Science Doesn't Disprove God

Amir Aczel's new book Why Science Does Not Disprove God is a great read and makes the case that Science doesn’t refute God's existence. I will add that it doesn’t prove God’s existence either. Aczel is a trained mathematician and has taught courses of mathematics and Science. His goal in this book is to challenge what he calls the New Atheists, demonstrating what Science really says and shows how there is room for the Divine in creation and presently in the universe. Faith in God is not incompatible with Science.

The major theme of Richard Dawkins and the late Christopher Hitchens is Science has disproven the existence of God, religion is evil, and Science has given us the answers how we got to where we are. Aczel essentially disproves their notion rather easily.

Aczel's analysis of Albert Einstein and Roger Penrose among others leaves open the option of a Creator. The aspect of this book is that Aczel begins with destroying the straw man of the bible's literal interpretation. He observes that when Science began, its march to discovering our roots and that of the universe, religion often stood in the way by denying scientific facts from coming out. Aczel blames much of this on literal interpretation, and this battle which he viewed unnecessary has created the animosity between Science and Religion.

Aczel is not a believer in a “young earth” creationist, for he acknowledges the multi-billion year age of the universe and the earth. Of the bible, he writes, “The biblical story of creation in six days thus is a literary device…Scripture is written allegorically, not literally, and it does not agree with what scientific observations tells us.” Aczel takes us on a journal through the Quantum theory, the anthropic principle, the fine-tuned dance of protons and quarks, the existence of anti-matter and the theories of parallel universes. Certainly if one takes the bible creation story as allegory, it is here where the Bible and Science agrees, the big bang theory.

Aczel discusses the big bang cosmology and points out that Dawkins and others are wrong that the big bang was a creation out of nothing; thus, eliminating the need of God. In one paper in which one noted new atheist used as evidence of creation from nothing actually describes creation from a quantum form, not literally from nothing.

Aczel uses common sense arguments as he shows various scientific concepts and laws of nature like the construction of protons and neutrons to the balance of gravitation and expansion as signs of an intelligent design and could be interpreted as evidence of a Creator. Aczel concludes, "In this book, I have not proved the existence of God in any shape or form and this has not obviously been my purpose. What I aimed to do was to argue- convincingly, I hope- that science has not disproved the existence of God. Since we don’t know what God is and have no way of perceiving infinite power, infinite space, infinite time, infinite wisdom, infinite love, and other deep concepts we may associate with God, it is well outside of the realm of the possible for us to ever hope to answer such questions.”

If there is a lesson here, it is this. Belief in God requires faith, and it is beyond Science to prove or disprove. Of course, it is also as true that a non-belief in God requires faith, and it is not a product of reason or science.