Tony Watkins » Science and faith

Understanding the universe: Order of creation | The Economist 9 Sept. 2010

Tony Watkins — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 08:56:13 +0000

IN 1988, Stephen Hawking, a British cosmologist, ended his best-selling book, “A Brief History of Time”, on a cliff hanger. If we find a physical theory that explains everything, he wrote—suggesting that this happy day was not too far off—“then we would know the mind of God.” But the professor didn’t mean it literally. God played no part in the book, which was renowned for being bought by everyone and understood by few. Twenty-two years later, Professor Hawking tells a similar story, joined this time by Leonard Mlodinow, a physicist and writer at the California Institute of Technology.

In their “The Grand Design”, the authors discuss “M-theory”, a composite of various versions of cosmological “string” theory that was developed in the mid-1990s, and announce that, if it is confirmed by observation, “we will have found the grand design.” Yet this is another tease. Despite much talk of the universe appearing to be “fine-tuned” for human existence, the authors do not in fact think that it was in any sense designed. And once more we are told that we are on the brink of understanding everything.

. . .

The authors rather fancy themselves as philosophers, though they would presumably balk at the description, since they confidently assert on their first page that “philosophy is dead.” It is, allegedly, now the exclusive right of scientists to answer the three fundamental why-questions with which the authors purport to deal in their book. Why is there something rather than nothing? Why do we exist? And why this particular set of laws and not some other? . . . It soon becomes evident that Professor Hawking and Mr Mlodinow regard a philosophical problem as something you knock off over a quick cup of tea after you have run out of Sudoku puzzles.

. . . The authors also assert that the world’s past did not unfold of its own accord, but that “we create history by our observation, rather than history creating us.” They say that these surprising ideas have passed every experimental test to which they have been put, but that is misleading in a way that is unfortunately typical of the authors. It is the bare bones of quantum mechanics that have proved to be consistent with what is presently known of the subatomic world. The authors’ interpretations and extrapolations of it have not been subjected to any decisive tests, and it is not clear that they ever could be.

via economist.com

Posted via email from Tony Watkins

Resources for churches and communities: Creation the movie (UK release: 25th Sept.) Charles Darwin: eminent scientist, loving husband, grieving father. The film...
Science, Creation and all that Jazz This is the event at which I’m speaking on...
Ten Things You Need to Know About the Creation-Evolution Debate 1 Writing anything on creation and evolution within these pages feels...

Is God a delusion?

Tony Watkins — Mon, 24 May 2010 12:53:27 +0000

The second in the series on apologetics at Above Bar Church, Southampton. This one is considering reasons why it is rational to believe that God exists.

2. Is God a Delusion?

View more webinars from Tony Watkins.

Handout available here.

Doctor Who monsters This is a fabulous interactive infographic of all the...

Science, Creation and all that Jazz

Tony Watkins — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 13:08:14 +0000

This is the event at which I’m speaking on Friday evening:

‘Creation’ tells of Charles Darwin’s war between science and love - Nev Pierce has written a piece about Creation in...
Ten Things You Need to Know About the Creation-Evolution Debate 2 Part two of a two-part article first published in Christianity...
Ten Things You Need to Know About the Creation-Evolution Debate 1 Writing anything on creation and evolution within these pages feels...

Creation

Tony Watkins — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 16:33:12 +0000

Image courtesy Icon Film Distribution © 2009

This article was first published on Culturewatch.org. © Tony Watkins, 2010

Today sees the release in UK cinemas of Creation, marking the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth. Husband and wife Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly give beautifully nuanced performances as Charles and Emma Darwin experiencing a difficult period of life. Directed by Jon Amiel, it’s a touching, unconventional biopic which looks at Darwin’s ideas, tensions in his marriage and his crumbling faith.

Primarily set in 1858, the year before On the Origin of the Species was published, the film has many flashbacks revealing Darwin’s struggles during the previous years. The key event was the death of his eldest daughter, Annie (Martha West). Charles was an unusually devoted father for his day, and Annie was his favourite child. He was with her, caring for her, while she died at the age of ten, far from home and the rest of the family. Her untimely death devastated him, and it made deeply personal what had been an intellectual struggle for years: the problem of suffering.

