Understanding 1 Peter 4:6

  

In my last blog I looked at two challenging verses in 1 Peter 3 (verses 19 & 20) which have been interpreted in many ways by various people, and which still cause discussion today. The richness of 1 Peter is that such passages are not limited to chapter 3 and there is a particular verse in Chapter 4 (verse 6) that has also raised many questions over the years. Before we look into it I should say that all the rules and principles I mentioned previously still apply and this is my personal interpretation of the verse. Other may see it differently, but here is the passage:

With respect to this they are surprised when you do not join them in the same flood of debauchery, and they malign you; but they will give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. For this is why the gospel was preached even to those who are dead, that though judged in the flesh the way people are, they might live in the spirit the way God does. [1 Peter 4:4-6]

Verses 4 and 5 are fairly straightforward, it is verse 6 that may leave us puzzled, but let us start with the overall point Peter is making. Peter is talking about the suffering we may have to endure as Christians, potentially because we have changed our attitude to the world, and, as he says in verse 2:

The time for living like the world lives has now ended. [1 Peter 4:2]

And so, we come to the verses above. Because of this difference the world is both surprised at, and then abusive towards us because of our changed lifestyle. That is what we read in verse 4 and is fairly straightforward:

this they are surprised when you do not join them in the same flood of debauchery, and they malign you. [1 Peter 4:4]

and verse 5 is equally straightforward:

but they will give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. [1 Peter4:5]

Peter is assuring his readers that whilst they may be persecuted and abused, they should not fear. Even if those who oppose them go unpunished in this life, those people will ultimately face God’s judgment. So much of the purpose of 1 Peter as a whole letter has been to comfort those who are suffering and to assure the readers that there will ultimately be a righting of wrongs, justice will be served, and as such they can endure the sufferings they may be facing.

That principle helps us to understand the somewhat tricky following verse:

For this is why the gospel was preached even to those who are dead, that though judged in the flesh the way people are, they might live in the spirit the way God does. [1 Peter 4:6]

The question we must ask is “who is being preached to?” That will help us to understand this passage. They (whoever they are) are clearly now dead, and therefore the gospel was preached to them whilst they were alive, but are we talking of those Christians who have been persecuted and have now died or those who were doing the persecuting and have now died?

If we take the second option first it does not make much sense. The whole thrust of Peter’s letter is that they (the persecutors) will be judged. Having died they have passed the point where they can repent of their sins and so will stand before God as those who opposed his people and his will, and so it makes no sense to talk of them as:

those who might live in the spirit the way God does. [1 Peter 4:6b]

The verse does however make more sense if we consider the first option; Peter is referring to Christians who have been persecuted for their faith and have now died, and it makes even more sense when we remember the overall context of the letter of bringing comfort to those who are suffering.

Peter is saying:

You have been persecuted for your faith. You have declared that you are living to a different standard (God’s will) and the world does not like that. You have been persecuted, and just as the crowd hurled insults at Christ on the cross saying...

If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross. [Matthew 27:40]

...the crowds might be saying to you; "Where is your God? If he exists, he will stand up for you." However, God, in his permissive will, has allowed that persecution to take place and even allowed people to reach the end of their lives without seeing any earthy judgement or consequence applied to those who have been doing the persecuting. Indeed, those persecutors might well now be saying “we have won – we have persecuted these people and there has been no consequence – we have judged them according to our rules of what is acceptable and not.”

And in response to that cry Peter is providing two -fold comfort to his readers. Firstly, justice will come, and secondly, you have nothing to fear.

In verse 5 he says:

but they will give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. [1 Peter 4:5]

There is the assurance the ‘justice will come’, and in verse 6 he is responding to this valid cry from believers “we have been persecuted and have seen other persecuted who have now died and nothing has happened. Where is God’s justice? By the way, we see a similar cry in Revelation where the saints around the throne cry out for justice:

They cried out with a loud voice, “O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?"  [Revelation 6:10]

Peter responds to this cry when he says in verse 6:

For this is why the gospel was preached even to those [Christians] who are [now] dead, that though judged in the flesh [persecuted and judged according to the world’s standards] the way people are, they [Christians] might live in the spirit the way God does.

You may be judged by the world, but fear not, the gospel has been preached to you, and received by you so that you might live in the spirit, in eternity, as God does.

      

 

Understanding 1 Peter 3:19-20

For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit,  in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison,  because they formerly did not obey, when God's patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water.

