What Would it Take?

January 10, 2010 by Dr. Mc.

If you believe there is no god, I don’t blame you. Very few people who “believe” can actually give a reason why they believe. They just say, “Do it.” So you just don’t. So what evedence would convince you that there is a god? How about just to believe there is a supernatural realm?
I think the first thought of most of us would be some kind of undeniable, supernatural display. (I’m thinking lights, sounds, and awesome appearances.) I’m afraid that’s a contradiction in terms. If it is “supernatural” (outside of normal experiences), then it is by definition, “deniable,” because it has no reference point in our reality. Not only would no one else believe you, but you would be hard pressed to believe it yourself after just a little time. Maybe it was a dream, induced by greasy pizza.
What if others saw it, too? Better, but still not there. How many others? How long ago? If you don’t believe in
God, then how convinced are you by stories of “miracles?” Events, no matter how many witnesses, lose credibility over time. They are not testable, therefore not “scientific” knowledge.
So it would have to be something tangible, testable, replicable in the sense that you could always find it. You could go back to it, point others to it; and others could verify it was there, and is continuously there. Testable implies some undeniable cause-and-effect, or there is no connection of facts, no evidence of anything.
As usual, the cause-and-effect must constitute a bridge between the known and the unknown. In this case the know effect is measurable with our senses, and the unknown cause is not detectable with our senses. So far, I am not suggesting anything beyond modern chemistry. In this case however, the “effect” must be defined as “natural,” while the “cause” portion of the bridge must be defined as “supernatural.”
Defining the effect as natural is easy. It could be anything detectable as proposed above. It is known and experienced to materially exist, but it must have one additional characteristic. It has to be something that undeniably has not always existed. It must have come into existence at some point in history, thus making it undeniably part of a cause-and-effect relationship.
But the supernatural cause portion must also meet two specific tests. The cause must be sufficiently supernatural to have no rational explanation within any known or even suspected laws of chemistry, physics, or other sciences. While we are at it, let’s throw in no known mathematics. If the cause portion of the bridge is rationally explainable within our experiences, then the whole cause-and-effect is within our realm of experience, and it is natural, not supernatural. There is no bridge. It gives no clue about the supernatural.
But the cause must also have some link to our reality. It must somehow relate to something in the material world as we know it without being in and of our “natural” world. That something must be a parallel material existence that has a measurable natural cause.
For these two criteria in the cause to converge with the two criteria for the effect in a cause-and-effect relationship, four conditions must be detectable: (1) the effect is something material (2) that has not always existed; (3) there is no rational cause for what exists within suggested laws of science or mathematics; yet (4) what exists has a parallel material existence with a known measurable cause. Stated another way, for “cause-and-effect” to bridge that supernatural-natural gap, the effect would have to be completely in our realm of experience, while the cause would have to be one that we could recognize in form, but with no possible origin within our material experience.
May I suggest consideration of such linked material evidence? If the same criteria used by archeologists to conclude that markings on chards and ancient walls are written language are in turn applied to DNA codes, the inevitable conclusion is that DNA carries a written language. I dare say there is no definition of written language that will work consistently for archeologists, or even SETI, that would exclude the messaging that we know to be carried in DNA. DNA carries written language.
(Note: Materially, DNA is a string of organic compounds that may be arranged in a virtually infinite number of ways, thus allowing it to carry a language. Scientists may hope someday to recreate DNA-type molecular strings in the laboratory, but this is simply a language medium, not the language itself. The medium, whether DNA, papyrus, silicon or whatever, is irrelevant. The language exists apart from the medium and could be transmitted through other mediums, even though we may know it through only one.)
The only known cause for written language is intelligence. That is, the language had to be designed with a specific application in mind. May I repeat, “mind?” Our only material experience with minds capable of composing and writing language is humans. Human intelligence is the only known cause with the effect of written language.
There is no rational and natural explanation for DNA carrying a written language, and yet we know that only intelligence causes written language. The conclusion is that DNA carries a written language imposed upon it by an intelligence outside of what we call “natural.” The logical conclusion is that the written language carried in DNA is both intelligent and supernatural in origin.
I believe I have said nothing here that is inconsistent with the logic of Stephen Myer’s in Signature in the Cell, though his logic begins and ends on different grounds.
Myer’s argument begins with science and ends with science. My argument begins and ends instead with a priory assumptions about the supernatural. This is because most people do not reject ID (intelligent design) arguments for scientific reasons. They do it for strongly-held, though possibly subconscious, beliefs about the nature of God, which include assumptions about His participation (or lack thereof) in the universe as we know it. The person following this logic must have no preconceived limits on what can be concluded from the thought process. Without that, any attempt at an honest conclusion is short-circuited. Though some might claim that they reject theology for scientific reasons, they in fact reject science for theological reasons.

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