For those who reject the notion of free will, our experience of making our own decisions is nothing more than a deep-seated illusion. “The reality is,” insists biologist Anthony Cashmore, “not only do we have no more free will than a fly or a bacterium, in actuality we have no more free will than a bowl of sugar.”

Those who argue for the nonexistence of free will often do so on scientific grounds. And those who offer a scientific “proof” against free will point to one type of experiment more than any other—namely, those done and inspired by neurobiologist Benjamin Libet.

In 1983, Libet seemed to prove that the unconscious processes of the brain—the interaction of molecules, electrical discharges, and the like, which are associated with decision-making—are ultimately in control. In other words, our voluntary decisions begin unconsciously in the brain. So it is the brain, not the person, that decides the actions we “feel” to be voluntary.

Libet-style experiments involve having a subject carry out a simple prescribed behavior (flexing the wrist, bending a finger, etc.) whenever he feels the urge to do so. Watching a special clock while he executes his movement, the subject notes the specific time at which he decided to move. The goal of the researchers is to plot a timeline of averages, noting the typical sequence of brain activity (e.g., by EEG), muscle activity (e.g., by EMG), and conscious urging (by subjective reporting). The expectation is that if our intentional actions are truly free, associated brain activity will follow the moment of decision. But this is not what Libet found.

Why does this matter? Well, it has obvious implications for the truth of the Catholic worldview. It also concerns human nature and how we understand ourselves as human beings. For if we don’t have free will, then this may dramatically change how we govern ourselves and interact with others. Much of how we operate as individuals, communities, states, and institutions presuppose that we are personally responsible for our actions. But if it were proven that we are not, this would entirely undermine our rationale for structuring and governing society on the assumption that we are free creatures.

So did these experiments really succeed in proving that free will is an illusion? They did not.

First of all, the experiments look exclusively at spontaneously willed behavior with brain activity. Participants were asked to act when they felt the urge. These experiments, then, say little about choices resulting from rational planning. At most, they suggest the nonexistence of free will in the restricted case of willful spontaneity. The voluntary actions with which they are concerned are barely more than split-second reactions. As some critics have observed, such studies tell us more about “picking” than “choosing.”

But even that conclusion might be overly hasty, for the concept of free will is not as plain as often presumed. Free will is a spiritual appetite for the intellectually known good. A decision, moved by free will, is not a quantifiable event like a neuronal discharge. Nor is it reducible to an instantaneous impulse or urge. And a willed movement is not always a purely linear cause-then-effect event like a cue ball striking an eight-ball into action. The activity of the will is more “smoothed out” and pervasive than an impulse. And it is enacted in layers. Thus, even in a setting like the Libet-style experiments, the free will cannot be isolated as cleanly as many assume.

For each study participant, in carrying out the prescribed movement, the will to move in this way at this time is nested within a multiplicity of other intentions motivating the same action. A singular act of wrist flexion is driven also (presumably) by the will to participate in the study; by the desire to follow the specific instructions given; by the desire to contribute to neuroscientific advancement; and in the will to do something for the common good. Additionally, the subject may bend his wrist because he desires to fulfill a class requirement—a class he desires to pass—or because he thinks it will hold the attention of the attractive research assistant across the room. The point is this: due to the complex integration of intentions involved in a single choice to move a body part, these studies cannot account for all the reasons that cause a person to conduct a singular movement. There is a sense in which the free decision of the research subject to flex his wrist “now” originated even before he entered the research lab.

We find ourselves here at an important juncture. It shows that once we have started making claims about free will’s reality or unreality, we have turned from all observation, measurement, and data analysis. We have reached the far side of the physical and have (perhaps unwittingly) thrust ourselves into the realm of philosophy.

Let’s turn to some further considerations. The Libet experiments relied on machines to capture brain and muscle activity. But it must be noted that neither EEG nor fMRI, nor any other form of advanced imaging, can capture the qualitative content of brain activity. When researchers carry out Libet-style experiments, they note the onset of brain activity and compare it to that of muscle activity and, more importantly, the time when the subject reports consciously willing the prescribed movement. But there is no precise way for scientists to know—even when the subject acts on an urge—whether the brain activity recorded or observed is representative of decision, or decision-making, or planning to make a decision.

In fact, more recent research shows the same brain activity believed to induce conscious decision-making is also found in subjects even when they do not make a conscious decision. Libet’s initial conclusion was “that cerebral initiation even of a spontaneous voluntary act . . . can and usually does begin unconsciously.” But these recent studies call such a conclusion into serious question.

There are several other critiques and limitations that have a significant impact on how much (or little) Libet-style studies actually prove. For an excellent detailed discussion of these limitations and their philosophical implications, read Alfred Mele’s little book Free.

At most, Libet-style experiments prove that a constrained subset of willed behaviors is not as freely executed as we are inclined to assume. But as we have seen, they hardly prove even that much. As far as Catholics traditionally conceive human freedom, such experiments pose little threat—and thus, the human person has every reason to believe that he remains infinitely more free than a bowl of sugar.

If you’re not following the debates on all things scientific and religious, it’s easy to come away with the vague sense that science has “proven” that (a) the ‘mind’ is really just the brain, or (b) that there’s no such thing as life after death, or (c) there’s no such thing as an immaterial soul.

But what’s remarkable about each of those three things is how far the vague sense of what science probably says differs from what the actual science says. I was reminded of this recently because of an amazing review that the New York Academy of Sciences did with Sam Parnia MD, PhD, who has done some amazing research on so-called “near-death experiences.” One of the points that Parnia makes is that, from a medical standpoint, these aren’t “near-death.” These are post-death.

That is, the body is in a state in which normal bodily functions have ceased. Doctors will do what they can to try to restore those functions (in which case, they’ll declare that it was just “cardiac arrest” or something) but if they fail, the time of death will be back before they started, when the bodily functions ceased. Parnia’s point is fascinating, because it means that at least one of two things must be true: either (1) we’re bad at placing the time of death, or (2) science has now proven that it’s possible for certain people to come back from the dead.

Parnia actually wrote a book on this, interviewing people who had these “near-death” (or post-death) experiences, and some of them have memories from the time. It’s hard to know what to make of these memories, but it again seems to suggest that (1) we’re bad at placing the time of death [in which case, things like cardiac arrest need to be revisited], and/or (2) there’s now medical evidence of the continuation of consciousness after death.

But the real kicker is at the end of the interview, where Parnia almost casually points out that the whole materialist case against the soul is based on evidence that doesn’t actually exist:

Traditionally, researchers had proposed that mind or consciousness – our self – is produced from organized brain activity. However, nobody has ever been able to show how brain cells, which produce proteins, can generate something so different i.e. thoughts or consciousness. Interestingly, there has never been a plausible biological mechanism proposed to account for this.

Recently some researchers have started to raise the question that maybe your mind, your consciousness, your psyche, the thing that makes you, may not be produced by the brain. The brain might be acting more like an intermediary. It’s not a brand new idea. They have argued that we have no evidence to show how brain cells or connections of brain cells could produce your thoughts, mind or consciousness.

The fact that people seem to have full consciousness, with lucid well-structured thought processes and memory formation from a time when their brains are highly dysfunctional or even nonfunctional is perplexing and paradoxical.

I do agree that this raises the possibility that the entity we call the mind or consciousness may not be produced by the brain. It’s certainly possible that maybe there’s another layer of reality that we haven’t yet discovered that’s essentially beyond what we know of the brain, and which determines our reality.

So, I believe it is possible for consciousness to be an as of yet undiscovered scientific entity that may not necessarily be produced by synaptic activity in the brain.

So far, the response that I’ve seen from skeptics is that Parnia may be wrong, and that science may someday prove that the mind is really just the brain, and that humans are just matter. But what’s so fascinating to me is that this blind faith that atheism will one day be scientifically proven is so immune to the utter failure of the system to prove anything of the kind.

What happens when an atheist doctor and historian is given access to the Vatican’s Secret Archives to investigate miracle claims? Just such a thing happened in the early 2000s, and both the story behind it, and the doctor’s conclusions, are worth recounting.

Dr. Jacalyn Duffin, a hematologist (M.D.) and historian (Ph.D.), was the Hannah Chair of the History of Medicine at Queen’s University from 1988 until 2017, and she’s served as both the President of the American Association for the History of Medicine and Canadian Society for the History of Medicine. It was in her role as a hematologist (a blood doctor) that she got involved with miracles in the first place, as she would later recount:

About twenty years ago, in my capacity as a hematologist, I was invited to read a set of bone-marrow aspirates “blind,” without being given any clinical details or the reason why. The fourteen specimens had been taken from one patent over an eighteen-month period. Using the microscope, I found this to be a case of severe acute leukemia with a remission, a relapse, and another remission. I assumed that the patient must be dead, and the review was for a lawsuit. Only much later did I learn, to my great surprise, that the patient was (and is) still alive. Although she had accepted aggressive chemotherapy in a university hospital, she attributed her recovery to the intercession of Marie-Marguerite d’Youville, a Montreal woman who had died two hundred years earlier. This case became the capstone in the cause for Youville’s canonization as the first Canadian-born saint. Again, I was surprised.

This experience, and the Vatican’s invitation to come to the canonization of St. Marie-Marguerite d’Youville, piqued Dr. Duffin’s interest. She asked for, and received, access to the Vatican’s Secret Archives, containing “the documentation on more than 600 miracles pertaining to 333 different canonization or beatifications from 1600 to 2000,” including at least one miracle for almost every canonization since the early seventeenth century. As a non-believer who was new to this, she wanted to know what the process was like: how medically serious were (and are) the Vatican investigations? And how unusual was it that Youville’s canonization involved the testimony of a non-believing physician?Many people assume that belief in miracles is anti-scientific. In The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins mocked the idea of miracles, and declared them (by definition!) to be against science:

I suspect that alleged miracles provide the strongest reason many believers have for their faith; and miracles, by definition, violate the principles of science. […] The last King of the Belgians is a candidate for sainthood, because of his stand on abortion. Earnest investigations are now going on to discover whether any miraculous cures can be attributed to prayers offered up to him since his death. I am not joking. That is the case, and it is typical of saint stories. I imagine the whole business is an embarrassment to more sophisticated circles within the Church.