 [1 Peter 3: 18-20]

1)     INTRODUCTION

1 Peter 3:19-20 are two of the most contentious verses in scripture; it is always good to start with a big bold statement! What is Peter saying here? One of the challenges of reading all the way through a book of the Bible verse by verse is we have to deal with those passages which, if it were down to us, we would prefer to gloss over or ignore. This passage is all the more challenging because we have no problems with verse 18; it is a wonderful verse and in that verse we have the whole power and simplicity of the gospel: Christ died for us and through his death we are made alive and bought into relationship with the Father. How easy, how simple it would be to end there, but Peter does not, he carries on talking about Jesus proclaiming to spirits in prison that did not obey God’s word. ‘Prison’ here means hell, and so we have all these questions about who is Jesus preaching to? Why is he preaching, and how does that square with our wider theology of Christ’s death and resurrection.

Well let’s start with a couple of principles that we should hold in mind as we explore this passage.

2)     FOUR GUIDING PRINCIPLES

      1) The central truths of salvation are not being questioned here

Different people may have different interpretations on this passage, and you may not ultimately agree with my interpretation, and that is fine. No one he is doubting that Jesus died a real death was buried, was rose again, and through that act secured our eternal salvation. That is a truth that defend against any other message. Our salvation does not depend on verses 19 and 20, but it does depend on verse 18, and so whilst all the Bible is important and vital for our growth…

 “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.” 

[ 2Timothy 3:16]

…some verses do carry more weight and so it is ok to discuss and maybe even have different views on verses 19 & 20:

2)     We do not build our theology on one verse

A basic principle of understanding and interpreting scripture is that scripture will affirm scripture, and that means that an idea or doctrine will not be confined to a single verse but will be expressed in many other places. What makes these two verses challenging is that they seem to express an idea that we do not really find expressed elsewhere is scripture. That does not make Peter wrong, but it means we must tread carefully and interpret the verse in the light of what we find elsewhere in scripture.

3)     Not everyone sees a difficulty in the passage

Many people don’t see any problem with these verses; they are just part of the wider narrative of Peter’s letter, but as a church that believes in the centrality of God’s word we should teach into every passage, not just the ones we are comfortable to familiar with.

4)     Verses must be taken in context

It is dangerous to take a verse, even verses, and interpret them with no reference to the occasion and circumstance they were written. Some verses, particularly those concerning our salvation are timeless and do not need further ‘grounding’ in the context of where they were written. Take John 3:16 for example

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

We do not need to know the circumstances under which John wrote his gospel, or who his intended readers were, or even to closely examine the verses either side of this (although that is still a good exercise to engage in) to appreciate and understand the verse. For many other verses and passages, this passage in 1 Peter for example, the context does help tremendously in understanding the verse, and this is an idea we will come back to later.

 

5)     FOUR POSSIBILITIES

Well, let’s start to explore this verse. There are probably four main ways to interpret the passage, although I am sure there are many more. We’ll list them first and then examine them each in more detail:

·        Jesus is in hell, proclaiming his victory to demonic forces

·        Jesus is preaching to men and women in a conscious intermediary state

·        Jesus is preaching to men and women in an unconscious intermediary state

·        Jesus is proclaiming the truths of God in are more timeless way

A literal reading of the passage suggests that between his death and resurrection Jesus was in hell preaching:

he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison

In the first option it is to demonic forces, in the second and third it is to men and women (which raises all sorts of other questions -as we will see). However, there is a fourth option where Peter is talking in a more metaphorical or timeless way, and so Jesus is not literally in hell or preaching in hell.

So, let’s look at these different ideas in turn.

4a) Jesus is in hell, proclaiming his victory to demonic forces

An initial reading of this passage will tend to lead us to this conclusion. It does seem to be the simpler and more logical idea. After his death Jesus descends to hell where he proclaims his victory. He declares the truth to those evil forces that believe they have triumphed by killing the Son of God, but he rises on the third day, declaring his victory and showing that death has no hold.

It is an idea that ingrained and out thinking and reinforced by so much of what we read and sing, but for that reason we must be careful to build our theology on God’s words alone and not men’s words however well-intentioned they may be. As we have already said the idea of Jesus descending to hell for three days is not something we see expressed elsewhere in scripture.

Yes, Christ conquered death, yes, he showed that death has no hold on him and therefore no hold on us, but did he need to descend to hell to show that?

