A netfriend wrote: It is the actual beginning of the Universe and living organisms in it that is the crucial issue. Did it all begin by chance? Or was there a Supernatual Eternal Being Who set it all in motion?

Chris responded:

I think there are some other questions as well which are crucial for Christians in this area.

(1) If something is found to have “natural” causes, does that mean God is uninvolved? (2) If something is found to have “natural” causes, is that the same as what you mean here by “chance”?

With respect to things like the origin of the solar system; it is inevitable that solar systems will form, according to existing physics. The details of a particular system — its size, the number of planets, the number of Suns, and so on, depend in some very subtle ways indeed upon initial conditions and subsequent effects, many of which are chaotic and intrinsically unpredictable.

Hence it is not always predictable whether a solar system will form in a given circumstance — and this is usually what we mean by chance.

But it is not chance that solar systems will form; it is inevitable.

With respect to the evolution of life; it is not chance that life evolves. It is inevitable. Precisely what the outcomes might be are chaotic and unpredictable; but that evolution occurs is inevitable. It cannot be prevented. It can be seen occurring now, and its progress over millenia can be seen in traces observed in the present.

With respect to the origin of life; it is probably inevitable that life will form; though we don’t know enough about the processes to be definite on likelihoods or required circumstances. It is certainly unpredictable and dependent on chaotic influences — life will certainly not form under some bad circumstances. How common are the circumstances in which life is likely to form? We don’t know.

Neither our investigations in the formations of solar systems, nor our investigations into the origins life, involves a rejection of God. It means rejecting the cosmology and natural philosophy which were used by the authors of the bible; but the bible is not a science text book for instruction in science and natural philosophy so this is not surprising nor should it be troubling.

Netfriend:

The fact that the Solar system, of which Earth is a part, works by mathematical principles does not indicate chance to me. Scientists in 1846 predicated there had to be another planet beyond Uranus and worked out mathematically where it would be …. and hey presto! it was found to be there in ???? I can’t recall the date. I am of the opinion that similar predictions were made for Pluto which was photographed for the first time in 1930.

Chris again:

It will be very helpful to look into the matter of Neptune’s discovery to help explain this more carefully.

For more detail, you can refer to this page on the mathematical discovery of planets:

<http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/HistTopics/Neptune_and_Pluto.html>

Neptune is not visible to the naked eye.

It was observed by telescope a number of times before being recognized as a planet. Galileo first recorded it in 1612, as an 8th magnitude star. He actually observed and noted its apparent motion; if he had followed up on this he could have been its discoverer. However, Galileo was overwhelmed with the new insights obtained with the newly invented telescope, and did not follow up this matter of a slight apparent motion. A number of other astronomers in subsequent years saw the planet, and took it for a faint star.

Chance observations, however, did not result in discovery.

The seed for discovery was that the known planet Uranus was not quite at the locations predicted on the basis of Newtonian physics. John Couch Adams proposed an additional planet to explain these discrepancies in 1841; and calculated a possible orbit in 1845. Urbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier independently made the same calculations in 1846. Observations confirmed prediction in September 1846; but the full story of the people involved is fascinating. Check the link I provided above.

But note the basis of this prediction. No-one predicted that there had to be another planet from first principles about planet formation. That a planet existed at all was, if you like, “chance”.

However, given that it exists, it has effects. And by observing the effects, and applying scientific models, we could predict other much more specific effects right up to the location and mass.

Similar examples of prediction and confirming discovery can be shown in evolutionary biology and paleontology. The history of life is unpredictable, but it has effects. And we can observe those effects, and infer the history. We can also apply scientific models, based on evolution, to make predictions that extrapolate the path of life and infer other life that must have existed; based on observations of known life forms… just like we can infer other planets from observations of existing planets and known models for how they affect each other.

Whales exist; and they are mammals. That whales exist is a result of many chaotic effects, and could not be predicted from first principles; but we observe they do exist now, and we can infer from that some details of their history. In particular, being mammals, they are tetrapods and they have ancestors who lived on the land. That is the prediction on evolution.

Many years ago, creationists like Dr Duane Gish used to laugh at evolutionists over the matter of the whale, and the lack of any missing links which should be there if evolution was true.

The links have been found, as predicted and in abundance, in a series of dramatic discoveries made in Pakistan in the 1990s.

You can read more about this at “The Origin of Whales and the Power of Independent Evidence” by Raymond Sutera at <http://www.talkorigins.org/features/whales/> and “Ancient Walking Whales Shed Light on Ancestry of Ocean Giants” by David Braun for National Geographic News at <http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/09/0919_walkingwhale.html>

There is an excellent essay also: “Hooking Leviathan by Its Past” by S.J Gould in “Dinosaur in a HayStack” (Random House, 1996) pp 359-376

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Cheers — Chris