In the early hours of Christmas Day 1968, 40 years ago, something almost magical happened. For Christmas week, we asked some eminent scientists if it's possible to reconcile reason with religious faith
Last updated at 3:22 AM on 20th December 2008
In the early hours of Christmas Day 1968, 40 years ago, something almost magical happened. It's no exaggeration to say that the Apollo 8 space mission to the Moon, and what unexpectedly happenned that Christmas Eve changed the way humanity saw itself. Just as the astronauts were dependent on their frail spacecraft, we were all passengers on one vessel sailing through space. It was, in effect, a religious observation about humanity being one, united group. And then, providing a shock to the system I can still recall today, Anders' flat, controlled, testpilot voice announced that his crew had a message they would like to send us.
'In the beginning God created the heaven and the Earth. And the Earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep . . .' he said. One by one, the men read the first paragraphs of the Book Of Genesis, with Commander Borman ending on 'and God saw that it was good'.
'And we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas - and God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth,' Borman concluded.
Believing in God seemed, to a Sixties child like me, as childish as believing in Santa Claus. Astronauts were test pilots, scientists at heart. How could they, of all people, believe in unproven, superstitious fairy tales about God?
I wasn't to know then that a lot of the astronauts were religious men, and plenty who weren't before they went to the Moon quietly became so after. Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk on the Moon, secretly took Communion there using a kit given to him by the pastor at his Presbyterian Church. He admitted the fact only several years later.
And in the 40 years since Christmas Day 1968, I've learned that a significant number of scientists are also deeply religious. It seems supremely paradoxical that people trained to accept nothing without the strictest evidence can believe in God without any proof apart from a few old writings to go on. But believe they do.
In the past, the physicist Isaac Newton, the electricity pioneer Michael Faraday and the mathematician Baron Kelvin were among many religious men of science. Indeed, it was faith in God that drove the rise of science in the 16th and 17th centuries.
Theoretical physicist Albert Einstein didn't quite believe in God, but didn't denigrate those who do. 'What separates me from most so-called atheists is a feeling of utter humility toward the unattainable secrets of the harmony of the cosmos,’ he wrote.
I asked a variety of scientists how they square their work with their faith.
What united these men and women was a certainty that there is more to life than meets the eye, or even the electron microscope. All saw their role as scientists as one of exploring and experimenting with the natural world but, at the same time, always knowing that this world was the creation of a higher intelligence. Surprisingly, I found them, like Einstein, more openminded and humble than the majority of their arguably more blinkered, hyper-rationalist, atheist colleagues.
For example, there is Professor Sir John Polkinghorne of Cambridge University, one of the world's most renowned particle physicists, a Fellow of the Royal Society. 'Faith isn't a question of shutting your eyes, gritting your teeth and believing six impossible things before break-fast because some unquestionable authority has told you to. It's a search for truth,' he said.
'Science is great, but it's not the whole story. It deals with repeatable experience, but we all know that in our personal lives, experiences aren't repeatable. And you simply couldn't demonstrate how someone is your friend, or what music is.'
Moreover, he insists that there is no lack of evidence of God. 'I believe God reveals his nature in many ways. They're not demonstrations that knock you down, but they are very striking things about the world that are best understood as the work of God.
'The wonderful order of the world, which we scientists investigate, is a sign that there is a divine mind behind that order.'
Similarly, Oxford mathematics professor John Lennox argues: 'This misapprehension that faith is a religious thing not involved in science is simply false. I see the two as belonging together.'
The softly-spoken Ulsterman added: 'But science is limited. That's no insult to science, but as I recently told Richard Dawkins, I could dissect him, run his brain through a scanner, reduce him to chemicals and tell a great deal about him. 'But I'd never get to know him as a person. For that, he must reveal himself to me.'
'The wonderful order of the world, which we scientists investigate, is a sign that there is a divine mind behind that order.'
Professor Lennox said that God has revealed himself at several levels, in the universe and creation.
'Science gives us pointers towards God, but you don't get proofs; you get evidence. And faith is evidence-based - not based on lack of evidence..'
So what, I asked, is the evidence? 'The evidence is cumulative and of two sorts - objective evidence that comes from science.. 'The subjective side is my experience of God through Christ in my daily life.'
Bristol University's Stuart Burgess, Professor of Mechanical Engineering, says, 'Science is a good system for understanding materials and material things, but there are plenty of things in life that don't fall into that category,'
'Poetry, music, art, the love I have for my grandchild. Even if I could, I wouldn't want to weigh and measure that, or my relationship with my friends, or with the sunset.
But equally, I do want the ideas I formulate about God to be consistent with my knowledge of science. So I've never needed to believe in impossible things. With miracles, for example, I would say most have a perfectly natural explanation.
It is not just religious people who have faith without proof. Despite expensive equipment and the promise of the most famous Nobel Prize in history, no scientist has reproduced the spontaneous generation of life in the lab’.
As things stand, atheists must have faith the size of a mountain to believe that life arose without an intelligent designer.
According to Professor Burgess, a spacecraft specialist who designed the solar panels of a £1.4 billion satellite: 'This is what the Christmas message is really about.'