His careful observations of nature had confronted him with a brutal struggle for survival. It seemed utterly contrary to the agreeable world of William Paley’s Natural Theology, which had once greatly impressed Darwin. As the years went by, he never lost his conviction that a creator was behind the existence of the universe, but he doubted that God had any further involvement in it. He described himself as an agnostic, but his agnosticism had a distinctively deist hue.

Creation has been hailed by some as a celebration of atheism. On the Guardian website, Ariane Sherine described it as, ‘one of the most robust defences of atheism and agnosticism ever to appear in a mainstream film.’ It really isn’t. The one character who gives a strong atheist line is Thomas Huxley (Toby Jones), but he is portrayed as arrogant and bullying. He claims, like certain outspoken atheists today, that Darwin’s ideas have killed God, and that science and religion are at war.

Darwin himself doesn’t see it this way. Bettany portrays him as being distressed by this antagonism and anxious about the social consequences of undermining belief in God. Yes, we do see him lose faith in a personal, benevolent God, but it’s too simplistic to see this as simply a consequence of his scientific ideas, as Nick Spencer makes clear, also on the Guardian website and in his book, Darwin and God.

Emma Darwin is an important ingredient in the story. She was a committed, thoughtful Christian and Creation shows her real concern for her husband’s spiritual well-being. Letters reveal, however, that it wasn’t Charles’s ideas which were the real issue, but the fact that he was too preoccupied with scientific proof: he couldn’t engage with the possibility that God may also reveal truth in ways that are outside the scope of science. At the end of the film, Charles asks Emma to decide whether or not Origin should be published. It’s a clever way of dramatising a discussion that must have taken place between them. Emma calls herself his ‘accomplice’ for agreeing to publication, but she would never have done so if she thought his ideas really undermine belief in God.

For Huxley, perhaps for Darwin, and for many atheists today, Darwin’s ideas provide an alibi for scepticism about God. But the fact that there are Christians like Emma whose faith is not undermined by evolution shows that the alibi is far from watertight.

The relationship between science and faith is a hot topic in our society, and Creation raises some important questions as it tells the moving and significant story of one man’s struggles. That’s why Damaris was happy to produce a number of resources for churches on behalf of Icon Film Distribution. These are vital issues to discuss, and this film provides a fascinating opportunity to do so.

Resources for churches and communities: Creation the movie (UK release: 25th Sept.) Charles Darwin: eminent scientist, loving husband, grieving father. The film...
Creation Five weeks today sees the release in UK cinemas of...
Creation Love him or hate him, there’s no denying that Charles...

Talking About . . . Darwin

Tony Watkins — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 13:33:01 +0000

This article by first published in Idea magazine and on Culturewatch. © Tony Watkins 2009

Image courtesy Icon Film Distribution © 2009

As the world marks the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth, his influence on the world is as enormous as ever. Whatever you think of his ideas, there’s no doubt that they have shaped science and profoundly affected many aspects of contemporary culture. Darwin’s meticulous work established the natural sciences as a serious scientific discipline for the first time. If this was Darwin’s only legacy, he would still be a towering figure in the history of science. But for most people, his name is linked only with On the Origin of Species.

The new film Creation tells the story of how Darwin finally came to publish it in 1859, and the struggles that led up to that point. He had arrived at the essentials of his theory at least seventeen years earlier, but kept his ideas to himself and a few friends. One reason he delayed was because he wanted much more supporting evidence. Earlier evolutionary ideas had been highly controversial; Darwin feared the response to his work, so he wanted to be sure he was on solid ground. He spent eight years studying barnacles.

Creation shows that Charles Darwin was also concerned about upsetting his wife, Emma. She knew his Christian faith was dwindling, and was concerned that his scientific desire for hard proof was making things worse for him. The film also stresses two other factors: the ill health that plagued him for the second half of his life, and his grief over the death of his beloved daughter Annie, shortly after her tenth birthday in 1851. This event brought to a tragic climax Darwin’s questions about the place of suffering in God’s creation and he eventually became an agnostic.

