Science and the Theory of God

We humans are all rather alike. We have slightly different heights and weights; roughly half of us are male and half female. Our skin color and hair texture vary slightly, but our blood and nervous system are nearly identical. Our DNA’s are essentially the same, with one extra chromosome depending on sex. As we look at our bodies and reflect with our minds, we can come to conclusions about our nature, our longings, our yearnings to live happily. Two modern sciences have fashioned tools with which to study human behavior. Psychology studies the individual and sociology studies the collection of individuals interacting. Those sciences did not exist in the Middle Ages or even during the Renaissance. They were formulated during the last couple of centuries, coinciding with a period of enormous advance in the natural sciences. Neither Aristotle, nor Augustine, or even Aquinas, in the thirteen century, had any inkling of the discoveries in genetics, microbiology, atomic physics, or cosmology. None of them had at their disposal modern, statistical studies that map the way in which our minds interact with our bodies in what are called “psychosomatic” effects. None could have guessed that some of us are born with a defect that makes us prone to have emotional highs and lows, called “bipolar episodes.” Or that some are born with a propensity to fold into our interior shells and have difficulty interacting with others (a condition referred to as “autism”). If the ancients could resurrect and have a forum in which their brilliance could share insights with modern scientists, it might take the shape of something that I describe in the section that follows. Any reader who doesn’t care to follow me in to a whimsical, theatrical, fictional gathering of academics and savants covering 3,500 years of human history can skip the preface and move to the first chapter. Besides some entertainment, it is also a sort of bibliography of authors on whom I have relied in crafting my own scientific analysis of what has been called the “God Theory.” For if there was always a God, possessed of the intelligence and the benevolence we now attribute to her or him, it makes sense to think that there was a good reason for creating not just galaxies, but human beings. And if there was a reason for creating human beings, it stands to reason that there was a benevolent purpose, rather than just a fanciful, instinctive, almost sadistic intent to frustrate that new creature with limitations, disease, war, and the angst of never experiencing absolute joy. The mind of God, if there is a God, must be more explainable, more reasonable, more visionary than to create a flawed being. And so we delve into the analysis, borrowing from as many of the great thinkers as possible to fit into one little book, written by one amateur “natural theologian,” who uses the methodology of science exclusively as the ultimate yardstick for finding truth.