The Case for a Creator

The Case for a Creator

After reading What’s So Great About Christianity, by Dinish D’Souza, I immediately picked up and read The Case for a Creator, by Lee Strobel (Zondervan). This is a book I had on my bookshelf for some time, but after reading D’Souza’s book, I was inspired to plunge into it and I’m glad I did. Published in 2004, this is an amazing book. I was enthralled.

Strobel started out life in a middle class home, raised by God-fearing parents who brought him up in the church. However, by the time he graduated from college and had a degree in journalism from the University of Missouri, he was a committed atheist. But when his wife decided to become a Christian he couldn’t understand why. Fortunately, he had a very inquisitive and uniquely open mind. So he decided to investigate on the basis of logic, history, science, and philosophy. What he learned astounded him.

In many ways this book restates Lee Strobel’s investigation of some 30 years prior into whether cosmology, physics, astronomy, biochemistry, biology, and philosophy support the atheist’s claim that God does not exist. It is, of course, updated with interviews with current leading scientists. The book is written in the format of an investigative reporter who asks tough questions of top leaders in all the fields mentioned above—world renown scientists, Nobel laureates, and college professors from some of America’s top universities. 

Strobel writes in depth about topics that frankly, have been of very little interest to me, but he does so with such force and clarity that I had a very hard time putting this book down. These interviews with scientific leaders are so compelling, it’s hard not to agree with their conclusions. And some of these conclusions are amazing. Several believe that in the future scientists will become one of the leading advocates of faith.

Let me just share on a powerful excerpt from the book, pages 69 and 70:
"Allan Rex Sandage, the greatest observational cosmologist in the world—who has deciphered the secrets of the stars, plumbed the mysteries of quasars, revealed the age of globular clusters, pinpointed the distances of remote galaxies, and quantified the universe’s expansion through his work at the Mount Wilson and Palomar observatories—prepared to step onto the platform at a conference in Dallas.

"Few scientists are as widely respected as this one-time protégé to legendary astronomer Edwin Hubble. Sandage has been showered with prestigious honors from the American Astronomical Society, and the Swedish Academy of Sciences, receiving astronomy’s equivalent of the Nobel Prize. The New York Times dubbed him the 'Grand Old Man of Cosmology.'

"As he approached the stage at this 1985 conference on science and religion, there seemed to be little doubt where he would sit. The discussion would be about the origin of the universe, and the panel would be divided among those scientists who believed in God and those who didn’t, with each viewpoint having its own side of the stage.
"Many of the attendees probably knew that the ethnically Jewish Sandage had been a virtual atheist even as a child. Many others undoubtedly believed that a scientist of his stature must surely be skeptical about God. As Newsweek put it, ‘The more deeply scientists see into the secrets of the universe, you’d expect, the more God would fade away from their hearts and minds.’ So Sandage’s seat among the doubters was a given.

"Then the unexpected happened. Sandage set the room abuzz by turning and taking a chair among the theists. Even more dazzling, in the context of a talk about the Big Bang and its philosophical implications, he disclosed publicly that he had decided to become a Christian at age fifty."

You can find out why this world renown scientist decided to become a Christian when you read this powerful book. It is enjoyable reading. I urge you to get a copy and read it. It blew my mind.