Science at the Doorstep to God: Science and Reason in Support of God, the Soul, and Life after Death

By Robert Spitzer

Today, there is more science-based evidence for God, the soul, and life after death than ever before. Then why are scores of people turning to unbelief because of "science"? The answer is simple: they do not know the science.

Science at the Doorstep to God presents in depth the latest evidence to turn the rising tide of unbelief. Father Robert Spitzer, S.J., synthesizes eight recent studies confirming an intelligent creator of physical reality as well as a transphysical soul capable of surviving bodily death.

This is the most comprehensive scientific treatment of God and the afterlife to date. It combines natural scientific method, metaphysical method, medical studies, anthropological and genetics studies, and phenomenological descriptions, showing how each distinct method and data set reinforces the others.

It is critical for the Church to learn and share the fruits of this research and again to demonstrate the profound complementarity between the Catholic faith and science. Through reason, we can come to see not only the great intelligence of the Creator, but also signs of his love, goodness, and glory.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ignatius Press
• Release date: Oct 23, 2023
• ISBN: 9781642292756

Robert Spitzer

Robert Spitzer, S.J., Ph.D. is the President of the Magis Center of Reason and Faith and the Spitzer Center. He was the President of Gonzaga University from 1998 to 2009. He is the author of many books, including Healing the Culture, Finding True Happiness, Five Pillars of the Spiritual Life, The Light Shines On in the Darkness, The Soul's Upward Yearning, and God So Loved the World.

Book preview

SCIENCE AT THE DOORSTEP TO GOD

Title

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible—Second Catholic Edition (Ignatius Edition) copyright © 2006 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Cover photo:

The Hubble image of the Bubble Nebula or NGC 7635

NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA).

Cover design by John Herreid

© 2023 by Ignatius Press, San Francisco

All rights reserved

ISBN 978-1-62164-636-5 (PB)

ISBN 978-1-64229-275-6 (eBook)

Library of Congress Catalogue number 2023935058

Printed in the United States of America ♾

In memory of Father Joseph Koterski, S.J., a true friend, superb philosopher, tireless apostle, and shining example of sanctity who was a constant source of encouragement and help in my publications and institutes. He is sorely missed.

Additionally, in memory of Father William Wallace, O.P., former professor of philosophy of science who provided great inspiration for integrating these two disciplines.

Finally, in memory of my mother, who shared her love of chemistry with me, and my father, who introduced me to the world of electronics and physics.

In a yearning towards God, the soul grows upward and finds the fulfilment of something implanted in its nature. The sanction for this development is within us, a striving born with our consciousness or an Inner Light proceeding from a greater power than ours. Science can scarcely question this sanction, for the pursuit of science springs from a striving which the mind is impelled to follow, a questioning that will not be suppressed. Whether in the intellectual pursuits of science or in the mystical pursuits of the spirit, the light beckons ahead and the purpose surging in our nature responds.

— Sir Arthur Eddington, Nature of the Physical World

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Introduction

I.Are Scientists Really Atheists?

II.What Science Can and Cannot Do

III.John Henry Newman’s Informal Inference

IV.Conclusion

Chapter One: Does Science Point to a Beginning of Our Universe?

Introduction

I.The Big Bang, the Finite Universe, and Monsignor Georges Lemaître

II.The Borde-Vilenkin-Guth Theorem

III.Entropy

IV.The Implications of a Beginning of Physical Reality

V.Conclusion

Chapter Two: Does Fine-Tuning for Life Point to Transcendent Intelligence?

Introduction

I.The Meaning and Significance of Fine-Tuning and Free Parameters

II.Five Examples of Fine-Tuning for Life in Our Universe

A.Fine-Tuning and the Initial Conditions of Our Universe

B.Fine-Tuning for Life and the Four Universal Forces

C.Conclusion

III.Can Fine-Tuning Be Explained by Inflation, String Theory, or Cyclic Cosmologies?

A.Can Cyclical Cosmologies Explain the Low Entropy of Our Universe?

B.Can Inflationary Cosmology Explain Low Entropy at the Big Bang?

