Keep your nose out - 17 June 2009 |
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John C. Lennox’s God’s Undertaker recalls the well-known encounter between Napoleon and the French mathematician Laplace, which is ‘constantly misused to buttress atheism’ (p. 44):
On being asked by Napoleon where God fitted into his mathematical work, Laplace, quite correctly, replied: ‘Sir, I have no need of that hypothesis.’ Of course God did not appear in Laplace’s mathematical description of how things work, just as Mr Ford would not appear in a scientific description of the laws of internal combustion. But what does that prove? That Henry Ford did not exist? Clearly not. (pp. 44-45)
Austin Farrer puts it wonderfully:
Laplace and his colleagues had not learned to do without theology; they had merely learned to mind their own business. (p. 45)
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Posted by Steve Jeffery · Topics: Books, God's Undertaker, Minister's Blog