Face it, it comes down to this: some people want there to be a God
and some people don't. People then accept whatever evidence will
confirm their belief and ignore the rest. In this book Victor
Stenger chooses to present the evidence he believes argues against
the existence of God and ignores the rest. That makes this book
highly biased. In this review then we will look at items that come
up in Stenger's book that do not receive fair treatment or items
that Stenger ignored altogether. So as an investigation into the
existence of God this book is not even worth the 50 cents my wife
paid for it at a garage sale.
Stenger makes extensive use of the traditional atheist's argument
that if there is a good God out there then why is there so much evil
in the world? Given all the evil out there, there can't be a good
God out there, right? If there is a good God out there shouldn't He
stop all this evil? This argument comes from a lack of
understanding of what God is doing here on Earth. God has a lot of
souls available to Him that He knows will take to selfishness (sin)
like ducks take to water. God sends them here to Earth to try out
selfishness to see if they like. They get to see how bad they are,
they get to see how bad everyone else is and then they get to see
how bad a world full of selfish sinners is. If they like being
selfish they can keep it for all eternity (and end up in Hell). Or
everyone who gets sick of this world and all its selfishness
including especially the selfishness they find in themselves can
move on to a better world for all eternity (Heaven). God is just
giving everyone the opportunity to have the kind of world that they
REALLY, REALLY WANT. But everyone needs to experience all of this
so they can make that decision about what they REALLY, REALLY WANT.
Quite often atheists point out incidents of incredible evil as
examples of how bad life on Earth is and it is true, a lot of very
terrible things happen. Of course Stenger mentions some. But if
people are really going to learn how bad selfishness (sin) is they
are going to have to see exactly how bad people can be. For example
I can't imagine how the Nazis could go around killing huge numbers
of people. BUT THEY DID! I can't imagine women killing their
unborn babies. BUT THEY DO! Most of all I can't imagine why so
many people don't even want to give up their selfishness and go on
to a perfect world with a loving God in it. Why do they prefer a
world without God? BUT THEY DO! Stenger is an example of them.
One of the extra arguments atheists have is related to this and
naturally Stenger uses it as well. What about all the terrible
natural disasters in the world? The Indonesian earthquake of 2004
is the one they like to mention these days. Why would God do that
on purpose or even just let it happen? The answer is quite simple.
God is showing us just a tiny glimpse of what a world without Him is
like and then asking us if that is the kind of world we want for all
eternity. You see, as selfish sinners we are in effect saying to
God, "Hey, just leave us alone, OK, so we can do whatever we want
without having you bother us with your plans!". So God says "Fine,
I'll show you what a world without me is like. You figure out how
to prevent earthquakes, storms, floods, droughts, plagues, cancer,
heart disease and old age. These are your problems now, not mine!"
So what the atheists call "The Problem of Evil" is easily explained.
But they cheat by telling you that it can't be explained.
Another key item you find for Stenger is that if there is a God out
there, there should be evidence for Him. Of course there is
evidence for Him if you look in the right places but Stenger doesn't.
And there is a reason why God does not make Himself very openly
known to everyone. People don't want God around so God goes into
hiding to a certain extent so people like Stenger who don't want Him
around can try out a world without Him. Some people will get sick
of that kind of world and start hoping for a better world. Then,
too, when God did show up as Jesus, look what people did to him.
They didn't want Him around so they put Him to death. (See my web
page:
Evidence for God and the Bible.)
Another key item for Stenger and the atheists is the description of
the creation of the heavens and the Earth found in the Bible. They
point out that in the Bible creation takes place across six days and
science says the world is much, much older than that. Now this six
days of creation interpretation is very popular among some
Christians and atheists love it because they can use it to discredit
the Bible. But the six 24-hour days of creation is merely an
interpretation some people give to the text. Other scholars will
tell you that that interpretation is wrong and there is no telling
how long each "day" of creation was. This is the old Earth
creationist interpretation. You don't have to go any farther than
Genesis 2:4 to discover that the Hebrew word used, "yom" can also
mean a period of time. But no, atheists cheat by not mentioning the
old Earth interpretation of the text. More on this later.
Of course along with the criticism of the six 24-hour days of
creation we have scientists proposing their own version of creation.
