The Christian & Science

I would have, I had a real problem with Christianity, and I was quite confident that my Harrison

! Cambridge undergraduate often is, and I even wrote a poem to express my contempt for Christianity.

! Now you need to understand that I was studying science, not English, and so my poem isn't very

good, but I can still remember it, and it went like this. Some folks seem to find it odd that

people grow from tiny cells. Pathetic, those who think of God, and still got coins in wishing

wells. There we are, that was my picture. But it just shows you something of my mindset,

and I guess lots of people's mindset today about Christianity. It must be that people

didn't understand about the basics of biology. You know, they still thought things were magic

or miraculous, but we just knew how they happened. They didn't understand about people growing

themselves. They were still superstitious in the way that people throw their money into

a well and make a wish. That's what I thought Christians must be like. I mean, sure, people

used to think that God made it rain with a big watering can in the sky. But then we understood

about evaporation and condensation of the water cycle. People used to think that people got

ill because of demons, and got better because of God. But then we came to understand about

viruses and antibodies, and we could explain it. And so surely nowadays, now that we've

put man on the moon, and we've sequenced the human DNA, surely it was time to forget about

these naive, superstitious ideas about God and angels and invisible things, and write them

off. So that was what I thought when I was 18, and I was quite constant about that, and went

around telling everyone my poem. I know I really did. It's quite sad, but yes. But then, just

a short time after that, I became a Christian. And it was a result, really, of meeting Christians

at university who just didn't conform to my stereotype. If you asked me what I thought about Christians,

I would have said, Christians are gullible hypocrites. They're gullible because they don't understand

science, and they're hypocrites because they don't live it out. Because I'd been to a church

when I was growing up, where people were kind of religious on Sunday, and then just did their

own thing, the same as everyone else, midweek. And as a 16-year-old, I find that really hard

to stomach. It just seemed very fake to me. And I think it is fake, even now. But then

when I was at university, I met some people who were neither of those things. They weren't

hypocrites, because for the first time I met people who actually lived the way that Jesus

taught, or tried to live that way. And it was just quite striking. Just noticed the

way that they were very different. Now, that didn't make it true, of course, just because

they're nice doesn't mean everything they think is true. But it did make me want to know

what's going on. You know, why do you live so differently? Why are you like this? And

I got talking to them, and then I discovered that they weren't naive or gullible. That they

had actual reasons for what they believed about Jesus. And that was a surprise to me, because

I'd never realised that there were any reasons for believing in Christianity before. Anyway,

to cut a long story short, I went on the run. I didn't want to become a Christian. I thought

it would ruin my life. I tried to hide from it all. That didn't work. I got converted.

I stopped writing poetry. And now I'm a believer. But I continued to do science, and as Paul said,

I went on for the years, and gave a little bit of my early 20s to that. But now a Christian,

but still a scientist, both and. And actually, it turns out there were lots of other people

in the same category. Lots of other scientists who, at the same time, were Christians. That's

certainly true of the history of science. So I'm going to give you some scientist names.

You've got to see if you know what they're famous for. Okay, so it's a bit interactive.

So we'll start with an easy one. Isaac Newton. What does Isaac Newton do? Anyone?

Gravity. Yeah, okay. Gravity. Lots of things. But gravity, one of his most famous. Also,

a firm believer in God. In fact, he thought that his book about the Bible book of Daniel

was more important than his book about gravity, because he really cared about knowing God properly.

Harder one, Johannes Kepler.

Astronomer. Astronomer. Very good. Interplanetary motion. He was looking at how the planets related

to each other, how they moved. He once said that he thought he was thinking God's thoughts

after him, as he investigated how God had made the universe work.

Another tricky one. Robert Boyle. Did anyone do Boyle's laws at school? Those gas laws?

Laws about gas. Committee of Christian. Michael Faraday.

Electricity. Yeah. Or Louis Pasteur.

Microbiology. In fact, discovered the bacteria.

Or another one. Charles Babbage.

Difficult one. First mechanical computer. Yeah.

Kind of pre-electronic computer. Very good.

So, of all those people, element scientists in their day, but also, at the same time, committed

Christians.

Now, that's all very well, but actually, according to one historian of science, Alfred North Whitehead,

there's actually a connection between those two things.