This idea is found very clearly expressed in the Apostles Creed, which was an early (4^th or 5^th century confession of basic Christian truth). It states there, talking of Jesus:

“Who suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried, descended into hell, rose again from the dead on the third day”

But the Apostles Creed, as powerful, and true, a declaration of faith as it is, is man’s words and therefore not infallible as scripture itself is. This idea comes to us with the weight of history and tradition more than it does through clear biblical interpretation, and like any document an inaccurate or incomplete translation can lead to errors.  Most English translations say; “he descended into Hell.” but the Greek says: katelthonta eis ta katōtata. The Greek word katōtata simply refer to a very deep place, not necessary a physical place.

And the same idea is expressed in Philippians 2 as Christ's descent being linked with his suffering and humiliation rather than a destination.

And just as an aside, we must still affirm the power of such confessions. I personally have no problem in declaring this out loud and affirming ever sentence, even if I believe there is something more here.

Perhaps the question we should ask is “Where was Jesus in the three days between his death and resurrection. One option is of course that he was ‘asleep’, ‘unconscious’, ‘unable to partake in any activity’ until he rose on the third day (but that really invalidates 1 Peter 3:19-20 which suggests, no matter what we finally decide on, that Jesus was doing something.

This first option answers this question by saying Jesus was in hell, preaching to demons, but where does Jesus himself say he will be?

Jesus was crucified with two thieves. One mocked him but the other acted differently:

And he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” And he [Jesus] said to him, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.” 

[Luke 23:43-44]

At such a poignant moment Christ is not going to talk in metaphors, here is a simple statement from the King of Kings that on that moment of death they would both be in heaven.

Jesus does not need to preach this to demons, it is demonstrated by the fact of his resurrection.

We can say, at least in a poetic sense, that ‘death could not hold him’ or ‘up from the grave he arose’, or even:

God raised him up, losing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it.    

[Acts 2:24] 

but to say ‘Hell’ could not hold him conveys, apart from in the most symbolic or metaphorical of ways, may be a step to far.

So what other options are there?

 

4b & c) Jesus is hell preaching to men and women in an intermediary state

Perhaps our options would be easier if Peter had simply his sentence with,

 in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison…  

If Peter had ended there, we could more easily imagine that he was talking literally of evil spirits, of demons, but Peter goes on to talk of Noah:

…because they formerly did not obey, when God's patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water.

There is something here about the message coming not to demons, but to men and women, and also to men and women of a far earlier age and are now dead. And so, there are ways to interpret this passage along the lines of Jesus speaking to men and women. There is a clear description of those who were disobedient to the word and so the idea here is that men are women who were unrepentant in their lives and are now in hell, and now releasing the error of their ways as Jesus declared the truth to them again, this time in victory

There were two ideas mentioned earlier and I want to take these two together, because whilst there are differences, they are perhaps two options we can dismiss more easily (although I am sure there are some who would want to hold to this definition). When I talk of an ‘intermediate’ state I refer to an idea that we would not really accept with our reformed theology, but others, particularly those of the Catholic faith would hold to a ‘middle ground’ where souls go upon death to await final judgement. The Catholic term is purgatory, and the key idea here is that the soul’s final destination for all eternity is not yet decided; heaven and hell are still in the balance. As so whilst we, with our more protestant theology would not offer up prays for those that have died, Catholics would – seeing it as a way of ‘tipping the scales’ in the direction of heaven being the final verdict.

Now, those souls can either be conscious (aware of their surroundings and awaiting that final decision) or unconscious (asleep) as they await the final judgement. I do not want to dwell too much on this idea or the distinction between them as it is an option we should dismiss:

Just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment 

[Hebrews 9:27]

The whole weight of scripture suggests there is no ‘second chance’ or to still repent after death. The parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31) is allegorical in many ways; The rich man is unlikely to have ‘seen’ Abraham and Lazarus; nor would Abraham have been able to speak to the Rich Man in hell. Rather the parable is told to illustrate the clear truth that there is one chance for repentance, and that come in this life. The crystal-clear truth of what Jesus is explaining is summed up in verse 26: 

And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been set in place, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.

[Luke 16:26]

If we hold, as we must, to the truth that there is no ‘second chance’ for repentance then Jesus doing so would at best be pointless and at worse, declaring a truth to people who now had no ability to respond, and therefore, whilst not explicitly mentioned, we must dismiss the idea that Jesus is preaching to lost souls in hell, where hell as their final destination and they are beyond all hope of redemption. 

What then of this fourth option?

4d) Jesus is proclaiming the truths of God in are more timeless way

This paper came in response to a preaching series on 1 Peter and we came to this passage as part of studying the letter as a whole. This is what I meant earlier by understanding a verse in its context. And so rather than just ask what does 1 Peter 3:19-20 mean, we should be asking what is the message Peter is conveying through all five chapters of his letter?

