As science is ever more able to explain and help us navigate our universe, has the need for a creator been extinguished? To show just how illogical this train of thought is, consider a parallel question: can understanding a story remove the need for its author?
After watching Cinderella, a mother asked her children, “Why do you think Cinderella’s slipper was made of glass? ” The first child said, “Well I suppose her fairy godmother liked glass slippers.” The second child said, “Well, I suppose the author liked glass slippers so he put them in the story.” One child got their answer from the internal storyline, but the other child answered from an external standpoint, crediting the mind of the author. Now imagine if the first child said, “because I know Cinderella’s slippers came from her fairy godmother, I don’t need to believe the author had anything to do with it.” This would be ridiculous. The fairy godmother only has slippers to give because the author wrote that into the story!
When humans study science, we’re exploring the laws and principals we’ve found to be true in the immediate context of our universe. But no matter how much we learn about these laws, at no point can we claim to have lost need for the creator. We can still link all scientific discoveries back to the original author, who created both an orderly universe, and our intelligent minds to observe it.
I’m Sophie Gillespie from Thinking Matters and this has been your Thought for the Week. For more reasons to believe, visit www.thinkingmatters.org.nz