This is characteristic of Dawkins’ approach: he laughs at an idea he’s incapable of actually refuting. He simply asserts that miracles “violate the principles of science” without specifying which principles or why, and then holds the whole thing up to laugh at with a sort of “can-you-believe-it” mockery… even though his own account suggests an approach resembling that of science. Dawkins’ argument amounts to saying that if a doctor says “let’s try Drug X and see if it has any effect on the patient’s disease,” that’s respectable science, but if someone says, “let’s pray to Baudouin for his intercession, and see if it has any effect on the patient’s disease,” that’s silly! The only problem is that, amidst his sneering, he forgets to actually give us any reason why. We’re just left with the blanket assertion that the sacred Principles of Science have been somehow violated.

Contrast this with what Dr. Duffin found when she actually examined the centuries’ worth of medical records related to miracle cases. Her findings were originally presented in a Presidential Address that she delivered to the seventy-ninth annual meeting of the American Association for the History of Medicine in Halifax, Nova Scotia. A revised version of these remarks were published in the Winter 2007 issue of the Bulletin of the History of Medicine under the name The Doctor was Surprised; or, How to Diagnose a Miracle. The whole report is worth a read, and includes several interesting details:

• The way that “new technologies appear in the Vatican records soon after their invention” (in other words, that miracle investigations were relying on the best medicine available at the time);
• The crucial role that medical experts play throughout the whole history of these miracle investigations;
• The use of non-practicing and non-Catholic medical experts, dating back at least to the Middle Ages;
• The high standard to which medical testimony was required to comport (for instance, an apparent miracle in 1906 involving the healing of a 49 year-old nun was treated as inconclusive because the treating physician failed to order a bacteriological examination on the pleural effusion to confirm his clinical diagnosis of tuberculosis).

Dr. Duffin concluded:

With codification of the Consulta Medica of the Vatican in 1949, the gold standard of a miracle cure entrenched three specific characteristics: that the healing be complete, durable, and instantaneous. [….]

Gradually, I began to understand that the process cannot proceed without the testimony of a physician. The doctor need not believe in miracles, the doctor need not be Roman Catholic, nor even a Christian – but the doctor must fill two absolutely essential roles.

The first role is to declare the prognosis hopeless even with the best of the art. This rigorous duty is built into the drama of every final illness. Many of the miracle healings occurred in people who had already received the last rites. No doctor – be she religious or atheist – takes that decision lightly; nor can it be taken in private. As a result, it becomes a public admission of medical failure, available for corroboration in a distant future. Its credibility resides on trust in the physician’s acumen: the diagnosis and prognosis must have been corrected; the learning and experience, solid. Treating physicians who happened to be academics held great sway over the proceedings. A doctor is a good witness, not for being a good Catholic, or a believer in miracles, but for being demonstrably skilled in medical science.

The second role, which is equally, if not more, important to the recognition of a miracle, is to express surprise at the outcome. And here’s the rub – although the doctors must have used the best scientific medicine available, they can take no credit for the cure. A religious miracle defies explanation by science. Traditionally arrogant, medicine must confess its ignorance. [….] For the Vatican, miracles occur when the patient recovers from certain death or permanent disability, following excellent, up-to-date medical care which the doctor claims had nothing to do with the cure. To turn a familiar phrase on its head: the doctor must say “the operation was a failure, but the patient lived.” And only the doctor can say it.

Unless one arbitrarily defines science as denying miracles, the entire investigation into whether a particular healing is or isn’t a miracle is a scientific question, just as much as the question of whether or not a particular healing is a full recovery or only a temporary remission. The same techniques, the same methodology, is used in both.

Duffin noticed what Dawkins was too bigoted to see: that both medicine and science are looking at the same problems, along parallel and complementary lines. When the Church declares that a particular event was miraculous, it’s not just on the basis of faith. It’s after carefully reviewing the relevant medical information, and in light of the latest and best medical technology. Rather than contradicting the principles of science, this is a healthy integration of science and faith, and her research into the process led Dr. Duffin to say, “though still an atheist, I believe in miracles—wondrous things that happen for which we can find no scientific explanation.”

Stephen Hawking was a great theoretical physicist and cosmologist, perhaps the most important since Einstein. It is only right that his remains have been interred alongside those of Isaac Newton in Westminster Abbey. He was, furthermore, a person of tremendous courage and perseverance, accomplishing groundbreaking work despite a decades-long struggle with the debilitating effects of Lou Gehrig’s disease. And by all accounts, he was man of good humor with a rare gift for friendship. It is practically impossible not to admire him. But boy was he annoying when he talked about religion!

In the last year of his life, Hawking was putting the finishing touches on a book that is something of a follow-up to his mega-bestselling A Brief History of Time. Called Brief Answers to the Big Questions, it is a series of short essays on subjects including time travel, the possibility of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, the physics that obtains within a black hole, and the colonization of space.

But chapter one is entitled simply “Is There a God?” To the surprise of no one who has been paying attention to Hawking’s musings on the subject the last several years, his answer is no. Now, to anyone involved in the apologetics or evangelization game, this is, of course, depressing, since many people, especially the young, will say, “Well, there you have it: the smartest man in the world says that God does not exist.” The problem is that one can be exceptionally intelligent in one arena of thought and actually quite naïve in another. This, I’m afraid, is the case with Stephen Hawking, who, though uniquely well-versed in his chosen field, makes a number of blunders when he wanders into the domains of philosophy and religion.

Things get off to a very bad start in the opening line of the chapter: “Science is increasingly answering questions that used to be the province of religion.” Though certain primitive forms of religion might be construed as attempts to answer what we would consider properly scientific questions, religion, in the developed sense of the term, is not asking and answering scientific questions poorly; rather, it is asking and answering qualitatively different kinds of questions.

Hawking’s glib one-liner beautifully expresses the scientistic attitude, by which I mean the arrogant tendency to reduce all knowledge to the scientific form of knowledge. Following their method of empirical observation, hypothesis formation, and experimentation, the sciences can indeed tell us a great deal about a certain dimension of reality. But they cannot, for example, tell us a thing about what makes a work of art beautiful, what makes a free act good or evil, what constitutes a just political arrangement, what are the features of a being qua being—and indeed, why there is a universe of finite existence at all. These are all philosophical and/or religious matters, and when a pure scientist, employing the method proper to the sciences, enters into them, he does so awkwardly, ham-handedly. 

Let me demonstrate this by drawing attention to Hawking’s treatment of the last issue I mentioned—namely, why there should be a universe at all. Hawking opines that theoretical physics can confidently answer this question in such a way that the existence of God is rendered superfluous. Just as, at the quantum level, elementary particles pop into and out of existence regularly without a cause, so the singularity that produced the Big Bang simply came to be out of nothing, without a cause and without an explanation. The result, Hawking concludes, is that “the universe is the ultimate free lunch.”

The first mistake—and armies of Hawking’s followers make it—is to equivocate on the meaning of the word “nothing.” In the strict philosophical (or indeed religious) sense, “nothing” designates absolute nonbeing; but what Hawking and his disciples mean by the term is in fact a fecund field of energy from which realities come and to which they return. The moment one speaks of “coming from” or “returning to,” one is not speaking of nothing! I actually laughed out loud at this part of Hawking’s analysis, which fairly gives away the game: “I think the universe was spontaneously created out of nothing, according to the laws of science.” Well, whatever you want to say about the laws of science, they’re not nothing!

Indeed, when the quantum theorists talk about particles popping into being spontaneously, they regularly invoke quantum constants and dynamics according to which such emergences occur. Again, say what you want about these law-like arrangements, they are not absolute nonbeing. And therefore, we are compelled to ask the question why should contingent states of affairs—matter, energy, the Big Bang, the laws of science themselves—exist at all?

The classical response of religious philosophy is that no contingency can be explained satisfactorily by appealing endlessly to other contingencies. Therefore, some finally noncontingent reality, which grounds and actualizes the finite universe, must exist. And this uncaused cause, this reality whose very nature is to be, is what serious religious people call “God.” None of Hawking’s speculations—least of all his musings about the putative “nothing” from which the universe arises—tells against this conviction.

May I say by way of conclusion that I actually rather liked Stephen Hawking’s last book. When he stayed within the confines of his areas of expertise, he was readable, funny, informative, and creative. But could I encourage readers please to take him with a substantial grain of salt when he speaks of the things of God?

Until the advent of Darwinian evolution, most Christians believed that the entire human race actually descended from our literally-real first parents, Adam and Eve.  Many still do. In 1950, Pope Pius XII issued an encyclical, Humani Generis, in which he wrote that “revealed truth and … the magisterium of the Church teach” that Original Sin is "a sin truly committed by one Adam [ab uno Adamo], and which is transmitted to all by generation, and exists in each one as his own."¹ The current Catechism of the Catholic Church: Second Edition tells us that “Adam and Eve committed a personal sin” … “which will be transmitted by propagation to all mankind….”²

Still, this account of our literal first parents and Original Sin, which is the essential rationale for the need of Christ as a Redeemer, has been challenged by modern scientific claims on two fronts: (1) the Christian belief that true man suddenly appeared in the form of Adam has been replaced with the standard theory of human evolution in which progressive changes in early primates evolved the consciousness and intelligence of modern man, with no clear line of demarcation marking his initial appearance, and (2) the claim that our human species arose from a single pair of first parents has been replaced with evolution taking place in large populations whose number never saw a bottleneck (reduced population) of just two individuals.