So, he wrote that man became scientific because he looked for law in nature.

He looked for order in the way the world worked.

But, he looked for law in nature because he believed in a law giver.

In other words, it was because of the belief that the world that we live in had been ordered

by an intelligent mind that made people start to investigate it intelligently.

They thought God has put this world together in a way that we should investigate.

So, it was because they believed in a God who made everything that they thought it was

worth investigating scientifically.

And that's how science got started.

I think it's doubtful that if people believed, as some people believe today, that the world

is essentially random, that people would have bothered trying to understand what they thought

was going to be essentially random.

And they didn't think it was essentially random.

They thought it was created by an intelligent God.

And they thought, so let's intelligently try to investigate.

That was, arguably, how modern science came about because people believed in a creator.

But you might say, well, okay, that was in the 16th, 17th century.

What about the 21st century?

Well, interestingly, although there are some famous atheist scientists like Richard Dawkins,

Stephen Hawking, you've maybe heard of.

And there were also some eminent scientists who are Christians.

So, I became a Christian in Cambridge.

I went to church the first Sunday after I became a Christian.

And I sat down next to a man with a big beard who, appropriately enough,

he had a professorial beard, appropriately enough, he was a professor.

And it turned out he was a professor of geophysics at Cambridge University,

Professor Bob White, in church with me.

Oh, that's odd.

Turns out he's one of the elders of the church.

Then I got talking to my next neighbor, Halls.

He was doing geology.

He was supervised by a guy called Professor Simon Conway-Morris,

a professor of paleontology, dinosaurs, that kind of thing.

Turned out he's also a Christian.

Isn't that strange?

Because people today tell you that you can't believe in the Bible because of the dinosaurs.

But Professor Conway-Morris knows more about dinosaurs than almost anyone else on the planet.

And somehow he's a Christian.

He believes the Bible.

Doesn't seem to be this kind of either or crass that you read about.

Okay, that's geology.

What about microbiology?

What about evolution and all that kind of stuff?

Well, you may know that the same year that Richard Dawkins published his book,

The God Delusion,

the same year, Francis Collins,

the director of the Human Genome Project,

that's the international group that was trying to work out the human DNA sequence,

he published his book,

The Language of God,

in which he explained his faith in Jesus Christ.

So I just want to say that in the past and in the present,

there were many scientists who were also Christians,

or Christians who were also scientists.

It seems to be possible to hold both together.

But all the time in the media,

we're reading that it's got to be an either or.

You've got to be a scientist or you've got to be a Christian.

And that kind of polarisation.

And I want to suggest today,

and this is maybe the most important thing I'm going to say,

I want to suggest there is an either or.

But the either or, the battle,

is not between Christianity on the one hand,

and science on the other.

Rather, the conflict is between two different philosophies.

Two different views of the world.

Two different religions,

if I can put it that way.

Now, Richard Dawkins would get very annoyed

if he heard me describing his position as a religion.

But in some ways, it's interesting just how quasi-religious it is.

If you read The God Delusion,

and underline the number of times he says,

I believe something,

without giving any scientific reason for it,

it's just quite illuminating.

Or the kind of,

I think there was a campaign recently to,

they wanted to book The God Delusion in hotel floors,

and they liked the Gibeon suit.

And then they wanted to have atheist summer camps,

the way that we had Christian summer camps,

that kind of thing.

It is kind of religious in its attitude.

So I want to suggest that on the one hand,

atheism or naturalism,

and on the other hand, Christianity,

they are opposed to each other.

But science is not arguably sense.

Science is just a kind of way of investigating the world.

And we're going to have to decide in this talk,

whether science fits better with atheism,

or whether science fits better with Christianity.

So firstly, what I'm going to do is outline these two views,

and then we're going to try and compare them

by looking at the evidence,

which is what any scientist ought to want to do.

So firstly, here's the view of naturalism,

or atheism.

This is the world view that says that matter,

and chance,

is all that there is.

So, for example,

in the words of Bertrand Russell,

the philosopher,

he said,

mankind is nothing but

a chance collocation of atoms

on a minus speck of interstellar dust.

That's all you are.

Or, I think that's quite depressing,

but you can go more depressing

if you cross the channel

and you ask the French existentialist philosopher,

Jean-Paul Sartre,

what he thinks.