Peter is writing to Christians who are suffering persecution and have been scattered to various locations as a result. He is, in part, writing to assure them they are still part God’s plan and purpose and their share with Christ as strongly as those from the generation before than that might have physically walked with Jesus or literally heard his teaching.

Peter is assuring his readers that they have not ‘missed out’ on being with Jesus by being born a mere generation after his death. The message is timeless, as Jesus did not just speak for the three-year period of his ministry but has been speaking through all time. He speaks to us today, and he spoke to Noah’s generation. Jesus speaks through the Holy Spirit to every generation proclaiming this same message. The 1 Peter passage speaks of Jesus being alive in the Spirit and in the spirit preaching to all generations. Peter is not saying the people of Noah’s generation who did not repent are now in hell and haring the gospel again, rather he is saying the people of Noah’s generation heard the same gospel you have heard, whilst they were alive and able to repent, preached through the Holy Spirit. The tragedy is of course that not all responded to that most powerful of words, indeed only eight were saved, but those who did not respond still heard that same gospel and none could say “but we did not know, or we did not hear."

We can even say Noah was bringing Christ's message to his generation as he preached in the power of the Spirit. Peter seems to almost start his letter with this idea that there is a timeless declaration of the gospel through the prophets:

Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully, inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories.

[1 Peter 1:10-11]

Peter’s encouragement to his readers is the message of Jesus is both timeless – touching all generations, and that it is something they too have been called to participate in as prophets to their generation:

 but in your hearts honour Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect.

 [1 Peter 3:15]

5)     SUMMARY

In summary can I remind you of a couple of things that were mentioned earlier. Firstly, this is my personal understanding of the passage in as far as I have sought God on this subject and understood it, but I could be wrong. I am open to other explanations and am happy to discuss this further, in person or you can aways add comments below in response. Our salvation does not depend on how we interpret these verses, and for that reason we do have scope to explore different interpretations and long as we do that with openness and humility.

Secondly, I said earlier, and want to affirm again, this was not written primarily to start a debate on the nature of heaven and hell, or the final judgement of those who do not respond to the gospel. These are in themselves really important and serious questions, and if you do want to discuss more about these or other topics in the Christian faith then do reach out to us. Those truths are taken here as given so that we can explore 1 Peter 3:19-20.

And then lastly. It would been so easy to have not opened up the passage and possibly start a debate or discussion, but if we want to be Christians who declare the primacy of the word of God then we must do this with any and all passages that cause us to stop and ask; “what is being said here, what does this really mean?” Only in this way can we grow in our understanding of God’s word.

God bless you all

Ken

Big Questions 1: Has Science Disproved God?

In this series we are; “Answering the Big Questions”, questions that I am sure you have either asked yourself, or have been asked by others and which challenge our faith, and here is a big one that many people ask; “Has science disproved God?” Actually is not usually phased as a question, more of an assumption that God, or that belief in God has been rendered old fashioned or obsolete due to our greater understanding of science. “We have science now to tell us how things came into existence, and how they work, so why does any rational intelligent person still need to believe in God?”

It interesting to note that whilst this is certainly a big question, it is really only a question that has been asked recently, and by that I mean in the last 150 years or so. Before that it was never an issue, and we will look at the reasons for that in a moment. But to put this in context, in a future session we will look at “Why does God allow suffering?” and that is a question that has been asked right from the get go. We read in John’s gospel:

“As he passed by he saw a man blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents that he was born blind?” [John 9:1-2]

 

Right back at the beginning people were asking “Why does God allow suffering”, but no one can up to Jesus and said to him; “Surely science has disproved that God exists?” It’s a modern question – but why do people ask it?

So why do people think that science has disprove God? Why do people see this conflict? Some would point to the debate over origins; and the division over whether the Earth created in seven days or over fifteen billion years as suggested by modern scientific theory. Others might look to creation vs evolution, or the scientific method that says truths can only be trusted if they can be measured and verified and categorised. Taking things 'on faith' is a response best left to previous ages. As Timothy Keller says, quoting a popular belief:

 

“Doesn’t religion call for leaps of blind faith in an age of science reason and technology, they ask? Surely fewer and fewer people will feel the need for religion and it will die out”

                                                              (Timothy Keller (Making Sense of God)

Regardless of the response there is a lot of emotion behind this question and a lot of rhetoric. It’s not a debate we do very well because we often start from very entrenched positions. The debate between science and religion has described by a number of writers as ‘a warfare metaphor’. with science and religion in conflict and at opposite ends of a spectrum of beliefs, and any discussion between these seems to start with the assumption the opposing argument needs to be beaten down and squashed completely. So I want to do two main things this morning. I want to talk about the history of the interaction between science and religion; to show this idea that the two are naturally in conflict did not exist until fairly recently, and then, because obviously the answer to the question ‘has science disproved God is a resounding “no”, I want to look at a number of areas where a purely scientific world view (and by that I mean an approach that takes God out of the equation) does not give a satisfactory explanation.

