Centennial Review

Principled Ideas from the Centennial Institute Publisher, William L. Armstrong

CREATOR’S HAND, we’re just animals with no more intrinsic worth than a sea
urchin. Yet if we are uniquely made in God’s image, then
UNSEEN TO ATHEISTS, our lives do have special meaning, value, and significance.
IS EVIDENT TO SCIENTISTS And atheism has an impact on our view of morality. If
By Lee Strobel there is no God, then there can be no universal right and
wrong. There would only be opinions, preferences, and
For much of my life, I was an atheist. I shifting social norms. Consequently, the atheist cannot
thought that God didn’t create people, help but flail in a sea of moral relativism. Atheist John D.
but that people created God out of Steinrucken candidly admitted in American Thinker:
their fear of death. To me, the mere Those who doubt the effect of religion on morality
concept of an all-loving, all-powerful, should seriously ask the question: Just what are the
all-knowing Creator of the universe immutable moral laws of secularism? Be prepared to
was absurd on the surface. It wasn’t answer, if you are honest, that such laws simply do not
worth my time to check out. exist! The best answer we can ever hear from secularists
In a sense, I was ahead of my time, because today atheism to this question is a hodgepodge of strained relativist
is at the height of fashion. Books like God is Not Great, The talk of situational ethics. They can cite no overriding
God Delusion, and The End of Faith top the best-seller lists. authority other than that of fashion.2
The number of Americans who identify themselves But theists offer a solid basis for objective
as having no religious affiliation has almost doubled One in four moral values. Christians believe that moral
since 1990, to 15 percent. Fully one in four adults
under the age of 30 describe their religion as “atheist,” adults under
values are not invented by humankind but
are grounded in the very nature of a good
“agnostic,” or “nothing in particular.”1 30 claim no and loving God who made us in his image
While I don’t think there’s a massive shift toward and implanted a sense of right and wrong
disbelief in America, it’s clear that atheists are religion. in our hearts.
garnering increased attention and becoming more Case for a Creator
aggressive. So it’s important to understand that the
implications of atheism go beyond the obvious spiritual In fact, we all know deep down that universal moral
ones and affect our culture and society. standards do exist, and this provides a strong argument
for the existence of God, since they are inexplicable in a
Impact on Liberty, Identity, Morality purely materialistic universe.
For example, consider how atheism impacts freedom. The So atheism has profound implications for both individuals
Declaration of Independence says: “We hold these truths and society. But what really surprises me is that this rise of
to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they atheism is coming at a time when scientific discoveries are
are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable creating the strongest case in history for the existence of a
rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of divine Creator. That is, the evidence for God is at its most
happiness.” robust exactly when the atheists are trying to convince the
These rights are divinely ordained. They don’t come from world that the divine is an illusion.
the government, but they originate with our Creator. But if
there is no God, then who gives us our rights? Congress?
The President? The Supreme Court? What the government Lee Strobel has authored nearly 20 books, including The Case for Christ and
The Case for a Creator. He holds degrees in journalism from the University of
gives, the government can take away. But what we get from Missouri and in law from Yale. This essay is adapted from his chapel talk at the
God is ours forever—no matter who is pulling the levers Western Conservative Summit on July 11, 2010.
of political power.
Centennial Institute sponsors research, events, and publications to enhance
In addition, our value as human beings is derived from the public understanding of the most important issues facing our state and nation.
fact that we are made in the image of God. If God doesn’t By proclaiming Truth, we aim to foster faith, family, and freedom, teach citizen-
exist, then the radical animal-rights advocates are correct: ship, and renew the spirit of 1776.
 Atheists shouldn’t have a problem with the idea of
something being eternal, since they maintained—until the
evidence disproved them—that the universe is eternal. We
now know that’s not true and that the universe, therefore,
needs a cause to explain it.
Theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking failed to shake
this argument in his recent book The Grand Design,
coauthored with Leonard Mlodinow. “Because there is a
law like gravity, the universe can and will create itself from
nothing,” they wrote. “Spontaneous creation is the reason
there is something rather than nothing, why the universe
exists, why we exist.”4
Alister McGrath, who has doctorates in both molecular
biophysics and theology from Oxford University, pointed
out the obvious:
Hawking tells us that we don’t need to invoke the idea
of a creator, because the laws of physics are already
there. Well, this is hardly anything new. But it simply
postpones the issue by one stage. Where did these
That’s what I discovered when my agnostic wife became
laws of physics come from? Who made them? How
a Christian and I was prompted to use my journalism
did gravity come to exist in the first place? Who put it
and legal training to investigate where the evidence of
there? What is the agency involved?5
contemporary science most powerfully points: toward
or away from God. Three areas of science captured my Concluded Professor John Lennox, a fellow in mathematics
attention then, and I’ve continued to explore them as even and the philosophy of science at Oxford: “Hawking’s new
more discoveries have been made. fusillade cannot shake the foundations of a faith that is
based on evidence.”6
First, there’s cosmology, the study of the origin of the
universe. For centuries, scientists believed that the universe Dart on Target
is eternal. But thanks to dramatic evidence discovered The second category of science that I found compelling is
over the last several decades, virtually all scientists are now physics. One of the most striking discoveries of modern
convinced that the universe, and time itself, had a sudden science has been that the laws and constants of physics—
beginning in the finite past. This leads to this argument: the numbers that govern the operation of the universe—
• Whatever begins to exist has a cause. unexpectedly conspire in an extraordinary way to make the
universe habitable for life.
• The universe began to exist.
Imagine looking up into the sky and seeing a bunch of
• Therefore, the universe has a cause.
giant dials that represent the laws and constants of physics.
What kind of a cause could create a universe? The logical Each one would have an enormous number of possible
implications of the evidence, as I describe in my book The settings, but all of them would be calibrated to the exact
Case for a Creator, point toward an uncaused, beginningless, correct position so that life can exist.
timeless, immaterial, personal being endowed with freedom
For example, the force of gravity is finely tuned to an
of will and enormous power and intelligence. That’s a
incomprehensible degree. How precise? Imagine a ruler
pretty good starting point for a definition of God.
stretching across the width of the entire universe—billions
Who Decreed Gravity? of light years—and broken down into one-inch increments.
Nobel-winning physicist Arno Penzias, who helped This reasonably represents the range in which the force of
discover the evidence for the universe’s beginning, put it gravity could have been set.
this way: “The best data we have [concerning the origin of
the universe] are exactly what I would have predicted had I CENTENNIAL REVIEW is published monthly by the Centennial Institute at
nothing to go on but the five books of Moses, Psalms, and Colorado Christian University. The authors’ views are not necessarily those of
CCU. Designer, Danielle Hull. Illustrator, Benjamin Hummel. Subscriptions free
the Bible as a whole.”3 upon request. Write to: Centennial Institute, 8787 W. Alameda Ave., Lakewood,
Some skeptics try to counter this by saying, “Oh yeah? CO 80226. Call 800.44.FAITH. Or visit us online at www.CentennialCCU.org.
Then who created God?” The answer, of course, is that Please join the Centennial Institute today. As a Centennial
nobody created God. The argument isn’t, “Whatever exists donor, you can help us restore America’s moral core and prepare
has a cause,” but, “Whatever begins to exist has a cause.” tomorrow’s leaders. Your gift is tax-deductible. Please use the
God, by definition, is eternal. envelope provided. Thank you for your support.