Supposedly a bunch of organic molecules managed to evolve into the
first cell and supposedly that cell evolved into multi-celled
creatures and eventually into people. Now Stenger starts out the
book with the importance of models in science in order to try and
figure out how the world works. Well, Dr. Stenger let's see that
model, THAT MATHEMATICAL MODEL that says that first the appearance
of that first cell is fairly likely and then that it's fairly likely
that that cell eventually evolves all the way into people! Of
course this is a hard problem but try doing a few approximate
analyses to see if it is even a tiny bit likely. It turns out that
everyone who has ever done the analysis has found out that there
isn't a snowball's chance in Hell that it could happen. For
instance, there is Sir Fred Hoyle in his book The Mathematics of
Evolution who showed how unlikely evolution is. Sir Fred Hoyle
was an honest-to-God astronomer and an honest-to-God atheist and he
was honest enough to admit that evolution wasn't going to work. He
ended up proposing life came from outer space on meteorites and
comets. Of course there is still the terrible problem of how life
could happen by chance anywhere in the universe! But Stenger is
again cheating by not mentioning how unlikely it is that living
things happened by chance. This evidence actually points us to some
powerful intelligence outside the physical universe (God) that is
responsible for it all.
Now one more item on evolution. If evolution did take place as
Darwin suggested there ought to be smooth transitions in the fossil
record that shows this. Some of the fossil evidence is debatable.
Some people see some evidence of evolution in it and some don't see
that evidence. But there is the glaring case of the Cambrian
Explosion some 500-600 million years ago when a very large number of
very different life forms appears in basically no time at all. It
looks like they just popped up out of nowhere! Atheists of course
have faith that eventually the smooth transitions will be
found but if you're going to be honest about it, as it stands now,
this is great evidence for creation by an Intelligent Designer.
Stenger conveniently managed to neglect to mention that. Not very
honest.
The above issues and related issues take up most of the book but
there are two other chapters to consider. In chapter 3, "Searching
for a World Beyond Matter" Stenger looks at topics that might prove
the existence of a spiritual world and concludes that there is
little evidence for a spiritual world and a human soul. He claims
that ordinary physics and chemistry can account for the brain.
Given his failure to do an honest appraisal in the rest of the book
this presentation is also suspect. The biggest item in the chapter
is the question, "Does Prayer Work?". Stenger looks at studies to
see if prayer can heal people and of course the result is no. Well,
miracles are few and far between but what would be rather more
interesting would be to investigate specific cases of people who do
claim to have had a miraculous healing. Apparently there are many
such cases around. (Here is a candidate from a secular source:
Lodi Man Gets Second Chance At Life When Brain Tumor Vanishes
Without Surgery.)
Probably there are more taking place in poor
countries where people cannot afford modern medical treatment than
in developed countries. I have no doubt that some alleged miracles
are fakes by people who merely want to get attention but still I've
heard of enough good cases on Christian TV programs that should be
investigated. True to form, Stenger does not mention such cases. I
have no doubt that if he investigated these cases he'd claim that
these miraculous healings simply come from some as yet undiscovered
healing mechanism within the human body.
There is another topic to be found in the book, in Chapter 6, "The
Failures of Revelation" Stenger gives example after example that he
claims shows that the Bible cannot be trusted. Stenger mentions
many items in the Bible and it must be possible to write many, many
books on just these items because the points are highly debatable.
I can't cover every one but I'll take a brief look at some of
them.
First up, Stenger asks if there have been any prophecies by human
beings outside of the Bible that have actually taken place. The
prophecy would have to involve something that was highly unlikely
like the sun not coming up tomorrow. Here Stenger does have a good
point. I have never heard of any prophecy by a Christian of
something really remarkable that did happen. If you're a Christian
and you run into someone saying something really remarkable is going
to happen soon don't take it too seriously. (Bible prophecies on the
other hand should be taken seriously.)
Next up, Stenger briefly considers what the Bible has to say about
science, in particular the creation of the world. Of course, if you
only mention the young Earth interpretation of Genesis chapter 1, it
does look bad for the Bible. An old Earth interpretation however
comes out rather good. In chapter 1, verse 2 the Bible has the
Earth dark and covered with water, it was uninhabited and
uninhabitable. Many scientists would agree, there is
evidence now that the Earth was covered with water very early on.
It would be dark too, because of thick clouds. On "day" 1, light
appears on Earth and this would happen because the clouds thinned
out a bit. On "day" 2 the clouds lifted to the point where you
could see the horizon. Science would have no complaints about this.
On "day" 3 land rises up. This is the flow of molten rock to the
surface and the development of tectonic plates that move around. No
problem. Also on "day" 3 plants appear. Science is OK with this
too. Plants have always been thought to come before animals because
the plants need to form oxygen in the atmosphere for the animals to
breathe. On "day" 4 the clouds on Earth clear up to the point where
the sun, moon and stars become visible. This is OK with science
too. On "day" 5 some animals appear. This is OK with science too.
