Anush A. John Podcast
Anush A. John Podcast
The Mind Behind - Beauty and Complexity as Evidence for God
Did the universe happen by chance?
This sermon argues that it did not and further that the beauty and complexity of the universe give evidence for the existence of a creator, God.
anushjohn.com
Good afternoon. Thank you to Mr Fisher and Mr Bell and the leadership for this invitation to come here and speak for this week's chapel. Several years ago, I was in high school myself and I was in a Christian school. When I got out of high school, I felt like I was in a Christian school. When I got out of high school, I felt like I was in a Christian school bubble, and this was back in India. So when I came out of my Christian school, the context that I came out into was a predominantly Hindu context. Now, the same thing is not going to happen to you when you come out of your Christian school. This is not a Hindu context. That is not going to happen to you when you come out of your Christian school. This is not a Hindu context that you're going to come into, but you're going to come into a secular context. In a Hindu context, the primary question that the Hindu context would ask a Christian is why is Jesus the only God? But in your context, when you come out of school and get into a secular context, the question goes even earlier and the question becomes why is there a God or is there a God?
Speaker 1:There are four main ways that we argue for the existence of God. And if you read the book Mere Christianity by CS Lewis, one of the ways is called the moral argument and in book one of his book he argues for the existence of God using the moral argument. This afternoon I want to look at another one of those four ways by which we argue for the existence of God, called the teleological argument. So the Psalmsalm that we read, psalm 19, verse 1, says the heavens declare the glory of God and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Now there are several parts to this argument. I'm going to mention only two. In a sermon entitled the Mind Behind, I want to look at the issue of beauty and complexity All right, beauty and complexity and argue for the existence of God.
Speaker 1:First let's look at the issue of beauty. I've got a couple of questions. If you're in the seventh grade, let me ask you a question what is the most beautiful animal that you have seen? Somebody from the seventh grade? What is the most beautiful animal you've seen? A flamingo. Wonderful, wonderful. Let me ask a question to the eighth graders what's the most beautiful natural scene that you have seen? The beautiful sight of nature that you've seen? Eighth grade? Yes, yeah, what's that? The Grand Canyon, beautiful. You just have to stay off the edge, it's beautiful.
Speaker 1:Now, those two answers represent two types of beauty. One is beauty for a reason, so most human beauty is beauty for a reason. And then there's another kind of beauty, and most natural beauty is beauty without a reason, or what is called as gratuitous beauty. The images that were sent back to us by the Hubble Space Telescope or the James Webb Space Telescope showed us the beauty of our galaxy and the galaxies around us, and that is what is called as gratuitous beauty. There is no reason for the beauty, which raises the question why is there beauty at all? Why do we think that beauty is good?
Speaker 1:And to answer that question, I'm gonna talk to you about matter. There are two qualities about matter, and whatever you see around you is matter. There are two qualities of matter. One is called the primary quality of matter, and this is what you study in physics and chemistry, where matter has mass, it's got energy, it's got charge, it's got wave, frequency, amplitude. Everything that you study in your science class about matter is what is called as a primary quality of matter. But there's a secondary quality of matter which has to do with our five senses. Whatever we sense from matter is a secondary quality. So, for example, color and sound and smell and texture, all these are secondary qualities. So let's say that you gave me a bar of chocolate and you tell me okay, here's a bar of chocolate. This is a rectangular bar of chocolate with some square subsections in them, and the milk solids are 11% and the cacao is 10% and the milk fat is 11% and the cacao is 10% and the milk fat is 4.3%. Now, all that are the primary qualities of that chocolate piece. But I will tell you, please give me the chocolate. It is brown and it is delicious. Those are the secondary qualities of chocolate. Beauty is a secondary quality.
Speaker 1:Science focuses on the primary qualities. In fact, what science tries to do is to convert all the secondary qualities into primary qualities. So, for example, when we do facial reconstruction, to say that a face is beautiful, there are so many different criteria and we divide the face vertically into thirds From the hairline to the eyebrow is one third. From the eyebrow to just below the nose is another third. From just below the nose to the bottom of your chin is another third. So there are thirds, horizontal thirds, and then there are vertical fifth, the the nose is the middle fifth, the two ears are the side fifths and in between is the middle fifth, the two ears are the side fifths and in between is the center fifths. And so we do all these calculations and those are the attempt to try to make what is beauty, a secondary quality, into a primary quality.
Speaker 1:But science cannot explain a secondary quality like beauty. Back when I was in 10th grade, as we were studying in our chemistry lab, we had sodium, potassium and calcium. So we took sodium and we burnt it and that would burn with an orange flame. And we took calcium and we burnt it. That would burn with a red flame. We took potassium and burned it. That would burn with a purple flame. And if you mixed all the three together and you burned it, it would be a beautiful flame.