C.Can Roger Penrose’s Conformal Cyclic Cosmology Explain Low Entropy at the Big Bang?

D.Conclusion

IV.Can a Multiverse Explain Fine-Tuning for Life?

A.The Unlikeliness of Eternal Inflation and Its Infinite Multiverse

1.Nonscientific Character—Untestable and Nonpredictive

2.Significant Divergences from Observational and Experimental Data

3.The Irresolvable Problem of Boltzmann Brain and Brief Brain Domination

B.Noneternal Inflation, the Finite Multiverse, and Fine-Tuning

V.The Need for Transcendent Intelligence as Ultimate Ground of Universal Fine-Tuning

VI.Conclusion

Chapter Three: Is Theism More Rational Than Atheism?

Introduction

I.Why the Existence of God Cannot Be Disproved

II.A Thomistic Metaphysical Proof of God

A.Statement of the Proof

B.Explanation of the Proof

C.Conclusion

III.The One Uncaused, Unrestricted Reality Is an Unrestricted Act of Understanding (Conscious Intelligence)

IV.The Simplicity of the One Uncaused Reality and a Response to Richard Dawkins

V.Conclusion

Chapter Four: Is There Medical and Scientific Evidence of a Transcendent Soul?

Introduction

I.Peer-Reviewed Medical Studies of Near-Death Experiences Indicating a Transphysical Soul

A.Definitions and Descriptions of Near-Death Experiences

B.Clinical Death

C.Three Major Peer-Reviewed Studies of Near-Death Experiences

D.Response to Physicalist Explanations and Objections

E.From This Universe to a Heavenly Domain

II.Medical Studies of Terminal Lucidity and Hydrocephalic Intelligence Indicating Consciousness and Intelligence beyond the Brain

A.Medical Studies of Terminal Lucidity Indicating Consciousness beyond the Brain

B.Medical Studies of Intelligence in Severely Hydrocephalic Patients Indicating Intelligence beyond the Brain

III.Conclusion

Chapter Five: Are Human Intelligence and Self-Consciousness Unique?

Introduction

I.Uniquely Human Intelligence and the Soul

A.The Conditions for Conceptual Ideas and Syntactically Significant Language

1.The First Step of the Argument

2.The Second Step of the Argument

3.The Third Step of the Argument

4.The Fourth Step of the Argument

B.Findings of Contemporary Linguistic Analysts, Psychologists, and Anthropologists concerning the Uniqueness of Human Thought and Language

II.Uniquely Human Self-Consciousness and the Soul

A.The Irreducibility of Experiential Consciousness to Physical Processes: Thomas Nagel and David Chalmers

B.The Irreducibility of Self-Consciousness to Physical Processes

C.The Uniqueness of Human Self-Consciousness

III.Transalgorithmic Mathematics

IV.Conclusion

Chapter Six: Are We Free Amidst Our Experience of God?

Introduction

I.Religious Experience: The Numinous Experience and the Soul

A.Universal Religious Experience

B.Christian Religious Experience

II.The Divine Origin of Conscience

III.The Five Transcendental Desires

A.The Desire for Perfect Truth

B.The Desire for Perfect Love

C.The Desire for Perfect Goodness/Justice, Perfect Beauty, and Perfect Being/Home

IV.Overcoming Dualism: Quantum Hylomorphism

V.Do We Really Have Free Will?

A.The Powers of the Soul

B.The Powers of the Body

C.Human Freedom

VI.Conclusion

Conclusion

Appendix: Our First Ensouled Parents and the Possibility of Aliens

I.Our First Ensouled Parents and the Great Leap Forward

II.The Possible Existence of Aliens and Christian Revelation

A.The Possibility of Nonintelligent Life Forms beyond Planet Earth

B.The Possibility of Intelligent Life beyond Earth

Bibliography

Bibliography of Further Reading

Subject Index

Name Index

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My sincere gratitude to James Sinclair (senior physicist, U.S. Navy) for his contribution on fine-tuning and the multiverse and to Robert Kurland (former associate professor of chemistry at Carnegie Mellon) for his contribution to the section on entropy.