He puts it this way.

I'm interested in French,

but this is the translation.

He says this,

every living creature

was born without reason,

prolongs itself out of weakness,

and dies by chance.

Thanks.

You know,

you can imagine

this could be a fun guy

to have back for dinner.

But everything is just random.

It just happened by accident,

without any purpose to it.

Or in my own field of neuroscience,

Francis Crick,

the Nobel Prize winner,

he once said this,

he said,

you,

he puts it in inverted commas,

because he doesn't really believe in

persons,

or personality,

you,

your joys and your sorrows,

your sense of personal ambition,

and free will,

your memories and your hopes,

are in fact,

no more than,

the behaviour of a vast assembly

of nerve cells,

and their associated molecules.

Now,

I was a neuroscientist,

I do believe that there are nerve cells

in your brain,

and that the movement of electrons

around those nerve cells

are involved with how you think.

I think that's fair.

But a quantifier,

Francis Crick,

the words are,

you are no more than.

That's the key word.

It's reductionism.

You are nothing but,

Bertrand Russell says,

a chance collocation of atoms.

Now,

that view of the world

is very different

to the Christian view of the world.

And I'm going to now,

outline the Christian view,

and I thought I would do it

by using some words,

actually from the Bible,

so that you know I'm giving you

kind of God's version,

rather than just kind of

my twisted version of Christianity.

And I'm going to read

from page 926.

If you've got a Bible

and you can find it,

that would be helpful,

just as a reference point.

So,

turn to page 926,

926.

Some of you will know

this passage well,

others won't know it at all.

So,

this is a speech that

one of Jesus' followers,

called Paul,

gave in Athens

in the first century

to a group of,

we're told,

Epicurean and Steric philosophers.

Verse 18.

Now,

I don't know much about that,

but I looked up

in a dictionary of philosophy

about Epicureanism,

and apparently the Epicureans

believed that the gods

were not involved

in human life.

They were remote,

distant.

But basically,

human life was due to chance,

randomly.

things.

And that when you died,

that was it.

There was no afterlife.

So,

in some ways,

Epicureans believed the same

as modern day atheists.

Not exactly,

but roughly the same.

And so,

here is Paul

trying to explain to them

what is different

about Christianity

compared with what they thought.

And I'm going to read

from verse 24,

so that little number 24,

at the bottom

of the right hand column

of page 96.

The gods who made the world,

and everything in it,

being Lord of heaven and earth,

doesn't dwell in temples

made by man,

nor is he served by human hands

as though he needed anything,

since he himself

gives to all mankind

life and breath

and everything.

And he made from one man

every nation of mankind

to live on all the face

of the earth,

having determined

their allotted periods

and the boundaries

of their dwelling place,

that they should seek God

and perhaps feel their way

towards him

and find him.

Yet he's actually not far

from each one of us,

for in him we live

and move

and have our being.

As some of your own parents

have said,

we are his offspring.

Being then God's offspring,

we ought not to think

that the divine being

is like gold

or silver

or stone,

an image formed

by the art

and imagination

of man.

The times of ignorance

God overlooked,

but now he commands

all people everywhere

to repent,

because he has fixed

the day on which

he will judge the world

in righteousness

by a man

whom he's appointed,

and of this

he's given assurance

to all

by raising him

from the dead.

Now when they heard

of the resurrection

of the dead,

some mocked,

but others said,

we will hear you again

about this.

And maybe those reactions

will be here

in this room as well.

Some of you will mock,

others will say,

we want to hear more

about this.

Now what if you can see,

just in that short

reading from the Bible,

that in some ways

Christianity

is actually the opposite

of atheism.

Let me explain

what I mean.

If you said

to Richard Dawkins,

does God exist,

he would say,

no,

or actually he'd say,

probably not.

That was his slogan,

wasn't it?

There's probably no God.

But if you said

to Richard Dawkins,

does Christianity exist?

He'd say,

well obviously it does.

Now of course

this is an international

phenomenon of religion,

which I'm doing my best

to stamp out,

but it's there,

it exists.

And then you'd say,

well,

where does that come from,

Richard Dawkins?

He would say,

humans invented it.

