Point of View December 25, 2024 – Hour 1 : Christmas Hymns

[00:00:04] Across America Live, this is Point of View, Kirby Anderson.

[00:00:20] You know if you've engaged in any kind of conversation about science, sooner or later you run into an individual that will say that science and faith are at war with each other,

[00:00:30] or that there are irreconcilable differences between Christianity and science.

[00:00:36] So we're going to come back to this very important issue because it is certainly relevant to our Christian faith,

[00:00:42] but also it is one of the reasons why we see sometimes young people deconstructing their faith.

[00:00:48] They grew up in church, they think the Bible is true, they go off, they begin to learn some things in the scientific enterprise,

[00:00:55] and they're convinced that either I have to accept my science or my biblical faith.

[00:00:59] And we certainly around this table do not believe that that contradiction exists,

[00:01:04] and so we're very thrilled to talk about this new book, Science and Faith in Harmony.

[00:01:09] It is written by Dr. Cy Gart, and I'll give you a formal introduction to him,

[00:01:15] but the foreword is written by Sean McDowell.

[00:01:19] There's a very good endorsement by Lee Strobel.

[00:01:22] He quotes from many people that we've had on the program, like Michael Gillen and Stephen Meyer and a variety of others.

[00:01:28] And if you're not familiar with Cy Gart, he is a biochemist, has his doctorate, has been a professor at New York University,

[00:01:35] at the University of Pittsburgh, as well as Rutgers University.

[00:01:38] He has served as the division director of the National Institutes of Health.

[00:01:42] He is the editor and chief of the God and Nature magazine and vice president of the Washington, D.C. chapter of the American Scientific Affiliation.

[00:01:52] Cy Gart, thank you for being with us today here on Point of View.

[00:01:56] It's a pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me.

[00:01:58] I might just mention this book's been out a couple of months, but again, we make it very easy for you to order it if you'd like.

[00:02:04] 44 chapters written by him, published by Krigel Publications.

[00:02:09] But Cy, for just a minute, before we even get to your book, anybody that has been familiar with you knows you have just an incredible story of having grown up on a home where you were taught to hate Christianity.

[00:02:21] After all, your two parents were members of the American Communist Society, and yet you became a Christian.

[00:02:27] And so a lot of people over the years have done, I know, full interviews with you about how you came from being an atheist who was taught to hate Christians and then became a Christian.

[00:02:39] That's a program unto itself, and I do want to get into your book, but could you share the brief part of that?

[00:02:44] Because in some respects, that overlaps very much with what you have in your book.

[00:02:50] Yeah, my first book, which is called The Works of His Hands, had a lot of information about my journey, which was quite long.

[00:03:01] As you said, I grew up pretty much indoctrinated and brainwashed, I would say, into a certain worldview, which I now know is false.

[00:03:12] But at the time, you know, how do you know that when you're a kid?

[00:03:15] So what really broke the bounds of that worldview was my study of science, because when I began learning science in college and then in graduate school, especially molecular biology,

[00:03:29] I began to say, wait a minute, this doesn't fit with that materialistic, atheistic view that everything is just a matter of chance

[00:03:39] and has no, you know, it just follows the laws and everything is easy to figure out.

[00:03:45] I realized, no, that doesn't work in biology.

[00:03:48] It's just not the way biochemistry happens.

[00:03:51] So I began getting very doubtful about that whole atheistic ideology.

[00:03:56] And it is an ideology, by the way.

[00:03:59] There are atheists who say, no, we just don't believe in God.

[00:04:02] But if you press them, you'll find a whole ideology that goes with it.

[00:04:06] And I began to reject that.

[00:04:08] And I started calling myself an agnostic.

[00:04:11] I don't know what would have happened if it hadn't been for the Holy Spirit, who, you know, basically helped me, came to me in dreams and in waking experiences.

[00:04:23] And all of this is described in that first book.

[00:04:26] I don't know if I would have eventually come to Christ, but thank God, I praise the Lord every day for this.

[00:04:34] There was an intervention by the Holy Spirit, and I eventually came to see the truth of Christ.

[00:04:39] And the first thing I had to deal with was, well, is this going to affect, you know, my science?

[00:04:43] Because I'm still a scientist now, and I was at the time.

[00:04:47] And the answer was, no, it didn't at all.

[00:04:50] Not in any negative way.

[00:04:51] If anything, it made me even more appreciative of science as the way to understand God's creation.

[00:04:58] One of the things I would encourage people to do is go to our website, pointofview.net.

[00:05:03] And we have a link to sigart.com, or you can simply go there.

[00:05:07] And you actually have that book posted there, A Scientist's Journey from Atheism to Faith, The Works of His Hand.

[00:05:14] But I did want to have an opportunity for us to get into this issue of science and faith in harmony.

[00:05:21] And I'll hold up one of the booklets that I've made available to those of you that maybe don't have a science background.

[00:05:26] This one's on intelligent design.