- John Andrews, Director
Centennial Review, March 2011 ▪ 2
Yet it is set at the exact right place for life to flourish. If
you were to change the setting just one inch compared to Voices of CCU
the width of the entire universe, intelligent life would be
impossible anywhere.7 AGNOSTIC NO MORE
That’s just one of more than 30 parameters that require By Karthik Venkatraj
precise calibration for a life-sustaining world. Another The Christian journey is an experience
is the “cosmological constant,” or the energy density of of redemption that is all-encompassing.
space. This number has to be balanced on a razor’s edge In light of Lee Strobel’s article, I want
for life to exist. If it were large and positive, stars and to tell my own story.
galaxies could never form; if it were large and negative, the Growing up in poverty in Brooklyn, I
universe would collapse. was raised with an understanding that,
But scientists have determined even though times were hard, there was
DNA points that it’s fine-tuned to one part in a sense of safety in God. Within the
100 million-billion-billion-billion context of a multi-religious family comprised of Hindus
to a Creator. billion-billion. This would be like and Christians, my parents raised me to choose my own
path; however, they encouraged me to believe in God; they
going into space and throwing a
had seen too many miracles in their lives to deny Him.
dart at the Earth and hitting a pre-determined bull’s eye
that’s one trillionth of a trillionth of an inch in diameter— An agnostic in my teens, I entered the Corps of Cadets
less than the width of a single atom. at Texas A&M University and experienced the intense
pressure of military training. Each cadet was to be “broken
This precision is mind-boggling! If you just consider down and built up.” In tribulation, the soul begins a journey
gravity and the cosmological constant, the fine-tuning is for truth and, for me, this culminated in accepting Christ as
to a precision of one part in 100 million-trillion-trillion my savior.
trillion-trillion-trillion-trillion. That’s the equivalent of one This epiphany was met with challenges. On a trip to
atom in the entire universe.8 Morocco with the Department of Defense, my faith was
As Vera Kistiakowski, professor of physics emerita at challenged by my classmates and some of the Muslim
MIT and former president of the Association of Women students we encountered. After that formative summer, I
in Science, put it: “The exquisite order displayed by our revealed to my parents that I had accepted Christ. Struggling
with the division this produced in our family, I learned that
scientific understanding of the physical world calls for the
accepting Christ involves not only an acknowledgement of
divine.”9 His existence, but also a submission to His omnipotence.
The only way atheists have attempted to dilute this case is In time, the division was healed.
to claim that there’s actually an infinite number of invisible After graduating in 2010, I wrestled with several
universes. If the dials were spun randomly in each of them, opportunities. My desire for a classical education with a
then the odds are that at least one would accidentally hit Christian worldview brought me to the John Jay Fellowship
the jackpot. for a year of studying the intersection of faith and public
The problem is that the claim of an infinite number policy, which concludes with my internship here at CCU.
I pray to continue serving our nation as a citizen and a
of universes is based on only one of several possible soldier, always to God’s glory. ■
mathematical models that may or may not correspond to
the physical world. Indeed, there is absolutely no evidence
that these hypothetical universes actually exist—and if Karthik Venkatraj, currently a Centennial
Centennial
they did, then they would have required a Creator as well. Institute staffer, was commissioned last year as
Institute
a 2nd lieutenant in the Army Reserve and antici-
A Message with Content pates deployment to Afghanistan next year. His
Colorado Christian University

The third scientific development in recent years concerns parents emigrated from India in 1982.
genetics. When scientists completed the mapping of the
human genome several years ago, then-President Clinton are scanning the heavens with radiotelescopes in search of
said: “Today, we are learning the language in which God extraterrestrial life. They only receive static, the random
created life.”10 background noise of the universe. It was reasonable to
He was right—DNA is quite literally language. Inside each assume there’s no intelligence behind that. Then one day,
of our body’s 100 trillion cells is a strand of DNA that they begin to pick up prime numbers.
would stretch six feet if uncoiled. It’s encoded with a four- Scientists reason that it’s too improbable that there would
letter chemical alphabet that spells out the exact assembly be a natural cause behind a string of numbers like that.
instructions for all the proteins from which our bodies are This wasn’t disorganized static; this was information, a
made. message with content. From that, they correctly concluded
How does DNA point toward a Creator? A good analogy there must be intelligence behind it.
is Carl Sagan’s book and movie Contact, in which scientists Centennial Review, March 2011 ▪ 3
 Centennial Review Centennial Institute
March 2011 Colorado Christian University
8787 W. Alameda Ave.
Creator’s Hand, Lakewood, CO 80226
Unseen to Atheists,
Is Evident to Scientists Return Service Requested
By Lee Strobel
If true, the fashionable denial
that God exists could negate
our liberty, our identity, and our
morality. But scientific evidence
in support of the case for a
Creator is mounting.