The former claim arises largely from the evidence of paleoanthropology, revealed in the gradual, progressive development of tools over time, and the latter arose particularly from the work of geneticist Francisco Ayala, whose often-cited mid-1990s studies maintained that the human population never was fewer than several thousand individuals.

Instant Appearance of the First True Human Beings

Paleontology discovers progressive improvement in tools made by evolving primates, which seems to correlate with development of hominin brains and anatomy. (Hominin is a term that includes recent humans together with extinct ancestral and related forms.) This sequence finally blends into the sophisticated tool-making and other abilities of modern man. Yet, there appear to be no sudden signs of a “spiritual-souled” Adam. Neo-Darwinists infer that all this improvement can be explained in naturalistic terms. Yet, what these facile materialist scenarios overlook is the fact that the rational case for man’s essential superiority over brute animals remains robust. Christian philosophy argues that true man is marked by intellectual activities of understanding, judging, reasoning and free will that manifest the spiritual soul’s presence.³

Complex sentient behaviors of irrational animals enabled early primates to produce primitive stone tools, even including early Acheulean stone hand-axes exhibiting some symmetry—wrought by Homo erectus hominins dating back 1.4 million years. Still, it wasn’t until the early Middle Pleistocene period, some three-quarters of a million years ago, that later hand-axes appeared having a congruent, three-dimensionally symmetrical shape that apodictically demonstrates true human intellection.⁴ This, as well as evidence of early controlled use of fire, appears about that time— evincing the first unequivocal presence of the human spiritual soul. These sophisticated artifacts may be viewed as scientific evidence, which also has an important philosophical implication, namely, that such artifacts necessarily imply the activity of an intellectual agent – a qualitatively superior, true human being with a spiritual soul.⁵ True man may have been present earlier, but remains thus far undetected.

Since mere matter can never evolve into spirit, true man must have appeared instantly at some point —regardless of the misreading of fossil tool evidence by Neo-Darwinians. Scientific failure to detect that fact and that moment in no way undermines the philosophical necessity of its reality. The scientific possibility of a literal Adam and Eve remains intact despite the gradual improvement of toolmaking. Moreover, the philosophical proof that there must be a first true human being lends support to the credibility of Adam and Eve, since having a spiritual-souled first true man is part of that biblical account.

The Challenge Posed by Modern Genetics

Until very recently, it has been accepted scientific dogma that human beings could not have arisen from a single mating pair of first true humans. This claim has been based on the distribution of single nucleotide polymorphisms in the human population, and coalescence and lineage disequilibrium studies. Researchers have estimated the hominin population at the time of our origin had to be in the thousands. Indeed, some researchers claim that there has never been a hominin population smaller than one thousand in the last two million years.⁶

Yet these estimates are subject to confounding error because of the assumptions involved, for example, “...a constant background mutation rate over time, lack of selection for genetic change on the DNA sequences being studied, random breeding among individuals, no migrations in or out of the breeding population, and the assumption of a constant population size,”⁷—such that DNA sequence differences (polymorphisms) alone are insufficient to determine effective population size.⁸

Perhaps the best example of such a failure is the study by geneticist Francisco Ayala published in Science (1995),⁹ in which he claimed that a mating pair of just two first true humans was scientifically impossible. Ayala based his claim on the large number of versions (alleles) of the gene HLA-DRB1 that are found in the present human population. Ayala claimed that there were thirty-two ancient lineages of HLA-DRB1 prior to the Homo (human)/Pan (chimpanzee) split, which he said occurred six million years ago. The problem is that each individual carries only two versions of a gene – so that there would be no way that just two individuals could have possibly passed on all those alleles at any time since the lineages split. A bottleneck (reduced population) of just two true human beings, Adam and Eve, appeared to be scientifically impossible.

But it turned out that Ayala’s claim of thirty-two ancient HLA-DRB1 lineages contained methodological errors. The DNA he chose was subject to strong selection, hypermutation, and gene conversion, which skewed his results. Recognizing the problem, Tomas Bergström et al. published a study (1998) showing just seven such alleles at the time of the Homo/Pan split, with most of the present genetic diversity appearing in the last quarter million years.¹⁰ Still later, another study (2007) by von Salomé et al., inferred that only four such lineages existed more than five million years ago, with a few more appearing shortly thereafter.¹¹

While this article is too short to analyze all the genetics pertinent to these studies, often overlooked is the inherent epistemic weakness of these retrospective calculations. It is all too easy to make false assumptions that invalidate results. The assumptions of random breeding among individuals, constant mutation rates, or constant population size may be incorrect. Even the methods used for analysis can make a difference. One need merely think of the errors already noted in present day computer models about trends of climate change.

Indeed, claims that “Adam and Eve are scientifically impossible,” are not scientific, as science is always subject to revision, as we shall see.

The Proposed “Interbreeding Solution”

Given the seemingly problematic genetics of a literal Adam and Eve, philosopher Kenneth W. Kemp, writing in the American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly (2011), proposed an alternative solution in the form of the interbreeding hypothesis, that is, that present genetic diversity in genes, such as HLA-DRB1, might be explained through interbreeding between Adam and Eve’s true human descendants and their subhuman “relatives” in the same biological population.

Kemp’s hypothesis meets the theological requirements that Adam and Eve must be the first true human beings and that all true humans today must be their biological descendants. In any such scenario, the possession of intellect by true men would enable them to outcompete their subhuman “cousins,” thus explaining why such nearly identical subhumans are no longer extant.

Given that studies by Bergström et al. and von Salomé et al. showed that many fewer excess alleles need to be explained than Ayala initially claimed—but that the estimate hovers on the border of what can pass through just two ancestors, it is possible that such an interbreeding solution might still be needed in order to explain present genetic diversity.

But, the question remains as to whether such a potentially ethically-problematic solution, entailing sexual intercourse between true men and subhuman animals, is really necessary.

More Recent Genetic Studies

In 2017, a series of unexpected events occurred that amply illustrate the need for caution in making claims about human beings’ origin. Biologist Dennis Venema published the claim that it was as certain as that the earth revolves around the sun that we came from a population of thousands. This precipitated a prolonged discussion by scientists on the website, Biologos, which revealed that, despite all the claims, no one had directly tested whether or not we could have come from a first human pair. Recounting the story at Evolution News, molecular biologist Ann Gauger described how two scientists decided to finally directly test the possibility.  They ran different computer models and, amazingly, they found that:

 “A bottleneck of two that is older than 500,000 years ago cannot be ruled out. That does not mean such a bottleneck ever existed, but rather that the possibility cannot be excluded. Future models may change that number of 500,000 years, up or down...
 
This is based on an analysis of the genetic data run by Drs. Schaffner and Swamidass, themselves evolutionary biologists and not ID supporters.”

In the context of a lengthy and highly technical analysis on his blog, Dr. S. Joshua Swamidass, summarized the results as follows:

“A very recent bottleneck (say 50 kya) seems impossible, but a more ancient bottleneck of our ancestors (if very brief) at 500 kya might be consistent with the evidence. Sometime before 500 kya, this couple would not be Homo sapiens, but they might (exact dates debatable) be the common ancestor of Homo sapiens, Denisovans, and Neanderthals.”

Swamidass realized that there was yet another way to disprove a first pair. If it could be shown that human beings share too many alleles (more than four) of any gene with chimps or gorillas, that would argue for our common descent from a population of more than two. (Adam and Eve could pass along only four.) This passing along of alleles between species by common descent is known as trans-species polymorphism (TSP). The gene family most likely to demonstrate TSP is the HLA family, including HLA-DRB1, the gene Francisco Ayala studied in 1995 in an attempt to demonstrate Adam and Eve were not possible.

In light of the model results described above, Dr. Swamidass re-examined Ayala’s work. Swamidass found a paper, published in BMC Evolutionary Biology (2016), that analyzed the genetic networks of HLA genes, along with about 12,000 other genes. This study found that the apparent TSP of HLA-DRB1, along with other HLA genes (HLA-DPB1, HLA-C, HLA-A, and HLA-B), is probably due to convergent evolution. Human alleles are mutating over time toward the same sequence, likely due to selection that favors that sequence.

Referring to the results of that paper, Swamidass notes, “… HLA-DRB1 is the most variable HLA gene. It is notable for having over 500 squares in the DNA of about merely 1,000 individuals, compared with an expected number of less than 10. That means if we had tried to put the DNA into a tree, we would see at least 500 mutations discordant with a phylogenetic tree. This is just a stunning result, because it means that HLA-DRB1 alleles are just not well described as a tree.”

What Swamidass means is that HLA-DRB1 shows signs of convergent evolution. The 500 squares he refers to are places where the HLA-DRB1 DNA sequence is more similar than it should be, showing signs of converging on a particular sequence.  Thus any similarity between chimpanzee and human HLA-DRB1 sequences is probably due to convergent evolution also, not TSP. This considerably weakens TSP as a challenge to a first pair.

Any conclusions based on the assumption of TSP are called into question. At this point, it seems even TSP cannot be used to rule out a first hominin mating pair. 

This is on-going, exciting research, not yet published in a peer reviewed journal. It shows that the claim that we had to come from a population of thousands was based on presumption and not proof. The claim that a first pair is impossible, when tested directly, was wrong. Finally, a first human mating pair is possible, but not proven.

I am indebted to Dr. Ann Gauger, who pointed out all this recent research and its implications to me, and who has assisted me in my preparation of the scientific sections.

Conclusion

It was never the intent of this paper to offer scientific proof of Adam and Eve’s literal reality. The sole purpose has been to show that they are not scientifically impossible. 

