Member-only story

Does Science Require Faith, Too?

Different ways of dealing with the unknown

Joe Omundson
6 min readMar 27, 2020

With all the circumstances needed for life to exist, it seems more plausible that someone would be orchestrating it.

The above was recently said to me by my acquaintance Tammy Gregg who contacted me when she was considering leaving Christianity and has since returned to it. This conversation began as a discussion of the ethics of persuasive writing, then shifted to the topic of hell and God’s love; eventually we ended up talking about faith and the origin of the universe.

I responded to her statement: “If a complex set of circumstances requires a more complex being to create them, where does that logic end? Doesn’t God’s vast complexity require an even greater intelligence, and so on?”

To me, it makes more sense the other way around — complexity seems to emerge from the interaction of simpler units.

Looking back into the history of the universe using astronomical data, we understand that hydrogen clouds condense into stars, where they undergo fusion reactions and eventually go supernova, distributing higher elements and ultimately creating solar systems like our own.

Using the fossil record and DNA analysis we can infer that life has grown increasingly complex since it first emerged a few…

--

--

Joe Omundson
Joe Omundson

Written by Joe Omundson

Old stories about land-based travels, new stories about the sea.

Responses (9)