[00:05:28] If you think about it, more recently we've been spending a fair amount of time talking about intelligent design in the astronomy area,

[00:05:36] in the actual far dimensions of space through a telescope.

[00:05:41] Today, most of our time, we'll be talking about intelligent design in biology,

[00:05:45] in the small dimensions of space, especially in the microscope.

[00:05:49] Though you do have some chapters, of course, about a significant blue dot and the fine-tuning of the universe.

[00:05:56] But it does seem to me that even as we get into your book, part of it is attitude.

[00:06:01] And so I was struck by the fact that your first chapter talked about humility in science.

[00:06:07] It does seem to me that some scientists are convinced that I can actually explain the entire universe

[00:06:13] by what I see, read, and hear, and can measure.

[00:06:16] And yet there's a real possibility there's more than that, isn't there?

[00:06:21] Oh, yes.

[00:06:21] And when I say humility, that's exactly what I mean.

[00:06:25] Scientists, all the scientists I've known who are good ones, and I've met a number of Nobel Prize winners, they're humble.

[00:06:33] And what makes them humble, not just as people, but in terms of what they know, is they understand that science is a great tool,

[00:06:41] but it's not necessarily going to give you the truth all the time that is indisputable.

[00:06:47] Because what we know about science is it keeps changing.

[00:06:51] There was a time when science said that the universe is steady state.

[00:06:55] It's always existed.

[00:06:56] It was eternal forever.

[00:06:57] And, you know, and then it turned out, no, the Bible is right.

[00:07:02] The universe had a beginning.

[00:07:05] And, you know, that is what happens with science.

[00:07:09] It changes as new information comes available.

[00:07:12] So every scientist who makes a discovery has to say, well, this is what I found, but it could be wrong.

[00:07:19] And that's, to me, an essence of humility.

[00:07:23] So great.

[00:07:25] We're going to take a break.

[00:07:25] When we come back, though, I wanted to focus a little bit of time on one of your chapters early on, God, Jeans and Guitars.

[00:07:32] Because, as you point out, music was a very big part of your life.

[00:07:36] And I think it also just illustrates, again, something we've talked about when we focus on this area of apologetics, how to defend the Christian faith.

[00:07:44] Some of that comes from logical, linear kinds of things.

[00:07:48] You have science degrees.

[00:07:50] I have a number of science degrees.

[00:07:52] And so sometimes that logical, linear, if you will, left hemisphere part is significant.

[00:07:57] But also I was struck by the fact that, as we've also been talking more and more, there is the value in the arts.

[00:08:05] There is value in music.

[00:08:07] There's value in various fiction and the rest.

[00:08:11] A different kind of almost more of a cultural apologetics as well.

[00:08:15] And I thought it was kind of interesting that even though, of course, you have a PhD in biochemistry and certainly think like a scientist, you also have that other aspect as well.

[00:08:27] And I think that's helpful for individuals that are wondering, you know, how do I reach an individual that seems somewhat close to the gospel or doesn't seem to understand that there's evidence for the faith?

[00:08:39] And so that's another very significant chapter.

[00:08:42] And we'll work our way through science and faith and harmony right after these important messages.

[00:08:58] This is Viewpoints with Kirby Anderson.

[00:09:02] On this Christmas Day, I think it would be good to reflect for just a moment on the incarnation.

[00:09:07] God became man and took on human flesh.

[00:09:10] This is a great theological wonder and mystery.

[00:09:14] Malcolm Muggeridge wrote this to describe the importance of the birth of Christ.

[00:09:18] He said,

[00:09:19] Thanks to the great mercy and marvel of the incarnation, the cosmic scene is resolved into a human drama.

[00:09:25] A human drama in which God reached down to relate himself to man and man reaches up to relate himself to God.

[00:09:32] Time looks into eternity and eternity into time, making now always and always now.

[00:09:38] Everything is transformed by this sublime drama of the incarnation, God's special parable for a man in a fallen world.

[00:09:45] God reached down to us by sending the second person of the Trinity to earth to become part of the human drama and human dilemma.

[00:09:53] God stepped out of eternity into time to become part of that human community.

[00:09:57] What an incredible act of love and mercy.

[00:10:00] God did not just come to dwell among us and comfort us.

[00:10:03] He came that he might raise us through the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

[00:10:09] Although we celebrate the birth of Christ today, we also look to the death and resurrection of Christ that we celebrate at Easter.

[00:10:15] Romans 5.8 proclaims,

[00:10:17] God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

[00:10:22] 1 Peter 2.24 says that Christ bore our sins in his own body on the tree that we having died to sins might live for righteousness by whose stripes you were healed.

[00:10:31] On this Christmas day, we should pause to reflect on why Christ came to earth and what he did for us on the cross.

[00:10:39] I'm Kirby Anderson, and that's my point of view.

[00:10:46] For a free booklet on biblical reliability, go to viewpoints.info slash biblical reliability.

[00:10:53] Viewpoints.info slash biblical reliability.

[00:10:58] You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth.

[00:11:04] Continue our conversation today with Dr. Seigart.