Based on the best available evidence and analysis, this goal has been achieved.

The most recent research indicates that the best likelihood for there being two first parents for the human race is prior to half a million years ago. This finding comports significantly with my own speculation stated at the beginning of this article, namely, that, based on intellect-evincing artifacts, the probable time for the first true human beings—Adam and Eve—would be some three-quarters of a million years ago.

This philosophical inference that the makers of such artifacts must be true human beings means that they would be proper candidates for being identical with the possible “first hominin mating pair” discussed in the previous section.

And yes, as Swamidass points out, given their ancient time frame, this would make them “the common ancestor of Homo sapiens, Denisovans, and Neanderthals.”

Few understand that adequate speculative treatment of a literal Adam and Eve requires proper correlation of three disciplinary perspectives: theological, philosophical, and natural scientific. Theologically, Adam and Eve must be the first true human beings and all true men must be their descendants. Philosophically, the first true man must be the first hominin possessing intellect and a spiritual soul – as evinced by artifacts, such as those artistic stone hand axes of three-quarters of a million years ago. This is the reason why “candidates” proposed more recently in time cannot possibly be the true first parents, since there is evidence that true humans would chronologically precede them. Finally, in terms of natural science, it must be shown that – unless there is need for recourse to the interbreeding hypothesis – a bottleneck of just two true first human beings is possible. A credible case for that very possibility in the speculative time frame that I propose has just been offered, as shown above.

Therefore, a literal Adam and Eve is scientifically possible.

Of course, the positive evidence for the actual existence of a literal Adam and Eve lies, not in natural science or philosophy, but in the two thousand years of Christian miracles, singularly embodied in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Redeemer promised by God to our first parents, Adam and Eve, after they had personally committed Original Sin. To Christians, these miracles, especially when combined with the newfound evidence for the scientific possibility of a literal Adam and Eve, will serve to demonstrate the rational credibility of this foundational doctrine of the Faith.

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716) famously posed the ultimate question: “Why is there something rather than nothing?” To this, theoretical physicist Sean Carroll replies: “The universe can simply exist, end of story.”

Still, as I have shown elsewhere, everything must have a reason for its being or coming-to-be, including the cosmos. This metaphysical first principle is ably defended by others as well.¹ One distinction must be added: either a thing is its own reason or not. To the extent it fails to fully explain itself, something else must be posited as an extrinsic sufficient reason: a cause. So, does the cosmos “simply exist” – or does it need a cause?

The leading philosophers of ancient Greece showed no inkling of the concept of creation ex nihilo in time. For Leucippus (c. 490-430 B.C.) and Democritus (c. 460-360 B.C.), indivisible atoms were eternal in the void and creation of the world simply entailed them becoming packed or scattered, thus producing the world of things about us. For Plato (c. 428-348 B.C.), the creation myth of the Timaeus entailed the demiurge looking up to the eternal forms and patterning the pre-existing unordered material chaos according to them to produce the orderly cosmos. Even Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) appears to argue in his Physics, book one, that matter must have always existed as the substratum for the endless change of forms.

Unique to Western thought was the Jewish and Christian belief in a free creation of the world by God in time – ex nihilo et utens nihilo: out of nothing and presupposing no pre-existent material. Neo-Platonists, beginning with Plotinus (c. 204-270), did have a notion of creation ex nihilo, but solely as a necessary emanation from God, not the free creation of Christian thought.

Flash forward to the seventeenth century and we see a resurgence of philosophical atomism by theists Descartes, Gassendi, Boyle, and others. This later begot scientific atomism in nineteenth century chemistry and physics, which then invited the atheistic interpretations of scientific materialism and naturalism. For centuries, atheistic materialists had assumed the eternity of the material world, a view seemingly harmonious with the “new atomism.” All of this also fit well with twentieth century astronomy’s standard “steady state” theory.

The advent of the “Big Bang” theory of cosmic origins by Belgian priest and astronomer Georges Lemaitre (1894-1966) thus met opposition for proposing a scientific hypothesis that the cosmos actually had a temporal beginning. Among the first to complain was Albert Einstein himself. Science had seemed squarely in the atheist’s corner, until this upstart theory was proposed – a theory that sounded too much like what atheists viewed as the “Christian mythology” of creation in time. As astronomer Robert Jastrow observed, this led to a peculiar reaction by scientists in which they opposed a promising new theory – possibly on grounds more philosophical than scientific. It wasn’t until the 1964 cosmic microwave background radiation discovery by Penzias and Wilson that the Big Bang theory became generally accepted as correct.

In the final two sentences of his 1978 book, God and the Astronomers, Dr. Jastrow writes: “For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance, he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.”

Battle Over the “Big Bang’s” Significance

Atheistic scientists, like physicist Stephen Hawking, seek to avoid any possible theological implications of the Big Bang by redefining the meaning of this absolute beginning in time in terms that would avoid any need for God. He posits an imaginary time in which there would be no boundaries to space-time just as there are no boundaries to earth’s surface, concluding: “Thus, the universe would be a completely self-contained system. It would not be determined by anything outside the physical universe that we observe.”

Today we see atheists doing all they can to eliminate a cosmos instantly created by an all-powerful God, either by (1) alleging that something can, indeed, be made out of nothing, in light of quantum mechanics, or (2) by claiming, like Dr. Hawking, that the beginning somehow does not really need a metaphysical explanation.

Still, it turns out that the “nothing” that atheists claim can be used to make an entire cosmos from is not really “nothing” at all, but simply the actual something of a quantum vacuum, which entails a lot of matter-antimatter potential that “crackles with energy.” Empty space is not nothing, but something very physically real.

Everyone truthfully knows that you simply cannot get something from absolutely nothing. Even Dr. Hawking tries to evade an absolute beginning in time for the cosmos by his “no boundary” explanation offered above. This also why materialists who would evade a Creator feel forced to affirm the endless past existence of something -- be it physical matter as such, or some kind of minimal energy field from which the Big Bang exploded, or at least, certain laws of physics. Indeed, one method used to defeat the Kalam cosmological argument for God is to claim that the premise that the universe must have had a beginning in time is false.

The fact that such mental gymnastics are engaged in so as to evade precisely an absolute cosmic beginning bespeaks the massive problems it would present to atheistic materialism.

What is there about the very thought of the cosmos suddenly popping into existence out of absolutely nothing that so instantly moves the mind of most sane men to say, “Then, God must exist!’? What is there about such instantaneous creation ex nihilo that bespeaks so unequivocally to the human mind the exclusive mark of true divinity?

Why Infinite Power is Required

Both atheist and theist alike see in the “out-of-nothing” explosive instant appearance of a Big Bang the manifestation of unlimited raw power, infinite power. Just as clear is the fact that infinite power could reside solely in an infinite being that fulfills the classical definition of God. This is precisely why atheists go to great lengths to deny that any such “creation event” could have ever occurred at the beginning of time.

Still, is such instinctive inference rationally justified? What first stands out is the fact that absolutely no one claims that the cosmos actually appeared out of nowhere and from absolutely nothing. Atheists either claim it always existed in some physical form or other, or else, attempt the bait and switch of claiming it came from nothing – but the “nothing” turns out to be the actual something of the quantum vacuum as explained above. In proclaiming the Christian doctrine of true creation in time, theists do not hold that the cosmos arose from absolutely nothing either. Rather, they say the world was made by the power of the eternal God.

Thus, all explicitly or implicitly concur (1) that something has always existed and (2) that you do not get something from absolutely nothing.

But then, why does it take infinite power to create ex nihilo et utens nihilo? After all, the cosmos which is created, though immense, is still existentially limited. So, why would unlimited power be required to create what is itself limited in being?

Well, as St. Thomas Aquinas points out², “… the power of the maker is measured not only by substance of the thing made but also from the manner of its making ….” To build the Empire State Building in one year is impressive. But to build it in a single day would defy belief. To make a chicken from another chicken by cloning is impressive. To evolve a chicken from random subatomic particles is nearly unimaginable – since the distance between what there is to work with and the produced chicken is even greater than in the cloning example. But to produce a chicken from no preexisting matter requires immeasurable power, since there is no proportion at all between nothing and something. Since immeasurable power is the same as unlimited or infinite power, it would take infinite power for God to create the cosmos ex nihilo.

The Real Meaning of “Being Created”

Thus, on the hypothesis that the cosmos did begin in time, it would depend on the infinite power of God to have created it. Now what depends on another to bring it into existence clearly does not account for its own existence, but rather depends on another for the existence it has received. The creature that “pops into existence” is an effect, that is, a being that does not adequately explain its own existence. As such, it depends on an extrinsic cause for its existence.

So, if God exercises his infinite power to bring the cosmos into being, what happens the next moment after he has created it? Can God cease his causal activity in relation to the world, and yet, the world still exists? As St. Thomas observes³, “When the cause ceases causing, the effect ceases.” Were God to withdraw his creative causality from the cosmos, the cosmos would cease to exist. God must continue to create the universe in order for the universe to continue to exist. This creatio continua or “conservation” must continue for as long as the world continues to exist. Thus, God is said, not only to create the world, but also to conserve it in existence.

Moreover, for St. Thomas, there is a real distinction between the world having a beginning in time and its being created ex nihilo. This is clear from the fact that, while St. Thomas maintains that the belief that the world was created with a temporal beginning is a doctrine of Catholic Faith, he does not maintain that this is possible to prove from natural reason. Indeed, in his short work On the Eternity of the World, St. Thomas explicitly argues for the philosophical possibility of the world’s eternity. After all, God could have been creating (conserving) the world from all eternity: it would have no beginning in time, yet still be created.

