20 Answers- Faith & Science by Trent Horn

Author:Trent Horn [Horn, Trent]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Catholic Answers Press
Published: 2016-06-20T05:00:00+00:00

12. How can you say God created the universe when science has proven that humans are just an insignificant speck within it?

Some critics claim that if God existed, then the universe would not be 13.7 billion years old or 93 billion light-years across. Hasn’t science shown that the universe was not created for us?

The problem with this argument is that science can show us only the universe’s dimensions; it cannot reveal any meaning or lack of meaning inherent in those dimensions. In response to this argument, the believer can simply ask, “Why can’t God choose to create a magnificent and grand universe like ours?” The critic might respond that God wouldn’t use such an inefficient process like cosmic and biological evolution and would instead create life instantaneously.

But creating a grand universe could be “inefficient” only if the creator were limited in time and resources. For example, after I completed my graduate studies, I drove across the country without stopping, because I didn’t have a lot of time or money to spare (especially after draining my student loans). But if I had six months before I was to start my job and had just received a large inheritance, I might have gone on a long, scenic trip instead. In the same way, since God has unlimited time and resources, he has no problem making a grand cosmos for human beings. It’s not as if God loses track of us in the expansive universe he created. Moreover, the human brain is the most complex thing in the universe, so why not think that God made a grand universe for such brains to explore?

How does the critic know with such confidence that God would not create a universe like ours? Suppose God made a very tiny universe with only our solar system in it. Would the typical atheist think that such a world proves God exists? He might just as plausibly argue that if God existed, surely he would have created something grander. A small and simple universe, he might argue, is precisely what we would expect if it simply popped into existence from nothing, without a cause. As C.S. Lewis put it, “We treat God as the policeman in the story treated the suspect; whatever he does will be used in evidence against him.”47

Finally, if God chose to create human life through the evolutionary process, billions of years would be required for the process to culminate in the emergence of human beings. If the universe were static during that time, it would collapse due to the strength of gravity. Only an expanding universe that eventually becomes billions of light-years in diameter would allow the universe to be life-permitting for the time required for intelligent life to evolve.

Other critics claim that Copernicus’s discovery that the Earth revolved around the sun dethroned the special place human beings possessed at the center of a geocentric, God-created universe. However, the reason the Earth resided at the center of the universe in the older, geocentric model was not because it was special.

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