Historically, the understanding of the natural world was greatly influenced by the Greek philosopher Aristotle, much of whose thinking about nature was concerned with purpose or final cause. Since we live in what religious thinkers understood to be a purposeful world, a fertile symbiosis was able to exist between Aristotle’s writings and Catholic theologians, and this had a profound influence on Christian theology. However, as the centuries passed, Aristotle’s approach increasingly became an impediment to scientific progress, and the study of purpose was replaced by the study of causes and mechanisms. Despite this, even an influential seventeenth-century scientist such as Isaac Newton continued to view his scientific research from a religious perspective, and viewed the order of the natural world as manifesting the glory of God.

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By the nineteenth century, science and religion had had increasingly become separate intellectual disciplines. Religion was expected to keep itself out of science and science to distance itself from religious matters. Explanations based upon natural mechanisms rather than divine purpose became normative within science, while the concept of design within the universe was regarded as a matter of religious faith. 

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Even the influential Jewish religious thinker Rabbi Jonathan Sacks would seem to have agreed that science has little to contribute to theological issues. In his book The Great Partnership: Science, Religion and the Search for Meaning he wrote:

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The heavens proclaim the glory of God; they do not proclaim the existence of God. All that breathes praises its Creator; it does not furnish philosophical verification of a Creator.1

 

Nevertheless, Sacks does devote an entire chapter of his book to discussing the improbability of the natural world being other than the creation of God. This, however, does not dissuade him from the proposition that only religion provides meaning to life and only religion, not science, provides answers to such ultimate questions as the existence of God.

 

​This chapter argues that this approach to science and religion shortchanges both. Scientific evidence provides compelling grounds for belief in the existence of God, and it defies logic to confine discussion of His existence solely to the straitjacket of religion. Moreover, limiting discussion of His existence to faith alone risks implying that science-based arguments provide only intimations of His existence and are therefore open to doubt. While it is true that science cannot provide moral direction to humanity, this does not mean that science is silent about the extraordinary order and apparent purposefulness of the cosmos. 

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In actuality, science has much to say that is relevant to the question of God and the purposefulness pervading the universe. This in turn leads to the question — what is the purpose of this purposefulness?

First, a definition. This chapter will define a proof as an argument that is compelling either because of its internal logic or because of the cumulative weight of circumstantial evidence.

 

Clearly, God’s existence can never be demonstrated experimentally. However, this does not mean that His existence is not open to rational argument based upon scientific evidence, particularly in relation to the beginnings and fundamental structure of the universe. 

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​In this essay, strong evidence for the existence of God is based on the following three propositions:

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• Scientific evidence that the universe had a beginning at which time energy, matter and time were brought into existence.

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• Scientific evidence that the universe possesses unity. 

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• Scientific evidence that the physical and biological aspects of our world display remarkable order and apparent purposefulness.

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MATTER AND ENERGY FROM NOTHING

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The following two philosophical propositions constitute powerful evidence for the existence of God when considered together with modern cosmology:

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• Whatever begins to exist requires an adequate explanation or cause.

  

• If the physical universe itself had a beginning, its ultimate cause cannot simply be another physical process operating within that universe.

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The Big Bang Theory has been overwhelmingly supported by observation since the second half of the twentieth century. Prior to this time, most physicists favored the Steady State Model, which postulated a stable universe without beginning or end. However, a series of discoveries in astrophysics provided increasingly strong evidence for an expanding universe. Observation of distant galaxies demonstrated a systematic redshift in their spectra, consistent with the expansion of space.

 

The work of Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson at Bell Labs in the 1960s provided one of the decisive pieces of evidence for the Big Bang model. Their discovery was fortuitous. Background interference was noticed in their radio antenna and they began investigating its source. The signal persisted regardless of the direction in which the antenna was pointed, indicating that it came from throughout the sky.

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Meanwhile, another group of physicists had predicted that radiation left over from the hot early universe should still permeate space. About 380,000 years after the Big Bang, the universe had cooled sufficiently for negatively charged electrons to combine with positively charged atomic nuclei, forming electrically neutral atoms, predominantly hydrogen and helium. Before this time, photons, which are particles of light, were continually scattered by free electrons and could not travel freely over long distances. Once most electrons had become incorporated into neutral atoms, the universe became transparent, allowing photons to travel freely through space. As the universe continued expanding, the wavelengths of these photons were progressively stretched into the microwave region of the electromagnetic spectrum. This ancient radiation is what we now detect as the cosmic microwave background. This was the cosmic microwave background radiation discovered by Penzias and Wilson. For their discovery, they were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1978.