I am most grateful to Joan Jacoby, whose invaluable work brought mere thoughts into reality through her excellent editing suggestions, research, and preparation of the manuscript. I am also sincerely grateful to Jeena Rudy for her considerable help in research and preparation of the manuscript. I also want to thank Karlo Broussard and Kathleen Conway for their help in bringing the manuscript to its final form.

INTRODUCTION

The landscape is changing—the boundary between faith and science is breaking down. On the cosmological front, in their 2018 article in the Journal of High Energy Physics, Stephen Hawking and his co-author, Thomas Hertog, show on the basis of observational data that eternal inflation and the infinite multiverse are exceedingly unlikely.¹ They explain that any multiverse that could generate our universe would have to have a boundary in past time—that is, a beginning (see Chapter 2, Section IV.A). When this is combined with other highly improbable consequences of eternal inflation and an infinite multiverse, such as Boltzmann Brains and Brief Brains, the preponderance of cosmological evidence has shifted toward a beginning of physical reality (regardless of whether this is a multiverse, bouncing universe, or simply our universe).

Without eternal inflation and an infinite multiverse, highly improbable fine-tuning for life in our universe (such as the exceedingly low entropy of our universe at the Big Bang, the critical density of mass-energy one nanosecond after the Big Bang, and many other fine-tuning coincidences) is becoming increasingly naturalistically inexplicable, making the idea of a transphysical, transuniversal intelligence a most compelling reasonable explanation for them. This may be part of the reason that a large percentage of young scientists consider themselves believers in God or a higher spiritual reality (see Section I below).

Beyond physics and cosmology, new developments in the evidence for transcendent causation and intelligence are occurring in the areas of medicine, neuroscience, and philosophy of mind. The peer-reviewed research in near-death experiences and terminal lucidity has become so prolific that the New York Academy of Sciences recently issued a consensus statement among physicians and scientists that states, Evidence suggests that neither physiological nor cognitive processes end with death.² Based on peer-reviewed medical studies of near-death experiences, terminal lucidity, and cognition in hydrocephalic patients, combined with linguistic-genetic studies of the origin of syntactically significant language by Noam Chomsky and Robert Berwick,³ as well as studies of self-consciousness and interior experience by David Chalmers and Thomas Nagel,⁴ the reality of a transphysical dimension of human consciousness and intellection capable of surviving bodily death (like a soul) becomes not only admissible but also compellingly probable (see Chapters 4–5). This transphysical dimension of consciousness seems to be the explanation for why human language and thought are categorically different from ape language.⁵

When we combine all of these findings with contemporary philosophical arguments for the existence of God and a soul, the idea of a boundary between science and faith seems to be melting away. We will examine the evidence for this complementarity between faith and science in six chapters:

Chapter 1: Does Science Point to a Beginning of Our Universe?

Chapter 2: Does Fine-Tuning for Life Imply Transcendent Intelligence?

Chapter 3: Is Theism More Rational Than Atheism?

Chapter 4: Is There Medical and Scientific Evidence of a Transcendent Soul?

Chapter 5: Are Human Intelligence and Self-Consciousness Unique?

Chapter 6: Are We Free Amidst Our Experience of God?

I. Are Scientists Really Atheists?

Though some have contended that scientific evidence overwhelmingly favors materialism—that is, rejection of God, religion, or a spiritual dimension of humans (e.g., a soul)—it is interesting to note a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center found that 51 percent of scientists profess belief in God or a spiritual reality, while 41 percent are agnostics or atheists.⁶ Interestingly, younger scientists profess belief in God or a higher spiritual reality more than older ones. According to the same survey, 66 percent of young scientists profess belief in God or a higher spiritual reality, while only 32 percent are agnostic or atheist—two-thirds are believers, while only one-third are not.⁷

The statistics concerning faith of physicians are more striking. According to the 2014 survey reported in the Journal of Religion and Health, 76 percent of physicians are believers in God or a higher spiritual power, while 12.4 percent are agnostic and 11.6 percent are atheist—three-quarters are believers and one-fourth are not.⁸ Furthermore, 74 percent of physicians believe that miracles have occurred in the past, and 73 percent believe they occur in the present.⁹ These studies are important because they dispel the commonly held popular belief that people of science are atheists. As the surveys showed, they clearly are not. Indeed, more than a supermajority of young scientists and physicians believe in God or a higher spiritual power.

