Can Physics Demonstrate God's Existence? (248)

Can science be a vehicle to get closer to God? The Rambam famously answered in the affirmative. In the second of the 1000 chapters of his Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Yesodei HaTorah chapter 2, the Rambam writes, “What is the method towards loving and fearing God? At the moment that a person investigates His wondrous and massive actions and creations, and sees through them His endless and infinite wisdom, he immediately loves, praises, and extols, and desires tremendously to know the great Name. In the words of David, ‘My soul thirsts for God, the living divine.’ And when he thinks about these things themselves, he immediately recoils backward and is awestruck and fears, realizing that he is a small, lowly, and beclouded creature, with minimal and superficial knowledge compared to God’s perfect intellect. As David said, ‘When I see your heavens… what is man that You should acknowledge him?’ According to these ideas I will clarify important principles of the works of the Master of the worlds so that they will be an introduction to one who understands in order to love God. As the Sages said with regard to love, from this you recognize the One who spoke and the world came into being.” The Rambam then proceeds to give an introduction to the Aristotelian world view that was presumed true in his time. While we no longer accept the Rambam’s science as accurate, his principle that knowledge of the universe is a vehicle to loving and fearing God remains an essential principle.

What about using science to demonstrate God’s existence? The Rambam, again, was willing to use philosophical arguments for this purpose; but others recoil from the concept. Many people have no interest in examining theories such as intelligent design and creationism, and find them absurd. There’s a different but somewhat similar phenomenon which Professor David Shatz calls “bold concordism,” where scientists attempt to demonstrate that the first chapter of Bereshit and modern physics are in complete agreement, as long as the words of the Torah are read in a literal, albeit non-obvious way. Some people find this inspiring and helpful, while others dismiss it altogether.

My guests today, Rabbi Aaron Zimmer and Rabbi Dr. Elie Feder, propose something quite different. They use established scientific facts based on up-to-date physics - scientific facts, that is, which no one denies - and argue that the most logical conclusion from this science is that the universe was created by an intelligent designer. This has nothing to do with the argument of intelligent design from biology, and is not based on any verses in the Torah. It doesn’t even deal with questions around divine providence or other aspects of Jewish belief. Instead, they argue that modern physics has offered a brand new and extremely compelling version of the argument from design: that the values of the constants are so unusual and so inherently unlikely, that the most obvious conclusion by far is that they were designed so that our complex universe, which includes atoms, molecules, stars, galaxies, and life, would come into existence. As they explain, almost all serious physicists were bothered by the problem of why the constants are what they are; physicists almost universally acknowledge that the reason that the constants have the values that they do is a huge mystery. Elie and Aaron only differ with most other physicists in that many others try to solve this mystery by positing the existence of a multiverse - that is, infinitely many worlds, each with different values of the constants; whereas my guests argue that this is far more unlikely than the obvious answer: that something with intelligence chose these constants for a reason.

Regardless of whether you like the idea of using science to demonstrate God’s existence or disagree with the enterprise, Elie and Aaron’s argument demands serious attention. I’m honored to present it today, and look forward to hearing what you think.

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