpendicular, there would have been perpetual darkness at the North and South Poles, the oceanic vapours would have travelled northwards and the earth’s surface would have been covered – in either glaciers or deserts – to describe but a few of the adverse effects. This would have rendered the survival of life on earth impossible. One can go on endlessly imagining different sets of physical circumstances which could have precluded or destroyed human existence. It is unthinkable then that the perfect conditions for man to come into existence on earth were simply self-generating and had no origin in divine inspiration.

1. The Age of Analysis. p.85.

If we think of what conditions were like at the time of the formation of the earth, it seems all the more miraculous that life could come into being at all. Isaac Asimov has painted a fearsome picture of the beginning of things. Correcting the earlier hypothesis in favour at the beginning of this century, he writes:

Currently, scientists are convinced the earth and the other planets did not form from the sun, but were formed of particles coming together at the same time that the sun itself was being formed. The earth was never at sun temperature, but it did grow quite warm through the energies of collision of all the particles that formed it. It grew warm enough so that its relatively small mass could not hold an atmosphere or water vapor to begin with.

The solid body of the newly formed earth had, in other words, neither atmosphere nor ocean. Where, then, did they come from?

There existed water (and gases) in loose combination with the rocky substances making up the solid portion of the globe. As that solid portion packed together more and more tightly under the pull of gravity, its interior grew hotter and hotter. Water vapor and gas were forced out of combination with the rock and came fizzing from its substance.

The gaseous bubbles, forming and collecting, racked the baby earth with enormous quakes; escaping heat produced violent volcanic eruptions. For unnumbered years, liquid water did not fail from the sky; rather, water vapor whistled out of the crust and then condensed. The oceans formed from below, not from above.

What geologists mainly dispute now is the rate at which the oceans formed. Did the water vapor all fizz out within a billion years or less, so that the ocean has been its present size ever since life began? Or has the process been so slow that the ocean has been growing all through geologic time and is still growing?

Those who maintain the ocean formed early in the game and has been steady in size for a long time point out that the continents seem to be a permanent feature of the earth. They do not appear to have been much larger in the past, when the ocean was, supposedly, much smaller.

On the other hand, those who maintain the ocean has been growing steadily point out that volcanic eruptions even today pour quantities of water vapour into the air; water vapor derived from deep-lying rocks, not from the ocean. Also, there are sea mounts under the Pacific with flat tops that may have once been at ocean level but are now hundreds of feet below.1

Be that as it may, if the oceans had been deeper by just a few feet more, they would have absorbed all available carbon dioxide and oxygen, and no vegetation of any kind could have survived upon the earth’s surface. If the air in the atmosphere had been less dense than it is at present, the twenty million meteors that daily enter it at speeds of about thirty miles per second, would be crashing down all over the earth, burning up all combustible matter and perforating the whole of the earth’s surface. The heat alone of a meteor travelling 90 times faster than a bullet would be enough to annihilate so vulnerable a creature as man. It is thanks to this atmospheric layer being of an appropriate density that mankind is safeguarded against these fiery showers of celestial debris. This density is also exactly right for solar actinic rays to reach the earth in such proportions as will promote the growth of vegetation, destroy harmful bacteria, and make vitamins available which may be absorbed directly from the sunlight through the skin, or indirectly from edible matter through the digestive tract. How wonderful it is to have all these benefits in exact proportion to our requirements.

1. Please Explain, pp. 64·65.

To be continued