[00:11:06] The book is entitled Science and Faith in Harmony.

[00:11:09] We have information about that on our website.

[00:11:12] Of course, we have a place where you can order it there as well.

[00:11:15] I'd like to, for just a minute, before we get into the science, because we're going to be talking about RNA and DNA and biochemistry and everything else,

[00:11:22] but for our non-scientists out there, I thought your chapter, which talks about God, genes, and guitars,

[00:11:29] is a reminder that oftentimes there are other ways to reach an individual, other ways to actually worship God,

[00:11:37] and one of those, of course, is through music.

[00:11:40] Yes.

[00:11:41] Yes.

[00:11:41] Yeah, and that chapter describes an incident that happened to me when I was supposed to give a talk,

[00:11:48] and I was at a conference, and I was just very nervous because it was the first time I'd ever spoken about my faith publicly.

[00:11:54] And what happened was the worship group played Amazing Grace, which is the first hymn I ever learned,

[00:12:04] and it had incredible meaning for me, and I was praying.

[00:12:09] And with the combination of the prayer and the music and the words, you know, I once was blind, and now I see, which, you know,

[00:12:20] and the idea that even a wretch like me could be saved, these things usually bring me to tears, but this time it calmed me down,

[00:12:28] and I was able to get up and actually give a talk.

[00:12:32] So good.

[00:12:33] Let's see if we can get into biology.

[00:12:35] I recognize some of our listeners maybe don't have a science background, but they maybe can remember a little bit in biology,

[00:12:40] and that is you have, of course, DNA, and, of course, we've had on this program Stephen Meyer.

[00:12:46] As a matter of fact, I'm at a little book called I'm holding up right now, God and Science, which is based upon his book.

[00:12:51] It's an attempt to give a summary of the return of the God hypothesis.

[00:12:55] We recognize now DNA has so much information packed into it, and even the people at Microsoft are saying, you know, Bill Gates, I think, said,

[00:13:04] really there's more coding in DNA than the coding we have on our best software.

[00:13:10] And for a while, you know, as well as I do, that there were people saying, yeah, well, there's a lot of DNA, but it's a lot of junk DNA.

[00:13:17] It's, you know, a lot of leftover from various other kinds of, if you will, evolutionary experiments.

[00:13:26] But now we're kind of changing all that, and the more we get into the smallest cell,

[00:13:32] the more we recognize that there's a level of design that Charles Darwin and others could not have even imagined.

[00:13:39] Tell us more, if you might.

[00:13:41] Absolutely.

[00:13:42] Well, yes, you know, it turns out that a lot of the DNA sequences that don't actually code for genes,

[00:13:50] in other words, they're not genes, they don't make proteins, and that's the great majority of the DNA.

[00:13:56] So people thought, well, we don't know why it's here, so it must not be doing anything,

[00:14:00] because people thought everything about DNA was about genes.

[00:14:04] But it turns out it's much more complicated than that.

[00:14:07] Everything in biology gets more and more complex the more you learn.

[00:14:10] And a lot of that DNA that nobody knew what it was for is in charge of regulating that parts of the DNA

[00:14:20] that are genes, that do make proteins.

[00:14:23] So, in other words, they're not turned on all the time.

[00:14:25] They're turned on and off, and they regulate each other,

[00:14:28] and it becomes an incredibly complicated set of interactions that's almost hard to even deal with,

[00:14:36] you know, computationally.

[00:14:37] So, yeah, DNA is still learning about all of that stuff.

[00:14:44] And in terms of what we now know about biology, there are some incredible things coming out.

[00:14:51] In the scientific literature, this is not coming from Discovery Institute or, you know, other organizations.

[00:14:59] It's coming from mainstream scientists who are finding that, for example,

[00:15:05] even the simplest of cells, like bacteria, have a form of cognition.

[00:15:12] And when I first read this, which was about a year or two ago, I said, what?

[00:15:16] No.

[00:15:17] That's not possible.

[00:15:17] You can't even make this up.

[00:15:18] Yeah.

[00:15:19] Yeah.

[00:15:19] But it is.

[00:15:20] And it's now a field.

[00:15:22] It's become a field of science.

[00:15:24] And so, you know, biology is just amazing.

[00:15:27] I'm writing a third book at the moment, and that's all going to be –

[00:15:31] the working title is God and Biology, and that's all going to be about how biology declares the glory of God.

[00:15:38] One of the things, of course, you are also talking about is the fact that we see design in every area,

[00:15:44] and since we have recently been talking about what we see in terms of astronomy,

[00:15:49] you have a chapter there about the significant blue dot.

[00:15:52] Now, that goes back to Carl Sagan.

[00:15:54] Now, for my younger audience, you probably were never able to watch a video by Carl Sagan,

[00:16:01] although that was put in almost every classroom in America, and we were able to watch it on PBS.