So let me start by explaining what I meant by this being a fairly recent question. We see a great divide between faith and science, but go back more than 150 years and that divide disappears, and people wouldn’t understand our difficulties. Put simply much of the scientific enquiry that took place in the 18th Century and earlier took place because either the church encouraged it or it was done by men (there weren’t that many women involved in science in those times unfortunately), who had a strong and clear Christian faith. 

 

 

Isaac Newton                Johannes Kepler

Take Isaac Newton, for example, perhaps the greatest scientist who has ever lived, he formulated the laws of gravity, among many other discoveries, so surely he was a scientist, not a theologian? Well in addition to his more famous works he wrote a number of tracts on the literal interpretation of the Bible. In the introduction to his greatest work, his three volume ‘Principia’ he writes:

 

“When I wrote my treatise about our Systeme I had an eye upon such Principles as might work with considering men for the beliefe of a Deity and nothing can rejoyce me more then to find it useful for that purpose.”

One of the greatest scientific text books in history and that is in the introduction.

Or take Johannes Kepler who in the early 1600’s formulated the laws of planetary motion. We recognise another great scientist there, but he said that his motivation was to give glory to the creator of those laws. He wrote:

“God is praised through my work in astronomy”.

Were Newton and Kepler scientists or theologians? Certainly prior to the mid 1800’s it is hard to differentiate between the two.

 

Columbus at Salmanca

And we like to see conflict where there is none, and a good example that is unfortunately still taught in our schools is that of Columbus. Popular myth has it that Columbus wanted to sail  west to reach the Indies (rather than travelling overland eastwards) and run into trouble with an intransigent church that taught the world was flat and that Columbus was doomed to fail; he would sail over the edge of the world. Here is Columbus with his map of a round earth and the priest pointing to the Bible which says the earth is fixed and flat. That was simply not true, the fact that the Earth was round had been established by the ancient Greeks in the 3rd Century and its size accurately determined by the 6th Century – a fact that was well known to the church at the time. The debate at Salamanca concerned the fact that Columbus believed the world to be far smaller than it was, and the church, working with a correct estimate of the size of the earth, said he would be unable to sufficiently provision his ships for the trip. A fact they were proved right on, and Columbus only survived because he happened to run into a fairly large obstacle on his journey – namely the continent of America.

Or take Galileo who was summoned before a Papal hearing in 1633 and charged with heresy for his astonishing claim that the earth went round the sun (a model first proposed by Copernicus fifty years earlier). Galileo was force to recant his views. Popular myth has it that suffering with ill health and facing torture from the inquisition, Galileo kneels and recants, but, murmurs quietly under his breath “e pur si muove”, “even so it does move” A more complete account would mention the fact that Galileo was a rather proud and haughty person. The church had no problem with a discussion about the earth going round the sun or not, provided it was presented as a possibility for discussion, not as fact. Galileo did indeed comply, and published his ideas as a ‘discussion’, but he did so in a way that would arouse the anger of the church. He presented his ideas as a debate between three men.

Sagredo is the impartial moderator who will hear both sides of the argument.

Salviati is the scientist who presents the case for Galileo’s ideas.

Simplico (and the name gives this away), Simplicio is something of a foolish simpleton; he is the one who rejects these new ideas. In the illustrations and in the text it is very clear to all the Simplico is none other than the Pope himself; Pope Urban VIII.

 

Frontispiece of 'La Dialogue'

Galileo is thumbing his nose at Papal authority and his trial for heresy was because he had insulted the Pope, and indeed a number of other friends and colleagues who had advised him against such a course of action, not for his actual scientific ideas.

Yet Galileo and his dispute with the Catholic Church is still presented as one of the clearest examples of science and religious views in conflict.