This means that the concept of the world beginning in time is distinct from the concept of its being created by the power of God. Even if God did not create the world with a beginning in time, the world would still be the object of his creative act in order to sustain it in being throughout eternity.

For the same reason that it would take infinite power to create the world at the beginning of time, it takes infinite power to keep it in existence even if it existed from all eternity. This is because the real meaning of “being created” is not tied to having a temporal beginning, but rather to the fact that anything exists as opposed to non-existence. It takes infinite power to explain why anything simply exists – even the least subatomic particle “popping into existence” for a nanosecond in a quantum vacuum.

In other words, the creative act is not measured by the fact that something goes from non-being to being at the beginning of its existence, but simply by the fact that it manifests the act of existing as opposed to non-being during its existence. Both acts require exactly the same power to explain fully: infinite power.

The key insight here is that existence itself is an act – the most basic of all acts: that by which a thing is constituted as real as opposed to being nothing at all. This act “does something.” It keeps every creature in being. And the power needed to do this is measured by the same criteria we discussed earlier. Since there is no proportion at all between non-being and being, there is no way to measure the power required to posit this act by which a finite being is being continually created, that is, “standing outside of nothingness,” even if it had no beginning in time.

Infinite power is required to explain the existence of every finite being and of that whole collectivity of finite bodies known as the cosmos. It takes infinite power to explain the existence of the cosmos. But infinite power cannot reside in a finite being or even in a collectivity of finite beings.

Therefore there must exist an Infinite Being, God, who alone can possess and manifest the infinite power required to create and conserve in existence the finite cosmos.

“Why is there something rather than nothing?” The answer to this ultimate question is simply “because God exists and creates it.” God’s infinite power is the reason for his own existence. My argument here is a redacted version of a formal paper that I have published elsewhere.

Postscript

Given the difficulty that some viewers of Strange Notions have had in grasping the insight that physical laws like inertia fail to fully explain the continued motion of heavenly bodies, I suspect that they may find the argument presented herein demanding full explanation of cosmic existence to be even less compelling. Still, it is curious that these same minds that are so skeptical of any rational explanation of our incredible universe should so easily be intellectually satisfied with the “just so” explanation of a cosmos that has always “just happened to exist” without any real explanation either in itself or from an extrinsic cause.

 
On a recent episode of The Late Show, host Stephen Colbert and frequent visitor Neil deGrasse Tyson joked about the astronomical insignificance of New Year’s Day.

Before long, Tyson was talking about the role the Catholic Church played in creating the calendar as we know it. “The world’s calendar is the Gregorian calendar after Pope Gregory,” Tyson explains. “Put that into place in 1582, because the previous Julian calendar was messing up in the year. It was off by ten days. And the pope said, ‘We got to fix this…’ There’s a Vatican Observatory to this day. At the time, before telescopes were invented, these Jesuit priests were put into the service of figuring out why the calendar was shifting in the year.”

Colbert, known for his openness about his Catholic faith, then asks Tyson if it’s true that a Catholic priest formulated the Big Bang Theory. “Yes,” Tyson responds. “Georges Lemaître. Using Einstein’s equations … he deduces that the history of the universe must’ve started with a bang. So Catholics have been in there in multiple places.”

This little exchange might have seemed uninteresting in another era, but not today. The rise in the new atheism and Biblical literalism have made it a commonplace that science and religion are in conflict, and young people are absorbing the idea as axiomatic. In her recent book iGen, about the least religious generation in U.S. history, Dr. Jean Twenge quotes one young person as saying: “I knew from church that I couldn’t believe in both science and God, so that was it. I didn’t believe in God anymore.”

That may be true in some churches, but not the Catholic Church – and it’s worth repeating just as often as the opportunity allows. In Catholicism, belief in science and God are compatible. In fact, Tyson and Colbert’s conversation is a glaring reminder that many Catholic priests and believers have been leading scientists themselves. There are theological and historical reasons for this, but the bottom line is this: Catholicism is a science-friendly religion, and it’s enshrined in the Catholic Catechism.

Even at the peak of the new atheism and its mockery of all things religious in the 2000s, one man seemed to draw the respect and attention of people like Richard Dawkins and Bill Maher: Fr. George Coyne, a priest and astrophysicist who ran the Vatican Observatory outside of Tucson. His very existence was a challenge to the view that religion “poisons” rational, scientific thinking. Like Drummond at the end of Inherit the Wind, who marched out of the courtroom with both the Bible and On the Origin of Species in his hands, Coyne represented an intriguing third option outside of the fray.

The new atheists have largely faded, and affable agnostics like Tyson have filled the vacuum. He may not be an unwavering fan of religion (the first episode of his TV series Comsos painted 16th-century Catholic clerics as anti-science), but he is committed first and foremost to advancing knowledge, not denigrating religion. This is a welcome turn of events, one that has resulted in more positive encounters like the one with Colbert.

And they really only scratched the surface. Catholic scientists were not only behind the formation of the calendar and the formulation of the Big Bang Theory: they were behind groundbreaking discoveries about the size of the earth (Fr. Jean-Félix Picard), pasteurization (Louis Pasteur), and genetics (Gregor Mendel). In fact, one of the first people to correctly explain rainbows was a 13th-century Dominican friar! There’s Roger Bacon, Pascal, Descartes – the list goes on and on. The Church’s unfortunate treatment of Galileo (whether the actual events, or the mythical spin on the events lodged in our collective consciousness) was, at worst, a brief spat in a long and respectful friendship. And Copernicus and Galileo, let’s not forget, were both Catholics themselves.

At the end of the interview Colbert asks what “mystery” of the universe keeps Tyson up at night. His response reveals a deep humility about the observable universe. In the future, dark energy will render the universe so large that all of the galaxies – the source of “everything we know about the history of the universe” – will be “ripped” from view. Then he wonders: was some previous chapter of the universe ripped away from us? “Here we are touching the elephant, not knowing that in fact there’s an elephant standing there. Or maybe there’s the shadow of the elephant and the elephant has been moved. We don’t know what we don’t know.”

The shadow side of the material universe – past, present, and future – is baffling indeed. But what we do know is this: when it comes to putting the tools of observation and the light of reason to good use, science has an ally in the Catholic Church.

Today some claim that modern physics evinces that Aristotelian-Thomist philosophy is an archaic myth that has outlived its credibility. They say things like, “If Thomist metaphysics contradicts modern physics, then Thomism is false.”

They make claims against Thomism, citing modern physical theories like quantum mechanics and relativity. We are told counterintuitive things, such as that (1) whole universes can pop into existence from nothing according to quantum mechanics, (2) effects sometimes actually exist before their causes, (3) special relativity entails that time is not sequential, but rather “B theory” says that past, present, and future are equally real and change is impossible, and (4) electrons around an atomic nucleus can be in two positions simultaneously, or “smeared over space.”

Still, on basic truths about the world, natural science and Thomism hold identical positions.

Epistemological realism: Natural scientists and Thomists share the conviction that we immediately sense the external world. Scientists are certain that they are discovering laws that apply to a vast extramental physical cosmos. Still, those who impose a materialist philosophical interpretation on sensation’s science find themselves entrapped in an epistemological nightmare whose immanent logic leads to the false conclusion that all we really know is internal neural patterns of our brains.

Thomism offers an alternate view of sense experience that supports natural science’s realist presupposition. It notes that all human beings have the same noetic starting point. There are three components to every human act of knowledge: (1) the thing known, (2) the act of knowing, and (3) reflexive awareness of the knowing self. In most relevant cases, what is known is known as external to one’s self. While an entire epistemology is not possible here, note that we cannot doubt external reality when it is directly confronted. Doubt arises only when we shift our attention to a judgment about the external object in which what we know is not the object itself. For example, if I close my eyes and wonder whether the lion confronting me is really about to attack me, I am no longer looking at the lion, but at some internal image of it. At that moment, I can doubt the real lion, but I cannot doubt its mental image. Opening my eyes provides a different certitude – as the lion takes its first bite.

Metaphysical first principles: Universal first principles apply to the minds and methods of modern physicists themselves. If there is even a single exception to such universal rules, there would be no logical reason ever to expect such a “broken rule” to apply again. Assuming, for instance, that the whole universe has no reason for existing, but that somehow the rest of cosmic phenomena still must have reasons, is special pleading in the extreme.

The principle of non-contradiction, which says that things cannot both be and not be, is universally applied by every scientist making an observation. Even the smallest phenomena must be read as what it is and not as its contradictory – otherwise, the reading would be useless. Claims of contradictory phenomena, such as wave-particle duality, rely on such observations. If a subatomic entity appears as a wave, that same exact reading cannot say it is a particle. Neither Thomist nor natural scientist could ever reject this principle, since, without it, every judgment could be contradicted.

Science simply cannot be done without the principle of sufficient reason. By “sufficient reason,” I refer, not to Leibniz’s famous definition, but simply the universal truth that all things must have reasons. Long before St. Thomas or Leibniz, Adam knew that all things have reasons. So do all scientists. Every scientist pursues explanations of natural phenomena because he knows they must have explanations. Through Hume’s influence, he may think of causes as “antecedents,” but he never stops looking for them because he believes in the principle of causality. Causes are merely reasons for things that do not explain themselves.

From the time a child begins to explore the world, his mind invariably demands to know reasons for all things. Things’ intelligibility demands that they “make sense” -- either through some external cause or their own internal coherence. “Why?” is the ever-pressing question. Science never researches to discover whether a given phenomenon has an explanation, but rather to discover what that explanation is. If sufficient reason is not universally true, scientists could never be sure that observed phenomena actually reveal the nature of what they study, since no underlying reason need exist. Science would be impossible. The mind’s reasoning process could never be trusted, since no reasons for thoughts need ever be present. Indeed, all the rational connections in the whole of reality depend upon our expectation that reasons underlie everything. And, if the way our mind works does not correspond to reality, science becomes fantasy and we are all, by definition, psychotic.

