Nature and God

1. “Whirlpool” Galaxy M51: NASA Hubble image Nature and God Grace Bible Chapel Feb 1, 2009

2. “Whirlpool” Galaxy M51: NASA Hubble image Nature and God “Not only do we need no God to explain the universe and life; God stands out in the universe as the most glaring of all superfluous sore thumbs. We cannot, of course, disprove God, just as we can't disprove Thor, fairies, leprechauns and the Flying Spaghetti Monster. But, like those other fantasies that we can't disprove, we can say that God is very very improbable.” – Richard Dawkins, “Why There is Almost Certainly No God”

3. Design in Nature NASA/JPL-Caltech Simulated image of Milky Way Galaxy

4. Design in Nature “The laws of science, as we know them at present, contain many fundamental numbers, like the size of the electric charge of the electron and the ratio of the masses of the proton and the electron. … The remarkable fact is that the values of these numbers seem to have been very finely adjusted to make possible the development of life.” – Stephen Hawking, Professor of Mathematics, Cambridge University “Whirlpool” Galaxy M51: NASA Hubble image

5. Design in Nature “It seems as though somebody has fine-tuned nature’s numbers to make the Universe. … The impression of design is overwhelming.” – Paul Davies, astrophysicist, The Cosmic Blueprint “Whirlpool” Galaxy M51: NASA Hubble image

6. Existence of Nature “The usual approach of science of constructing a mathematical model cannot answer the questions of why there should be a universe for the model to describe. Why does the universe go to all the bother of existing? Is the unified theory so compelling that it brings about its own existence? Or does it need a creator, and, if so, does he have any other effect on the universe?” -- Stephen Hawking, Professor of Mathematics, Cambridge University “Whirlpool” Galaxy M51: NASA Hubble image

7. Comprehensibility of Nature Maxwell’s Equations

8. Comprehensibility of Nature “The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible. You find it strange that I consider the comprehensibility of the world … as a miracle or as an eternal mystery. Well, a priori, one should expect a chaotic world, which cannot be grasped by the mind in any way… … a high degree of ordering of the objective world … could not be expected a priori. That is the ‘miracle’ which is being consistently reinforced as our knowledge expands.” -- Albert Einstein “Whirlpool” Galaxy M51: NASA Hubble image

9. Beauty in Nature Crab Nebula M1: NASA Hubble image

10. Planetary Nebula IC418 “Spirograph”: NASA Hubble image

11. “Cat’s Eye” Nebula NGC6543: NASA Hubble image

12. Spiral Galaxy M64: NASA Hubble image

13. “Sombrero” Galaxy M104: NASA Hubble image

14. NASA Hubble Ultra Deep Field Image

15. Beauty in Nature “This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being. . . . This Being governs all things, not as the soul of the world, but as Lord over all; and on account of His dominion He is wont to be called Lord God.” -- Sir Isaac Newton, Principia Mathematica, Book 3 (1687) “Whirlpool” Galaxy M51: NASA Hubble image

16. Nature Points to God • Design • Existence • Comprehensibility • Beauty “Whirlpool” Galaxy M51: NASA Hubble image

17. Nature Depends on God “He waters the mountains from His upper chambers; The earth is satisfied with the fruit of His works. He causes the grass to grow for the cattle, And vegetation for the labor of man, So that he may bring forth foodfrom the earth,” --Ps. 104:13-14 “You appoint darkness and it becomes night, In which all the beasts of the forest prowl about. The young lions roar after their prey And seek their food from God.”--Ps. 104:20-21 “Whirlpool” Galaxy M51: NASA Hubble image

18. Nature Depends on God “And He is the radiance of His glory and the exactrepresentation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power.”--Heb. 1:3 “He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.”--Col. 1:17 “Whirlpool” Galaxy M51: NASA Hubble image

19. Nature Depends on God “... the continuing existence of our world is not something to be taken for granted. Rather it hangs moment by moment on the continuance of the upholding word of power of its creator.” -- Donald MacKay, The Open Mind “Whirlpool” Galaxy M51: NASA Hubble image

20. Nature Depends on God “Scientific laws do not prescribe what must happen; they describe what has happened. The earth does not go round the sun because Newton's (or Einstein's) law makes it, or tells it to. The earth goes its own way, and the scientific laws are our generalized way of describing how it goes. All that they prescribe are our expectations.” – Donald MacKay, The Clockwork Image “Whirlpool” Galaxy M51: NASA Hubble image

21. Nature (& Science) Is Not Enough “I am very astonished that the scientific picture of the real world around me is very deficient. It gives us a lot of factual information, puts all of our experience in a magnificently consistent order, but it is ghastly silent about all and sundry that is really near to our heart, that really matters to us. It cannot tell us a word about red and blue, bitter and sweet, physical pain and physical delight; it knows nothing of beautiful and ugly, good or bad, God and eternity. Science sometimes pretends to answer questions in these domains, but the answers are very often so silly that we are not inclined to take them seriously.” – Erwin Schroedinger, pioneer of quantum mechanics “Whirlpool” Galaxy M51: NASA Hubble image

22. Nature and God • Nature Points to God • Nature Depends on God • Nature is Not Enough “Whirlpool” Galaxy M51: NASA Hubble image