So there was no conflict for many centuries, but that changed in the 19^th Century, not with as you might assume with the publication of Darwin’s book; ‘On the Origin of Species’ but with the publication in 1874 of a far lesser known book by a man called John William Draper called ‘The History of the Conflict between Religion and Science” that largely suggested scientific thought and enquiry was in some way superior to religious thought and enquiry. A totally false supposition by the way, but it came just at a time when science was coming of age. Prior to this this time the intellectual elite were the clergy; you had to study theology for years before you could become a priest or a pastor, science, on the other hand, was something done by amateurs in their back gardens. But as science grew during the 19^th Century the desire for scientists to be seen as intellectually superior grew. They were the ones that now had to study for years and go to university. The industrial revolution was in full swing and the effects of science were visible for all to see and so this struck a chord with the general population. Indeed Draper’s book, which was only one in a series on scientific enquiry, was a runaway success, it out-sold all the other books in the series, went through 50 printings and was translated into ten languages – no mean feat for the mid 1850s.

And so was born this idea that science and religion are at opposite ends of a spectrum and you can only hold onto one. It is ingrained in our culture but it is not true.

Francis Collins the lead scientist involved in the human genome project, mapping the complex code of our DNA has said this:

“One of the greatest tragedies of our time is this impression that has been created that science and religion have to be at war.”

So forgive me for the quick history lesson, but I wanted to dispel the myth that it is natural for science and religion to be in conflict or in opposition. When we are confronted with this question this warfare metaphor is very evident in the background and sometimes influences how we respond; faith and Science as two boxers in opposing corners who come out slugging as soon as the bell rings. but history paints a very different picture. And so moving on now I want to return to the question in hand “Has Science disproved God?” and give you four reasons why I do not think that is so. Four simple examples that you can use if you get involved in such a debate- but hopefully to do so in a way that isn’t quite so confrontational. You will never avoid the creation vs evolution debate, or the thousands of years or billions of years debate. Cavemen and dinosaurs will still come up, but let us at least try to start with some simple points.

 

1) Something from Nothing

The popular world view – what science has termed the standard model is that 15 billion years ago the universe suddenly came into being through an event called the Big Bang. Go back fifty billion years nothing, thirty billion years nothing, twenty billion years nothing, then suddenly fifteen billion years ago we have a universe. How did that happen?

And it is enormous. We think of the sun as huge, but it is just a small star gathered together with some 100 billion other stars to make our galaxy. Here is a picture of our nearest neighbouring galaxy in the constellation of Andromeda and it is a good picture of what our galaxy looks like from the outside, and  this were our galaxy, we would not be near the centre, but right out hear out the edge.

 

Deep space galaxies
(Hubble Space Telescope)

Yet the universe is made up of not one galaxy but 100 billion other galaxies. This picture from the Hubble Space Telescope shows not stars, but galaxies spread through space. How did that happen? How did all of this come from nothing? Of course science has no answer – and in many ways it is a question that lies beyond science. It is not possible to answer the how and why of that question with a scientific world view alone.

Nothing, nothing, nothing, billions of years of nothing then suddenly something. Science can’t explain that, but it is easy to understand creation if we believe in a creator God. God, at some point in the past, and I’m not going to enter the young earth, old earth debate, whether the universe if 15 billion years old of just a few thousand, that is a subject for another time, but whatever you favoured timescale, something from nothing is hard to explain in a world view that has no creator God and very simple to explain with a world view that has at its centre a creator God who at some point in the past simply said “let there be Light”.

This is actually made all the more amazing by some recent developments in cosmology. You may of heard of people talking of dark matter and dark energy, people will drop that into a conversation to kill the debate “We scientists have all these word you don’t even know about so how can you talk to us about creation.”; it’s that warfare metaphor all over again, but to put it simply, dark matter and dark energy have to be suggested because what we see isn’t enough to make the math add up. All these billions and stars and galaxies aren’t enough, in fact the standard model would now say this is just a fraction of what there actually is. When you play that back all science is doing is making God even bigger and even more majestic.

And then just this month, new evidence from the Hubble Space Telescope has been presented that suggests there are not a mere 100 billion galaxies but 2 trillion (20 times more). Suddenly this enormous something from nothing has grown into something that is twenty time larger.

“The heavens declare the glory of God and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.”

                                                                                                            [Psalm 19:1]

 

2) Order from Disorder

Secondly: Order from Disorder. One of the fundamental principles of science is something called the three laws of thermodynamics, don’t worry too much about the long name, because at their heart the ideas are very simple. The second law in particular says systems will move from being ordered to being disordered. Let me explain what I mean by that.

If I drop some cubes of ice into a beaker of boiling water I have a very ordered system (you might like to think of different areas of the beaker being in different states – boiling water and cold ice. But very rapidly that system moves to a state of disorder where there are no different orders no different types of stuff, there is disorder, the ice melts, cools the water a bit and soon the whole beaker is at the same temperature; no different states, no different orders.