Image courtesy Icon Film Distribution © 2009

But he never saw himself as at war with God, much less that his ideas had killed God, as Thomas Huxley claims in Creation. The initial disagreement over On the Origin of Species was not primarily about what theological implications it may have had, but about whether or not the science was true. There were Christians and scientists on both sides of the debate.

A supposed conflict

From the beginning, though, a small minority was appalled by Darwin’s ideas while another minority seized upon them to support atheism. Today Darwin has become the focal point of a supposed conflict between science and faith, which he would have had no time for. He saw no reason for animosity between science and religion. Towards the end of his life, he wrote, ‘It seems absurd to doubt that a man may be an ardent theist and an evolutionist.’ Some people flatly deny Darwin’s statement. Many atheists – the best known being Richard Dawkins – maintain that evolution by natural selection in a godless universe is the only rational belief. Meanwhile, some Christians insist that belief in God is inconsistent with belief in evolution.

Between these two are many shades of opinion. Some Christians argue for intelligent design, for example, while others accept evolution as God’s means of creation and see no conflict with the Bible. And Darwin’s influence has gone far beyond biology, often in ways that he would object to. The concept of the ‘survival of the fittest’ has been used to justify various theories in the social sciences – anything vaguely to do with some kind of evolution. This nexus of ideas has become known as ‘social Darwinism’, though it has little or nothing to do with Darwin’s biological theory.

‘Survival of the fittest’ wasn’t even Darwin’s phrase, though he later adopted it. It was coined by economist Herbert Spencer in arguing for laizzez-faire free-market economics. Today, pundits discuss the credit crunch in Darwinian terms: if some businesses go to the wall, that’s just tough, because the fittest will survive.

An error in reasoning

Darwin’s ideas have been used to justify racism, though he was vehemently opposed to it, and eugenics, though he objected to any kind of government coercion. But these views don’t come out of Darwin’s work at all. They result from a basic error in reasoning: attempting to derive moral ideas of how human society ought to be from Darwin’s description of what he believed the biological world is like.

Whether or not ‘Darwin’s big idea’ is right, we must realise that it is rather limited. Yes, after 150 years it’s still a powerful theory for explaining biology, but as these misuses of it show, there are more important things at stake. Questions of morality and meaning are much more fundamental, but science can say nothing about them. Morality cannot be derived from biology, so where does it come from? It must come from something beyond us if it is to have any objective value. Otherwise society is at the mercy of its strongest members.

Atheist followers of Darwin believe that his ideas destroy the uniqueness of human beings, and that the meaning of life becomes merely passing on our DNA. Yet we instinctively feel that life is more than this. But where do meaning and purpose come from? Why, like Darwin, do we seek truth, rejoice in beauty and love deeply? The answer to these questions is the one that Darwin gave up on because of his grief. Only the existence of God allows for objective morality. Only God gives human life real meaning. Only God can make sense of suffering; without him it is utterly meaningless. And only God can account for the very existence of life.

Posted via email from Tony Watkins

‘Creation’ tells of Charles Darwin’s war between science and love - Nev Pierce has written a piece about Creation in...
Creation Love him or hate him, there’s no denying that Charles...
Resources for churches and communities: Creation the movie (UK release: 25th Sept.) Charles Darwin: eminent scientist, loving husband, grieving father. The film...

Culturewatch.tv on ‘Creation’

Tony Watkins — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 14:47:51 +0000

I recently interviewed Nick Spencer for a one-off Culturewatch.tv video on Creation, the forthcoming film about Charles Darwin. Nick is the author of Darwin and God.

Resources for churches and communities: Creation the movie (UK release: 25th Sept.) Charles Darwin: eminent scientist, loving husband, grieving father. The film...
‘Creation’ tells of Charles Darwin’s war between science and love - Nev Pierce has written a piece about Creation in...
Creation Love him or hate him, there’s no denying that Charles...

