The Miracle of Our Universe: Part II

"Science is based on what James Trefil calls the principles of universality. 'It says that the laws of nature we discover here and now in our laboratories are true everywhere in the universe and have been in force for all time.' Moreover, the laws that govern the universe seem to be written in the language of mathematics. Physicist Richard Feynman found this to be 'a kind of miracle.'

Why? Because the universe doesn't have to be this way. There's no particular reason the laws of nature that we find on Earth should also govern a star billions of light years away. there's no logical necessity for a universe that obeys rules, let alone mathematical ones. So where did Western man get this idea of a lawfully ordered universe? From Christianity.

Christians were the first ones who envisioned the universe as following laws that reflected the rationality of God the creator. These laws were believed to be accessible to man because man is created in the image of God and shares a spark of the divine reason. No wonder, then, that the first universities and observations were sponsored by the church and run by priests.

No wonder also that the greatest scientists of the West -- Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Boyle, Newton, Leibniz, Gassendi, Pascal, Mersenne, Curvier, Harvey, Dalton, Faraday, Joule, Lyell, Lavoisier, Priestley, Kelvin, Ampere, Steno, Pasteur, Maxwell, Planck, Mendel, and Lemaitre -- were Christians. Gassandi, Mersenne and Lamaitre were priests. Several of them viewed their research as demonstrating God's creative genius as manifested in his creation.

If modern science has Christian roots, so do our most basic political institutions and values. Consider Thomas Jefferson's famous assertion in the Declaration of Independence that 'all men are created equal'. He claimed this was 'self-evident', but one only has to look to history and to other cultures to see that it is not evident at all. Everywhere we see dramatic evidence of human inequality. Jefferson's point, however, was that human beings are moral equals. Every life has a worth no greater and no less than any other.

The preciousness and equal worth of every human life is a Christian idea. We are equal because we have been created equal in the eyes of God. This is an idea with momentous consequences. In ancient Greece and Rome, human life had very little value. the Spartans, for example, left weak children to die on the hillside. Greek and Roman culture was built on slavery.

Christianity banned infanticide and the killing of the weak and 'dispensable,' and even today Christian values are responsible for the moral horror we feel when we hear of such practices. Christianity initially tolerated slavery -- a universal institution at the time -- but gradually mobilized the moral and political resources to end it. From the beginning, Christianity discouraged the enslavement of fellow Christians. Slavery, the foundation of the Greek and Roman civilization, withered and largely disappeared throughout medieval Christendom in the Middle Ages.

The first movement to abolish slavery completely occurred only in the West, and were led by Christians. In the modern era, first the Quakers and then the evangelical Christians demanded that since we are all equal in God's eyes, no man has the right to rule another man without his consent. this religious doctrine not only supplies the moral justification for anti-slavery but also for democracy. Yes the idea of self-government is also rooted in the Christian assumption of human equality. One reason the atheist philosopher Nietzsche hated democracy is because he understood its religious foundation."

Although Mr. D'Souza (yes he is a Mr. now) passed over a few historical facts, and misrepresented others, he still has some valid points. However, Christianity (the religion) is not primarily responsible for the revelation of science and human equality. God is. This is where humble orthodoxy comes into play. We cannot bludgeon the world over the head with sayings like "we were responsible for", and "we knew it first". If we are to rightly handle any truth, we must present it in humility, understanding that in God's great mercy he has revealed it to sinful man. This is true for either the gospel or the foundations of this earth. God is sovereign over all and must receive the glory for it all. And He will :)

-Kyle-