From: waynebro@juliet.caltech.edu (Broughton, Wayne Jeremy)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Hugh Ross' Big Bang claims (was Re: noah's ark)
Date: 13 Nov 1992 17:33 PST
Organization: California Institute of Technology
Distribution: usa
NNTP-Posting-Host: juliet.caltech.edu
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    

In article <92896@rphroy.ph.gmr.com>, hamilton@gmr.com 
 (William E. Hamilton CS50 CS/50) writes...

[ Ross and Gish interview deleted ]
> 
>Ross also gets out on a limb when he claims that the big bang proves
>the existence of the God of the Bible.  
> 
>Bill Hamilton
> 
Yes, I have seen him on his show "Reason to Believe" and in an interview 
on the Trinity Broadcast Network, and he seems to claim that "cosmologists
have basically shown by rigorous mathematics that there must be some
designer behind the universe" (not an exact quote).  He then sometimes 
clarifies this as just the standard "argument by design":  since there
are so many perfectly fine-tuned parameters that allow our existence
(eg. the apparently fortuitous relation that allows helium-to-carbon
fusion), they must have been planned that way.  He follows this with
the claim that an extensive personal examination of the Bible found it
to be inerrant, so he concludes that the God of the Bible is the designer.
(This is a bit simplified, but that's the gist of it).  He also likes
to quote the recent COBE results as not just confirmation of the Big
Bang but also the handiwork of the Designer.  He generally claims 
that they have scientific proof of God's existence, and that only 
those cosmologists who refuse to accept the "inescapable" conclusions
or who have a "moral barrier" (that is a direct quote) don't believe.
But I have also heard him once or twice state that one cannot *prove*
God's existence as such. Confusing, isn't it?

I think the guy needs to have a good long talk with Stephen Hawking...

A far more intelligent analysis of cosmology from a Christian POV I 
heard was a talk given by a Catholic physicist-turned-theologian.  
This fellow clearly understood the physics involved (esp. General 
Relativity) and Hawking's recent suggestion that there was no actual
"beginning point", ie. time is finite but has no boundary.  The problem
for the theologian being that this seems to eliminate the last thing
a God could possibly have done, ie. start the universe (Hawking refers
to this in "A Brief History of Time").  I didn't really understand how
he tried to resolve the problem, but I recall he also claimed it could
be possible for a free-will being to have intervening influence in a
universe governed by deterministic and/or probabilistic laws!!  The 
details were a little fuzzy and he admitted that they needed to be
worked on and refined.  None of Ross' grandiose rhetoric however.

At any rate, much of what Ross claims is blatantly untrue, and I am
concerned that overly enthusiastic evangelicals will take his word 
on faith (I know one staff person here who does).  By contrast, when
the Catholic theologian was directly asked why he bothered to believe
the Bible true at all, his answer was "by faith based on personal 
experience".  

Hasta la vista,

Wayne.
**********************************************************************

Wayne J. Broughton                 Take the road less travelled by.  
waynebro@juliet.caltech.edu    
Department of Mathematics,
Caltech, Pasadena, CA  91125

Caltech has no idea what my opinions are;  
they think I'm working right now...
Newsgroups: talk.origins