John Lennox, Professor of Mathematics at Oxford University (emeritus), is an internationally renowned speaker on the interface of science, philosophy and religion. He regularly teaches at many academic institutions, is Senior Fellow with the Trinity Forum and has written a series of books exploring the relationship between science and Christianity.1 Below are quotes by Professor Lennox on God, Christianity, and science.2
“We have only to see a few letters of the alphabet spelling our name in the sand to recognize at once the work of an intelligent agent. How much more likely, then is the existence of an intelligent Creator behind human DNA, the colossal biological database that contains no fewer than 3.5 billion letters the longest “word” yet discovered?”
“Either human intelligence ultimately owes its origin to mindless matter; or there is a Creator. It is strange that some people claim that it is their intelligence that leads them to prefer the first to the second.”
“Atheism is a fairy story for people afraid of the Light.”
“Faith is not a leap in the dark; it’s the exact opposite. It’s a commitment based on evidence… It is irrational to reduce all faith to blind faith and then subject it to ridicule. That provides a very anti-intellectual and convenient way of avoiding intelligent discussion.”
“In conclusion, I submit that, far from science having buried God, not only do the results of science point towards his existence, but the scientific enterprise itself is validated by his existence.”
“Faith is a response to evidence, not a rejoicing in the absence of evidence.”
“Nonsense is nonsense even when spoken by world-famous scientists.”
“The new atheism as an old atheism, except it’s much more aggressive. The new atheism wants to destroy religion. That’s a very different thing. The arguments are not new, it’s the aggression that’s new.”
“Humans alone are created as rational beings in the image of God, capable of a relationship with God and given by him the capacity to understand the universe in which they live.”
“The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible.”
“In China we can criticize Darwin, but not the government; in America you can criticize the government, but not Darwin.”
“To the majority of those who have reflected deeply and written about the origin and nature of the universe, it has seemed that it points beyond itself to a source which is non-physical and of great intelligence and power.”
“Of course, I reject atheism because I believe Christianity to be true. But I also reject it because I am a scientist. How could I be impressed with a worldview that undermines the very rationality we need to do science? Science and God mix very well. It is science and atheism that do not mix.”
“It is rather ironical that in the sixteenth century some people resisted advances in science because they seemed to threaten belief in God; whereas in the twentieth century scientific ideas of a beginning have been resisted because they threatened to increase the plausibility of belief in God.”
“Both Genesis and science say that the universe is geared to supporting human life. But Genesis says more. It says that you, as a human being, bear the image of God. The starry heavens show the glory of God, yes; but they are not made in God’s image. You are. That makes you unique. It gives you incalculable value. The galaxies are unimaginably large compared with you. However, you know that they exist, but they don’t know that you exist. You are more significant, therefore, than a galaxy.”
“I cannot believe that our existence in this universe is a mere quirk of fate, an accident of history, an incidental blip in the great cosmic drama. Our involvement is too intimate… We are truly meant to be here.”
“To postulate a trillion-trillion other universes, rather than one God, in order to explain the orderliness of our universe, seems the height of irrationality.”
“When Sir Isaac Newton discovered the universal law of gravitation he did not say, ‘I have discovered a mechanism that accounts for planetary motion, therefore there is no agent God who designed it.’ Quite the opposite: precisely because he understood how it worked, he was moved to increased admiration for the God who had designed it that way.”
“Men became scientific because they expected law in nature and they expected law in nature because they believed in a lawgiver. It was this conviction that led Francis Bacon (1561–1626), regarded by many as the father of modern science, to teach that God has provided us with two books – the book of Nature and the Bible –”
“The more we get to know about our universe, the more the hypothesis that there is a Creator God, who designed the universe for a purpose, gains in credibility as the best explanation of why we are here.”
“Man thinks he can become God. But infinitely greater than that is the fact that God thought of becoming human.”
“A Christian, then, is not a person who has solved the problem of suffering but one who has come to love and trust the God who has suffered for them.”
“It always amuses me that atheists often argue for the existence of extra-terrestrial intelligence beyond earth. Yet they are only too eager to denounce the possibility that we already have a vast, intelligent being out there: God.”
1 About John Lennox – John Lennox
2 All of the quotes below are from the following websites:
25 QUOTES BY JOHN LENNOX [PAGE – 2] | A-Z Quotes (azquotes.com)
John C. Lennox Quotes (Author of Seven Days That Divide The World) (page 4 of 4) (goodreads.com)
Stephen Hawking is wrong. You can’t explain the universe without God | Daily Mail Online