So human beings,

we came about by chance,

we got brains by chance,

and then we invented

the idea of a God

in our imagination.

That's what he would say.

But do you see

that is exactly

the opposite

of what Paul is saying.

It's not that

we invented God,

like the people in Athens

who made little gods

out of gold

and put them on

their manacophies,

look at the God

that I just made.

He said,

no,

it's not like that.

No,

God invented us.

He's the one

who decided,

imagined,

that it would be nice

to make people.

And he gives,

it's not that we

give God stuff.

He's his little statue,

I better feed it

because it's probably hungry.

God gives us stuff.

Here are these human beings,

I'd better give them

breath and life

and everything.

So,

these two things

are really the opposite view.

If we invent God,

because really

there's nothing

but random chance,

or actually

are we

made by,

creatures of,

an intelligent,

personal,

eternal being.

Now,

those of these

are pretty different

and I want to

spend the rest of our time

comparing them

and asking

the scientific question,

which one of these

makes most sense

of the evidence?

And that's what

we're going to do

for the rest of me

talking

before you ask questions.

So,

at this point,

I just need to warn you

against a bias

in your thinking

or in some people's thinking

because it's possible

to set up science

atheistically

so that the only

kind of explanations

that you accept

as scientific

are atheistic explanations.

Sometimes people do that.

Now,

I want to say

to that

and reply,

firstly,

that is not how science

was done in the beginning.

So,

lots and lots of people

who started science

who weren't atheists,

they were Christians.

They thought they were

investigating the world

that God had made.

But secondly,

if you set up

the experiment

so that the only answers

that are allowed

are atheistic

and then you get

atheistic answers out of it,

you've just cheated.

I mean,

if you set up

the experiment that way,

you're going to get

that answer.

Let me show you

what I mean.

Imagine I make

a visible light detector.

Here's a machine

for detecting

visible light.

So,

inside the machine

I have a prism

to break light

up into all the

different colours

from red

all the way

through to blue

of the rainbow

of the visible spectrum.

But because it's

a visible light detector,

I don't bother

putting any sensors in

for infrared light

or ultraviolet light.

Just the light

that you can see

with your eye.

OK?

So,

I make my machine

and then someone

comes along

and says,

I think I've discovered

this thing called

infrared light.

I think that's how

the remote control works

in my telly.

I say,

oh,

very interesting.

Let me test it

with my machine.

So,

they point their

remote control

at my machine

and it registers

nothing on the drive.

And I say,

ah,

infrared light

does not exist.

That's a stupid

conclusion.

If I set up

the experiment

to only be

sensitive to

visible light,

I can't use

the experiment

to tell you

about things

that it can't

measure.

If I set up

science so that

the only kind

of things I think

are scientific

or atheistic,

then I can't

use the experiment

to tell me

about anything

it wasn't

designed to

or capable

of measuring

in the first place.

So,

that's just to

warn us,

don't let's

pretend that

science is

automatically

atheism.

Never started

that way,

it needn't be

that.

In fact,

objectively,

what is science?

Science is really

just a methodology,

a way of

investigating the

world,

where you

observe what

you see,

you try and

describe what

you observe

in a hypothesis,

and then you

try and test

that hypothesis

by doing

further experiments

to accept

or reject it.

It's not

science,

it's just a

method of

approaching the

world.

And I

want to suggest

there's nothing

about that

method,

nor anything

that's been

discovered by

that method

that argues

against the

God of the

Bible.

I don't know

of anything.

People say

science disproves

God,

I want to

say,

oh,

how?

Tell me about

the experiment

that I don't

understand,

I haven't heard

of,

that disproves

something in the

Bible.

There isn't

one,

actually.

But there

is a conflict

between these

worldviews.

Atheism is

against Christianity,

yeah,

of course it is.

But is science

against it?

Well,

you need to

show me the

experiment or

the information

that proves it.

Well,

we're going to

compare these

two,

as I said,

in three ways.

Here are our

three tests.

Firstly,

which one makes

the most sense

of design?

Secondly,

which one makes

the most sense

of human life?

Thirdly,

which one makes

the most sense

of Jesus Christ?

And then we're

done.

Okay,

so here we are,

design.

Firstly,

which one makes

the most sense

of design?

