Secular Science Cannot Explain How Transcendence Came from Consciousness

13 Jun Secular Science Cannot Explain How Transcendence Came from Consciousness

Blog Series

Moving from Checkers to Chess

Five Steps to Unleashing the Power of an Eternal Perspective

This week we’re continuing our series: “Moving from Checkers to Chess ~ Five Steps to Unleashing the Power of an Eternal Perspective.” Unless we have an eternal perspective, viewing life as God does, we are playing checkers in life while God is playing chess. And, if that’s the case, two things are certain: (1) we will consistently make the wrong moves, and (2) we lose in the end. I’d like to help avoid that.

Secular scientists and an “anti-supernatural presupposition”

With an anti-supernatural presupposition, secular scientists cannot explain five important things concerning existence without the need for five free miracles. We’ve looked previously in this series at the first four:

1. Secular scientists cannot explain how something came from nothing. 
2. Secular scientists cannot explain how order came from chaos.
3. Secular scientists cannot explain how life came from non–life.
4. Secular scientists cannot explain how consciousness came from non-consciousness.

Today, we look at their next problem in trying to explain reality without God:

Secular scientists cannot explain how transcendence came from consciousness

Transcendence, in this context, means to be beyond and above material perception and comprehension – to be aware of things beyond the physical realm.

Humans wonder who we are, where we came from, why we are here and where we are going. We wonder if there is a God. We think about things beyond the material world. Animals don’t. Animals are conscious, but they are not transcendent. Secular scientists have no explanation why.

Let’s explore that a little further.

We have a concept of beauty 

Concerning beauty, when we look at things that are beautiful, such as the starry skies at night in the desert, or the majesty of towering mountains, or the beauty of the seacoast with the ocean stretching to the horizon, (1) we take great joy in beauty, and (2) something wells up within us that there must be a God.

Or, when someone does something that saves us from death or calamity, or showers us with public accolades, or continues to love us in spite of our offenses… gratitude and appreciation well up within us.

Is there no God in such a world? Is our appreciation for beauty and affirmation and love simply biological hardwiring passed down to us because somehow those traits helped our ancestors survive, as evolutionists suggest, without explaining how those ancestors first began thinking transcendent thoughts? Or are those capacities indications of our having been created by God with those capacities (Genesis 1)? As Christians, we believe that our concept of beauty rises out of our having been created in the image of God, who is the author of beauty. God’s creation is characterized by beauty, and while creation is marred by sin, we cannot look anywhere without seeing and appreciating beauty.

We have a concept of right and wrong

Concerning morality, why do humans have an inherent concept of right and wrong? Animals don’t. Why do we feel guilty when we do wrong? Why do all civilizations of all times and all places believe that certain things are wrong and other things right?

The remotest tribes on earth, cut off from the rest of civilization, observe a moral code similar to everyone else’s. Evolution has no compelling explanation. The Bible, on the other hand, tells us that the moral law is written on our hearts and comes from a law-giver – that is, God (Romans 2:14-15).

Dostoyevsky, in his book, Brothers Karamazov, wrote, “If God does not exist, then everything is permitted.” One person may think it is wrong to steal and murder. Another thinks it is alright. Who determines? If one human says something is wrong and another says it is right, they are both humans. They cancel each other out.

But if you bring in God as a higher authority, you can appeal to Him for right and wrong.

There is no convincing evidence that a moral code helped us evolve from lower life forms. There is no compelling explanation for a universal moral code among humans other than it was “written on our hearts” by our creator God (Romans 2:15).

We wonder if there is a God

When we look into the starry skies at night, there is something within us that says, “There must be a God!” And God intended us to have that reaction. Scripture says, “The heavens declare the glory of God, the skies proclaim the work of His hands” (Psalm 19:1)  When we look at a newborn baby, something within us rises to the reality that we are looking at a miracle. When we attend a funeral, we instinctively think about an afterlife. A study at Oxford University revealed that humans are predisposed to believe in the supernatural and the after life (https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/07/110714103828.htm).

Not only is it natural to believe in God and the afterlife, we are hardwired to worship God.

We are hardwired to worship a being higher than ourselves 

There has never been a civilization that did not worship a higher being. Why is that?

Psychologists assert that there is a place in the brain that produces worship, hinting that worship is prompted by neurological predisposition rather than the existence of the supernatural. The worship location in the brain is larger among worshipers than non-worshipers.

However, this position has two serious problems. First, it does not explain how that neurological capacity got there in the first place. Evolution does not explain it. Second that observation does not indicate if the neurological capacity is the cause or the effect of worship.

If worshipers have larger parts of their brain where “worship” is located, it could also be that that part of the brain is more fully developed because people worship, rather than it’s being the cause of worship.

Conclusion

If someone does not believe in God, it is not because scientific evidence demands it. Nor is it because reason and logic demand it. Science, reason, and logic suggest that there is a God, as we have been seeing in this series.

Certainly, there are reasonable struggles people might have with God, such as how could a good God allow such pain and suffering in the world, or other issues. Yet, when one comes at the subject of God from the other end of things…from the perspective of accounting for the existence of the universe, its apparent design, the existence of life and consciousness, and the uniqueness of humanity, it is impossible to escape the evidence that God exists.

Take comfort if you believe in God. You are not standing on thin ice. You are standing on a spiritual Rock of Gibraltar. You do not have to give modern science any free miracles. Be at peace.

Where we are in our blog series, “Moving from Checkers to Chess ~ Five Steps to Unleashing the Power of an Eternal Perspective”

As a reminder, so far in our series we have learned that there are five steps to unleashing the power of an eternal perspective:

1. Believe the unbelievable
2. Embrace the inconceivable
3. Choose the undesirable
4. Fight the invisible
5. Nurture the transformational

In unpacking Step #1, we have learned that there are three parts to Believing the Unbelievable:

1. We must believe that God exists in spite of the fact that He cannot be proved.
2. We must believe that God is good in spite of the rampant evil in the world.
3. We must believe that God loves us in spite of the fact that he doesn’t make our life go better.

In unpacking part one of believing the unbelievable, why we can believe that God exists in spite of the fact that He cannot be proved, we have seen over the last five posts that secular science has no answers for the five major questions of existence, while Christianity does:

1. Secular scientists cannot explain how something came from nothing.
2. Secular scientists cannot explain how order came from chaos.
3. Secular scientists cannot explain how life came from non–life.
4. Secular scientists cannot explain how consciousness came from non-consciousness.
5. Secular scientists cannot explain how transcendence came from consciousness – the subject of today’s post. (This is where, if you were standing at the map kiosk in a mall, the big red arrow would be pointing at “You are here.”)
   

We have seen that, if you do not begin with an “anti-supernatural presupposition” but rather look with an unbiased eye at the evidence, it is not only logical and reasonable, but it is safe to believe in God.

Now, we progress to the next subject we must embrace if we are to unleash the power of an eternal perspective. We’ll look at Step 1. Believe the unbelievable – Part 2: Believing in God in spite of the rampant evil in the world. See you next week!

In case you’re new here, below are two resources I’ve created for additional help in your Christian discipleship journey:

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