The Two Stories of Reality

While mysteries and unsolved problems drive discovery and progress, greater advancement takes place when people have a common agreement about the fundamental foundation and design of life. Such an understanding provides context, meaning, and direction to human endeavors while also deepening people’s connection with each other. If we came to understand that we are all in the same lifeboat, no one would want to sink the boat before being rescued. That big picture consensus mitigates conflict and war and will certainly result in greater productivity and flourishing.

However, that has not happened for most of human history. People have simply not been able to agree on the big picture of life, because for many, events and developments seemed to evolve in random, unguided ways and unpredictable outcomes, which in turn resulted in short-term self-interested thinking, often related to power and survival.

Historically, there were, however, individuals who saw things differently. In 45 B.C. Cicero proclaimed that “the celestial order and the beauty of the universe compel me to confess that there is some excellent and eternal Being, who deserves the respect and homage of men.”  There were also  periods of purposeful life and cultural achievement, virtue, and efflorescence, such as in Periclean Athens, in the Florence of the Medicis, and in England under Eliabeth and Shakespeare.

Additionally, there were giants in the scientific revolution, like Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Boyle and Newton who contributed to the  understanding of a universal order by their insight and conviction that there was an intelligent designer behind the universe that revealed patterns in nature and the heavenly bodies that we could understand because human minds had been made in the image and likeness of that designer who had built rationality, design and lawful order into everything.

What we find in the sweep of history are two great competing stories, or schools of thought about reality. The first posits that the universe, our planet, life as it continues, and especially we ourselves, are products of pre-existing intelligence, a purposeful mind or creator. The second school of thought posits that events, matter, and energy evolve and interact in undirected ways and arrange themselves randomly in our lives and in everything around us.

For this second school, broadly characterized as the philosophical idea of materialism life has no higher purpose than survival and maintaining power. Hobbes described this school as one in which life was “nasty, brutish, and short.”  And this second school of thought got legs during the 19^th Century from the works of Charles Darwin, Thomas Huxley, Karl Marx, and others. And this became dominant in explaining how life came to be, driving a big wedge between science and religion through most of the 20^th Century.

Now we find ourselves embracing a future driven by artificial  intelligence (AI), even while the present advancements in that  technology can lead to “AI Takeover,” in which AI systems end up making the most consequential decisions about the future, displacing human control, and even leading to suicidal dangers in which AI could turn on the very people who created artificial intelligence.

Rather than accepting this fate of self-destruction, we are called to go deeper in our search and discovery of evidence that reveals design as a superior explanation for the laws of the universe and our personal lives in terms of how we should live. What we now know is that the theory of evolution and materialism have gaps in logic, sequence and consequence that may only be solved by theistic explanations.

Toward this end, a new film to be released on April 30, entitled, “The Story of Everything,” takes you on a journey through the biggest discoveries in modern science—cosmology, physics, and biology.

It turns out that discoveries from physics and astronomy reinforce a theistic view. Physicists have determined that the fundamental laws and parameters of our universe are “finely tuned,” against all odds, to make life possible. Even slight alterations of many independent factors — such as the strength of gravitational or electromagnetic attraction, or the initial arrangement of matter and energy — would render life impossible. Thus, an increasing number of physicists no longer believe that chance and randomness provide ultimate answers.

Instead, they believe that life is only sustained by a cosmic “fine-tuning.” And that of course implies that there must be an ultimate “fine-tuner.”

Astronomers point out that the solar system itself must also reside in a narrow life-friendly band of space within our galaxy called the “galactic habitable zone.”  They have also discovered that life on our planet depends upon many other “localized,” fine-tuning parameters. The Earth must orbit the sun at just the right distance, with just the right axial tilt, in a right-shaped orbit, with the right planetary neighbors, including a moon of the right size at just the right distance.

Our moon’s gravitational pull causes the earth’s tidal rise and fall, playing critical roles in affecting coastal environments and broader systems, effectively acting as “circulatory system” for the vast oceans and for localized coastal and marine ecosystems. Without tidal energy input, deeper ocean layers would become more stratified and stagnant, slowing global overturning circulation, and altering how heat and CO₂ are stored and distributed—processes linked to climate regulation and consistency. Tidal currents flush nutrients from land and deeper waters into coastal areas and oxygenate water that sustains life. Such currents also play a critical role in keeping our environment clean by removing waste and pollutants.

The collective improbability of these and other factors that explain reality, suggests that ‘everything” in the universe, our solar system and our earth came into being by design and for a purpose.

Diving into the microcosm, biology turns out to be as important as astronomy in “proving” the design story and explanation. The structure of the DNA molecule contains chemical constituents that function like letters in a written language or digital symbols in a computer code, which is far more advanced than any software man has created. Software originates from programmers. Thus, the discovery of digital information in even the simplest living cell suggests a role of a master programmer in the origination and sustenance of life.

In summary, we are on the threshold of greater discovery and flourishing than ever because of a quiet, but growing reconciliation between trust in science and trust in God.

READ MORE From Scott S. Powell:

Thanksgiving: Why It Is America’s Foundational Holiday

Martin Luther King Jr.: More Relevant Than Ever

Far More Than a Culture War Rages in America

Scott S. Powell is senior fellow at Discovery Institute. His timeless book,Rediscovering America, was a #1 Amazon New Release in the history genre for eight weeks. https://www.amazon.com/dp/1637581599. Reach him at scottp@discovery.org