Even atheist scientists, like Stephen Hawking, questioning the existence of the cosmos, usually assert that it simply explains itself. They may claim that it is the end product of eternal cosmic “bubbles,” arising from “nothing” – which “nothing” turns out to be a “quantum vacuum” that itself turns out to be actually pre-existing active quantum fields consisting of virtual particles! Those who claim that the cosmos has no reason at all for existing are making a philosophical claim that happens to be at variance from both modern physics and Thomism. Thomist philosophy comports with and supports natural science’s universal operating conviction that things have reasons.

Potency and act, matter and form, finality, essence and existence: Most other Thomist principles are so clearly philosophical that natural science properly says little about them. The exceptions would be materialist denials that substantial forms and final causes exist in nature. Still, those are clearly philosophical, not scientific, claims.

What should be made of the types of counterintuitive scientific claims presented at the beginning of this article? To understand, we have to consider the various steps in the process of scientific enquiry. First, we have the target entity to be explained, for example, the actual movement of planets around the Sun. Since concrete solar system conditions are far too complex to “handle” in every detail, scientists create a “model” that abstracts essential elements of the target from less relevant details, such as, the actual shape of bodies, gravitational influence from other stars, and so forth. In the process, the model no longer perfectly fits the actual conditions of the target, and yet, is close enough to reality so as to illustrate an hypothesized explanation.

What happens next is where physicists can surreptitiously introduce philosophical assumptions. For now the scientist will make his own interpretation of the model – sometimes with hidden philosophical assumptions. Note that the “interpretation” is based on a “model,” which is based on the target reality. Hence, the speculative interpretation is two epistemic steps removed from the original reality. While the solar system model appears fairly straightforward, some evident instances of philosophical speculation are found in modern physics.

For example, most people would not realize that there more than a dozen different interpretations of quantum mechanics – many expressive of diverse philosophical assumptions or claims. Such interpretive pluralism alone bespeaks limited empirical evidence favoring one interpretation over another. Still, this philosophical quagmire does not prevent aggressive claims being made for various interpretations -- as if they were fully demonstrated by natural science.

Thomism or any valid philosophy must always comport with experience, for example, by acknowledging the fact of change. Conversely, natural science can never validly sustain claims that violate universal metaphysical principles.

Thomist metaphysics is often claimed to be “disproved” by conventional interpretations of quantum mechanics, also known as the “Copenhagen interpretation.” The paper, “Ontological Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics”(2011), exposes how such physicists’ claims “are not consistent or coherent in their existential treatment of fundamental particles, their wavefunctions, and physical states.” (Introduction) In its concluding paragraph, it warns, “The great danger in Copenhagen sophistry is not that it will harm physics as a discipline, but that it leads to egregious errors in other disciplines, which accept the Copenhagen interpretation with the authority of scientific truth.” (no. 15)

The number of erroneous metaphysical assertions made today by physicists operating outside their proper field of competence prevents “unraveling” them all here.

Still, drawing upon the same paper (no. 6), consider the following example I offer regarding the claim of “superposition” of electrons around an atom’s nucleus. Rejecting the “old” model in which electrons remained in a single orbit around the nucleus, some claim that quantum mechanics affirms such counterintuitive notions as that, when unobserved, electrons are simultaneously in different positions, or perhaps, even “smeared over space.” Yet, when we “collapse the field” by making an observation, an electron is always found solely in one position or another – never in the indefinite or contradictory positions that are assumed prior to taking the measurement. Since an electron is always found in a single position, the counterintuitive claims should be rejected for clearly violating the principle of non-contradiction. Rather, we must be talking merely about conflicting levels of probability as to where a particle actually is when not measured. Quantum mechanics ought not to be interpreted as violating sound metaphysics.

This same paper offers similar explanations of other quantum mechanics enigmas, including wave-particle duality (nos. 4, 14), Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle (no. 9), and the ontological status of virtual particles (no. 13). In these and other instances, it shows that sound metaphysical principles deserve rightful priority over counterintuitive interpretations of theoretical models. It counsels, “Denials of the principle of non-contradiction or of objective reality ought to concern physicists no less than philosophers, as these logical and metaphysical claims are presupposed by physics.” (no. 13).

A 2006 study appeared to support Wheeler’s delayed-choice thought experiment suggesting that an effect could actually occur temporally prior to its cause, thus wreaking havoc on the metaphysical principle of causality. Yet, a published comment corrected this, pointing out that the experimental observations can easily be explained without recourse to claims of reverse causation.

Although both Thomism and modern physics proclaim general “principles” or “laws,” they “get there” in vastly different ways leading to vastly different implications.

Scientific research relies upon an inductive method from many particular observations to universal conclusions that can never achieve logical necessity. Experimental verification of hypotheses entails the logical fallacy of affirming the consequent, remedied hopefully by a perfect “critical experiment.” Negative experimental results can falsify an hypothesis. But, no amount of positive results can ever absolutely prove one is true, since some unanticipated extraneous factor always might have produced the positive result. Competent scientists always admit that the experimental results merely tend to support their hypotheses. Both these logical weaknesses entail that the “laws of physics” possess neither absolute certitude nor guaranteed universality.

By contrast, Thomism and the natural metaphysics of human intelligence discover universal first principles based upon the intellectual apprehension of intelligible being in our very first experience of material things – forming a concept of being that inherently transcends all reality. Since these are principles of existence, not essence, they necessarily apply to all beings – whether of cosmic dimensions or infinitesimally small. Such universal principles are regulative of all physics and philosophy. Unseen philosophical assumptions that permeate the speculative interpretations of modern physics’ models remain subject to the primary universal laws of being – whether physicists know this or not.

Metaphysics achieves universal certitudes; modern physics will get man safely to Mars – maybe.

The rational approach to quantum mechanics given above applies to relativity theory as well. Much of relativity theory may be read as simply perfective of Newtonian physics. One novel feature of special relativity is its denial of temporal simultaneity. An odd philosophical “by product” of this was the “B theory” of time with its attendant hypothesis of “eternalism.”

The “B-theory” of time, proposed by McTaggart in 1908, states that, instead of the common sense progression of events from past, to present, to future, events can be ordered in a tenseless way. “B-theorists” appear to take a “God’s-eye” view of space-time, embracing all frames of reference. This leads them to say that past, present, and future are equally real and that change is an illusion. Some rely upon Parmenides’ ancient arguments against the possibility of change.

Those who follow Parmenides’ (born c. 515 BC) univocal use of “being” to argue that change is impossible imbibe genuinely archaic philosophy. Aristotle (384-322 BC) realized that “being” is an analogous term. Combined with his innovative principles of potency and act, he finally refuted Parmenides’ argument -- demonstrating how change was both possible and actual. Competent philosophers respect reason, but also immediate experience. Even if change were merely an illusion, as Parmenides claimed, it is real as an illusion and, as such, part of reality that must be explained, not denied.

All these peculiar “B theory” claims about time, together with its “eternalism,” are philosophical interpretations of special relativity, which are not empirically verifiable.

Special relativity shows that relativity of simultaneity obtains solely between “spatially-separated” events, meaning events outside each other’s light cone (no light-speed or sublight signal can connect them). Contrary to “B theory” claims, “Relativity does not abolish the objectivity of time as succession, at least not locally. For every physical event, there is an absolute past and absolute future that is the same in all reference frames.” (“Basic Issues in Natural Philosophy,” (2016) no. 14.1.3.)  Such local events are still temporally ordered in the common sense manner: past to present to future. Moreover, “This preserves the succession of causality, where a cause cannot be temporally posterior to its effect (though they might be simultaneous).” (Ibid.) Since all causal interaction is local (no action at a distance), the Thomist principle that the effect must be immediately dependent upon its cause is in no way violated.

Since it is impossible to examine every possible physical theory, it is reasonable to expect that any future claim by physicists that contradicts metaphysical first principles entails philosophical assumptions outside their field of competence.

Physicists loathe being told that they are doing metaphysics – even more so, that they are doing metaphysics badly.

Many competent physicists know the limitations of their science, and therefore, take their measurements, do their computations, and explain their findings -- without misleading the public with problematic speculations, which they falsely claim to be objective or definitive findings of natural science.

Contemporary science’s progressive achievements crown God’s gift of human intelligence. Still, the whole point of this article has been to show that, unlike the inherent logical weaknesses of the “laws of physics,” which prevent them from ever rightfully enunciating universal certitudes, Thomism’s universally-certain laws of being, not only are logically presupposed by physics, but, indeed, supersede any modern physics’ claims that actually contradict them.

No, Thomism is not an archaic philosophy in light of modern physics. To the contrary, Thomist metaphysics is regulative of modern physics’ speculative claims insofar as they contain philosophical assumptions and implications.

Back in the early 1840s, John Henry Newman observed that physical philosophers—that is, scientists—"are ever inquiring whence things are, not why; referring them to nature, not to mind; and thus they tend to make a system a substitute for a God..." The "tending" has been, as they say, trending ever since. About a hundred years later, in 1948, Fulton Sheen remarked in his outstanding study Philosophy of Religion, that:

Science cannot give us a philosophy, nor can it give us an ethics; it cannot give us a philosophy, because it immerses man in nature and avoids the important subject of his destiny. It cannot give us an ethics because science by itself is amoral. Morality comes from its ends, and science is indifferent to ends.

