LINKS TO VIDEO'S referred to in the Sermon can be found
at the end of this Blog post after the sermon text.
at the end of this Blog post after the sermon text.
Does God Exist? Science and the Mystery of Life
Does God exist? This is one of the Big Questions that many modern people wrestle with. And the more we have been trained to see the world in a scientific, materialist way (being taught that the physical world is all that exists), the more we question whether God exists. We have been trained to see the world simply as a material universe made up of only of matter. (And next week I hope to explore that and unpack that further).
While I was away on leave, I watched two YouTube videos that challenge the prevailing scientific materialist view. Both videos were about scientists, not preachers — and yet both point to realities far deeper than the picture of a cold, indifferent cosmos.
The first video was about Max Planck, the father of quantum theory. Max Planck is one of the greatest scientific minds of the 20th century, the man whose work launched the quantum revolution and earned him a Nobel Prize. But behind his equations he held a radical conviction:
The following quote by Max Planck goes against the grain of scientific materialism which is the majority position in the world of science today)…
He said: “I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.” In other words, everything we know or talk about already assumes consciousness.
For Max Planck, matter — everything you can touch, taste, see, measure — is not the foundation of reality. It is an expression of something deeper: consciousness itself. Awareness. Mind.
This is not a New Age poet talking. This is the founder of quantum theory. Max Planck’s view turns materialism upside down. The traditional view says that matter is primary and consciousness is just a side-effect of the brain. Max Planck’s view says that consciousness is primary and matter is a side-effect of consciousness. It doesn’t mean the science is wrong it simply means that for too long scientists have been looking down the wrong end of the telescope.
What we call the “physical universe” may be something like the graphics on a video game screen — an interface, a rendering, a projection — while the deeper reality, the code behind it all, is not physical at all but mental, experiential, intelligent.
Mystics across centuries have intuited this. The Upanishads speak of Brahman, the universal Self. Jewish mysticism speaks of Ein Sof, the boundless. The Hebrew Scripture speaks of God as the Mysterious I-Am-That-I-Am. Taoism speaks of the Tao, the nameless source that flows through all things. Max Planck was saying something very similar in the language of physics: the universe is not a machine; it is more like a mind.
And if this is true, then we are not isolated specks of awareness in a dead cosmos. We are waves on a vast ocean of consciousness. Your capacity to love, to imagine, to witness beauty, to be aware — these are not secondary byproducts of neurons firing in the brain; they are glimpses of the deepest truth of the universe itself.
The second video that caught my attention while I was away told the story of another revolution in thinking, this time in molecular biology. In 1953, James Watson and Francis Crick, working in Cambridge, discovered the structure of DNA. They walked down to the Eagle Pub that day and announced to the patrons, “We have discovered the secret of life!”
At first, they thought they had found just a molecule, made up of chemicals. But soon Francis Crick realised something astonishing: DNA does not just have a structure — it actually contains information. Long sequences of chemical subunits carry instructions for building the proteins that make life possible.
Bill Gates once remarked, “DNA is like a software program, but much more complex than any we’ve ever written.” In other words, at the heart of every cell is not just chemistry but code — digital information functioning like an alphabetic language or machine instructions.
And here’s the crux of the matter: in all of our experience, where does information like that come from? Code comes from coders. Language comes from minds. Patterns of instruction come from intelligence. Undirected chemical reactions can produce crystals or mixtures, but not meaningful digital code.
And so even though Watson and Crick were atheists looking for the material basis of life, what they actually found was something much closer to software — a sign, perhaps, not of blind chemistry but of Mind or Intelligence at work.
When we try to understand past events — the origin of life, the origin of the universe, the origin of consciousness itself — scientists use what philosophers call “inference to the best explanation.” They look at the evidence in the present and ask: what kind of cause is known to produce this kind of effect?
If we apply that to DNA, the answer seems straightforward. In every other case, when we find complex, digital, specified encoded information, it comes from a mind. Why would this one case — DNA, the foundation of life itself — be different?