It is also worth noting that most of the originators of modern physics were religious believers, including Galileo Galilei (the father of observational astronomy and initial laws of dynamics and gravity),¹⁰ Sir Isaac Newton (father of calculus, classical mechanics, and quantitative optics),¹¹ James Clerk Maxwell (father of the classical theory of electromagnetic radiation),¹² Max Planck (father of quantum theory and co-founder of modern physics),¹³ Albert Einstein (father of the theory of relativity and co-founder of modern physics),¹⁴ Kurt Gödel (one of the greatest modern mathematicians and logicians and originator of the incompleteness theorems),¹⁵ Sir Arthur Eddington (father of the nuclear fusion explanation of stellar radiation),¹⁶ Werner Heisenberg (father of the matrix theory of quantum mechanics and the uncertainty principle),¹⁷ and Freeman Dyson (originator of multiple theories in contemporary quantum electrodynamics).¹⁸ There are many other contemporary Nobel Prize–winning physicists, chemists, and biologists who have openly professed belief in God and a transphysical soul.¹⁹ In view of the above, it seems that science and religion are not opposed to one another, and that scientists and physicians have considerable openness to religion and the supernatural.

Given that scientists and physicians tend to ground their beliefs in factual and logical reasoning, we might ask what reasons they have for believing in God and even a transphysical dimension of human beings, like a soul. We might presume that some scientists grew up in religious households and found their faith to be warranted by or at least consistent with scientific method and findings. We might also presume that some scientists and physicians have had a religious experience or witnessed accounts of what appear to be miracles and survival of consciousness after bodily death.²⁰ The forthcoming chapters provide considerable probative scientific evidence capable of grounding religious faith, and as we shall see, many of the scientists who have written about this evidence found it capable of supporting reasonable and responsible belief.

II. What Science Can and Cannot Do

The scientific method begins with empirical observation that can be rigorously corroborated. It then attempts to analyze and synthesize measurable observations through three steps:

1.Formulate a hypothesis. Scientists seek laws, schemes of recurrence, and generalizations that have ongoing predictive value. These laws, schemes, and generalizations indicate how nature is very likely to act in the future. In order to come up with such a law or scheme of recurrence, scientists analyze and synthesize past observations/measurements, and then formulate a hypothesis that takes the following general form: If causes X, Y, and Z are operative (stated in measurable values of those causes), then effects A, B, and C will (or are likely to) occur. Stated more simply, If cause, then effect.

2.Construct an experiment to test the predictions of the hypothesis. A hypothesis enables scientists to make a prediction. They now have to set up an experiment that excludes all other possible causes except the predicted one. Sometimes this can be done with one experiment, but very frequently this requires multiple experiments that have very specific and differentiated measurements.

3.Experimental validation. If the experiment shows that the specific values of the causes accurately predict the anticipated effects (using multiple measurements of those effects), and if the experiments rule out other possible causes of those effects, then the law, the scheme of recurrence, or generalization is considered to be correct. Of course, if the experiment does not achieve the predicted effect, then the law, scheme, or generalization has to be modified, and then experimentally retested. If these modifications are not successfully predictive, then the hypothesis fails, and it is back to the proverbial drawing board.

Science is constrained in three ways by its own methodology: observational data, falsifiability, and inductive method. We will discuss each in turn.

Let us begin with the most fundamental constraint of scientific methodology—observational data. Put simply, science must begin and end its process with observational data. Since science is restricted to the study of observational data, it cannot make adequate judgments about realities (or hypothesized realities) that are not observable or physical (in space and time and having measurable properties)—or are beyond the observable and physical world. There are three kinds of reality that are beyond observable physical reality. First, there can be realities beyond our universe, such as an uncaused and unrestricted reality that would not be limited by space and time—for example, God (see Chapter 3). Inasmuch as it is not limited by space and time, it must be beyond our universe, which is conditioned by space and time. If it is beyond observation within our universe, then this uncaused reality cannot be disproved by science. Additionally, there might be a multiverse (in which our universe is but one bubble universe). Such a multiverse is, in principle, unobservable (since our event horizon is limited to this universe alone).