Now,

even as I say

that word,

there's only

atheists in the

room,

you will be

getting twitchy

because people

hate the idea

of the word

design.

Because according

to atheists,

there wasn't

any design,

it's just

random.

But at least

everyone agrees

that there was

the appearance

of design.

It doesn't look

as though this

world is just

random.

In fact,

Sir Fred Hoyle,

the astronomer,

he once famously

said that the

idea of random

chance suddenly

coming up with

something like

all of us in

this room,

is a bit like

suggesting that

a whirlwind

passed through

a junkyard

and came up

by chance

with a fully

assembled

functioning

747 aircraft.

It doesn't seem

very likely to

have happened

just by accident.

But according

to atheists like

Richard Dawkins,

we have an

explanation.

This is what

he said.

This is what

he says.

He says,

design is

only accidental.

We have a

mechanism to

account for it.

Natural selection,

the blind,

unconscious,

automatic process,

which we now

know is the

reason for the

existence of

and apparently

purposeful form

of all life,

has no purpose

in mind.

It has no mind,

no vision,

no foresight,

no sight at all.

If it can be

said to play the

role of watchmaker

in nature,

it is that of

the blind

watchmaker.

And that was

the title of

his book that

we had to

read before we

went up to

university when

I was 18.

So it looks as

though it was

designed,

but it's just a

trick that

randomness and

evolution have

played on you.

Really it's just

random.

On the other

hand, the Bible

says, the God

who made the

world and

everything in it

gives to all

mankind life and

breath and

everything.

This world is the

way it is because

God decided it

would be that

way.

Which one,

no design to

this randomness

or a creative

God who made

it, which one

makes most sense

of the evidence?

Now I'm going to

just turn to the

question of how

this world could

have come about.

And rather than

getting into the

debates about

evolution, which

some people want

to talk about

all the time,

I want to say

actually even to

have evolution

or natural

selection, you

first have to

have a universe

in order for

evolution to

happen in, and

you have to

have DNA or

RNA, molecules

that can carry

information and

copy the

information down

through generations.

So even

whatever you

think about

evolution, and

I have my

particular view

about that,

whatever you

think about

evolution, even

to have evolution

at all, you

first have to

have very, very

complicated

molecules capable

of containing

information and

passing information

on.

So where do

they come from?

How do you

explain why

you've got

RNA or

DNA out of

nothing randomly?

That's not a

question that

evolution can

answer.

Where do you

get the

information from

that these

molecules contain?

You've just

got a black

box and in

goes randomness,

you can't just

get information

magically turning

out of randomness

and coming out

the other side.

Where does that

come from?

And actually,

just to make it

even more

difficult, where

does the

universe come

from that these

molecules exist in?

And this is

where we really

have problems

for the

atheists, because

physicists will

tell us that in

order to have any

kind of universe of

the kind that we

live in, some of

the kind of fine

tuning of the

universe has got

to be exactly

right.

So if you just

make a few tiny

adjustments to

the kind of

physical consonants

underlying the

universe, you

can't have a

universe at all.

Do come and

grab a seat, I

think there's a

couple of extra

seats.

Oh, we've got

some more chairs,

can't we?

So, here's my

favourite one.

In the Big Bang

Theory, the

universe all

starts from

nothing and then

just explodes

out.

Well, firstly,

how did it go

bang?

Who made it go

bang?

There's a question.

But secondly,

even people who

believe in the

Big Bang Theory

acknowledge that

the expansion

rate of the

universe has

got to be

exactly right.

So out of

the beginning of

the Big Bang,

writes Alan

Goose, who came

up with a view

of inflation,

he's not a

Christian, he's a

physicist, he

comes up with

this theory.

He explains, if

the universe had

expanded too

quickly, then

you'd never get

any stars or

planets or

people, you'd

just have gas,

because it

would go kind

of bang so

fast that you

just had spread

out gas as

you were.

On the other

hand, if the

universe expanded

too slowly, then

gravity would get

the better of it

and it would go

kind of bang,

and then gravity

would pull it all

back together and

it would go

crash.

And you

have a universe

and nothing,

even before you

got to one

millisecond on

your stopwatch.

And then there

would be nothing

at all.