[00:16:07] And Carl Sagan said, you know, really, when you look at this planet,

[00:16:11] as Voyager left the solar system and turned around and looked at Earth,

[00:16:14] and in the distance you see this pale blue dot,

[00:16:18] and the idea is we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star

[00:16:24] lost between two spiral arms in the outskirts of a galaxy.

[00:16:29] Well, if that's all you knew, well, we have a problem here.

[00:16:33] But if you look at Psalm 8, or the one we've been quoting a lot lately, Psalm 19,

[00:16:38] the heavens declare the glory of God,

[00:16:40] you recognize that this is more than just a pale blue dot.

[00:16:44] You go through a very long list of all the parameters and requirements necessary

[00:16:50] to have a planet that we can be living on just right now to even survive.

[00:16:56] And that, I think, has gone far beyond even what some of the astronomers would have guessed.

[00:17:01] Exactly.

[00:17:02] And I should say, Hugh Ross, who's a friend of mine,

[00:17:05] has a wonderful book on Improbable Planet, it's called,

[00:17:11] and that's a book that really goes into detail.

[00:17:14] I mean, he is an astronomer, so it goes into detail about how remarkable our planet is.

[00:17:20] I mean, it's one in a trillion.

[00:17:23] And, you know, the idea that because this planet is small makes it insignificant is a joke.

[00:17:29] And although I respect Sagan as a scientist, that was a really bad.

[00:17:34] Right.

[00:17:35] That quote that you quoted is just not true in any part of it.

[00:17:39] Everything about our planet, where it is, the size, everything else is perfect for human life.

[00:17:46] Well, and even Guillermo Gonzalez, you know, I've had Hugh Ross on.

[00:17:50] Of course, Guillermo Gonzalez in his book, The Privileged Planet, I mean, starts out by just saying,

[00:17:54] let's take something as simple as an eclipse.

[00:17:57] You know, why do we have an eclipse?

[00:17:58] Well, again, it turns out that the sun is 400 times larger than the moon, but the sun is 400 times further away.

[00:18:06] So you get this perfect solar eclipse only on Earth, not on any other planet in our solar system.

[00:18:13] Who knows?

[00:18:14] Maybe not on any other planet in the galaxy.

[00:18:18] And you can say, well, that's all just a remarkable coincidence.

[00:18:21] But then you've got this whole page of others in terms of everything having to do with the actual tilt of the Earth,

[00:18:30] the moon, the molten core, the various aspects of the atmosphere, and on and on and on.

[00:18:37] And it, I think, again, just brings back to the Carl Sagan, because not only did he write nonfiction,

[00:18:44] but he wrote a fiction book, which turned into a movie called Contact.

[00:18:48] And the implications there is the galaxy and the universe just must be brimming with life,

[00:18:54] and we should be making contact any day now with aliens.

[00:19:00] And it really hasn't turned out that way, has it?

[00:19:03] No, it has not.

[00:19:04] And I will tell you that scientifically and philosophically, I don't believe that there are aliens out there.

[00:19:12] I think we're it.

[00:19:15] And, I mean, a lot of people, when I say that, they think it's my religious point of view.

[00:19:20] But actually, no, I've always thought this just from the science, you know, that I know.

[00:19:28] We are, I think we are a unique entity in the universe, or at least it's certainly in the galaxy.

[00:19:37] And now, of course, as a believer, I understand why.

[00:19:42] This is God's plan.

[00:19:44] That's it.

[00:19:44] We can take a break.

[00:19:45] And if you'd like to know a little bit more about Dr. Seigart, you can go to the website, pointofview.net.

[00:19:51] The book is entitled Science and Faith in Harmony.

[00:19:53] You might be able to find it in your local bookstore, but we've given you a way to get it, if you would like,

[00:19:58] in paperback or Kindle.

[00:19:59] Of course, you can also find his website.

[00:20:01] He also has some other links.

[00:20:03] We also have a link to his YouTube channel, if you'd like to see some of those.

[00:20:07] Maybe you have a child or a grandchild that's really interested in the science area.

[00:20:12] Maybe you've got a skeptical friend that says, well, you know, I just believe in science,

[00:20:17] and I really have problems with the fact that you have this kind of faith.

[00:20:22] And, of course, we've had Michael Gillen on, and he's done some things in terms of that as well,

[00:20:26] and many other individuals.

[00:20:28] And, of course, I mentioned the fact that the forward is by Sean McDowell.

[00:20:31] He has, of course, a website and an opportunity for you to follow that.

[00:20:35] So there are some ways in which, if you want to really begin to witness to individuals

[00:20:40] that have maybe a scientific background but are absolutely convinced that science and faith do not come together,

[00:20:47] this is a resource for that.

[00:20:49] And when we come back, let's talk about this idea of, in one of the chapters, revolutions,

[00:20:54] because where did the scientific method come from?

[00:20:57] And I think any serious student would have to recognize that, really, it was a Christian worldview

[00:21:06] that led to the rise of modern science.

[00:21:10] Many of the fathers and mothers of various scientific disciplines were Christians,

[00:21:16] or at the very least were theists.