Secondly, there can be realities that are not physical (i.e., transphysical). For example, there could be something like a soul—consciousness that transcends physical laws and conditions (and is independent of a physical body). As we shall see in Chapter 4, we can know about such realities through the reports of those who have undergone near-death experiences or terminal lucidity. Our ability to report data accurately during a near-death experience, which is separate and distant from our physical bodies, is verifiable by checking reports of what was seen and heard in locations distant from the physical body. This ability strongly implies that consciousness, sensation, memory, and intellection can exist apart from our physical brains and sensory apparatus.

In addition to the above, we are aware of the capabilities of our cognition and self-consciousness and can assess whether these activities are explicable through physical structures, systems, and processes. If they cannot be explained through physical processes, it would imply the need for transphysical activity, like a soul (see Chapter 5).

Thirdly, there can be realities that are intrasubjective, which cannot be directly observed or measured by second or third parties—for example, my feeling of happiness or sadness or any other emotional state. Though a change in the electrical state in my brain might be measured when I am happy, this is not a measurement or observation of my happiness but only the electrical state of my brain when I report myself to be happy. Furthermore, there are conceptual realities, such as the laws of mathematics, logic, and myriads of other conceptual realities that cannot be directly observed and measured. Even though these cannot be within the domain of science, they still are conceptual or intelligible realities that science uses and indeed must use. There are other intrasubjective realities that cannot be directly observed but are nevertheless quite real to the human subject experiencing them, such as our awareness of ourselves, religious experiences, the experience and contents of conscience, and the sense of the five transcendentals—perfect truth, perfect love, perfect goodness/justice, perfect beauty, and perfect being/home. To deny the existence of these intrasubjective feelings, concepts, and states of awareness only because they are not directly observable—and therefore cannot be assessed by science—would be absurd because it would lead to the denial of the thinking-feeling person as well as science itself.

Can science disprove God? In view of the above, science, by its own method, cannot do so because God (as Creator) would have to be beyond our universe, and science is limited to observational data, which must come from within our universe. How can we use evidence only from within our universe to disprove a reality that is beyond our universe? Evidently, science will never be able to accomplish this task because God’s transphysical (and transobservable) nature is completely beyond it.

Can science discover evidence for God? As we shall see, it can—not by using the scientific method to prove God, but rather by using the scientific method to show the strong likelihood of an absolute limit to past time in our universe, or in a multiverse from which our universe could originate (see Chapters 1 and 2).

Can science disprove a transphysical soul? In view of the above, science by its own method cannot do so because the soul’s transphysicality puts it beyond physical data subject to observation and measurement. Can science give evidence for a transphysical soul? It can, but not by directly proving a soul. Rather, science can lend its procedures, instruments, and technology to show accurate reporting of data by a person whose consciousness is separated from his body but who can still see, hear, and think. This seeing, hearing, and thinking separate from a physical body implies a transphysical agency, like a soul. Furthermore, science can show that accurate reporting of sensorial data during clinical death by 81 percent of blind people is also unlikely to be explained by hallucinations, anoxia, pharmaceuticals, stimulation of various parts of the brain, and other physicalist explanations.²¹ Thus, science cannot disprove transuniversal realities like God or transphysical realities like a soul because these kinds of realities are transobservable (i.e., beyond science’s requirement for observation). However, science can give evidence for a transuniversal Creator by showing an absolute limit of past time in our universe, or a multiverse that could give rise to our universe.

We now proceed to the second constraint on science: scientific truths must be falsifiable. Why so? Recall that scientists are trying to validate laws, generalizations, and schemes of recurrence by formulating a hypothesis that can be shown to be true or false by experimental data. Therefore, if a hypothesis is not falsifiable by observational data, then there is no point in creating an experiment to test the hypothesis. What’s the point of devising an experiment if it cannot show that the hypothesis is false?