So in order to

have a universe

that goes bang

fast enough to

beat gravity,

and slow enough

to give a chance

for stars and

planets, you've

got to be very,

very accurate in

how fast you

go bang.

In fact, you'll

know how accurate

you've got to

be one in ten

to the fifty

four accurate.

So that's one

in ten with

fifty four zeros

on the end.

Accurate.

Otherwise you're

going to lose.

So to give you

an idea of what

that's like,

cover America

with five

penny pieces

and stack

them to a

height of the

distance between

here and the

moon, about

380,000

kilometres away,

and then do

the same for a

billion other

continents the

size of America.

Blindfold to

husband or your

wife or girlfriend,

get her to pick

one at random,

paint one of

them red with

lipstick and

hide it in the

pile, get

it around them,

she picks the

red one, that's

about the

chances.

So in other

words, very,

very, very,

very, very,

very, very

unlikely to

have happened

by chance.

Why did it

work out just

right to have

a universe with

stars and

planets in it?

Why did it

work out just

right to have

human beings

and human

brains?

By chance,

in other words,

it's lucky,

says somebody.

Or, there's

a God who

designed this,

and who

ordered this.

This makes a

lot more

sense.

We've got an

explanation,

why it went

bang, why it

went bang at

the right speed,

why all these

other things

turned out right

to have

humanity.

Whereas just

the kids saying,

oh, lucky,

it's just lucky,

starts to look

unscientific and

problematic.

And in fact,

recently, atheists

have acknowledged

that the numbers

are just too

small to be

lucky.

I mean,

this is just

ridiculously lucky.

And instead,

they've got this

theory,

you might have

come across

this,

of the

multiverse.

The idea of

the multiverse

is that there's

infinitely many

universes.

And if you

have infinitely

many universes,

one of them's

going to get

lucky, right?

If you throw

the dice infinitely

many times,

then you're

going to get

the number

you want

eventually.

So they

prefer the

idea of a

multiverse.

Now, that's

okay to

believe in

that.

But when it

was reviewed

recently in

the scientific

journal Nature,

the reviewer

said this,

I thought this

was very

interesting.

He said,

the multiverse

may be the

most important

theory of our

time, but I

don't think it

can be called

a scientific

theory, because

it is not

observable, or

repeatable, or

testable.

you can

believe in

it, if you

want, by

blind faith,

but there's

no scientific

reasons for

it.

So you can

believe in

there's infinitely

many universes,

that's why this

turned out just

right, or you

can believe in

the God who

made it just

right.

But there's

nothing about

the science that

tells you to

believe in this.

And in fact,

I want to

suggest that

multiverses are

quite problematic

conceptually.

so everything

that's unlikely

isn't really

unlikely, because

there's infinitely

many universes.

So as well as

this talk, where I

get to this point

and I'm still

alive, there's

the talk at

which I drop

dead now.

Oh, no, I'm

not in that

universe, that's

okay.

If I had done,

that would have

just been the

explanation.

There's also

probably, I

guess, the

universe where I

suddenly turn to

a pink rabbit

now.

No, we're not

in that universe

either.

But there's

no point in

being surprised

by everything,

because it's

just the version

of the universe

in which that

unlikely thing

happens, right?

And everything

also didn't do

today in the

other version

of yourself,

in the other

copy of the

universe somewhere

else.

I mean, this

starts to require

quite a lot of

faith, I think.

Quite a lot of

irrational, blind

faith.

Whereas, why not

believe the really

very straightforward

idea that there

is a creative,

intelligent person

who decides to

make a world

and have the

power to do

so?

There we are.

Which one makes

the most sense of

design?

I'm going to be

more quick for the

other two.

Secondly, which

one makes the most

sense of,

human purpose

and existence.

Now, I want you

to understand me

rightly.

I'm not saying

here that

Christianity must

be true because

it's less depressing.

I'm about to show

you that atheism is

very, very depressing.

That doesn't make

Christianity true,

OK?

Because depressing

things can sometimes

be true.

But it does, I

think, give you

reasons not to be

very comfortable

with your atheism

if you're an

atheist.

See, one of the

things I've told you

already, one of the

things I hated about

Christianity was

hypocrites.

You know, people who

said one thing on a

Sunday and then did

something else in the

rest of their life.

I hated being too

fast.

