Imagination is both wonderful and dangerous. Albert Einstein is credited as saying, “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” Why? Imagination fuels curiosity and empowers discovery. Conversely, imagination can also lure us into embracing the impossible and absurd.
Toward this latter point, astrophysicist Lewis Barnes asked, “Is what you can imagine a guide to what is absolutely possible?”/1 Does imagining something make it so? Obviously not.
In fact, our ignorance enables us to imagine the impossible. What we do not yet know could contain insurmountable barriers to what we imagine as possible.Â
Jon Baptist van Helmont (1580 A.D. – 1644 A.D.) imagined rice could turn into mice. Jon Baptist did not have access to all that we know about biology, genetics and so forth. He witnessed mice frequently in contact with rice and imagined a transformation.
This raises the question, at what point is it responsible to stop assuming rice can turn into mice? While accumulating evidence and experimentation did render this notion absurd, what if some refused to follow the evidence?
With these thoughts as a background, let’s consider the naturalistic worldview. The naturalistic philosophy asserts that what exists is solely the consequence of natural causes. Enter the naturalistic imagination.
What caused first life to arise? Naturalistic scientists of bygone days imagined that a warm pond or ocean filled with the appropriate chemicals could do the trick because they viewed cells as simple protoplasm structures.
Since that time we have learned that cells are vastly more complex and complicated then they understood. Based upon what we now know, the prebiotic soup idea is an abandoned concept among origin of life researchers.
Regarding origin of life research, Franklin Harold’s comments are revealing. "Life arose here on earth from inanimate matter, by some kind of evolutionary process, about four billion years ago. This is not a statement of demonstrable fact, but an assumption almost universally shared by specialists as well as scientists in general. It is not supported by any direct evidence, nor is it likely to be."/2 Furthermore, "the opinions of scholars are, therefore, colored by personal beliefs about what should have happened."/3 Thus convinced that natural forces are responsible for life, researchers continue to imagine scenarios for how life began and seek to discover at least a scientifically viable path. To date no such path exists.
Naturalistic scientists have proposed a variety of mechanisms. These ideas, although unfalsifiable and hence metaphysical, are imagined to be plausible – even though all of the details are not demonstrable and the story runs counter to the preponderance of what we do know.
For example, fine tuning characteristics challenge naturalism. What caused our universe as well as the earth to possess various fine tuned characteristics? Astrophysicist Lewis Geraint mused:Â
“Maybe the problem is that we are treating this Universe as unique, and maybe fine-tuning is not such a problem if we just step back a bit. What if the process that gave birth to the Universe churned out many more?”/4
When naturalistic explanations cannot produce a verifiable pathway to account for what exists, at what point is it responsible to stop embracing the naturalistic worldview spawning imaginative origin stories?
Astrophysicist Luke Barnes accurately stated, “Theism’s rival is naturalism, not science, and theism offers an explanation where naturalism offers none.”/5 Does theism fare any better than naturalism? Yes, what exists does call for a Source outside of the natural realm.
1/Lewis Geraint and Luke Barnes, A Fortunate Universe, p. 333.
2/Harold Franklin, The Way of the Cell, p. 236.
3/Ibid., p. 239.
4/Geraint and Barnes, p. 297.
5/Ibid., p. 336.
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