Speaker 1:But science cannot explain why there is beauty. Why does gratuitous beauty exist? When you have your annual art gallery and as you go in I see all this art that's put up by all of y'all and it's beautiful. When you see beauty, what explains beauty? It is an artist that explains beauty. It is an artist that explains beauty. So the best explanation for the presence of beauty in the universe is a mind behind the art, and that, in our context, is God.
Speaker 1:Secondly, let's look at the issue of complexity. There are two kinds of arguments using complexity, but I'm going to talk about just one one of them what is called as specified complexity. So for that, I want to ask a student from the ninth grade who wants to volunteer their name student from the ninth grade who wants to volunteer their own name how about that? With what's your name, ethan? All right, so let's say that that as you're coming to the chapel this afternoon, that outside there was a sign where the stones were arranged in words that said Welcome Ethan. Now, there are two ways that you can approach as to how that happened. The first one is that a sequence of wind gusts blew all these stones in this pattern that said Welcome Ethan. The second option is one of Ethan's fans decided to welcome him and wrote Welcome Ethan. Now we all know intuitively that if there was a sign that said Welcome Ethan, it's likely to be a person rather than a random gust of wind.
Speaker 1:But how do we objectify what is an accident and what is intentional? Mathematician and philosopher, william Dembski. He looked at cases in which insurance companies, the police and forensic scientists. They were trying to find out, when a fatality happened on the road, whether it was an accident or intentional. So he studied all these cases and he came up with three criteria to say whether an event is an accident or intentional. And these are the three criteria.
Speaker 1:Bear with me as I go through them real quick. The first criterion is that it did not need to happen, what is called as a contingent event. A contingent event is different than a necessary event. A necessary event is something that has to happen. For example, if the temperature dropped below 32 degrees Fahrenheit, water necessarily has to turn to ice, there's no option, it's got to turn to ice. That is a necessary event. This is a contingent event. The second criteria by which William Dembski says that an event is not an accident but intentional is what is called as a small probability of happening. And the third one is what he calls independent specifiability, where it is a special occurrence. It happened, yes, but it is a special occurrence. It happened, yes, but it is a special occurrence.
Speaker 1:Now, based on these three criteria, did the universe happen by accident or did it happen intentionally? Now, to make that case, I'm going to look at one physical parameter of the universe. There are at least 48 physical constants in the universe that describe the universe. One of them is what I'm going to look at and for this I'm going to ask a question that is for the 10th, 11th and 12th grades. If you get this question right, I will give you 10 bars of your favorite chocolate.
Speaker 1:Okay, here's the question. I will give you 10 bars of your favorite chocolate. Okay, here's the question what are the first two digits of the gravitational constant? What are the first two digits of the gravitational constant? I don't want to seem biased, anybody else. Okay, go ahead.
Speaker 1:9.8. Constant I don't want to seem biased, anybody else? Oh, yeah, go ahead. That is well, I'll give you five bars for it. Okay, that's not correct, but it is close to the gravitational constant.
Speaker 1:Well, just for fun, let me just tell you the difference between the two. Well, the gravitational constant. Well, just for fun, let me just tell you the difference between the two. Well, the gravitational constant is about the force between two bodies with mass. What you said is the gravity of the Earth. That is 9.8. So gravity of the Earth is based on the mass of the Earth and what is called as a centrifugal force of rotation of the Earth. Okay, so that's 9.8.
Speaker 1:But the gravitational constant it is a constant that describes the universe has been used by Newton and by Einstein in their theories. The gravitational constant is 6.67 times 10 to the power minus 11. Now, if you know anything about numbers anything that is multiplied by minus 11, that means that is in the denominator, correct. So 6.67 on top, which is a numerator, and the denominator is 10, followed by 11 zeros. What that means is that it is a very, very small number.
Speaker 1:Now to show you how small it is and how important this gravitational constant is, if we double the gravitational constant to 1.3 into 10 to the power minus 10, life on Earth would be impossible. The universe would cease to exist. And just to show you how small that number is, let's say that I drew a line from where I'm standing to the wall directly in front of me and we divided that line in half, and fourths, and eighths and so on, and we divided it into 10 billion segments. We took a line from here to the wall and we divided it into 10 billion segments. And if I increase the gravitational constant by one segment, life on Earth would be impossible. The universe would cease to exist.
Speaker 1:The gravitational constant is so finely tuned that it is impossible to happen by chance. And the gravitational constant is just one of them. There are at least 47 other physical constants that are so finely tuned that, for the universe to exist, all these parameters had to be just so. And so we come to the realization that the universe exists because of the actions of a mind behind it, the actions of an intelligent being, the person that we call God. And so, with the psalmist, we say the heavens declare the glory of God and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Thank you.