Eleven years ago, on New Scientist Magazine's 5oth anniversary, the editors did a survey and ran a series of responses.
They asked some of the "leading lights" in science "to explore the biggest questions of our time. You can find out what they had to say by following the links below."
Thankfully, the questions and answers are still online in the articles that grew out of that survey: www.newscientist.com.
They coalesce the topics nicely and propel the discussion.
Here is what happens when you ask a group of noted scientists to answer these questions:
What is reality?
What is life?
Do we have free will?
Is the universe deterministic?
What is consciousness?
Will we ever have a theory of everything?
What happens after you die?
What comes after Homo sapiens?
In the interest of full disclosure., I wrote the following response eleven years ago.
The problem is -- and it is not really a problem - (Scientists have as much right to answer the questions from their perspective as anyone else) - the answers are not complete - at least not from my perspective. They are not complete if you believe that theologians and philosophers might be entitled to weigh in.
So, we will as we have for many generations.
I do not consider this sort of thinking a threat to my faith anymore that I consider the futility expressed in the book of Ecclesiastes a threat. There is as much unbelief in the bible as I see if the world today.
If, as the bible says, "faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God," then it is only natural to assume that observers of nature will offer natural explanations to the big questions of life.
Divine encounter presupposes outside information, invasion, intrusion, and radical good news that takes people off guard and challenges their assumptions about everything.
The Word of God is not set of debating points calculated to win arguments. The Word of God comes with its own built in energy source. It rings true even when presented badly. That is the nature of it to those who hear it.
Faith does not come through deduction. It comes through exposure and encounter. Penrose, Hazen, Churchland, and the other scholars reach perfectly reasonable conclusions given their premises. It serves us well to know them and understand them.
Solomon does not come to any real statement of faith until the 12th chapter of Ecclesiastes. Up to that point, he dances around the issue and sounds more like an agnostic existentialist than a warm-hearted theist.
Needless to say, I have some different conclusions than the panelists in this article - although some of their lessons are informative as far as they go.
I have become convinced that God is the Sovereign Creator of the Universe whose designs are past our complete understanding and who cannot be truly known apart from His initiative in revealing Himself. I am convinced that he has done so in and through Jesus Christ and that He continues to speak to us through scripture and through the Holy Spirit who is present and active in the world. This belief colors everything I see, hear, and read, but it does not prevent me from seeing, hearing, and reading.
Confidence is not cockiness. It is two words: "con" for "with," and "fide" for faith.
I am not sure that these are the biggest questions. The biggest question, I think, is "Where art thou," and it is not asked by man of God, but by God of man today even as it was in the garden
"Where art thou?"
"Let's meet."
