Chapter Four - The Discovery of the Twentieth Century

Review of The Creator and the Cosmos: fifth in a series...

Ok, the Headmaster now understands what's going on here. He's a little slow, but he usually catches on eventually. And he is forced to eat some crow. The author is merely doing what the Headmaster has been wishing Christians would do for years now - embrace science! The author is telling the faithful that everything is going to be ok, that science is gooood. And here is where the Headmaster whispers to himself - "next time, be careful what you wish for".

At face value, this is great stuff. It's like calming the kids after a huge thunderclap. Ross is helping the faithful to see that science isn't the devil's work, and that religion and science can coexist. (And his message is being met with MUCH resistance, apparently) More specifically, he is using his knowledge of the Bible and his knowledge of the cosmos to demonstrate that the bible actually predicts all scientific conclusions. Of course, this requires mental gymnastics to the extreme, but who cares?

Well, in short, the Headmaster cares - for a couple of reasons. First, the gymnastics are not restricted to biblical interpretation - sometimes the science is manipulated as well. Second, Ross cherry-picks scientific discoveries that can be made (through these gymnastics) to conform to a biblical worldview, while those discoveries that are difficult to conform are rejected, or even altered. Finally, and most importantly, he rejects out of hand those scientists who share a godless worldview - thus his criticism of Einstein in Chapter Two. Ross is advocating that all scientists perform their research from a biblical perspective. Incredibly, he feels that if science is conducted from a non-biblical worldview, it is not objective. Yes, you read that correctly, it is not a typo - scientific research should be conducted from the perspective of a biblical worldview, because science conducted from a godless worldview is not objective.

Ross would actually have a legitimate point if godless scientists were going around conducting research in order to prove that god doesn't exist. But those "godless" scientists are not conducting research merely to prop up their godless worldview - rather, their "godless" approach liberates them to conduct their research without any preconceived notions of god, creation and the universe. THAT is objective science. What Ross advocates is subjective science - science with filters - science with bible-colored glasses - science with preconceived conclusions. And THAT is NOT science. It's like having computer programmers test their own code - they already know the results to expect, so their tests tend to produce those expected results. And Ross is living proof of this point: if we don't remove the notion of god from our research, then we will tend to see god in every result, and every conclusion will tend to favor our known concept of god.

Take evolution for example. It is true that these "godless" scientists are not trying to prove the hand of god in biological progression. It is also true that they are not trying to DISprove the hand of god in it. In fact, god has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with it. It is AFTER the scientific results are published that both camps - the god camp and the godless camp - take up their respective battle cries.

There is a reason that science is silent on the concept of god. There is no mention of god or of a creator in any published scientific paper. And that is as it should be. Others like Hugh Ross are free to take up those scientific findings and use them as proof of their canonized belief systems. But make no mistake about it, if we let these theists into the research "kitchen", they will certainly spoil the soup - and the danger is that Ross is advocating just that. But the Headmaster remains hopeful that the scientific process can withstand such intrusions, meaning that we should never see the likes of Ross in the "kitchen", as long as they seek to use science as a means to acheive a theistic end.

And here is yet another problem with Ross's approach to embracing science - he emboldens his creationist followers to claim science as their own. The Headmaster has seen this first hand in debates over evolution. Several Ross disciples have labored under on the assumption that the science Ross quotes in his book is creationist science, which it is not - it is creationists using REAL, ACTUAL science to defend a biblical workdview. These disciples have everything completely reversed, boldly claiming that creationism is science, and science is mere conjecture! I'm sure Ross would disagree with that perspective, but he is unwittingly encouraging it.

So... can you guess what's next as creationists begin to come to terms with science in this manner? In a perfect scenario, creationists accept scientific conclusions and merely leverage them to prop up their biblical worldview - end of story. But they will never be content to do just that, because the same biblical worldview tells them that god has commanded them to spread his message. Therefore, the creationists will consider themselves armed with new tools to pry their way into our classrooms. Sit back and watch it happen.

But, back to our book. The author concluded Chapter Three with what I thought to be a very good description of the beauty of the scientific process. In fact, this final section is almost poetic in its description of scientific theory. Although he applies his description to the Big Bang theory, it also beautifully describes the theory of evolution as the predictive model that it is. This section alone makes reading the book worthwhile, because it gives the reader hope for the acceptance of science among the faithful masses.

Finally, on to Chapter Four. Ross begins by stating that scientific discoveries of Big Bang have inspired scientists to exclaim that they see "the face of god" in the theory. Ross takes it a huge step further to conclude that astronomers who do NOT draw theistic conclusions from the theory are becoming RARE. Hm. He doesn't cite any data to back that conclusion however, so we'll just have to take his word on that. The remainder of the chapter is devoted to recounting twentieth-century scientific discoveries that support a Big Bang model of creation - primarily that measurement of distant radiation indicates that the universe began with a hot big bang. Moreover, light from galaxies billions of light years away provides us with a literal photo montage of the universe "growing up", as it were - yet more proof of a hot big bang. Ok already! Big Bang good.