[00:21:18] And so that's another very significant part to this whole question about science and faith in harmony.

[00:21:24] We'll come back and talk about that right after this.

[00:21:31] Our nation is experiencing a major realignment right now.

[00:21:35] Political and cultural frameworks are shifting.

[00:21:39] Perhaps for the first time in a long time, some things are starting to shift in a positive direction.

[00:21:46] But as this political and cultural realignment takes place,

[00:21:50] another realignment is desperately needed, a realignment to God's Word.

[00:21:56] Data shows that few Americans' worldview is aligned with biblical truth,

[00:22:01] but you can help change that by partnering with Point of View, where God's truth comes first.

[00:22:08] When you support Point of View, every dollar you give ensures that a biblical perspective

[00:22:14] is accessible to listeners across the nation and around the world every day.

[00:22:20] Right now, every dollar you give will go especially far

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[00:22:39] That's pointofview.net and 800-347-5151.

[00:22:48] Point of View will continue after this.

[00:22:52] You are listening to Point of View.

[00:23:02] The opinions expressed on Point of View do not necessarily reflect the views of the management or staff of this station.

[00:23:10] And now, here again, is Kirby Anderson.

[00:23:13] Back once again as we talk about the book Science and Faith in Harmony.

[00:23:17] I'm going to be with you.

[00:23:18] And again, one of the chapters deals with revolutions.

[00:23:22] And first of all, you quote from a number of people that we've had on the program.

[00:23:26] J. Warner Wallace in his book A Person of Interest reminds us, as I just alluded to just a minute ago,

[00:23:32] that if you go and look at the individuals that were the father or mother, because some of them are women,

[00:23:38] of the particular scientific discipline, they were theists.

[00:23:42] You also quote from a book by Tom Holland.

[00:23:45] And Tom Holland, although he's not a Christian, has been on the program on Dominion.

[00:23:49] Talks about, again, how Western thought has provided a revolution in human rights and equality, compassion, and much else.

[00:23:55] But really, if you go back to science and the origin of science, you make the case, and I would completely agree with you,

[00:24:03] that most of the major scientific figures, we're talking about Copernicus and Galileo and Kepler and Bacon and Newton,

[00:24:13] these were individuals who had a different view of the world, I think informed in large part by either their Christian convictions

[00:24:22] or at least by the resident Christian consensus around there that caused them to reject the way Greek philosophers looked at that.

[00:24:30] And as a result, we have a scientific revolution, which in large part was due to Christian theism.

[00:24:36] True?

[00:24:38] Absolutely.

[00:24:39] I mean, the whole basis, the philosophical basis for the origin of science was that this is a world of orderly law.

[00:24:49] In other words, it's not just chaos, it's not different gods, you know, demigods, whatever, just fighting with each other

[00:24:58] and people caught in the middle, which is kind of what, you know, the Greeks thought.

[00:25:04] No.

[00:25:04] This is a world where there's a regular lawfulness.

[00:25:09] That's how it was created, and that's clear in the Bible.

[00:25:12] I mean, when you read Genesis, you see the existence of laws coming into being.

[00:25:19] And what these philosophers, and they were called natural philosophers, what they decided to do was to say,

[00:25:26] well, if that's the case, you know, how does the world work?

[00:25:30] How do things happen?

[00:25:31] And they found it.

[00:25:34] And they found it by using a new method, which was the experimental method.

[00:25:38] In other words, they tried things out, and then they, you know, very carefully isolated variables

[00:25:44] and made sure that they were looking at only one thing, and it worked beautifully.

[00:25:49] And all the names you mentioned were Christian.

[00:25:52] And, in fact, Christian, this split between Christianity and science only occurred at the end of the 19th century,

[00:26:03] not very long ago.

[00:26:04] Before that, you know, people like Maxwell and Faraday, who were 18th century, sorry, 19th century physicists,

[00:26:18] they wrote almost as much about Christianity as they did about science.

[00:26:22] They were devout Christians.

[00:26:23] It wasn't just because, you know, everybody was a Christian in those days, as I've often heard the counterargument.

[00:26:29] No, they were devout, and Louis Pasteur, Lord Kelvin, these people were all absolutely committed Christians.

[00:26:39] And then things began to change, you know, in the 20th century.

[00:26:43] And why, that's a whole other topic.

[00:26:46] But, you know, and the split grew, and now we're dealing with it.

[00:26:51] And you said something before that I want to emphasize.

[00:26:54] And, you know, people ask me, what is my main message, and to whom is it directed?

[00:26:59] And it's what you said.

[00:27:00] It's directed especially to young people, the students who might, you know, be Christian,

[00:27:06] but then they learn something about science.

[00:27:09] They may even have a professor who tells them, oh, you know, you have to choose one or the other.

[00:27:14] And my message to them is that is a lie.

[00:27:17] It is not true.

[00:27:18] There's nothing that makes science separate or different or opposing your Christian faith.

[00:27:26] You know, that book that came out a number of years ago called Exit Interviews and also some others, Ex-Christians,

[00:27:32] so there's two different books I'm referring to, all came to the same conclusion.

