Imagine this…
- Scientists discover DNA in 1871.
- Scientists then sequence the human genome in 2003, yielding an immensely long sequence made up of the letters A, C, G, T.
- This string of letters is then converted into a quaternary (base-4) number (via the correspondence A→0, C→1, G→2, T→3).
- This number is then converted to a hexavigesimal (base-26) number.
- The digits are then converted to English letters (via 0→A, 1→B, 2→C, 3→D, etc.).
- And the result is the entire King James Bible, a book that was compiled in the year 1611, via a complex sequence of writings, translations, additions, deletions, and manuscript discoveries spanning one and a half millennia.
If that happened, I don’t think a single scientist would doubt the truth of Christianity. I don’t think any half-reasonable human would. I would become a Christian (again) in an instant!
Although that is clearly a contrived example, it certainly serves to establish the fact that science could prove God’s existence, if God really did exist and wanted to prove it. Instead, Christian apologists just point to certain data they take to be either crazy coincidences or else the direct result of God (the Christian God, of course), all the while ignoring what real scientists say.
Why are there no scientific observations that unambiguously point to the existence of God?
This seems significant to me. Either there is no God, or else there is an (omni-bashful?) God that just doesn’t want his existence to be clear (not to us, at least). I can’t rule out the latter possibility, though I don’t think there could ever be any reason to actually believe it – no more reason than to actually believe that Jupiter is made of chocolate while you’re not looking at it.
But do any of the major religions believe in a God that doesn’t want his existence to be clear? I don’t know of any. In the words of the Apostle Paul:
For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. (Romans 1:20, NIV)
Despite this clear proclamation by Christianity’s founding father, there are countless blogs and books by Christian apologists with titles such as Why doesn’t God just make himself obvious to us?, or If I were God, I’d make myself clearer.
Christians know Paul was wrong.
God’s (supposed) existence is so unclear that even Christians doubt it frequently, though at other times they are completely certain they interact with him on a daily basis.
So why doesn’t science prove God exists?
Because it seems that if any God exists, he doesn’t really want it to be clear to us. And not even Pascal would be worried about such a God…
