To a philosophy student the Large Hadron Collider which began operations just days ago is a case study in human faith. There are two groups of scientists in opposition to each other on a rather critical issue. With which school of thought do you agree?
First there’s the camp that seems rather skeptical of man’s ability to crash two 3.5 trillion electron volt beams head-on in a 17-mile track without accidentally creating a black hole that could swallow the earth in a few years. This group must have noticed a common denominator between… say, the Hindenburg, the Space Shuttle Challenger, the Titanic, and Chernobyl. Men who made even the tiniest of miscalculations, amplified a thousand times over by the scale of the experiment, caused more damage than anyone expected.
Most epic failures are like houses of cards. They do not typically feature one blunder after another, rather, a “small” mistake (as men view most mistakes) at some fundamental level, followed by a great many non-mistakes piled upon it. Sometimes an impressive structure of non-mistakes is built up over many years and by many different people, perhaps long after the original mistake-maker has passed away. Scores of people end up assuming that given the amount of time, energy, and sheer brainpower from the combined number of experts involved, no fundamental mistake could have possibly been made. The switch is finally thrown, something long-forgotten on the bottom of the pile trips and brings down the entire structure, including all of the ‘correct’ calculations. All the ‘correct’ calculations smolder on the ash heap because they were built upon a flawed assumption.
I appreciate the collider-skeptics. I want my kids to understand that faith in science can be misplaced. Theories of Global Warming, Evolution, and the Big Bang, for example, can be impressive structures on non-mistakes teetering precariously upon a few fundamentally false assumptions. I want them to trust God even more than the brakes of a Toyota Prius. God isn’t susceptible to human error.
Then there is the CERN camp enthusiastically pursuing conditions that they believe were created just after the Big Bang. What could possibly go wrong? Never mind the minor glitches and the mysterious dark material that showed up in the last couple days, the planet is safe.
Now back to our philosophy student … on the one hand we have some scientists who don’t appear to be worshiping at the altar of science, at least when it comes to the LHC. They’ve found faults with the research of others in the past, and observed the ensuing disasters from machines or policies built upon those faults. Though they may know of no specific immediate threat at CERN, they point to a lack of humility in CERN’s approach that could spell disaster as certainly as other projects that have come before.
Then there are the scientists who strangely mock Christians with faith in God while ironically placing their faith in the LHC. Is man’s science more reliable than God? Perhaps a humble review of the history of each would be in order.
After reviewing my summary of these opposed scientific camps perhaps it will surprise you that I too have faith in the relative safety of the LHC. Accidents may happen there, some could be impressively disastrous and/or fatal, but I believe at least the majority of the planet should be relatively safe for now. Just like the scientists pursuing the Big Bang because they don’t accept God’s explanation of things in Genesis, I too at least share their belief that the earth won’t get sucked into a black hole because of their work. Why? Because that’s not the way God outlines the End of The Age.
The Large Hadron Collider will yield evidence of God and the trustworthiness of his Word. As usual though, evidence alone will not be enough. If evidence were enough, as I heard illustrated recently, people wouldn’t smoke. There’s plenty of evidence that smoking is bad for you. People smoke not for lack of evidence, but for other reasons.
Tags: cern, large hadron collider, lhc, Nature, Philosophy, Science
Submitted Thought Fort Wayne 
April 20, 2010 at 10:51 am |
Dear Jeff, I have seen from current events, and history both, that men have failed time and time again on guesses outside of Biblical accountings. both Biblical prophecy and recorded Biblical history, unquestioningly, have been shown to be accurate. Such things as have been discovered, as the reality of the Hittites as a nation, which critics of the Bible denied until the science of Palestinian Archaeology started to grow, the return of the Jews from Babylon’s seventy-year captivity, the historical accuracy of how the empire of Alexander the Great broke up, along with countless more events have been proved the Bible to be uncannily accurate. This is such that even Palestinian Archaeologists who have not wanted to believe the Bible, actually turn to the Bible before they go on a “dig,” because they know that if the Bible makes any comment on anything at all of what they want to find, it will be right and can save them all kinds of time and money on such expeditions. That, along with so many other discoveries in all areas of science demonstrate the Bible’s reliability for world history and future world events in its prophecies as well. Because of this impeccable fact, the Bible also can be relied upon for spiritual guidance for our souls. The Bible shows both the gravest warnings to men and nations, and the most resplendent hopes of which the most imaginative science-fictions writers have never dreamed. Therefore, it behooves all of us to account that the passage outlining the future of the world in Matthew 24 from the words of the only-begotten Son of God, Jesus Christ Himself, should be noted and observed with absolute veracity. I both believe so and do so by the grace of God in my life and to the best of my ability by observing the cautions and preparations for my soul that that Bible also says I should do, as I see these end-of-time events approach in our days (Hebrews 10:25). –Dad