Today’s New Reason To Believe

A skeptic recently contended that Christians could never genuinely value and utilize logic and critical thinking because their faith prohibits them from basing their beliefs on rational considerations. Therefore, logic and critical thinking are at odds with the Christian conception of faith (particularly the believer’s acceptance of the Bible as a divine revelation). What follows is part of my response to that skeptic’s bold claim.

For centuries, Christianity’s greatest philosophers and theologians have argued that faith and reason are indeed compatible with each other (e.g., Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas, Bonaventure). These same world-class thinkers have argued that it is actually atheism and skepticism that cannot be rationally justified. I respectfully challenge you to read some of the writings of Christianity’s greatest scholars on this topic before you declare that the historic Christian faith is incompatible with reason and logic.

I also respectfully ask you to consider the following five points about the Christian faith and its relationship to reason:

1. Important intellectual virtues such as discernment, reflection, testing, and intellectual renewal are biblical mandates (Acts 17:11; Romans 12:2; 1 Corinthians 14:9; Colossians 2:8; 1 Thessalonians 5:21).

2. Christian logicians have been responsible for many of the advancements in the study of logic (e.g., Peter Abelard [1079-1142], William of Ockham [1285-1349], and Gottfried Leibniz [1646-1716]). Isn’t it interesting that William of Ockham never considered his logical razor to be inconsistent with his Christian faith?

3. The New Testament calls Jesus Christ the “Logos” (Gk. “word,” or “reason,” or “logic,” John 1:1) and Christian scholars through the centuries have argued that the laws of logic are God’s good gifts to mankind. Therefore, the consensus of Christian history sees no conflict between faith and logic (they are compatible and complementary, not contradictory).

4. Christians believe that human beings are capable of such cognitive practices as logic and critical thinking because their cognitive faculties and sensory organs were created by a perfectly rational God (imago Dei: Genesis 1:26-27). In other words, a rational mind stands behind and grounds human cognitive functions. The effect (human rationality) has a sufficient cause (a perfectly rational mind).

5. How do atheists rationally justify such enterprises as logic, mathematics, and induction when they assert that their brains and sensory organs are the accidental, chance product of a mechanism (evolution) that itself lacks reason, personhood, and purpose? In other words, do naturalists have a reason to trust their reasoning when a nonrational source stands behind their evolved cognitive faculties? Did logic and reason come from a source that lacked these faculties?

Some churches today may unfortunately reflect an unhealthy anti-intellectualism, but historic Christianity overall has viewed reason as one of God’s special gifts to humankind.

For more on how Christians can develop healthy habits of the mind, see Kenneth Samples’ new book, A World of Difference: Putting Christian Truth-Claims to the Worldview Test (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2007).

Astrobiology still ranks as the only data-free discipline in science. Part of the problem is that in their search for signs of present or past existing life beyond planet Earth, astrobiologists have been attempting to detect biomarker molecules that already are known to yield ambiguous results. For example, they looked for and found methane emission from the Martian crust. While several terrestrial microbes produce methane in their metabolic activities, there are several completely abiotic (nonliving) chemical and geological processes that are also capable of releasing significant amounts of methane. Thus, the detection of methane release from the Martian regolith (loose rock layer) produced an equivocal result.

The same kind of ambiguity arises from searches for amino acids in dense interstellar molecular clouds. Though no undisputed detections of amino acids have yet to be achieved in such clouds, a future success would not prove the past or present existence of life there since a number of purely nonbiological mechanisms likewise can explain the existence of amino acids.

In response to the ambiguous biomarker problem a team of researchers from universities and museums in Montana and North Carolina have proposed that astrobiologists abandon their search criteria. Instead of extraterrestrial amino acids, lipids, methane, ammonia, hydrogen cyanide, glycoaldehydes, and polyaromatic compounds, all of which can be produced abiotically, researchers propose the detection of a class of molecules called porphyrins. Porphyrins are characterized by four nitrogen atoms linked together via methane bridges into a macrocycle (a closed loop of molecules that form a cavity with the four nitrogen atoms faced toward the cavity). Porphyrins include such well known biomolecules as chlorophyll and hemoglobin.

