Here is an interesting article relevant to the discussion by Catholic physicist Stephen Barr, whose writings were an important factor in helping me not to slip into atheism a few years ago:
firstthings.com/onthesquare/2009/07/how-god-and-science-mix
Interesting is also the comment section that features an exchange between atheist physicist Lawrence Krauss and Barr, which Barr, while making a few more interesting points, handily wins.
A few paragraphs from the article:
Scientists are atheists in the lab, said Krauss, and so it is only logical that they should be atheists everywhere. This is a logical argument, yes, and also quite popular, but it is based on a conception of God that is alien to Jewish and Christian tradition. For Haldane and Krauss, religion is about miracles, and miracles are about magic and the irrational, and therefore belief in God stands in opposition to the world revealed by science, a world intelligible by reason and governed by law.
For Jews and Christians, however, pitting God and the laws of nature against each other in this way is an absurd mistake; for it is the very lawfulness of nature that points to a divine Lawgiver. In the Bible, God gives laws not only to the people of Israel, but to the cosmos itself, as in Jeremiah 33:25, where he declares his fidelity to Israel in these terms: “When I have no covenant with day and night, and have given no laws to heaven and earth, then too will I reject the descendants of Jacob and of my servant David.”
In arguing against pagans for the existence of a creator God, ancient Christian writers pointed to the order and lawfulness of nature, not to the miraculous. The following passage from the second-century writer Minucius Felix is typical:
I’d like to offer some alternative thoughts on this. Yes, Krauss’ argument for atheism is effectively rebutted by Barr, but it does not matter. Both are weak arguments, designed to reinforce existing beliefs rather than to change minds.
These arguments and counter-arguments all suffer from the same problem as their thousands of predecessors on either side of the fence— they are narrowly focused upon a single aspect of the problem.
The first scientist of the (Western hemisphere) modern era, Galileo, was well aware of the long-term impact of his ideas upon his beloved Church, and tried to offer a solution. He wanted the Church to treat the universe as a higher Bible than the written words of men.
Why not? The only certainty we have about the words in the Bible is that they were penned by men. Who said they were divinely inspired? Other men.
We have a higher level of certainty about the universe. If there is indeed a God (or other intelligent creative entities for which the name “God” can serve) the universe is the certain creation of that God. Men were not involved.
The Bible can be (and in the opinion of many who have studied it in depth) full of errors. Its interpretations are clearly inaccurate— for example, very few Catholics have been told that the Hebrew word for God, Elohim, is plural.
While the universe is subject to interpretation by men, just like the Bible, the core truth of it does not change and is there for anyone with a mind to study and understand. The language in which it is understood is the only universal language common to all men— mathematics.
Galileo expected that the discoveries of science, not only those of Copernicus whose ideas he championed, but his own, and those of scientists to follow, be applied as a correction to religious dogma. Those who know a modicum of objective history know the result of his efforts.
It is time to reconsider Galileo’s position. Weak as atheism is, it is taking over, especially in intellectual and political circles. (Notice, please, that the WSJ blew off Barr’s rebuttal, leaving the dogmatic documentary-channel physicist for the atheist cause, Krauss, to stand as an authority, unrebutted.)
It is time to seriously apply everything we really know about physics, biology, neurology, and even psychology to an understanding of the real purpose of man, and an understanding of the nature and purpose of the Creator which transcends, if necessary, trivial dogmas invented centuries ago by men who had no understanding of physics.