Jonathan Margolis.
Last updated at 3:22 AM on 20th December 2008
In the early hours of Christmas Day 1968, 40 years ago, something almost magical happened. It's no exaggeration to say that the Apollo 8 space mission to the Moon, and what unexpectedly happenned that Christmas Eve changed the way humanity saw itself. Just as the astronauts were dependent on their frail spacecraft, we were all passengers on one vessel sailing through space. It was, in effect, a religious observation about humanity being one, united group. And then, providing a shock to the system I can still recall today, Anders' flat, controlled, testpilot voice announced that his crew had a message they would like to send us.
'In the beginning God created the heaven and the Earth. And the Earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep . . .' he said. One by one, the men read the first paragraphs of the Book Of Genesis, with Commander Borman ending on 'and God saw that it was good'.
'And we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas - and God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth,' Borman concluded.
Believing in God seemed, to a Sixties child like me, as childish as believing in Santa Claus. Astronauts were test pilots, scientists at heart. How could they, of all people, believe in unproven, superstitious fairy tales about God?
I wasn't to know then that a lot of the astronauts were religious men, and plenty who weren't before they went to the Moon quietly became so after. Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk on the Moon, secretly took Communion there using a kit given to him by the pastor at his Presbyterian Church. He admitted the fact only several years later.
And in the 40 years since Christmas Day 1968, I've learned that a significant number of scientists are also deeply religious. It seems supremely paradoxical that people trained to accept nothing without the strictest evidence can believe in God without any proof apart from a few old writings to go on. But believe they do.
In the past, the physicist Isaac Newton, the electricity pioneer Michael Faraday and the mathematician Baron Kelvin were among many religious men of science. Indeed, it was faith in God that drove the rise of science in the 16th and 17th centuries.
Theoretical physicist Albert Einstein didn't quite believe in God, but didn't denigrate those who do. 'What separates me from most so-called atheists is a feeling of utter humility toward the unattainable secrets of the harmony of the cosmos,’ he wrote.
I asked a variety of scientists how they square their work with their faith.
What united these men and women was a certainty that there is more to life than meets the eye, or even the electron microscope. All saw their role as scientists as one of exploring and experimenting with the natural world but, at the same time, always knowing that this world was the creation of a higher intelligence. Surprisingly, I found them, like Einstein, more openminded and humble than the majority of their arguably more blinkered, hyper-rationalist, atheist colleagues.
For example, there is Professor Sir John Polkinghorne of Cambridge University, one of the world's most renowned particle physicists, a Fellow of the Royal Society. 'Faith isn't a question of shutting your eyes, gritting your teeth and believing six impossible things before break-fast because some unquestionable authority has told you to. It's a search for truth,' he said.
'Science is great, but it's not the whole story. It deals with repeatable experience, but we all know that in our personal lives, experiences aren't repeatable. And you simply couldn't demonstrate how someone is your friend, or what music is.'
Moreover, he insists that there is no lack of evidence of God. 'I believe God reveals his nature in many ways. They're not demonstrations that knock you down, but they are very striking things about the world that are best understood as the work of God.
'The wonderful order of the world, which we scientists investigate, is a sign that there is a divine mind behind that order.'
Similarly, Oxford mathematics professor John Lennox argues: 'This misapprehension that faith is a religious thing not involved in science is simply false. I see the two as belonging together.'
The softly-spoken Ulsterman added: 'But science is limited. That's no insult to science, but as I recently told Richard Dawkins, I could dissect him, run his brain through a scanner, reduce him to chemicals and tell a great deal about him. 'But I'd never get to know him as a person. For that, he must reveal himself to me.'
'The wonderful order of the world, which we scientists investigate, is a sign that there is a divine mind behind that order.'
Professor Lennox said that God has revealed himself at several levels, in the universe and creation.
'Science gives us pointers towards God, but you don't get proofs; you get evidence. And faith is evidence-based - not based on lack of evidence..'
So what, I asked, is the evidence? 'The evidence is cumulative and of two sorts - objective evidence that comes from science.. 'The subjective side is my experience of God through Christ in my daily life.'
Bristol University's Stuart Burgess, Professor of Mechanical Engineering, says, 'Science is a good system for understanding materials and material things, but there are plenty of things in life that don't fall into that category,'
'Poetry, music, art, the love I have for my grandchild. Even if I could, I wouldn't want to weigh and measure that, or my relationship with my friends, or with the sunset.
But equally, I do want the ideas I formulate about God to be consistent with my knowledge of science. So I've never needed to believe in impossible things. With miracles, for example, I would say most have a perfectly natural explanation.
It is not just religious people who have faith without proof. Despite expensive equipment and the promise of the most famous Nobel Prize in history, no scientist has reproduced the spontaneous generation of life in the lab’.
As things stand, atheists must have faith the size of a mountain to believe that life arose without an intelligent designer.
According to Professor Burgess, a spacecraft specialist who designed the solar panels of a £1.4 billion satellite: 'This is what the Christmas message is really about.'
Jonathan Margolis.
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