At no time; if I has a beaker of warm water, would I suddenly observe ice cubes forming and the rest of the water increasing in temperature to compensate. That would be crazy, because it would break a law that at the very heart of science itself.

So if the lack of difference is always increasing; if things are become ‘samey’ (a principle that we call entropy) how do complex systems arise which are by their very nature ‘ordered’?

 

William Paley

William Paley a clergyman in the late 18^th Century wrote this;

In crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot against a stone, and were asked how the stone came to be there; I might possibly answer, that, for anything I knew to the contrary, it had lain there forever. But suppose I had found a watch upon the ground, I should hardly think of the answer I had before given, There must have existed, at some time, and at some place or other, an artificer or artificers, who formed the watch. 

And he went on to say:

Every indication of contrivance, every manifestation of design, which existed in the watch, exists in the works of nature; with the difference, on the side of nature being greater or more, and that in a degree which exceeds all computation.

A very clear and forthright reason for believing in a creator God, creation is complex, it does just happen by accident.

Of course Richard Dawkins; the modern day champion of the atheist perspective opposes this viewpoint, and supposes that evolution occurs without the need for a creator or artificer, and hence titled one of his books “The Blind Watchmaker”. Evolution is ‘blind’ yet complexity and order occurs all around us in defiance of the laws of science.

The crux of the evolution vs creation debate can be summarised in this point. With a world view where things happen by chance then it is very difficult to explain complex systems arising naturally, no matter how much time you give for random events to occur, but with God, our watchmaker, at the centre of our world view then the complexity we see all around is far easier to explain.

 

3) Life from Non-Life

Let us move this idea of complexity on a bit further because the third reason why, I believe, science has not yet offered a fully credible world-view that can dispense with God is ‘Life from Non-Life’. It is still one of those great unanswered questions of science. We can define living organisms; we can categorise living organisms, we can understand to enormous detail how living organisms work, but that event that caused those ‘living organism’ to emerge from non-living material is beyond our grasp. Something as fundamental as; “how did life coming into being?” is still an unanswered question. Science will say it is only a matter of time, theories abound, it is taught in schools as fact but Richard Feynman perhaps one of great theoretical physicists of the 20^th Century said this:

“Through all the ages, men have tried to fathom the meaning of life, but if we take everything into account, then I think we must frankly admit that we do not know”

And if you think that’s fifty year old quote and science has moved on since then I have recently been working through a lecture series on the Origins of Life by one of the key researchers in this area. He spent a lot of time discussing how difficult it is to even define what life is and then made the astonishing comment, that “we may never ultimately know the method by which life emerged” I see that as an enormous gap in a world view that excluded God.

Life is incredibly complex, the simplest organism is incredibly complex, and that is of course acknowledged by all. As Christians our response is very simple; “Yes life is complex, hence we have a creator God for whom creating this wonderful complexity is no problems. If you wish to dispense with God, if you want a world view where life emerges as a result of random chance then then you need time, lots and lots of time, and then, the argument goes, anything is possible and you will eventually get those random, accidental changes that cause life to happen.

The illustration is often used of the ‘Monkey and the Typewriter’ (or the keyboard if we want to be more modern), you may have heard it. If a monkey sits at a keyboard and hits keys randomly every second, given enough time he will type the works of Shakespeare. We need lots of time, but given enough time it will happen, (complexity from random events) and that is the argument you hear for live evolving from non-life – it just needs enough time. Now a single strand of DNA, that fundamental component of life is far more complex than the works of Shakespeare, but let’s make it even easier. We are not looking for the complete works just the phrase “To be or not to be, that is the question”. Hitting keys randomly at one a second and just using the 26 letter keys A-Z, how long will it take for our monkey to randomly type that phrase?

30 letters, with the chance of hitting the right key each time 1 in 26. So 26 x 26 thirty times

Is 3 x 10 42, that’s a 3 with 42 zeroes after it

OK, no problem, we will get some more monkeys and give them a bit more time.

If we covered the surface of the earth (including the sea) with moneys and keyboards we have room for 5x10 13 monkeys (about 50 trillion). Tying 30 keys a second they have 2 attempts a minute, but let’s give them some more time. In fact let’s give them the entire life of the universe, 15 billion years to randomly type; “to be or not to be, that is the question”.

Even then, with the earth covered in monkeys, typing for 15 billion years we still only have a 1 in 10 billion chance that one monkey will type “to be or not to be, that is the question.” Just once. Not the full works of Shakespeare, not the complexity of a DNA helix, we can’t do a simple phrase from Hamlet.