Lest it be thought that Sheen was anti-science or the enemy of scientists, consider his remark, from his 1928 book Religion Without God, that the "rock-surenes of 'Science' does not exist in the mind of the scientists themselves, although it does love and throb in the minds of publicists and propagandists. Scientists themselves disclaim they possess ultimate truth; rather they look upon it as a horizon toward which they are proceeding." Sheen was indicating that when a scientist begins to make metaphysical or philosophical assertions, he is no longer speaking as a scientist. Of course, a great number of famous scientists—Richard Dawkins and Stephen Hawking come to mind immediately—have used their scientific reputations in order to wade into waters that are better described as ideological and polemical. And even political.

All of those elements were obvious in the "March for Science" event that took place last week. I was blissfully unaware of the event until a friend sent a link to the local newspaper's coverage of the March for Science in Eugene, which featured some 1,500 or so true believers. And I don't say "true believers" with any sarcasm or snarkiness; on the contrary:

“We teach science and we believe in science,” said Carrie Ann Naumoff, a fifth-grade teacher at Edison Elementary in Eugene. “We’re concerned that science is being blocked and interrupted. We’re concerned about the EPA and concerned that ­scientists are being harassed for what they’re publishing. We want our students to have access to real information.”

"We believe in science." Whatever does that mean? What if the seventh-grade home-ec teacher (if such a thing still exists) exclaimed, "We believe in the culinary arts", or the 10th-grade French teacher solemnly explained, "We believe in language." Huh? But we can guess what Ms. Naumoff means: she and the enlightened educating class are the guardians of science, which is the one, true source of truth and goodness, leading us into a future of bliss. However, such a belief is not really about scientific research and fact, but about a particular ideological perspective, generally called scientism, which is not about following physical evidence where it might lead, but flattening all of reality into the narrow confines of materialist proofs and premises.

Dr. Austin L. Hughes, a professor of Biological Sciences at the University of South Carolina, described it well in an 2012 essay titled "The Folly of Scientism":

Central to scientism is the grabbing of nearly the entire territory of what were once considered questions that properly belong to philosophy. Scientism takes science to be not only better than philosophy at answering such questions, but the only means of answering them. For most of those who dabble in scientism, this shift is unacknowledged, and may not even be recognized. But for others, it is explicit.

Writing about the recent March for Science event—which was directly inspired by the hyper-political Women's March in January—Eric Metaxas & G. Shane Morris observe:

There was a time when “science” meant the systematic pursuit of knowledge through experimentation and observation. But it’s rapidly becoming a synonym for progressive politics and materialist philosophy.
 
To be labeled a “science-denier” in 2017 often just means you’ve upset someone who insists on teaching strict, Darwinian orthodoxy in schools, or who advocates particular climate legislation, or who supports ethically fraught research on embryos.
 
In contrast, being “pro-science” has become a shibboleth for supporting progressive ideology. Think of a recent ad by National Geographic with the caption, “Stand behind the facts. Stand with science. Stand for the planet.” But just weeks prior, National Geographic had run a cover depicting a nine-year-old boy dressed as a girl. Because, as we know, they stand with science.
 
But if there were ever going to be a ceremony inaugurating this new and useless definition of science, it’s got to be last weekend’s “March for Science” in the nation’s capital, co-chaired by Bill Nye, “the science guy.” Nye, a children’s TV host from the nineties with no formal training as a scientist, has recaptured the spotlight with his videos on climate change, abortion, women’s rights, and other topics.
 
To say his arguments in some of these videos are embarrassing is being kind. For instance, in one odd and rambling speech promoting abortion, Nye claimed that because many lives end through natural causes before they leave the womb that it’s okay for us to kill the unborn ourselves. That’s like saying it’s okay to kill adults, because millions die of natural causes. That does not stop Nye’s supporters from honoring him as a champion of science.

But, again, Nye and his supporters are not really about science, but about scientism; they are not interested so much in limited, focused empirical data, but broad, sweeping claims that many would associate only with the stereotypical wild-eyed fundamentalist. Yet it's fitting, since scientism is the result of a hijacked and confused religious impulse. One serious problem, as Sheen pointed out in 1948, was that if "philosophy"—which is not much taught, learned, or loved by most Americans—"can no longer judge science, then science is its own justification; it can be used as well for purposes of destruction as for human betterment, and no one can pass judgment on its morality." Nye is a perfect example of this fundamentalist scientism, as evidenced in an op-ed he wrote for CNN.com in which he states:

With more than 600 marches taking place around the world, we conveyed that science is political, not partisan, and science should shape our policies. Although it is the means by which humankind discovers objective truths in nature, science is and has always been political. 

Which, of course, is nonsensical and irrational, just like Nye's support for abortion. The editors of The Register-Guard, perhaps mildly taken aback or even embarrassed by the creed of Ms. Naumoff and company, sought to strike a more agnostic note, stating:

The march will have served a useful purpose if it succeeds in getting Americans, including the Trump administration, to think about what science is, and what it isn’t. Science isn’t truth, and it isn’t something people should believe in. It is a method for zeroing in on the truth by testing possibilities and gathering evidence.

Hughes, in concluding his essays, offers this very sober note of warning:

Advocates of scientism today claim the sole mantle of rationality, frequently equating science with reason itself. Yet it seems the very antithesis of reason to insist that science can do what it cannot, or even that it has done what it demonstrably has not. As a scientist, I would never deny that scientific discoveries can have important implications for metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics, and that everyone interested in these topics needs to be scientifically literate. But the claim that science and science alone can answer longstanding questions in these fields gives rise to countless problems.
 
In contrast to reason, a defining characteristic of superstition is the stubborn insistence that something — a fetish, an amulet, a pack of Tarot cards — has powers which no evidence supports. From this perspective, scientism appears to have as much in common with superstition as it does with properly conducted scientific research. Scientism claims that science has already resolved questions that are inherently beyond its ability to answer.
 
Of all the fads and foibles in the long history of human credulity, scientism in all its varied guises — from fanciful cosmology to evolutionary epistemology and ethics — seems among the more dangerous, both because it pretends to be something very different from what it really is and because it has been accorded widespread and uncritical adherence.

Around the same time that Sheen was writing Philosophy of Religion, a young, agnostic medical student named Walker Percy discovered—through debilitating illness and then deep reading of Christian philosophy—that science, which he once viewed as the final word on everything, could not answer the ultimate questions. Modern science, he later wrote (after becoming Catholic), "is itself radically incoherent, not when it seeks to understand things and subhuman organisms and the cosmos itself, but when it seeks to understand man, not man’s physiology or neurology or his bloodstream, but man qua man, man when he is peculiarly human. In short, the sciences of man are incoherent."

And in a self-interview, "Questions They Never Asked Me," Percy put it this way:

This life is much too much trouble, far too strange, to arrive at the end of it and then be asked what you make of it and have to answer, ‘Scientific humanism.’ That won’t do. A poor show. Life is a mystery, love is a delight. Therefore, I take it as axiomatic that one should settle for nothing less than the infinite mystery and infinite delight; i.e., God.

We can either have an earth-bound and cramped system, or Truth Himself. The former offers trendy marches and Bill Nye rants; the latter offers infinite mystery and infinite delight.
 
 
Originally published at Catholic World Report. Used with permission.

In his excellent book, Modern Physics and Ancient Faith (University of Notre Dame Press, 2003), physics professor Stephen M. Barr recounts the typical story of the the universe as told by scientific materialists. It's one of the best summaries of the naturalist worldview I've read, from any perspective:

"The world revealed by science bears little resemblance to the world as it was portrayed by religion. Judaism and Christianity taught that the world was created by God, and that things therefore have a purpose and meaning, aside from the purposes and meanings we choose to give them. Moreover, human beings were supposed to be central to that cosmic purpose. These comforting beliefs can no longer be maintained in the face of scientific discoveries.
 
The universe more and more appears to be a vast, cold, blind, and purposeless machine. For a while it appeared that some things might escape the iron grip of science and its laws—perhaps Life or Mind. But the processes of life are now known to be just chemical reactions, involving the same elements and the same basic physical laws that govern the behavior of all matter. The mind itself is, according to the overwhelming consensus of cognitive scientists, completely explicable in the performance of the biochemical computer called the brain. There is nothing in principle that a mind does which an artificial machine could not do just as well or even better. Already, one of the greatest creative chess geniuses of all time has been thrashed by a mass of silicon circuitry.
 
There is no evidence of a spiritual realm, or that God or souls are real. In fact, even if there did exist anything of a spiritual nature, it could have no influence on the visible world, because the material world is a closed-system of physical cause and effect. Nothing external to it could affect its operations without violating the precise mathematical relationships imposed by the laws of physics. The physical world is 'causally closed,' that is, closed off to any non-physical influence.
 
All, therefore, is matter: atoms in ceaseless, aimless motion. In the words of Democritus, everything consists in 'atoms and the void.' Because the ultimate reality is matter, there cannot be any cosmic purpose or meaning, for atoms have no purposes or goals.
 
Once upon a time, scientists believed that even inanimate objects did have purposes or goals: 'ends' which they sought or toward which they tended. For example, heavy objects were said to fall because they sought their proper place at the center of the earth. That was the idea of Aristotelian physics. It was precisely when these ideas were overthrown four hundred years ago that the Scientific Revolution took off. With Galileo and Newton, science definitively rejected 'teleology' in favor of 'mechanism.' That is, science no longer explains phenomena in terms of natural purposes, but in terms of impersonal and undirected mechanisms. And, of course, is there are no purposes anywhere in nature, then there can be no purpose for the existence of the human race. The human race can no longer be thought of as 'central' to a purpose that does not exist.
 