[00:27:36] Young people leave either because they think Christianity is hypocritical, and we ask them, well, do you know hypocritical?

[00:27:42] Usually they do, but they certainly have said, well, that's enough for me to leave, which I think is maybe a little bit of a weak excuse.

[00:27:49] That's been around for centuries.

[00:27:51] But the other one is that very issue.

[00:27:53] That is, I've come to believe that science and the Bible contradict each other.

[00:27:59] They don't complement each other.

[00:28:01] And so that's one of the reasons why we kind of do these programs.

[00:28:04] And you mentioned something also in passing.

[00:28:06] Again, I'm holding up some of the booklets we've made available because I recognize most people don't have a science background,

[00:28:11] but they would like to know, are there good answers to that?

[00:28:14] And this one on a biblical point of view on the new atheists, I take on this idea that, well, our new atheists have a real problem,

[00:28:22] whether it's Richard Dawkins or Sam Harris or Daniel Dennard, whoever it might be,

[00:28:26] because they've got to admit that most of these scientists indeed in the past were Christian or at least favorable to Christianity.

[00:28:35] So their fallback argument is, well, everybody was sort of a Christian back then.

[00:28:40] But no, that has nothing to do with it.

[00:28:42] It was their actual worldview.

[00:28:44] It was the fact that they believe that we lived in a contingent universe in a time in which you had a designer,

[00:28:52] and thus you could use your rational mind to define and even discern that design.

[00:28:59] And so it was a lot more than just, well, they had to be Christian because that was the only way they could function in that society.

[00:29:06] It was actually the worldview that led them to that discovery, did it not?

[00:29:11] Absolutely correct.

[00:29:12] And by the way, I should also say it's not just the past.

[00:29:16] In one of the YouTube videos on my channel called Scientists and Christianity,

[00:29:24] in that video I show how many scientists alive today are Christians,

[00:29:34] including something like 30 Nobel Prize winners.

[00:29:37] And there's a guy named Bill Phillips, who's a physicist, is a Nobel laureate who I've met.

[00:29:44] And there are many others.

[00:29:46] So, I mean, you know, it's – and I will also tell you that, you know, as a scientist,

[00:29:53] I mean, I spent 35 years as a working scientist, and I met many, many other scientists,

[00:29:58] and I have not met one who was the kind of militant new atheist that you were just mentioning.

[00:30:06] Some of them don't believe in God.

[00:30:08] Many of them don't believe in God.

[00:30:10] But they're not – they don't have that strong atheist viewpoint that you get from the new atheism crowd.

[00:30:17] And there are many – when I first announced that I was a Christian publicly,

[00:30:22] I made a – it was when I – I was giving a talk,

[00:30:25] and somebody asked me what I'm going to do next after I retire,

[00:30:28] and I said I'm going to be working at my church.

[00:30:32] And there was a moment of silence.

[00:30:34] But when I left, a lot of people came up to me and said, I'm a Christian too.

[00:30:40] Well.

[00:30:41] And I had never known.

[00:30:42] I mean –

[00:30:44] Well, you know – yeah.

[00:30:46] And again, I think that's, again, the impression that is being given, unfortunately, in some college classrooms,

[00:30:53] and I've spent a lot of years speaking in classrooms and on campus and things of that nature,

[00:30:57] is that, you know, you either have to have your faith,

[00:31:00] and then you put your brain in a cold storage department, or you have your science.

[00:31:05] But you can't have to, and you can't do that together.

[00:31:08] And the pause that you get – I remember that even getting that in graduate school as much as well.

[00:31:14] You know, just, really?

[00:31:16] You're going to be working in what – a Christian ministry?

[00:31:19] You're going to be doing – working in a Christian think tank?

[00:31:22] I mean, well, why do you do it?

[00:31:23] I mean, they just couldn't get their head around that as well.

[00:31:26] I might just mention that these arguments have been around for some time.

[00:31:30] Of course, we mentioned Jane Warner Wallace's book, but I'm holding up here a book that Norm Geiser and I wrote,

[00:31:35] turns out, 37 years ago.

[00:31:38] And it talks about, you know, the quotes there from – one of them is M.B. Foster,

[00:31:42] who back in 1925 was saying that the Christian doctrine of nature is really what gave us the scientific method.

[00:31:51] And I remember Dr. Geisler and I doing a presentation before the American Scientific Affiliation,

[00:31:56] of which you remember, and those kinds of arguments have been around for some time.

[00:32:01] But, you know, again, our new atheists want to sort of ignore those.

[00:32:04] And a lot of younger scientists today that are teaching in the classroom don't know that.

[00:32:10] So they're just assuming that science has always been secular, it's always been naturalistic,

[00:32:15] and anybody that believes in Christianity or especially the supernatural is just being very unscientific.

[00:32:22] And yet I think you testify to the fact that that's not the case.

[00:32:26] Absolutely not.