The research team points out a number of advantages of porphyrins to astrobiologists:

1. They cannot be produced by nonbiological means under natural conditions in any measurable amounts.
2. They are widely distributed among all living organisms on Earth, including micro-organisms.
3. They are significantly more stable outside of the protection of living organisms than traditional biomarkers such as amino acids.
4. Their chemical identification signatures are distinct. That is, chemists can clearly distinguish porphyrins from other molecular structures.

The disadvantage of porphyrins to astrobiologists has been how difficult they are to detect. Currently, there is no way any kind of spectrometer attached to a telescope can make a positive, unambiguous identification of the spectrum for any of the porphyrins. The point of the research team’s published article, however, was its demonstration that in time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry experiments performed in the lab they could straightforwardly perform such identifications. Such experiments, however, do require tangible samples. So, while astronomers will not be able to identify porphyrins with their telescopes, space vehicles landing on various solar system bodies that are equipped with these sophisticated mass spectrometers will be able to determine whether or not porphyrins are present in soil and rock samples.

Though not discussed in the research paper, porphyrins would provide an excellent tool for testing competing models on the origin and evolution of life. Nontheistic models, based on the belief that the abundance, diversity, and duration of life on Earth can be explained by purely natural means, would predict that life, at least in unicellular form, also must exist or have existed in those environments on various solar system bodies where liquid water either exists or has existed. Remains of that life would leave behind measurable porphyrin signatures in proportion to the amount and duration of liquid water in the environment.

On the other hand, a biblical model would predict that porphyrins beyond Earth would be found only on those bodies where efficient transport by meteors of Earth soils containing the remains of Earth life has occurred. Also, the quantities of porphyrins found would be proportional to the efficiency of transport. That is, transport efficiency from Earth, not the presence of liquid water, would be the determining factor.To be specific, a biblical model would predict that porphyrins would be found in the greatest abundance in the regolith of the Moon, to a much lesser extent on Mars, and would be virtually non-existent elsewhere beyond Earth. A diligent search for porphyrins on solar system bodies beyond Earth will provide evidence in addition to that which is already available for determining which model for life is true and which models are false.

Though there’s been no shortage of new reasons to believe, it seems that time to report them has been in short supply lately. In case you missed these recent gems, this week we present some of the best recent posts.

A few weeks ago we reported on the discovery of a new planet circling an M-type dwarf star named Gliese 581 in the constellation Libra. This discovery received a lot of attention in the news because its distance from the parent star fell within the “habitability zone,” where it is possible that liquid water could exist on the planet’s surface and, hence, the planet could support life. As we pointed out in our report, the researchers had to make a number of assumptions to reach this conclusion, but the discovery was exciting nonetheless.

In the meantime, new work has been done on this planetary system. A team of scientists working out of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research have investigated the system for habitability (see here for a press release, and here for their paper) using planetary formation and climate models that are thought to hold true for these types of systems.

They have concluded that the original planet, Gl 581c, which was suggested as the best candidate for Earth-like conditions is, in fact, likely to have a dense atmosphere with a corresponding high temperature at its surface. So, even though the planet resides at an appropriate distance from its parent star, the thick atmosphere raises the temperature beyond what would be necessary to support life. A similar situation exists in our own solar system with the planet Venus, where its dense atmosphere and consequent high temperature precludes its habitability.

On the other hand, these same researchers investigated another planet (Gl 581d) in the same system that had previously been rejected as habitable because of its greater distance from the parent star. While this planet would normally be too cold on the surface, its denser atmosphere brings that temperature into a region of habitability.

One of the conditions that trouble both of these planets is “tidal lock,” where their distance from the parent star is so close that the action of the stars gravity causes the same side of the planet to always face the star. Consequently, even Gl 581d will have a face that is too hot and an opposite face that is too cold; the only zone where life could possibly exist would be near the transition region between these two faces.

The authors acknowledge that tidal lock—along with many other problems—suggests the search for a home planet for mankind is no easy task. However, the results so far are tantalizing for the scientist looking for planets that can harbor life. As concluded in our earlier report, we expect that further research will, in fact, establish the uniqueness of the Earth and its parent star as a place where advanced life can exist and, therefore, provide further support for the RTB creation model.

For further discussion of habitable planets around M-dwarf stars, see here.