On February 23,
2018, a Spanish Newspaper (La Opinión, El Correo de Zamora) published this
interview with me, performed by Ana Arias, which I am now translating into
English. The interview was re-published
a few days later (March 10) in the website ReligionEnLibertad (ReligionInFreedom).
This is the translation of the interview:
He took an interest
in science since he was quite small,
as he says. At age 16 he wrote a book of zoology in two volumes that was never published.
Anyway, whenever he has to consult information about some little known animal, he
consults his book. "And I can find almost everything there," he adds.
Now, at 71, he is an honorary professor at the Autonomous University of Madrid.
He believes in
science. And also in God. Under the sponsorship of the Caja Rural Foundation
and the Science-Religion University Forum held yesterday at the University
College, Manuel Alfonseca gave a lecture about The Faith of Contemporary Atheist Scientists.
What is the faith
of those scientists?
That God does not
exist.
But you do believe
in His existence.
I believe in God. I
believe that God created the universe. The fact that God made the universe
makes this universe more probable. It is highly improbable that life would be possible
in a random universe. This is called fine tuning, which was discovered by
atheist scientists in the late eighties, ruining their hypotheses. That’s why
they invented the multiverse theory.
What is the
multiverse theory?
It says that our universe
is not alone, that there are many, and we must be in that universe compatible
with our existence. But the multiverse theory is not science, it is philosophy.
We cannot prove scientifically that other universes exist, because we would
have to leave our own universe.
Do you believe in
the multiverse?
About that, I am agnostic.
Also, I don’t care. If God has made one universe, why couldn’t He have done several?
Your position must
have generated many debates with your atheist colleagues.
Atheism is a faith
based on the problem of evil. If Almighty God existed, he would be able to do
anything and wouldn’t want evil to exist. Therefore, as there is evil, there is
no God. That is the most typical atheist argument. Once in a debate, someone
raised it and I answered: “You need an extra step, you must prove first that it
is logically possible to make a universe where there is no evil.” And he answered:
“No, for I define Almighty God so that he can do anything, even logical
impossibilities.” This is the well-known straw man fallacy. They define a God different
from the God we believe in. Then they prove that this God does not exist. True,
their God does not exist, but they have shown nothing about our God, in whom I
believe.
Who is that God you
are talking about?
An Almighty God who
can do anything that is not logically impossible. Atheists must prove that it
is logically possible to make a universe without evil.
How can a scientist
reason that God made the universe?
Fine tuning is quite
rare. Life is very unlikely. However, we are here. If God exists and created a
universe, it is to be expected that He would create a universe where life is
possible. Why would God want an empty universe? The belief in the existence of
God makes our universe more likely, because this is exactly the universe that
God would have created. On the other hand, for an atheist who believes that God
does not exist, the universe must have arisen spontaneously from nothing, which is impossible. This
is a typical confusion. When they are talking about philosophy they show their
ignorance. When they talk about nothing,
they mean the vacuum. But if
we accept their theory, the following question would arise: Where does the vacuum come from? Who
has made it? Nothing does not
exist. The vacuum has properties:
existence, space, time, energy. Vacuum
is something. And the universe seems to be adjusted to make life
possible. Atheists use arguments full of fallacies. Either they start from a
wrong concept, such as confusing nothing with the vacuum, or they have missed a
premise, as in the argument of evil. And to escape that premise when it is
pointed, they fall in the classic straw man fallacy. It is very easy to catch
them. When they are told, they get angry. The problem of atheist scientists is,
that they have no idea of philosophy. Stephen Hawking at the beginning of his
2010 book The Great Design,
says: “Philosophy is dead, science is now the only way to handle human
knowledge.” And then he proposes a theory of model realism that is
philosophical, not scientific. In other words, he starts doing philosophy just after
saying that philosophy is dead. He mistakes it for science, he does not know
how to distinguish them.
What is the
difference?
Science has to do
with the material world, with which one can experiment to obtain confirmations
or refutations. Philosophy is made of mental speculation about things that may
or may not exist. This is not a criticism. It is a very important field of
human knowledge. But the problem is that modern atheist scientists despise philosophy,
but are constantly doing philosophy without being aware of it.
Anyway, that we can
talk today about the possible compatibility between both fields, shows there
has been an evolution.
There is no
incompatibility between faith and science. There is an incompatibility between
faith and atheism. Which is logical. Belief in God and atheism of course are incompatible.
But atheists try to assert that they are science, therefore they see an incompatibility
between science and faith. The only incompatibility is between faith in God and
faith that there is no God. Science has nothing to do with either, for science
can never prove that God exists or does not exist. Science studies the material
world and God is not in the material world.
You are one of the
co-authors of the book 60 questions about science and
faith answered by 26 university professors. What questions are most consulted?
I have the feeling,
although statistically this is not meaningful, that readers are mainly
interested about evolution and cosmology.
You are very active
in the Web.
Of the 31 novels I
have published, eight are available for free in my website. Another eight are
sold by publishers, and others, which are now out-of-print, I have self-published.
In digital format they cost two or three dollars, so that my theories and my
novels are brought closer to the public.
Mystery novels,
science fiction, works on popular science... in which genre do you feel most at
ease?
In everyone. I have lately
written a series of five mystery novels about two young detectives, entitled The sleuths of
the Spanish transition.
Any projects under
way?
I am writing a philosophical
novel describing my ideas about the next life.
Any scoop?
In the next life,
time is orthogonal to ours. I mean, its time axis is perpendicular to ours.
And what does that mean?
That we all arrive at
the afterlife at the same time. The moment of death becomes the initial moment
of time in the next life, and we come there together. We don’t have to wait for
each other. Both times are perpendicular and the soul is never outside the
body.
Thematic Thread on Science and Atheism: Previous Next
Manuel Alfonseca
very nice to read this!
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