‘Creation’ tells of Charles Darwin’s war between science and love -

Tony Watkins — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 09:59:10 +0000

Nev Pierce has written a piece about Creation in the LA Times.

. . .

Darwin’s continuing relevance is one reason why “Creation” has been selected to open Toronto, which usually kicks off with a home-grown picture. “It’s a bit of a tradition for us to open with a Canadian film, yes,” said festival co-director Cameron Bailey. “But we haven’t always done it. We just thought ‘Creation’ was a film that spoke to our times. That tension between faith and reason was something we began to see in a number of different films, and it crystallized beautifully here, especially in that debate between a husband and wife who happen to see the world in completely different ways. It’s still pressing.”

. . .

via latimes.com

Good article in LA Times on ‘Creation’ movie by Nev Pierce, Editor-at-large for Empire magazine (and a friend of mine from some years ago). Read it here.

Posted via web from Tony Watkins

Resources for churches and communities: Creation the movie (UK release: 25th Sept.) Charles Darwin: eminent scientist, loving husband, grieving father. The film...
Culturewatch.tv on ‘Creation’ I recently interviewed Nick Spencer for a one-off Culturewatch.tv video...
Science, Creation and all that Jazz This is the event at which I’m speaking on...

Resources for churches and communities: Creation the movie (UK release: 25th Sept.)

Tony Watkins — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 14:06:12 +0000

via damaris.org

Charles Darwin: eminent scientist, loving husband, grieving father. The film Creation explores the different sides to the man who some believe had ‘the biggest single idea in the history of thought’. Even today, Darwin’s legacy is at the centre of contemporary debate about our understanding of who we are and what it means to be human. This film explores the implications of Darwin’s theories, and the way that tragic events in his family life influenced his doubts about God.

Starring Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connolly as Charles and Emma Darwin, Creation is based on the book Annie’s Box by Randall Keynes (Charles Darwin’s great-great-grandson). It is an emotional journey into the grief that shaped one of the great scientific minds of the last 200 years. See the official film website.

In association with Icon, Damaris are also providing the following resources to help churches, schools and community groups make the most of this movie when it is released on September 25th.

Damaris’s Creation resources will include:

A special episode of Pollard on Film on the theme of why should we believe anything at all? (available 4th Sept)
A special episode of Culturewatch TV on the real Charles Darwin (available 4th Sept)
Church service outline featuring footage from the film (available 28th Aug.)
Café-style Church meeting outline featuring footage from the film (available 4th Sept)
Three sets of notes for House Group meetings on different themes (first two available on 11th Sept.)
A Film and Focus event, with leader’s guide and full publicity material (available 11th Sept)

Posted via web from Tony Watkins

Creation Five weeks today sees the release in UK cinemas of...
Culturewatch.tv on ‘Creation’ I recently interviewed Nick Spencer for a one-off Culturewatch.tv video...
‘Creation’ tells of Charles Darwin’s war between science and love - Nev Pierce has written a piece about Creation in...

Creation

Tony Watkins — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 06:32:46 +0000

Creation (dir. Jon Amiel) distributed by Icon Film Distribution, 2009.
This article was first published in Evangelicals Now (September 2009).
© Tony Watkins, 2009

Love him or hate him, there’s no denying that Charles Darwin has massively influenced the modern world. 200 years after his birth, his struggles leading up to publishing On the Origin of Species are explored in a new film, Creation, starring Paul Bettany as Darwin.

The title is surprising but apt, since the film is partly about the creation of his book and partly about his doubts that God directly created every distinct species. But above all, it is the story of Darwin’s struggles over one particular aspect of creation: suffering.

Creation doesn’t tell the story in chronological order, indicating Darwin’s inner turmoil. His disquiet is partly intellectual. His meticulous explorations in the natural world have led him to conclusions that don’t mesh easily with the predominant views of his day.