And if we apply it to consciousness, the question becomes even deeper: why is there anything at all that is aware? Why is the universe intelligible? Why does it have the fine-tuned conditions to produce beings who can even ask these questions?
It raises the question: What if the word “God” is our culture’s old, symbolic way of pointing to this universal Mind? Not a bearded patriarch on a throne, but the formless intelligence that animates all form; not a being among other beings, but Being itself, Consciousness itself, the Source of all awareness and all meaning.
This would mean that “God” is not outside the universe, tinkering occasionally with its parts, but the very Ground-of-reality, the Matrix of matter, the Silent Presence behind every atom and every thought.
This is not a God who competes with science, but the God who makes science possible, because science itself presupposes an ordered, intelligible reality — a cosmic logic that our own minds mysteriously mirror.
Why does this matters for us?
If Planck is right about consciousness and Watson and Crick’s discovery of DNA is right about information, then you are not a meaningless accident in a dead universe. You are a conscious expression of an intelligence that holds the cosmos together.
All of this suggests that your awareness, your capacity to choose, your longing for meaning and beauty — these are not glitches in a mechanical system. They are hints of your origin. They are invitations to come to a place of awe and wonder – which is indeed where many scientists find themselves, amazed by what they discover.
And this means that faith need not be blind. It can be a way of seeing — of recognising that the most basic facts of existence already point beyond themselves. The universe is not just out there. It is in here. It is thinking through you.
In closing: Does God exist? The scientific materialist says “no”, not by proof but by assumption. But the discoveries of the last century whisper “perhaps” in a new and startling way.
Max Planck invites us to consider that consciousness is in fact fundamental – prior even to material things. Watson and Crick unwittingly discovered a code at the heart of life. Both hint at Mind before matter, Intelligence before information.
Maybe, as Jesus once said, “the kingdom of God is within you” — not as a metaphor, but as a profound metaphysical truth. And so I leave you with this possibility: behind every atom is intention. Behind every equation is awareness. And behind every moment of your life is the silent presence of a universal Mind that we have, for millennia, called God.
Amen.
Does God exist? This is one of the Big Questions that many modern people wrestle with. And the more we have been trained to see the world in a scientific, materialist way (being taught that the physical world is all that exists), the more we question whether God exists. We have been trained to see the world simply as a material universe made up of only of matter. (And next week I hope to explore that and unpack that further).
While I was away on leave, I watched two YouTube videos that challenge the prevailing scientific materialist view. Both videos were about scientists, not preachers — and yet both point to realities far deeper than the picture of a cold, indifferent cosmos.
The first video was about Max Planck, the father of quantum theory. Max Planck is one of the greatest scientific minds of the 20th century, the man whose work launched the quantum revolution and earned him a Nobel Prize. But behind his equations he held a radical conviction:
The following quote by Max Planck goes against the grain of scientific materialism which is the majority position in the world of science today)…
He said: “I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.” In other words, everything we know or talk about already assumes consciousness.
For Max Planck, matter — everything you can touch, taste, see, measure — is not the foundation of reality. It is an expression of something deeper: consciousness itself. Awareness. Mind.
This is not a New Age poet talking. This is the founder of quantum theory. Max Planck’s view turns materialism upside down. The traditional view says that matter is primary and consciousness is just a side-effect of the brain. Max Planck’s view says that consciousness is primary and matter is a side-effect of consciousness. It doesn’t mean the science is wrong it simply means that for too long scientists have been looking down the wrong end of the telescope.
What we call the “physical universe” may be something like the graphics on a video game screen — an interface, a rendering, a projection — while the deeper reality, the code behind it all, is not physical at all but mental, experiential, intelligent.
Mystics across centuries have intuited this. The Upanishads speak of Brahman, the universal Self. Jewish mysticism speaks of Ein Sof, the boundless. The Hebrew Scripture speaks of God as the Mysterious I-Am-That-I-Am. Taoism speaks of the Tao, the nameless source that flows through all things. Max Planck was saying something very similar in the language of physics: the universe is not a machine; it is more like a mind.