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​It is estimated that the universe began about 13.8 billion years ago. The Big Bang model describes an early universe of extraordinary temperature and density that subsequently expanded and cooled. What preceded this earliest state, why there is a universe, and why there are physical laws producing it lie beyond what observational cosmology is capable of establishing. A process whereby matter and energy were created from nothing cannot be described scientifically, or even imagined, since it is in the realm of metaphysics.

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At least one prominent line of cosmological speculation has attempted to explain the apparent fine-tuning of our universe by suggesting that our universe is one of an enormous, perhaps infinite, number of universes. Only by chance does the one we live in possess the physical laws and scientific constants that make our existence possible. However, although multiverse hypotheses arise from serious theoretical considerations, there is presently no direct observational evidence for other universes. Moreover, a multiverse does not by itself answer the ultimate metaphysical question of why the multiverse, its laws, and its underlying physical reality exist.

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An alternative argument, that all matter and energy spontaneously spun themselves into existence equally defies logic and all principles of science. The creation of something from nothing cannot be other than a metaphysical event and the handiwork of God.

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​Once God is understood as the ultimate cause of physical reality, it is possible to derive important philosophical principles from this conception. Since God is the cause of matter, space and time, it follows that He is non-corporeal. Nor is He limited by any of the forces or constants of nature, since these belong to the created physical order.

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THE UNITY OF THE UNIVERSE

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The universe possesses unity, in that it functions as an integrated whole. This unity was not an add-on to the universe sometime during its billions of years of evolution but is intrinsic to the physical laws that govern it. The same fundamental interactions and physical constants apply, as far as observation can determine, throughout the observable universe.

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These forces are described in part by the Standard Model, a mathematical framework encompassing three of the four fundamental interactions of physics, namely electromagnetism, the strong nuclear interaction, and the weak nuclear interaction. The Standard Model describes these interactions in terms of quantum fields and their associated particles. A quantum field is a physical entity that extends throughout space and whose excitations appear to us as elementary particles. According to modern physics, the universe is permeated by quantum fields, and what we call particles—such as electrons, photons, and quarks—are excitations of these fields.

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The force of electromagnetism is mediated by photons. Electromagnetism is responsible for the attraction between negatively charged electrons and positively charged atomic nuclei and thereby for the structure of atoms. The strong nuclear force ultimately binds quarks together within protons and neutrons and, through its residual effects, helps bind protons and neutrons together in atomic nuclei; its force-carrying particles are gluons. The weak nuclear force is responsible for processes such as beta decay, whereby one type of subatomic particle can be transformed into another. It acts at a very short range and is mediated by heavy particles called the W and Z bosons. Though far weaker at ordinary distances than electromagnetism and the strong interaction, it plays a crucial role in nuclear reactions, particularly in the sun and stars.

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The fourth fundamental interaction of physics is the force of gravity. This is described mathematically by Einstein’s general theory of relativity, but a successful quantum theory of gravity has yet to be established, and gravity is therefore not incorporated into the Standard Model of particle physics.

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The more recently discovered Higgs boson is an excitation of the Higgs field. Through their interactions with this field, certain elementary particles acquire mass. In particular, the large masses of the W and Z bosons help explain the very short range of the weak interaction. The excitement regarding the discovery of the Higgs boson—sometimes popularly called the “God particle,” a term with no theological significance—stems from its central role in the Standard Model and from the experimental confirmation of a mechanism predicted decades earlier. Its existence was first postulated in work published independently by several physicists, including Peter Higgs, in 1964. Its discovery in 2012 was a major confirmation of the Standard Model. Nevertheless, the model still does not incorporate gravity and does not explain phenomena such as dark matter or dark energy, although dark energy is not presently understood as another fundamental force in the same sense as the four fundamental interactions.

It is apparent that the essential unity of our universe was already evident within milliseconds of the Big Bang, being represented by the fundamental forces of nature, their bosons, their linkage within the Standard Model, and the physical constants of nature. 

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This unity is strikingly consonant with the notion of a single Creator of the cosmos.