We see Darwin deeply concerned about what effect publishing his ideas will have on his devout wife, Emma. But it is not simply a question of religion versus science. A two-hour film inevitably simplifies complex issues, and Creation doesn’t reveal that On the Origin of Species brought Darwin into conflict with some of his fellow scientists, nor that there were Christians who accepted his ideas unhesitatingly.

Darwin stumbles repeatedly over the problem of suffering. He is troubled by nature ‘red in tooth and claw’, and he presses his friend, the local vicar, on the question of why God created 900 species of intestinal worms. Much more personally, Darwin is torn apart by grief over the death of his much-loved daughter Annie, aged 10. Their relationship forms the heart of the film.

Creation is not a story of a man who has set himself to be at war with God. We see Darwin’s unease at his friend Thomas Huxley’s truculent insistence that Darwin’s ideas have killed God. Rather, it is a touching portrayal of a man whose faith is crumbling in the face of unbearable heartache. And no one gives him anything like a satisfactory answer. He is simply told that God moves in mysterious ways.

Darwin’s enormous passion for science is evident, and he is driven to discover truth. How sad, then, that he finally rejects the most important truth of all because no one helps him to see that God understands our pain, having suffered to reconcile us to himself. There is mystery in suffering, but only in relation to God can it have any meaning at all.

Resources for churches and communities: Creation the movie (UK release: 25th Sept.) Charles Darwin: eminent scientist, loving husband, grieving father. The film...
‘Creation’ tells of Charles Darwin’s war between science and love - Nev Pierce has written a piece about Creation in...
Creation Five weeks today sees the release in UK cinemas of...

Ten Things You Need to Know About the Creation-Evolution Debate – further reading

Tony Watkins — Wed, 10 Aug 2005 14:31:24 +0000

Books

Denis Alexander and Robert White, Beyond Belief (Lion, 2004)

Denis Alexander, Rebuilding the Matrix (Lion, 2001)

David Atkinson, The Message of Genesis 1–11 (Bible Speaks Today) (IVP, 1990)

RJ Berry, God and the biologist – faith at the frontiers of science (Apollos, 1996)

Henri Blocher, In the Beginning (IVP, 1984)

William Dembski, The Design Revolution: Answering the Toughest Questions about Intelligent Design, (IVP (USA) 2004)

William Dembski, Uncommon Dissent: Intellectuals Who Find Darwinism Unconvincing (ISI Books, 2004)

Michael Denton, Evolution: a theory in crisis (Woodbine House, 1996)

Philip Duce, Reading the mind of God – interpretation in science and theology (Apollos, 1998)

Phillip E. Johnson, Darwin on Trial (IVP, 1993)

Derek Kidner, Genesis (TOTC) (IVP, 1967)

Kevin Logan, Responding to the Challenge of Evolution (Kingsway, 2002)

Ernest Lucas, Can We Believe Genesis Today? (IVP, 2001)

Paul Marston and Roger Forster, Reason, Science and Faith (Wipf & Stock, 1998)

Alister McGrath, Dawkins’ God: genes, memes and the meaning of life (Blackwell, 2004)

Andy McIntosh, Genesis for Today: Creation and Evolution (Day One, 2001)

Del Ratzsch, Science and its Limits (IVP, 2000)

David Swift, Evolution under the Microscope, (Leighton Academic Press, 2002)

David Tyler , The Guide: Creation – chance or design?

Jonathan Wells, Icons of Evolution

Gordon Wenham, Word Biblical Commentary Genesis 1–15 (Word, 1987)

David Wilkinson, The Message of Creation (Bible Speaks Today) (IVP,2002)

David Wilkinson, God, Time and Stephen Hawking (Monarch, 2001)

David Wilkinson and Rob Frost, Thinking clearly about God and science (Monarch, 2000)

Websites

American Scientific Affiliation – www.asa3.org

Answers in Genesis – www.answersingenesis.org

Answers in Science – chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience

Biblical Creation Society – www.biblicalcreation.org.uk

Christians in Science – www.cis.org.uk

Creation and Evolution – www.creationandevolution.co.uk

Creation Science Movement – www.csm.org.uk

Evolution (secular site with lots of information) – www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution

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