[00:32:27] And ironically enough, by the way, you know, one of the people who first told me that science doesn't answer everything,

[00:32:36] there are questions that science cannot address, was actually my atheist father, who was a chemist, who was a scientist.

[00:32:43] But even – and what I then learned later was that almost all scientists will agree that science can't answer everything.

[00:32:52] You mentioned earlier my history with music.

[00:32:55] You know, most scientists – and I don't have data for this, but from the people I've met –

[00:33:02] are either also musicians or artists or poets or writers or something else in the arts

[00:33:07] because science doesn't – you know, the pure nerd who does nothing but, you know, look at facts and solve equations, that's a myth.

[00:33:18] I mean, we're human beings.

[00:33:19] Science is the human beings, and, you know, we fall in love, and we –

[00:33:23] That's right.

[00:33:24] And we paint pictures, and we do everything else.

[00:33:27] The whole person.

[00:33:28] Let's take a break, and then we come back.

[00:33:30] We talked about how things changed in the 20th century, and that kind of gets us into something you quote from as well,

[00:33:36] the return of a God hypothesis, because the turn of the 19th century,

[00:33:42] atheists thought science had explained everything without God.

[00:33:45] Turned out to be a little different.

[00:33:47] We'll be right back.

[00:33:48] You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth.

[00:34:01] Continue our conversation with Sygaard about science and faith in harmony.

[00:34:05] It is published by Kriegel Books, 44 chapters, and I just might mention again,

[00:34:11] a forward by Sean McDowell, who's been on the program, Lee Strobel, Fuz Rana, Dennis Alexander,

[00:34:19] under all individuals that have been on this program before that endorsed the book.

[00:34:23] So I think you will really appreciate that.

[00:34:25] And I thought just for a few more minutes, maybe Sy will talk about information and language, two of your chapters,

[00:34:32] because, first of all, we recognize that any kind of information, symbolic information or coded information,

[00:34:41] obviously requires some level of sophistication and is not something that comes about randomly.

[00:34:49] Or if you look at the DNA code, first of all, I always love that.

[00:34:54] When I was in graduate school, I was amazed at how they would say everything happened by chance,

[00:34:59] but then they would use words having to do with information and language.

[00:35:03] We talk about the DNA code.

[00:35:05] We talk about RNA or DNA translated, transcribed.

[00:35:09] Those are words that you use.

[00:35:11] But nevertheless, the genetic code, we don't have 26 letters.

[00:35:15] We have four letters.

[00:35:16] But the level of complexity in terms of information and language, which you talk about in those two chapters,

[00:35:25] again, is far beyond anything we would have imagined until we got to the time of Watson and Crick

[00:35:31] and understood the structure of DNA and have electron microscopes and things of that nature.

[00:35:37] Today, in the 21st century, we know that the evidence is much better than it was at the end of the 19th century.

[00:35:45] Right.

[00:35:47] I just want to say one thing first before I start talking about that.

[00:35:52] You mentioned this book has 44 chapters, which sounds kind of scary.

[00:35:56] So I just wanted to mention that each chapter is about three pages.

[00:36:01] Yeah, short chapters.

[00:36:01] They're short chapters.

[00:36:02] Yes.

[00:36:03] And some people have told me they actually read it like a devotional.

[00:36:07] They'll read like a chapter every day or something like that because they're short and self-contained.

[00:36:14] So it's not a huge tome.

[00:36:17] 250 pages, 44 chapters.

[00:36:19] That helped people understand that.

[00:36:21] Yeah.

[00:36:22] There you go.

[00:36:23] So, yeah, you were talking about the information that's in cells.

[00:36:29] And you're absolutely right.

[00:36:32] I mean, nobody can come – and I've had arguments and debates with atheists about this forever,

[00:36:40] even to the point where there are now many atheists who claim that the genetic code is not really a code.

[00:36:46] What they say is it's just chemicals doing what chemicals do.

[00:36:50] And what's very interesting is – I don't know if you know John Perry.

[00:36:54] He is a very popular YouTuber who – he's not a Christian, but he explains science to the public.

[00:37:01] And when he heard me arguing with one of the new atheists about this, he took my side because he knows a lot.

[00:37:11] And not only that, but he mentioned this to Richard Dawkins in an interview that he did with him.

[00:37:17] And Dawkins said, that's complete nonsense.

[00:37:18] Of course it's a code.

[00:37:20] Of course it is.

[00:37:22] Of course.

[00:37:23] And Dawkins is a biologist.

[00:37:24] And, you know, I don't know a single biologist who would say that the genetic code is not a real code.

[00:37:29] Of course it is.

[00:37:29] This comes from some of the atheists who really don't know science but pretend that they do.

[00:37:35] So anyway, yeah, it's a code and the information is there.

[00:37:39] And what you said is completely true.

[00:37:41] Information doesn't come anywhere else.

[00:37:43] You don't get this kind of information anywhere else in the universe except from living things.

[00:37:50] And the origin of that is the genetic code, which is the same code in all of life.

[00:37:58] So where did it come from?

