Creation "Science" as in ex nihilo creation
Science has to treat nothing as a sort of something. Near nothing which is still real is a subject for scientific experiment and testing in principle. Science suggests that it is possible in theory. Religion says it is possible too though it has another kind of near nothing that is something - spirit. Both agree that nothing is not necessarily literally nothing.
So the notion of the universe being made but not from anything is out. Yet it is a core doctrine of Christianity which is as clear as mud as usual.
Science in principle can say the universe did not come from
anything. But it will stop there and say it is for thinkers to
decide what did the making. But it does not say that at all
and we are asked to believe that science and religion tie nicely
together. It is like saying a book about life in a tribe in
Africa ties in nicely with one about a tribe on a far away world.
They do not tie. They just don't conflict.
Many believe that science and religion are in conflict. Religion says that
faith and science do not conflict but just work in different departments.
Many answer that science is about the universe as a physical thing and that says
nothing for or against what brought it out of nothing. So God as the one
that causes all to exist is supposedly not a matter for science. But the
Christian God who is very involved in the universe now would clearly have to be
a matter for science. If so, it is a scientific theory.
Catholicism says God created and designed all things. By God it means a being
who is more than just good but who is actual goodness. In other words, if God is
a person then good is a person. This makes no more sense than saying that the
word "the" is a person. God is impossible by definition. It is no good to
science. Science needs a coherent definition of God.
If there is a creator then it does not follow that he is God or entitled to be
worshipped. He is an it. If we needed anything to account for creation, at most
we would only need an intelligence. We do not need this God.
Creation is a magical explanation for how all things come to be. It is a lazy
explanation. Where would science be if we reasoned magically all the time? What
if we said the local witch gives you the stomach bug and that God takes it away?
Science in principle is opposed to such laziness. The fact that believers use a
magical explanation for creation and not for other things shows that they just
want the magic to be safely confined to an event in the long gone past.
The religious claim that God made all things and put creation through so much
travail just to make us is arrogant.
Some say that we have a purpose in life but refuse to say that simply making us
might be the purpose. It does not satisfy them and they want to feel important
to God in a deeper way than that! They want to go further than saying we
are must made for the sake of making us and make out we are also here to prepare
for Heaven or something. But ultimately we did not need to be made so we are
made for the sake of being made. Even if you did go to Heaven that could be
collateral!
Suppose you throw a brick through a window just because you can. Suppose you
create a person just because you can. It is about showing yourself you can
do it. It is not about what is done. If we can think of other
reasons why a God might do something like this that does not make them valid
reasons or relevant. If I can get meaning out of my life that does not
mean God intended me to.
A creator or an intelligent designer is a matter for science because science
presumes that something cannot come out of nowhere and that it was chance that
led to all things seeming designed. Note - it does not say chance designed all
things! Even if God cannot be dissected in a lab or found by scientific
equipment, science can find his activity. If science cannot find the man who is
doing up your garden, it can discover that somebody is doing it. The religious
claim that God is not a question for science is simply a lie.
A theory can mean something as good as proven or something less convincing but
which can explain why some cause exists. Science is about what causes what.
The word God tends to be used like a proper name. But it is not. It refers to a
spiritual supernatural being. God is alleged to have explanatory power thus God
is clearly a hypothesis - if not a scientific one it is still one that impacts
on science. Truth is truth regardless of what science thinks about it meaning
that you can have several hypotheses some of which are scientific and some of
which are not but all are called on to build up a world-view.
Even if God is not a scientific theory that does not mean science has nothing to
say about it. It does.
God is meant to be that which alone matters and to be all in all as St Paul puts
it. So for God to be all in all he can be or even should be a scientific
hypothesis for scientists. He would be one for believers too except in their
case he must not be just that. If science is from God then God will be found in
science even if indirectly but there will be a clear connection.
Even if you think God is not a scientific hypothesis you must give that view the
status of opinion and tell others to believe he is if they think they should.
To say God is not a scientific matter is just an assumption. Science forbids
assumptions - it questions them through testing and experiment to get rid of
them so that what an assumption says will now be the verified truth and no
longer an assumption.
If science finds no evidence of intelligent design or of God then there is no
God. Period. And as we have seen the idea of God demands that we take that
position. It is not just an atheist thing.
The fact that from nothing nothing comes is the foundation of science. Thus
science holds that it is obvious that something always existed and is definite
that as nothing comes from nothing no God can bring anything out of nothing. It
is not true that science has no interest in how things come to be but only in
how they work. And for science how existence works is that as nothing comes from
nothing it follows that there was always something.
Science rejects circular arguments. It would get nowhere if it reasoned, "Water is this combination of elements. These elements exist therefore water exists".
God is that which must come first. If you assume God then you have to bring the idea into your science. But to bring God into it violates the rule, “If you need circular arguments to live in the world and think, then keep the circles minimal and don’t reinforce them with God." So if you reason, "My reason and thinking are functional and I trust them because they are functional" that looks bad. But saying, "My reason and thinking are functional for God made them so and I trust them for I trust God", is worse. If you had to use circular reasoning then that is a step too far. If your reasoning is okay for you think so then what do you need to reason there is a God who makes it okay for? Keep it minimal. If the science needs a circle then God is out and implicitly denied.
That entails denying creation out of nothing...