And when I saw it in,

you know, churchy

people, I hated that.

And if you hate

hypocrisy, you're in

good company because

Jesus Christ hated it

too.

Many of his most

strong rebukes come

to religious people who

didn't actually trust

or follow God.

He hated that.

But what I never

noticed as an atheist

when I was giving up

my Christian friends a

really hard time, I

never noticed my own

hypocrisy.

I never noticed that I

wasn't living out the

thing that I said that I

believed.

So I was saying the

world is random.

I exist randomly,

without reason, and

that's why I'm here.

I did not live as though

that were true.

So, Professor John

Gray, he's a professor

at the London School

of Economics, a

professor of European

Thought, apparently

Tony Blair's favourite

philosopher.

So either you love him

or you hate him, because

of that, I don't know

what you think of Blair.

But he has, in his book

Straw Dogs, he's not a

Christian, he's got a

really weird view of a

kind of Mother Earth

kind of thing.

But he has a go at

atheists for their

hypocrisy.

He doesn't think that

they follow their ideas

through to their logical

conclusion.

So he writes this, he

says, mankind must

accept that his or her

life is entirely

accidental.

He must realise that

like a gypsy, he lives

on the boundary of an

alien world that is as

indifferent to his

hopes as it is for his

sufferings and his

crimes.

So John Gray's saying

if you really want to

believe that your life

is random, you've got

to believe that the

universe doesn't care

about what you hope

for, he doesn't care

about your suffering,

and it doesn't care

about your morality,

because it's just

random.

So try living that out,

he says, and see if

you really believe it.

So, for example, what

should an atheist say

to somebody, a mother,

whose teenage son has

been killed in a hit-and-run

car accident?

Motorist came round a

blind corner, driving

too fast in a country

lane, killed him, and

then drove off.

So that's what happened

to my mother, Jean's,

my mother, my mother,

his best friend,

and they wrote Jean.

What should my mum have

said to Jean if she was

an atheist?

Just, um, unlucky.

Unlucky.

That's it, isn't it?

Just the way in which

the atoms of the universe

bumped into one another

many million years after

they started purposely

that unlucky.

That's all you can say,

because the universe

doesn't care, it's just

random.

Now, I don't know any

atheist who would be

that kind of rude or

unthinking.

I'm not suggesting

atheists actually would

say that to a grieving

mother.

I'm just saying that if

they were honest and

consistent, that is what

they'd say.

Instead, my face, as I

know, would say something

like it being a terrible

tragedy and feeling for

you and your loss.

But what they mean is

unlucky.

Meaningless.

Unlucky.

Unlucky.

Now, of course,

sophisticated atheists,

they might say something

like, no, I care about it

because I've evolved to

care.

We've evolved to be in a

society where we worry

about each other.

But the trouble with that

is it boils down to

something that doesn't

care.

So sociology, in atheism,

is reducible to

psychology.

It's just the behaviour

of lots of brains

together in a room.

So it's reducible to

explaining each particular

brain.

But psychology is

reducible to biology

because all your brain

is is a biological

thing.

And biology is

reducible to chemistry

because all the

biological things is

complicated chemicals.

And chemistry is

reducible to physics

and physics is

reducible to matter

and chance and

matter and chance

doesn't care.

So you're seeming to

care.

It's just an illusion

created by randomness,

says atheism.

And what about your

crimes?

I was talking to one

of the professors

doing my PhD, a lady

called Kate.

She's a very

intelligent lady, but

an atheist.

And I said to her,

Kate, I wanted to

eat a coffee.

I said, Kate, I

don't understand.

If you're right about

the world, why would

killing you be wrong?

In particular, why

would it be any

different to cutting a

grapefruit in half my

breakfast?

Kate's atoms,

grapefruit atoms.

Much the same kind of

thing.

All I'd be doing in

both cases would be

increasing the

entropy of the

universe by a

factor of two.

You know, I

have to say, Kate and

I were good friends.

This is a cheeky

question, rather than

I actually wanted to

kill that, just to

clarify.

She said, she

thought about it for

a moment, she said,

well, my mother would

be upset.

That's the answer.

But then I said to

her, but Kate, what's

upset?

What is upset?

