Science Supports Faith
DAVID BLOCK is Professor of Applied Mathematics and Astronomy at the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa. Besides two Bachelor degrees, Dr. Block holds a Master of Science in relativistic astrophysics and a Doctor of Philosophy in Astronomy. Dr. Block is a world-renowned scientist, a consultant at the European Southern Observatory near Munich, West Germany, and the Institute of Astronomy, University of Hawaii.
“Both of my parents’ Orthodox Jewish families have their roots in Lithuania. And we certainly kept to all the traditions as well: My mother would light the Shabbos candles and we would have a traditional Shabbos meal together. I went to schul both on Friday night and Saturday. We kept Pesach. I fasted on Yom Kippur. I was bar mitzvah. We were practicing Jews. And I did all the things expected of a good Jewish boy. Actually, I felt that I was doing the best that I knew how to live out my Jewish faith … While a student, I also became quite friendly with Lewis Hurst, then Professor of genetics and of medicine. He had a great interest in astronomy, if only from an amateur point o f view, and he asked if I would give him individual lessons.
Week by week, Lewis and I would sit around the table and I would discuss the complexities of the cosmos with him and also explain fundamental terms in astronomy such as “black holes” and “quasars.” It was a full but private course I was giving him. The friendship grew and I started sharing my feelings about the cosmos with him–that it is so beautiful, that God is so creative, that he’s made this stunning world. I even shared my doubts with him. ‘Are we,’ as Shakespeare said, ‘just a fleeting shadow to appear and then disappear’” What’s the raison d’etre for being here? Is there a Designer out there?’ Lewis listened thoughtfully and then spoke, “David, there is an answer to all your questions … Would you be willing to meet with a dear friend of mine, the Reverend Mr. John Spyker?
“My parents had taught me to seek answers where they may be found and so I consented to meet with this Christian minister. Of course, in my heart, when I had put my telescope on Saturn, and saw it in all its majesty and splendor–its rings simply encircling that globe–I just knew that there was a Great Designer. In fact, I knew there must be a personal God. The Reverend Mr. Spyker read to me from the New Testament …
“Suddenly it all became very clear to me: Y’shua had fulfilled the messianic prophecies in the Hebrew Scriptures, such as where the Messiah would be born and how he was to die. While my people were still waiting for the Messiah, I suddenly knew that I knew that I knew that I knew that Jesus was the Messiah and is the Messiah. And I surrendered my heart and my soul to him that day. That was in October of 1976 “It might seem strange to some that a scientist and a Jew could come to faith in Jesus. But faith is never a leap into the dark. It is always based on evidence … As a scientist, I always think logically and I reason things out. That was how my whole search for God began. I looked through my telescope at Saturn and said to myself, Isn’t there a great God out there? And when I studied relativity, relativistic astrophysics, cosmology and all these beautiful areas of mathematics, they pointed me to the fact that this whole universe is masterfully made, finely-tuned and controlled by the Great Designer. The logical next step was to want to meet this Designer face-to-face … The “Big Bang” was not a cosmological firecracker. As the physicist Freeman Dyson put it, the universe seemed to be acting in anticipation for the appearance of mankind (italics added) … In fact, leading evolutionists, such as Dobzhansky and others have agreed that there has not been enough time for mankind to have assembled spontaneously within the time span of our universe … (Italics added)
“We’ve astronomical evidence that demands a verdict. And I’ve examined this evidence, not from an emotional point of view, but from a logical point of view. “We’ve got historical evidence that Jesus, the Jew, lived and died and rose again from the dead.
“We’ve astronomical evidence that demands a verdict. And I’ve examined this evidence, not from an emotional point of view, but from a logical point of view. “We’ve got historical evidence that Jesus, the Jew, lived and died and rose again from the dead.
When Albert Einstein was asked by a reporter if he accepted the historical existence of Jesus, he responded, ‘Unquestionably! No one can read the Gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus. His personality pulsates in every word. No myth is filled with such life. I am enthralled by the luminous figure of the Nazarene.’
“To the person who is seriously seeking today I would say, read the gospels from an objective point of view, as Albert Einstein did – as Isaac Newton did. Don’t let your emotions override or cloud your decision. Seek after truth and don’t let anyone make up your mind for you. It is far too important. It does matter what you believe.”
— Dr. David Block
Dr. John Lennox (Professor Of Mathematics at Oxford University) sums up the overall matter of the cosmological argument well when he writes:
“There are not many options – essentially just two.
Either human intelligence ultimately owes its origin to mindless matter;
or there is a Creator.
It is strange that some people claim that it is their intelligence that leads them to prefer the first to the second.”