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Regarding the scientific discoveries of his time, Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch had this to say as early as the nineteenth century in his Collected Volumes:

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". .  would Judaism not be justified in viewing this idea of a universal unity, which inquiring minds have already pieced together from the textbook of the universe and which man's consciousness yearns to express, as nothing less than the long-awaited triumph of the truth of Judaism? This is the truth with which, thousands of years ago, Judaism first appeared in the midst of a chaotic multitude of gods, proclaiming that there is only one sole God in heaven and on earth, and that all the phenomena of the universe are founded upon His Law."2 

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PURPOSEFULNESS WITHIN THE PHYSICAL AND BIOLOGICAL WORLDS

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Our universe displays an extraordinary degree of order from its earliest observable stages. It is this perception of purpose within nature that permitted the “science” of Aristotle to flourish for hundreds of years. However, his science was based primarily upon philosophical reasoning and observation. Modern science has enabled us to take our understanding of natural order immeasurably further.

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The complexity of matter developed from remarkably simple beginnings. In the first few minutes after the Big Bang, protons and neutrons combined to produce nuclei consisting predominantly of hydrogen and helium, with small amounts of lithium. Neutral atoms formed only much later, about 380,000 years after the Big Bang. Heavier elements were subsequently produced within stars and in stellar explosions and other energetic astrophysical events. Our planet Earth is composed of a multitude of natural elements whose constituent material was produced via this cosmic history.

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​The complexity of the chemical elements comprising the universe is described by the periodic table. An element is defined by its number of protons—its atomic number. Moving from one element to the next in the periodic table increases the atomic number by one, although the number of neutrons can vary among isotopes of the same element. Neutral atoms contain the same number of electrons as protons.

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Atoms can be conceptualized as building blocks, with hydrogen, the simplest element, being at the beginning of a system capable under appropriate physical conditions of generating increasing nuclear complexity. Conceptually, it is a simple system expressed in a beautiful sequence whereby increasingly complex matter can emerge from simpler constituents according to universal physical laws.

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In the biological world, modern science accepts overwhelming evidence that life has evolved over immense periods of time and that living organisms share common ancestry. Evolution involves changes in heritable genetic variation within populations across generations, with variants that improve reproductive success in a particular environment tending to become more common.

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Judaism has no problem accepting evolution. What it cannot accept is Darwinian evolution — the notion that the biological world arose as a result of random mutations and that the evolutionary process proceeded without guidance. Unanswered satisfactorily is how random mutations led to increased order rather than chaos, how genetic drift is possible in a system in which the integrity of species is extremely tightly controlled, and how the males and females of each species have simultaneously evolved in such a way that they can successfully reproduce.

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The development of plant life is described in the first creation account as being “lemino,” literally, “according to its kind:”

 

And Elohim said: “Let the earth sprout vegetation of plants bringing forth seed, trees of fruit yielding fruit each after its kind (in Hebrew lemino), which have their seed in them on the earth. And it was so (Genesis 1:11).

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And so for the animal world:

 

And Elohim said: Let the earth bring forth living creatures, each according to its kind (lemino); animal, and creeping thing, and beast of the land each according to its kind (lemino). And it was so (Genesis 1:24).

 

The biblical concept of lemino may be understood theologically as emphasizing the ordered character of biological creation — the remarkable fact that living systems reproduce in structured and intelligible ways even while populations retain the genetic capacity for evolutionary change.

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It is unlikely that any evolutionary step arises in a manner that does not follow the laws of nature, i.e., that proceeds miraculously. Hence, if we accept natural evolution, we have to say that God’s governance operates through the laws of nature and contingencies of nature rather than requiring repeated violations of these laws.

    

Until the 1920s, the notion that God controls and influences the natural world would have been difficult to accept since there was no place for Him other than as an observer. Classical physics encouraged the image of the universe as a vast deterministic mechanism. If God wished to control nature, He would have had to break these laws.

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Quantum mechanics fundamentally changed this classical picture. Quantum physics tells us that the subatomic world is a very strange place indeed. There is a duality in the subatomic world, such that light and subatomic matter can display both wave-like and particle-like properties. Moreover, certain pairs of physical quantities, such as the position and momentum of subatomic particles, cannot simultaneously possess precise values in a quantum state, as expressed by Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. Electrons in atoms are therefore described by quantum states that yield probability distribution for measurements rather than by classical orbits around the nucleus. In other words, the quantum world is not a precise, deterministic world but a fuzziness of probabilities.

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It is therefore possible, although obviously not proven, that God can operate within this subatomic fuzziness and influence nature as He wills without violating the physical laws of nature. Put another way — God can control chance.

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Albert Einstein believed in God. He also had philosophical problems with the quantum physics being described in his day and favored an underlying deterministic account of physical reality. He famously objected to the fundamental role of probability in quantum mechanics with the remark “God does not play dice with the universe.” Chance produces chaos, which is the very opposite of design.