Sagan, himself an atheist, acknowledged that the receipt That’s not just the conclusion of theists with a predisposition
of a single message from space would be enough to know to believe. The scientific evidence was instrumental for
there’s intelligence out there.11 even a spiritual skeptic like me to conclude that there is,
But what is DNA? It’s a message with content. It’s indeed, a Creator.
language. Just like English uses a 26-letter alphabet, DNA And because God exists, we do have unalienable rights
uses a four-letter chemical alphabet. In fact, each cell in like life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness that can’t be
our bodies contains as many “words” as 75,490 pages of stripped away by the whim of the party in power; we have
The New York Times. These are the specific, detailed, written been made in God’s image, which gives us dignity, value,
instructions for how to build all the proteins in the human and equality; and there are moral absolutes that we can
body. Where did they come from? depend upon to guide us. ■
If a single message from space is enough for us to conclude 1 Drew Dyck, “The Leavers: Young Doubters Exit the Church,” www.christianity-
there’s an intelligence behind it, then what about this vast today.com/ct/2010/november/27.40.html
2 John D. Steinrucken, “Secularism’s Ongoing Debt to Christianity,” www.ameri-
amount of information contained in the DNA of every canthinker.com/2010/03/secularisms_ongoing_debt_to_ch.html
living creature? 3 See: Malcolm W. Browne, “Clues to Universe Origin Expected”, New York Times
(March 12, 1978).
Rookie Mistake 4 Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow, The Grand Design (New York: Bantam,
2010), 180.
Nature, by itself, can produce patterns, but it can’t produce 5 Alister McGrath, “Stephen Hawking, God and the Role of Science,” www.abc.
information. If someone walking on a beach saw ripples in net.au/religion/articles/2010/09/14/3011163.htm?topic1=home&topic2
the sand, he could correctly conclude that this was caused 6 John Lennox, “As a Scientist, I’m Certain Stephen Hawking is Wrong,” www.
dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1308599/Stephen-Hawking-wrong-You-explain-
by waves. But if he saw, “John loves Mary” and a heart universe-God.html
with an arrow through it, he wouldn’t think that this was 7 See interview with Dr. Robin Collins in Lee Strobel, The Case for a Creator (Grand
created by natural processes. Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 2004), 125-152.
8 Ibid.
Why? Because it’s information. And whenever we see 9 Vera Kistiakowski, “The Exquisite Order of the Physical World Calls for the Di-
vine,” in Henry Margenau and Roy Abraham Varghese, editors, Cosmos, Bios, Theos
information—whether it’s a newspaper or a computer (Chicago: Open Court, 1992), 52.
code or a drawing in the sand—we invariably know there’s 10 Francis S. Collins, The Language of God (New York: Free Press, 2006), 2.
intelligence behind it.12 11 See: Carl Sagan, “The Quest for Extraterrestrial Intelligence,” www.bigear.org/
vol1no2/sagan.htm.
As King David said in Psalm 139:13-14: “For you [God] 12 See: Stephen C. Meyer, Signature in the Cell (New York: HarperOne, 2010).
created my inmost being; you knit me together in my 13 Candace Adams, “Leading Nanoscientist Builds Big Faith,” Baptist Standard
(March 15, 2002).
mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and
wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that
full well.”
And there’s plenty of evidence from 21st-century BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND
cosmology, physics, and genetics to know that full well.
Said nanoscientist James Tour of Rice University: “I stand
in awe of God because of what he has done through his
Western Conservative Summit 2011
creation. Only a rookie who knows nothing about science
would say science takes away from faith. If you really study
"Fulfilling America's Promise"
science, it will bring you closer to God.”13 Denver • July 29-31 • Marriott City Center
Details at CentennialCCU.org
Centennial Review, March 2011 ▪ 4