What does this have to do with the limits of science? As philosophers know, there are many truths (called a priori truths) that cannot be falsified by observational data, because they must be true for all places and times to avoid an intrinsic contradiction. Thus, a mathematical truth, such as the Pythagorean theorem, cannot be falsified observationally because it must be true for any Euclidian geometrical system—and its denial would lead to contradictions within that system. Again, the principle of noncontradiction cannot be falsified by observational data because it must be true for all coherent states of affairs, and its denial leads not only to the affirmation of contradictions but also to the undermining of science and truth itself.

So why is this important in a book about science, God, and the soul? If science must be falsifiable, then scientism (the view that every truth claim must be subject to scientific validation) must be false. Think about it: If science is dependent on the principle of noncontradiction and mathematics, and if these two truths are not falsifiable by observational data (which is needed to be scientific), then mathematics and noncontradiction cannot be scientifically validated. Thus, scientism rules out the truth of the preconditions for science itself—noncontradiction and mathematics.

There is another reason why scientism rules out the very possibility of science. A priori truths, truths that are logically necessary—whose denial results in self-contradiction—are also universal truths, truths that pertain to the whole of reality or the whole of a mathematical system. We saw this immediately above. The principle of noncontradiction is both a nonfalsifiable truth (because its denial always leads to a false state of affairs) and a universal truth (because it must apply to every real state of affairs). Thus, the a priori method (noncontradiction, logic, and mathematics) gives us universal truths—truths that pertain to the whole of reality, a whole mathematical system, or a whole intelligible domain. Such truth claims are expressed through the terms all or only or every or none.

In contrast to this, scientific truths are not universal truths, because they are grounded in observational data, which in turn are conditioned by space and time. Inasmuch as scientific truths are conditioned by space and time, they can pertain only to particular places and times—which is why they are called factual truths instead of universal truths.

So how does this affect the truth of scientism? Think about scientism’s fundamental principle: every truth must be subject to scientific validation. The reader may now be getting the point. Scientism is trying to make a claim about every truth—a universal claim—which cannot in principle be validated by science itself, because scientific truths, inasmuch as they pertain only to particular places and times, cannot be universal. Evidently, scientism is self-refuting because the fundamental principle of scientism cannot be scientifically verified, which means it falls outside the domain of truth by its own criterion.

So what might we conclude from all this? Science can provide some of the most penetrating, useful, and probative truths about the universe, which can lead to many forms of discovery and technology. However, science does not exhaust the domain of truth. There are other truths that science cannot disprove or verify by itself:

▪A priori truths, such as the law of noncontradiction, logic, and mathematics

▪Metaphysical truths, such as the existence of an uncaused and unrestricted reality (God)

▪Transphysical truths, such as a transphysical soul

▪Intrasubjective truths, such as emotional states, self-awareness, awareness of cognitional activities, empathy, moral awareness from conscience, aesthetic awareness, transcendental awareness, and religious experience

We now come to the third constraint of science: induction. Recall what was said above that scientists are looking for laws, generalizations, and schemes of recurrence that describe, interrelate, and explain data. This means that scientists have to begin with observational data, then derive a law or generalization from the data, and then confirm it through experiments. Evidently, this is quite different from deduction because deduction goes from higher-level ideas and realities to lower-level ones, while induction moves from lower-level data and concepts to hypothesizing a higher-level concept or reality (a law or generalization).

So how does induction constrain science? In a phrase, scientists do not know what they do not know until they have discovered it from observational data. In other words, a scientist can never be sure that he knows everything that is to be discovered about the physical universe. He cannot even know if he has reached the point of knowing everything, because he does not know everything about the whole universe, but only laws and generalizations from particular observations.

Why is this important? Some scientists have claimed that the universe does not need a Creator, but as can now be seen, this claim is unjustifiable and therefore may well be false. In order for a scientist to claim that the universe does not need a Creator, he would have to know everything in the universe that would affect the universe’s ability to maintain itself over an eternity, which no scientist could possibly know because scientists do not know what they do not know until they have discovered it from particular observational data.