On the subject of probability, Alistair McGrath who has debated with Richard Dawkins on evolution has said that when we ascribe a very low probability to an event but say “but it could still happen”, we are actual.ly giving that event more credibility that it deserves. Extremely low possibilities need to be seen for what they are – effectively impossible

Does life just happen by accident, even given billions of years? I think life from non-life is a great argument for a creator God.

 

4) Morality from Selfishness

The last issue I believe where faith in a creator God is vital for an understanding of the world around us is the issue of morality. Put simply; ‘what prompts us to do good’. How do we decide what is right or wrong? You see a world view where stuff just happens cannot explain morality, why bother to be good when the sole purpose of our existence is to pass on our genes to the next generation? This is what our children are taught in school. Life is an accident, you are an accident, good and evil are relative and whatever you want them to be; there are no absolutes of right and wrong, good and evil, and we wonder why the highest cause of teenage death is not drugs or alcohol abuse but suicide. Why bother to live if there is no ultimate right to wrong.

Science can tell you that if you add poison to someone’s tea it will kill them, but it cannot answer the question is killing right or wrong?

Richard Dawkins has said:

“I don’t know on the whole what is moral. Science has no method for determining what is ethical.”

Also

“It is impossible to jump from atoms to ethics and from molecules to morality”

Now those are scary quotes. Science, and people like Dawkins freely admit this, alone can’t explain or define right and wrong; the moral code we all live by, and yet we know what is right and wrong. Somewhere within our core being we know that. We may not always do what is right, but we know there is a difference. A world view devoid of a creator God cannot explain our morality; why not take that selfish approach that keeps us at the top of the pack and pushes down everyone else? Why make sacrifices in life? Why not simply do what we want when we want? No matter how that might at times seem attractive there is something in us that cries out this is wrong, yet a world view where God imprints his character on his creation makes this very understandable.

Without God do we really want to live in a world with no absolute right or wrong, where there is no way to determine what is ethical, where anything goes providing it enhances me? Dawkins was right to call his book ‘The Selfish Gene’ but do we want to live in such a selfish world? We value self-sacrifice, we value putting other first; yes it is hard sometimes, but in our heart we know this is a better way for the world to be.

Paul Kalanthi

Paul Kalanthi was a gifted neuro-surgeon and a devout atheist, as a scientist pushing back the boundaries of medical science; he had no need of God, science provided a comprehensive and complete world view, until he was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer at the age of 34. He wrote about his journey back to faith in his book ‘When Breath become Air’ which was on the New York Times non-fiction best seller list for many weeks, and in it he wrote this:

“All science can do is reduce phenomena to manageable units. It can make claims about matter and energy, but about nothing else. For example science can explain love and meaning as chemical responses in your brain that helped your ancestors survive. But if we assert, which virtually everyone does, that love, meaning, and morals, do not merely feel real but actually are so –science cannot support that. Scientific reason is inapplicable to the central aspects of human life including hope, love, beauty, honour, suffering, and virtue.”

With a world view that stands on scientific principle alone we can’t explain these, things that are central to our being, morals are beyond explanation. And yet with a moral, just, loving God, who imprints his character on his creation their origin is perfectly explainable.

Morality from Selfishness is a great reason for believing in God.

 

Summary

In Summary I started with a brief overview of the history of the interaction between science and religion and how the idea that the two are in conflict is a very recent model – only something that has happened in the past 100 years or so. All too often scientists have a low opinion of those who profess a faith whilst many Christians feel that scientific discoveries and enquires seek to diminish or dismiss God, but we can engage in meaningful discussion without this warfare metaphor becoming dominant.

I have an academic background in Astrophysics and Cosmology; cosmology textbooks sit alongside my Bible commentaries on my bookshelf and I see no conflict there. Science is a great power for good, it has transformed or lives in ways previous generations could not have imagined, yet if this becomes our sole world view; our sole ‘pattern to live by’ then it is woefully inadequate and so in the second part I suggested four areas where scientists themselves will admit the story is not yet complete, and where it will only be complete with God at the centre bringing a reason and explanation for how things are:

• Something from Nothing
• Order from Disorder
• Life from Non-Life
• Morality from Selfishness

Timothy Keller says this in his latest book, ‘Making Sense of God’:

"A religious faith makes sense to four out of five people in the world (80%). Religion / faith is certainly not dying out soon and that is for one of two reasons. Either people find that a purely secular world view has something missing, or most people intuitively see a transcendent realm beyond this world."

Has science removed the need for God? Absolutely not, but it is a ‘big question’ that will continue to be asked and it is a ‘big question’ that we as Christians need to be engaged in answering,