On "day" 6 more animals appear and then human beings appear. Well,
there is nothing to criticize in all this. The sequence of
events is just fine and it all agrees with science. God and the
Bible get points, Stenger once again has decided to omit important
evidence in favor of God and the Bible. (For a longer version of my
interpretation of Genesis 1, see:
Genesis 1 for Atheists.)
I actually don't think the old Earth interpretation is perfect. The
blockworld interpretation is better. The Bible and theologians had
the blockworld concept long before it was discovered by science in
the early 1900s. Scientists routinely ignore the blockworld result
for several reasons and one of them is that it points to a Creator.
Next up, Stenger takes up "The Jesus Prophecies" and here he works
with Josh McDowell and his book, Evidence That Demands a
Verdict. Some prophecies that McDowell discusses are not that
remarkable and I am going to agree with Stenger on some of them.
Some of them are no more remarkable than "the sun will rise
tomorrow". Stenger complains about a lot of events that were
prophesied and claims that there is no independent evidence that
they took place. I, for one think that the accounts in the New
Testament are pretty believable. People will have to judge these
for themselves. It pretty much comes down to some people are
looking for reasons to believe and other people are looking for
reasons to disbelieve. Also, historical records are indeed
incomplete and more archaeology needs to be done.
Stenger goes on to complain about Old Testament prophecies that have
not been fulfilled. One of them is from Isaiah 17:1 that Damascus
will be destroyed. OK, that hasn't happened yet but it is easy to see
that with the simple "press of a button" a nuclear missile from
Israel could make this come true at any moment.
Stenger complains that there is no evidence for the exodus out of
Egypt. So, Victor, go watch the DVD Patterns of Evidence:
Exodus. Egyptologists claim there is no evidence for the exodus
at the time they believe the exodus happened. In the DVD you
will find evidence for virtually all the events of Exodus except
they occurred earlier in Egyptian history than the experts believe.
Then in recent years someone did a computer simulation of what a
strong wind blowing over the Red Sea would do and it turns out it
would part the Red Sea just as was described in the Bible. After
all who realized that there was a place in the Red Sea where a
strong wind could dry it up? There are books on the evidence for
the exodus as well. For instance, head over to Amazon and type in
the name "David Rohl".
Stenger complains that there is no evidence that the empire of David
and Solomon ever existed, he says:
At a recent meeting in Rome, archaeologist Niels Peter Lemche
declared, "Archaeological data have now definitely confirmed that
the empire of David and Solomon never existed". (page 187, the quote
comes from Biblical Archaeological Review 31, no. 1
(January/February 2005): 16-170).
Now a few years ago I recall seeing a PBS NOVA program about David
and Solomon, going over to the PBS website I quickly found it:
NOVA | The Bible's Buried Secrets, where we have a narrator
working with archaeologists. The program is no longer available
online but the transcript of the program is there. From the
transcript we have the narrator summing things up at one point
saying this:
Although a minority of archaeologists continue to disagree, this
convergence of the Bible, Egyptian chronology and Solomon's gates is
powerful evidence that a great kingdom existed at the time of David
and Solomon, spanning all of Israel, north and south, with its
capital in Jerusalem.
In addition, digging up things takes time and luck. There wasn't even
ANY evidence that there was a David until 1993 when a monument was
found mentioning his name. In the same text there is evidence given
for David's palace and see also the page:
NOVA | The Palace of King David.
Then there is this just in:
Discovery of official clay seals support existence of biblical kings
David and Solomon, archaeologists say.
So, who are ya gonna believe?
Stenger also complains that there is no evidence for Solomon's
temple but then we know where it would be, it would be under the
Muslim's Dome of the Rock and you can't just dig there. Have
patience, Dr. Stenger. Much more evidence that confirms the Bible is
going to show up in time.
A book like this makes atheists happy and Christians mad. I was
going to say that it does nothing for someone who just wants to get
to the truth but actually it says two things. First, it says people
want to believe certain things and they will accept evidence for
what they want to believe and ignore evidence for what they don't
want to believe. So really, you can't trust any one person. You have to
consult a lot of people to find out what is going on and then decide
for yourself. Second, if you have to do a dishonest analysis of the
subject it means your argument just isn't very good. If you had good
arguments you'd use the good arguments instead.
PS: There is a book out there called Who Made God? by a physicist from the UK named Edgar Andrews. Much of his book looks at other issues that Stenger brings up and goes to show how poor Stenger's reasoning is. The book's website is: whomadegod.org. |