We are now in a position to know what science can or cannot say about God, the soul, and the whole of reality according to the constraints of its methodology:

1.Science cannot disprove the existence of God, because science is restricted to observational data that in turn is restricted to data within our universe; however, God is beyond our universe. Since data from within our universe is insufficient to disprove anything beyond our universe, science cannot disprove God.

2.Science cannot prove that the universe (or a multiverse) does not need a Creator, because science cannot know everything about the universe that could affect or inhibit its existence throughout an eternity. Why? Because scientists do not know what they do not know until they have discovered it from observational data.

3.Science cannot disprove the existence of a transphysical soul, because science is limited to the observable physical universe, but a transphysical soul is transobservable because it is transphysical. How can physical observable data alone be used to disprove a transphysical, transobservable reality? Obviously, this cannot be validly done.

4.Science cannot claim that its truths exhaust the whole domain of truth or reality, because science cannot make a universal claim about the whole of truth or reality (since it is limited to factual truths—particular truths about particular realities, in particular places, at particular times). This particularity flows directly out of the requirement for scientific truths to be grounded in observational data (which data are to be found only at particular times and places).

5.Scientism is self-refuting; for inasmuch as science is limited to particular truths about particular realities at particular places and times, it cannot claim anything about the whole of reality. Therefore, to say that all truths must be scientifically validatable cannot be scientifically validatable. Scientism is false according to its own criterion.

6.Science has the possibility of validating a limit to past time not only in our universe but also in possible multiverses. This can be done through universal laws, for example, the second law of thermodynamics (entropy), or through generalizations and theorems about space-time geometry, such as the Borde-Vilenkin-Guth theorem (see Chapters 1 and 2).

7.Science has the possibility of discovering or inferring transcendent intelligence through an abductive argument that effectively eliminates physical/natural explanations for fine-tuning for life in our universe (see Chapter 2).

8.Science has the possibility of validating a transphysical soul through accurate reports of empirically verifiable data by consciousness separated from the physical body as well as accurate reports of observable data by blind people during clinical death (see Chapter 4).

9.Science has the capacity to help validate the transphysical dimension of self-conscious and intellectual activities by showing that they cannot be reduced to physical structures, systems, and processes (see Chapter 5).

10.As will be explained in the next volume, Science at the Doorstep to Christ,²² science cannot directly prove a miracle, because science is limited to observational data while miracles concern supernatural (as opposed to natural) power or agency. However, science can indirectly infer that a miracle has occurred by exhaustively eliminating all known physical, natural, and scientific explanation. Note that science cannot make a definitive declaration about a miracle, because scientists can never say that they have an exhaustive knowledge of all physical and natural explanation. Why? Scientists cannot know what they do not know until they have discovered it by observable data.

III. John Henry Newman’s Informal Inference

In his classic work A Grammar of Assent,²³ John Henry Newman showed that in our scientific age, metaphysical and theological truths (such as the existence of God) can be reasonably and responsibly validated not only by metaphysical (synthetic a priori and deductive) arguments²⁴ but also by a combination of probabilistic arguments that he termed an informal inference. Newman believed that relying solely on metaphysical (deductive) arguments for God (and other transcendent realities) leaves out the very large domain of scientific and inductive arguments that come to probabilistic conclusions. His solution to this omission was to correlate the results of antecedently probable scientific/inductive evidence²⁵ that converges on a single conclusion (e.g., the existence of an intelligent Creator—God). When we show that there are multiple sets of evidence coming from different methods that complement and corroborate one another in justifying the same conclusion (e.g., the existence of God), it constitutes a strong reasonable confirmation of that common conclusion. What are some of these different methods?

1.Scientific method—observable, predictive, inductive, and falsifiable

2.Metaphysical method—synthetic a priori and deductive

3.Interior states of mind, affect, intuition, and experience, which may include descriptions and explanations of cognitional activities, self-consciousness, emotions, transcendental awareness and desire, experience of