Science has dethroned man. Far from being the center of things, he is now seen to be a very peripheral figure indeed. Every great scientific revolution has further trivialized him and pushed him to the margins. Copernicus removed the Earth from the center of the solar system. Modern astronomy has shown that the solar system itself is on the edge to a quite ordinary galaxy, which contains a hundred billion other stars. That galaxy is, in turn, one of billions and perhaps even an infinite number of galaxies. Earth is an insignificant speck in the vastness of space: its mass compared to all the matter in the observable universe is less than that of a raindrop compared to all the water in all the oceans of the world. All of recorded human history is a fleeting moment in the eons of cosmic time. Even on this cozy planet, which we think of as ours, we are latecomers. Home sapiens has been around at most a few hundred thousand years, compared to the 4 billion years of life's history. The human species is just one branch on an an ancient evolutionary tree, and not so very different from some of the other branches--genetically we overlap more than 98 percent with chimpanzees. We are the product not of purpose, but of chance mutations. Bertrand Russell perfectly summed up man's place in the cosmos when he called him 'a curious accident in a backwater.'" (19-21)

I think atheists and theists can nod their heads in agreement: that's a clear, coherent, accurate depiction of the naturalist worldview. Its main plotline may be called the "marginalization of man." In the religious view man is the center of all things, but the scientific story has since corrected that delusion.

However, there's a problem with this story. Actually, two big problems, according to Barr: its beginning and its end. It's not really true that religious man saw himself at the center of the world. The idea that the Earth sat at the center of the universe stemmed from Greek astronomy and philosophy, not religion;mdash;and certainly not Judaeo-Christian religion. The ancient Jewish picture of the world was vertical, not concentric, with the human race located between the heavens above and the "abyss" below. Humans were lower than angels and higher than plants and animals, but in no sense we were at the center. In fact, the Judaeo-Christian Scriptures depict God casting out man, sending him into exile. (Also, even in the Greek picture the central place was not the most exalted. The further things were from the "center", the more beautiful and sublime they were.)

Yet even if the beginning is a bit off, the bigger problem with the story above is its ending. As Barr notes, "If science had ended in the nineteenth century, the story would have some claim to accuracy...Instead, in the twentieth century [scientists] made discoveries even more profound and revolutionary than those of Copernicus and Newton. And, as a result, the story has become much more interesting" (22).

As with many of the best stories, this one has a plot twist at the end. And not just one plot twist, but at least five. Barr spends most of his book examining each of these plot twists in detail, so for the details I suggest picking up a copy. But here's a short summary of them:

Twist #1 - The Big Bang and the Beginning of the Universe

Jews and Christians have always believed that the world, and time itself, had a beginning, whereas materialists and atheists have tended to imagine the world has always existed. Modern skeptics have generally followed suit. In their minds, the idea of a beginning of time is associated with religious conceptions, not with scientific theory, and those scientists who believe in a beginning do so for religious reasons, not scientific reasons. Indeed, by the nineteenth century almost all the scientific evidence seemed to point to an eternal universe.

But that all changed with the discovery of the Big Bang, which came as a profound shock to the scientific community. According to Barr, "the Big Bang was as clear and as dramatic a beginning as one could have hoped to find" (22). When you combine that discovery with research built on top of the model, you have an overwhelming amount of support for a universe that began in the finite past.

In fact, the esteemed, non-religious cosmologist Alexander Vilenkin concluded at a conference in Cambridge celebrating the 70th birthday of Stephen Hawking:

"All the evidence we have says that the universe had a beginning...It is said that an argument is what convinces reasonable men and a proof is what it takes to convince even an unreasonable man. With the proof now in place, cosmologists can no longer hide behind the possibility of a past-eternal universe. There is no escape, they have to face the problem of a cosmic beginning."

Now to be clear, the discover of the Big Bang itself prove the Jewish and Christian doctrine of Creation. Nevertheless, as Barr explains, "it was unquestionably a vindication of the religious view of the universe and a blow to the materialist view" (22).

Twist #2 - The Questions Behind the Questions

In the materialist story above, the world is governed not by a personal God but by impersonal laws. Science looks to physical "mechanisms", processes, and laws to explain events in the world. But as we've deepened our understanding of these empirical laws, we've found that they flow from deeper laws and principles, such as the fundamental laws of atomic physics. And those laws flow from the laws of quantum electrodynamics. And so on, and so forth. Physicists began to look not only at physical effects themselves, but for the mathematical laws that underlie them and for a single, harmonious system that could unite them all.

Barr notes the consequence of these trends:

"It is no longer just particular substances, or objects, or phenomena that physicists asks questions about, it is the universe itself considered as a whole, and the laws of physics considered as a whole. The questions are no longer only, 'Why does this metal act this way?' or 'Why does this gas act this way?' but 'Why is the universe like this?', 'Why are the laws of physics like this?'....
 
"When it is the laws of nature themselves that become the object of curiosity, laws that are seen to form an edifice of great harmony and beauty, the question of a cosmic designer seems no longer irrelevant but inescapable." (24)

In past centuries, atheists and materialists took certain facts for granted such as the existence of a single universe or the three dimensions of space. Indeed, few people, if any, in the nineteenth century would have wondered why there are three spatial dimensions.

But today, those beliefs are not taken for granted. Physicists speak of many universes and many dimensions of space. Yet if we can't even take for granted the very number of universes, it becomes harder to avoid asking, "Why is there any universe at all?" A new openness to these deeper-level questions about reality has also opened many people to the possibility of God.

Twist #3 - The Startling Coincidences That Permit Us to Live

In the materialist story of the world, science has definitively shown that we were not meant to be here. We were a fluke, our existence the result of "a fortuitous concourse of atoms." Science dethroned man in the cosmos.

Except now, science is telling a different story. Beginning in the 1970s, people started talking about "anthropic coincidences", certain features of the laws of physics which seem—just coincidentally—to be exactly what is needed for the existence of life to be possible in our universe. As Barr writes, "The universe and its laws seem in some respects to be balanced on a knife-edge. A little deviation in one direction or the other in the way the world and its laws are put together, and we would not be here. As people have looked harder, the number of such 'coincidences' has grown" (25).

This is exactly what we might expect if human beings were meant to be here, and if the universe was created with us in mind. It doesn't mean the materialist view of the world is certainly false. In fact, skeptics have proposed other ways to explain this apparent fine-tuning for life (though Barr refutes the most popular attempts in his book.)

In any event, what is clear is that the materialists may have prematurely ended their story with the dethroning of man. It looks very much now like the story may turn out the other way.

Twist #4 - The Mind as More Than Machine

If only matter exists, as the materialist thinks, then the human mind must be a machine. The invention and popularization of the computer made this idea even more plausible. Many people, scientists and laymen alike, believe it is only a matter of time before computers become intelligent in ways that rival, or even supplant our own intelligence.

However, the past couple centuries have seen a bevy of arguments against the regnant view that the mind is no more than a physical machine—a "wet computer" or "machine made of meat" as some have called it. Barr covers some philosophical examples in his book, but the most impressive counterargument comes not from philosophy but from the science of computation itself. It's based on a brilliant and revolutionary theorem proved in 1931 by the Austrian logician Kurt Gödel, and then built on by the philosopher John Lucas and the mathematician Roger Penrose. Barr explains:

"The gist of the argument is that if one knew the program a computer uses, then one could in a certain precise sense outwit that program. If, therefore, human beings were computers, then we could in principle learn our own programs and thus be able to outwit ourselves; and this is not possible, at least not as we mean it here."

Perhaps the only way to refute the Lucas-Penrose argument against the "machine mind", which leans on Gödel's Theorem, is to say that the human intellect reasons in a way that is inherently inconsistent. This would imply not just that human beings sometimes make logical mistakes (which is obvious), but that the human mind is radically and inherently unsound in its reasoning faculties. Yet that's a huge problem. Why? Because then to maintain the belief that your mind is only a machine, you would have to argue against your own mental soundness. You would literally identify as insane. Not many physicists are willing to go that far.

In any case, the discovery of Gödel's Theorem offers another blow to the materialist story of the world. It seems that the mind cannot be reduced to mere biochemical reactions.

Twist #5 - Quantum Mechanics and the Defeat of Determinism

Most materialists deny that free will exists, and for centuries this seemed well-grounded in the findings of physics. The laws of physics appeared to be "deterministic," in the sense that what happens at a later time is solely determined through the laws of physics by what happened at earlier times. This was of course a troubling point for Judaism and Christianity, both of which held free will as a central tenant.

However, a truly astonishing reversal came in the 1920s with the discover of quantum theory. Barr describes it as "the greatest and most profound revolution in the history of physics" (27). It transformed the whole structure of theoretical physics, and in the process swept away physical determinism.

In prior centuries, the core of physical science was prediction. That's how theories were tested and proved. But with quantum theory, the present state of a physical system would not, even in principle, be enough to predict everything about its future behavior. No longer could you simply argue from the deterministic character of physics that free will was impossible.

Of course, this doesn't prove that we have free will. Instead, as Barr notes, "quantum theory simply showed that the most powerful argument against free will was obsolete. In the words of the great mathematician and physicist Hermann Weyl, 'the old classical determinism...need not oppress us any longer'" (27).

Opening the door to free will was just one of the effects of quantum theory. In its traditional or "standard" interpretation, it also posits the existence of observers who lie, at least in part, outside of the description provided by physics. That's a controversial claim, and has been challenged by radical reinterpretations of quantum theory (such as the "many-worlds interpretation") or by changing quantum theory in some way.

But as Barr writes, "The argument against materialism based on quantum theory is a strong one, and has certainly not been refuted. The line of argument is rather subtle. It is also not well-known, even among practicing physicists. But, if it is correct, it would be the most important philosophical implication to come from any scientific discovery" (28).

The above represents just a sampling of the major discoveries in the great history of science and faith. Barr spends nearly 300 pages examining them in more depth. If you'd like to learn more, I highly recommend you pick up Modern Physics and Ancient Faith for the rest of the story.
 
 
(Image credit: Rutgers)