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There is, however, a solution to Einstein’s dilemma — God throws the dice. Within the fuzziness of the subatomic quantum world, God is able to create the design of His purposeful universe as He wills. Hence, what appears to us as chance need not be outside God’s knowledge or governance. To the contrary, a quantum indeterminacy is entirely compatible with the proposition that God governs a world whose individual events may be otherwise probabilistic from the standpoint of human observation.

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DISSEMINATING THE NOTION THAT GOD CONTROLS EVOLUTION

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The role of the Jewish people is to absorb the truths discussed in this chapter and to disseminate them to the rest of mankind through the performance of Judaism’s precepts. This includes the following laws found found in the Book of Leviticus:

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You shall observe my statutes: you shall not mate your animal with another species, you shall not plant your field with mixed seed; and a garment that is a mixture of combined fibers shall not come upon you (Leviticus 19:19).

 

These laws are repeated again in the Book of Deuteronomy, although with slightly different emphases:

 

You shall not sow your vineyard with a mixture, lest the growth of the seed that you plant and the produce of the vineyard become forbidden. You shall not plow with an ox and a donkey together. You shall not wear combined fibers, wool and linen together (Deuteronomy 22:9-11).

 

A Jew should not mate a male beast with any kind of domestic or wild animal that is not of its species. Nor should a Jew plant together two species of crops in his field, such as wheat together with barley or beans with lentils. Different trees can be planted together, but not in a vineyard.

 

One way of explaining these statutes is to say that God created a perfect world and He does not wish for man to interfere with His creations.3 But this is an inadequate explanation. Many different animal species are reproductively incompatible (although some closely related species can produce hybrids. A horse and a donkey, for example, can produce a mule, which is usually sterile). Planting two crops in a field has no influence on subsequent generations of plants. Spinning together wool and linen in a garment has no effect on the future source of the fibers. The common theme of these commandments may therefore lie less in preventing biological alteration than in impressing upon the Jewish consciousness the ordered distinctions inherent in creation, the order and integrity of creation, and the work of the Creator who made it so. These fundamental religious concepts are explained by Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch as follows: 

 

It is quite evident that already in mixing of seeds the prohibition goes further than forbidding any interference in God’s Laws of Nature regarding mating. It is rather to bring man in his work of plant culture to the thought of the Creator’s rule of leminahu (by its species) and thereby to God Himself, the Lawgiver in Nature whose lawgiving does not begin with the Jewish nation or even with man, but whose law rules all formative force, and to Whom the smallest seedling and the tiniest fiber of all organic life yield obedience.4

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In sum, science can contribute to our perception of meaning to the universe, since science is the investigation of a universe created and sustained by God. Science cannot tell us the purpose of life, although it can, and should, provide the impetus for humanity to search for this. Science can also provide us with appreciation of the scale, unity, order, and complexity of creation and hence of the omnipotence of its Creator. Divine providence need not compete with natural law: the believer can understand the laws of physics, biological evolution, and even events described scientifically in terms of probability as the means through which God's will is expressed in nature.

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It is entirely appropriate to omit religious ideas from scientific papers, since methodological science seeks explanations that can be tested by observation and experiment. However, it is equally appropriate for religious thought to engage seriously with scientific discoveries. Science does not itself prove the existence of God, as one proves an experimental proposition; rather, its discoveries can provide evidence from which philosophical and theological conclusions can be drawn. This chapter argues that the origin, unity, intelligibility, and extraordinary creative potential of the universe provide powerful grounds for such conclusions — and for seeing the natural world as the work of one omnipotent Creator.

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REFERENCES

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1. The Great Partnership: Science, Religion and the Search for Meaning, Jonathan Sacks, p. 72. Hodder & Stoughton, First Edition, 2011.

2. The Educational Value of Judaism (English translation of “Der erzieherische Wert des Judentums”) in the Collected Writings of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, Volume VII.

3. Sefer HaChinuch, Law 244 , by Rabbi Pinhas haLevi of Barcelona, translated by Charles Wengrov, Volume III, p. 90. Feldheim Publishers, Jerusalem/New York. The Sages tell us that there is no prohibition in mixing fruit trees except in a vineyard. There is a prohibition in grafting fruit trees, although not in eating the fruit from such a tree. There is also no prohibition in Jewish law in altering species by DNA manipulation.

4. The Pentateuch. Translation and Commentary by Samson Raphael Hirsch. Commentary to Leviticus 19:19. Judaica Press, 1989.