[00:38:00] That's the question.

[00:38:01] How do we get – and, you know, there are people studying that in laboratories.

[00:38:05] They're trying to understand the evolution or the beginning, the origin, of the information system we have,

[00:38:12] which is incredibly complex.

[00:38:14] It's not just the DNA and the genetic code.

[00:38:17] It's also how the genetic code is used, which involves ribosomes and transfer RNA and messenger RNA and all kinds of other molecules,

[00:38:27] which are amazing and complex.

[00:38:29] How do you get that?

[00:38:31] You can't get that randomly.

[00:38:33] You can't get that by any form of evolution.

[00:38:36] So we don't know.

[00:38:39] That's one of those things that – and, of course, Steve Meyer makes this case beautifully in most of his books.

[00:38:46] And so do other people.

[00:38:47] And it's just an unanswered question.

[00:38:50] Now, let me just tell you, if I may, my idea about it because people say, oh, he's going off science.

[00:38:56] He's getting into, you know, getting into unknowable theological things.

[00:39:02] But I think that what's going to happen, and, in fact, it's already happening, is that we – our science is missing something,

[00:39:10] especially in biology.

[00:39:12] And what we're missing are things like purpose and agency.

[00:39:17] They were ruled out of biology at one point because they were considered too close to supernatural, spiritual, whatever.

[00:39:25] But it's coming back, and right now there are two books at least and many papers in the literature talking about purpose in biology.

[00:39:37] And these are not being authored necessarily by Christians.

[00:39:41] They're coming from mainstream scientists who are not necessarily – in fact, most of them are not – people of faith.

[00:39:48] So what's happening is science is catching up.

[00:39:52] And, you know, what's going to happen is when we finally get some kind of a biological scientific law that explains a lot of these unanswered questions,

[00:40:03] there's no question in my mind when we start talking about purpose and agency, it's going to point to God as the originator of that.

[00:40:11] Wow.

[00:40:12] Again, I'm just about out of time.

[00:40:13] I wanted to mention that, first of all, we have sygart.com, and you can go to that website, and you'll find a few things.

[00:40:20] First of all, you can find out more about the God and Nature magazine, and he's the editor-in-chief.

[00:40:26] You can follow his blog.

[00:40:28] You can contact him if you would like to do so.

[00:40:30] We also, of course, have information about the book.

[00:40:33] In case you can't find it in your local bookstore, we have it so that you can order it in paperback or Kindle.

[00:40:39] And one other thing that we have put up there, I appreciate Karen putting up the YouTube channel so that you can follow that as well, some of the videos and other resources.

[00:40:50] So there are a number of great resources available.

[00:40:53] And, of course, you can maybe look for this book in your local bookstore, but we've made it very easy for you to get it.

[00:41:00] And as I mentioned before, a number of chapters, 250 pages.

[00:41:04] Of course, we were just talking about, of course, Stephen Meyer, the return of the God hypothesis.

[00:41:09] Because if you start to the 20th century saying we can explain everything apart from God, and then you realize the universe had an origin, the fine-tuning of the universe, and then, of course, the fine-tuning of biology.

[00:41:22] You begin to realize that now in the 21st century, it's pretty exciting.

[00:41:26] And I hope that we, because of this interview, because of this book and other things, will encourage some of you young people to think about going into the scientific endeavor and to recognize you don't have to give up on your faith to be a good scientist.

[00:41:41] So, Dr. Cy Gart, it has been a pleasure to have you with us.

[00:41:44] Again, it is a book that's been out, forwarded by Sean McDowell, endorsed by our good friend Lee Strobel and many other individuals.

[00:41:51] And it has been a delight to have you on the program today to talk about science and faith.

[00:41:56] I really enjoyed it.

[00:41:57] Thanks very much.

[00:41:58] Let's see if we can take a break.

[00:42:00] And when we come back, we're going to spend some time getting into some issues in the news.

[00:42:04] Some of it has to do with some of the political issues.

[00:42:07] Some of it has to do with economic issues.

[00:42:09] I even have posted one article about some real concerns about AI, which is artificial intelligence.

[00:42:15] We, of course, have not only produced a booklet on that.

[00:42:18] But in the future, if you join with us and are a donor, you will receive through the Outlook magazine a future edition that will be coming out.

[00:42:27] It's not out yet, but it will be coming out in the future on artificial intelligence.

[00:42:31] So lots of issues that we try to address every single day here on Point of View.

[00:42:35] And if you know somebody that maybe is interested in the sciences but maybe kind of skeptical about Christian faith,

[00:42:43] I think this interview might be a possible interview.

[00:42:46] And so, again, you can go to the website, pointofview.net, click on the button that says watch or listen, send that podcast,

[00:42:53] and I think you will find that this might be a way to open that door.

[00:42:57] Of course, you might want to get a copy of the book, Science and Faith in Harmony.

[00:43:01] But we need to take a break.

[00:43:02] We'll come back with more right after this.

[00:43:12] Who can you trust?

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