Upset is just the

change in the

concentration of a

particular chemical in

the randomly assembled

collection of atoms,

which is your mother's

brain.

That's what she said

that she believed

about life.

She didn't believe

that.

She wasn't living

that.

But it's what she

said she believed

as an atheist.

It can't make sense

of our sense of

right and wrong,

hope and tragedy

and suffering.

It doesn't make any

sense of that.

Whereas the Bible

really does make

sense of those

things.

We matter as

people because we

are made by a

person of God.

Our suffering

matters because we

are made by a

loving God who

intended for things

to be good before

we mess things

up.

And our crimes

matter to God

because God is a

moral God who

loves good and

hates evil.

Makes sense of

those things.

But of course

the problem

with something

personal, a

relationship with

God that's

personal, is it's

out of the

boundaries of

where science

can get you.

Let me just

read to you

again from

Paul's speech.

He said this.

He said,

God made

from one man

every nation

of mankind

in order that

they should

seek God

and perhaps

feel their way

towards him

and find him.

He's not

far from each

one of us.

Now that for

me was an

extraordinary

thought when I

first came across

it.

Not just that

God is the

explanation for

a long, long

time ago

why it went

bang,

but that God

intends to

know me

personally.

He wants me

to relate to

him and him

to relate to

me on a

personal level.

Now that was

a mind-blowing

thought for me.

But the

trouble with

knowing people

personally is

science can't

really do that.

It's not that

science isn't

really good and

useful and

powerful, it's

just science

can't tell you

everything that's

important about

the world.

And in

particular it's

not very good

at telling you

about people.

Let's suppose

that you wanted

to get to

know me,

which maybe

as a result of

this talk you

really don't,

but I don't

know.

Let's suppose

you wanted to

get to know

me better,

but all you

were allowed

to go on

was things

that you could

work out by

scientific

experiments.

What could

you find out?

Well, you

could do

scanning electron

microscopy on

the fibres of

my genes,

and you could

tell me if I'm

wearing natural

fibres or

mixed fibres.

You could

see the dust

lights and

tell me whether

I've got an

above average

density of

them.

That kind of

thing.

You could

tell me if I

sat in

everything

nasty on

the tube

without

realizing.

That kind

of stuff.

Then you

could do

gas chromatography

under my

armpits,

and you

could tell me

what deodorant

I'm wearing

and whether

or not it's

coping with

this slightly

intimidating

situation.

You could

do DNA

fingerprinting,

you could

work out if

I'm related

to anyone on

the Interpol

database,

or whether

I'm likely

to die

young of

a known

genetic

illness.

And that

is about

all.

I think

that's about

all you

could tell.

So you

couldn't tell

my name,

you couldn't

tell what I

love,

what makes

me laugh,

what makes

me cry,

you couldn't

tell who

is important

to me,

you couldn't

tell me what

I would die

for.

In fact,

almost anything

that's important

about knowing

me as a

person would

be beyond

you.

And don't

get me

wrong,

it's not

that science

isn't really

powerful,

science is a

really,

really useful

thing,

but science

can't tell us

everything that's

important.

Which is why

I very much

doubt that

anyone here

who's in a

relationship

began on

their first

date by

saying,

excuse me,

can I take

a small DNA

sample and

I'll be

back with you

in a

position in

a couple

of weeks

time.

I doubt

that.

Because when

it comes to

knowing people,

science is out

of its depth.

You need them

to reproduce

themselves,

to speak to

them,

to relate

to them

like that.

And the

Bible's

claim is that

that is

exactly what

God has

done with

us.

And this

is our

closing

filter today.

Rather than

leaving us

to guess

about him,

or even

rather than

leaving us

to try and

do experiments

on him,

because that's

typical,

isn't it?

If God's

everywhere,

how are you

supposed to

get rid of

him from

the moment,

to take a

control,

no reading?

What would

the universe

without God

look like if

this is the

universe we've

got to

measure?

You can't

even do the

experiment.

define that

kind of

thing out.

But rather than

leaving us in

the dark,

God has

made himself

known,

and he's

done that

through the

man Jesus

Christ,

who was

really born

in history,

and really

lived and

really died,

and he's

given us

evidence,

Paul says.

And this

is the last

verse of

this speech,

verse 31.

God

commands us to

change our

minds about