Quote of the Day: So That's How God Did It

Henry Schaefer - Computational Quantum Chemist

“The significance and joy in my science comes in those occasional moments of discovering something new and saying to myself, ‘So that’s how God did it.’ My goal is to understand a little corner of God’s plan.” (h/t y-origins.com)

American-born Henry "Fritz" Schaefer III is a computational and theoretical chemist. He is a member of the International Academy of Quantum Molecular Science. For 18 years Dr. Schaefer was a faculty member at the University of California at Berkeley, where he remains Professor of Chemistry, Emeritus. Since 1987 Dr. Schaefer has been Graham Perdue Professor of Chemistry and Director of the Center for Computational Chemistry at the University of Georgia.

Dissenting from the "received wisdom", he is a Fellow of the International Society for Complexity, Information and Design, and a signer of the Discovery Institute's anti-darwinian letter, A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism.

http://www.leaderu.com/offices/schaefer/

http://www.chem.uga.edu/DoC/ResFacHFS.html

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There is a line of Christian philosophical thought that observes that, not only does the universe appear to be improbably fine-tuned for the existence of life, but that man appears to be ideally suited and situated to inquire into and discover the "secrets" of the universe. It is to this joy of discovery that Dr. Schaefer is alluding. It's one thing to have the discovered "facts" presented to us; quite another surely to be the discoverer of those facts. It is for this reason that several prominent skeptics or atheists have converted to theism when staring the improbable facts in the face; while many abandoned their faith because of darwinism, I know of no one who has looked at the recent scientific discoveries, such as the Big Bang, the Fine-Tuning of the universe, or the Cambrian explosion, and renounced theism as a result.

Jesus said, "seek and you shall find", and, perhaps propelled along by this invitation, western scientific inquiry emerged among Christian nations. Man is, at God's invitation (and, one might say, "by intelligent design"), a seeking, inquiring being.

And God welcomes this. Even among materialistic scientists who treat denial of God's existence as a pre-condition of scientific inquiry.

To them I would say, echoing the words of one who preceded me by 2,000 years, "seek, and you shall find".