And if this is true, then we are not isolated specks of awareness in a dead cosmos. We are waves on a vast ocean of consciousness. Your capacity to love, to imagine, to witness beauty, to be aware — these are not secondary byproducts of neurons firing in the brain; they are glimpses of the deepest truth of the universe itself.
The second video that caught my attention while I was away told the story of another revolution in thinking, this time in molecular biology. In 1953, James Watson and Francis Crick, working in Cambridge, discovered the structure of DNA. They walked down to the Eagle Pub that day and announced to the patrons, “We have discovered the secret of life!”
At first, they thought they had found just a molecule, made up of chemicals. But soon Francis Crick realised something astonishing: DNA does not just have a structure — it actually contains information. Long sequences of chemical subunits carry instructions for building the proteins that make life possible.
Bill Gates once remarked, “DNA is like a software program, but much more complex than any we’ve ever written.” In other words, at the heart of every cell is not just chemistry but code — digital information functioning like an alphabetic language or machine instructions.
And here’s the crux of the matter: in all of our experience, where does information like that come from? Code comes from coders. Language comes from minds. Patterns of instruction come from intelligence. Undirected chemical reactions can produce crystals or mixtures, but not meaningful digital code.
And so even though Watson and Crick were atheists looking for the material basis of life, what they actually found was something much closer to software — a sign, perhaps, not of blind chemistry but of Mind or Intelligence at work.
When we try to understand past events — the origin of life, the origin of the universe, the origin of consciousness itself — scientists use what philosophers call “inference to the best explanation.” They look at the evidence in the present and ask: what kind of cause is known to produce this kind of effect?
If we apply that to DNA, the answer seems straightforward. In every other case, when we find complex, digital, specified encoded information, it comes from a mind. Why would this one case — DNA, the foundation of life itself — be different?
And if we apply it to consciousness, the question becomes even deeper: why is there anything at all that is aware? Why is the universe intelligible? Why does it have the fine-tuned conditions to produce beings who can even ask these questions?
It raises the question: What if the word “God” is our culture’s old, symbolic way of pointing to this universal Mind? Not a bearded patriarch on a throne, but the formless intelligence that animates all form; not a being among other beings, but Being itself, Consciousness itself, the Source of all awareness and all meaning.
This would mean that “God” is not outside the universe, tinkering occasionally with its parts, but the very Ground-of-reality, the Matrix of matter, the Silent Presence behind every atom and every thought.
This is not a God who competes with science, but the God who makes science possible, because science itself presupposes an ordered, intelligible reality — a cosmic logic that our own minds mysteriously mirror.
Why does this matters for us?
If Planck is right about consciousness and Watson and Crick’s discovery of DNA is right about information, then you are not a meaningless accident in a dead universe. You are a conscious expression of an intelligence that holds the cosmos together.
All of this suggests that your awareness, your capacity to choose, your longing for meaning and beauty — these are not glitches in a mechanical system. They are hints of your origin. They are invitations to come to a place of awe and wonder – which is indeed where many scientists find themselves, amazed by what they discover.
And this means that faith need not be blind. It can be a way of seeing — of recognising that the most basic facts of existence already point beyond themselves. The universe is not just out there. It is in here. It is thinking through you.
In closing: Does God exist? The scientific materialist says “no”, not by proof but by assumption. But the discoveries of the last century whisper “perhaps” in a new and startling way.
Max Planck invites us to consider that consciousness is in fact fundamental – prior even to material things. Watson and Crick unwittingly discovered a code at the heart of life. Both hint at Mind before matter, Intelligence before information.
Maybe, as Jesus once said, “the kingdom of God is within you” — not as a metaphor, but as a profound metaphysical truth. And so I leave you with this possibility: behind every atom is intention. Behind every equation is awareness. And behind every moment of your life is the silent presence of a universal Mind that we have, for millennia, called God.
Amen.
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