Historian Paul Johnson has long been one of my favourite authors, an older version of today’s more popular Niall Ferguson. Now 86, Johnson’s superbly-researched and clearly articulated volumes have enormously enlightened and enriched many lives. My favourite, though, is his unusual 1996 book The Quest for God which this literary giant calls his personal pilgrimage. Not since that masterpiece have I read anything presenting as compelling a case for God, for the existence of a Higher Power, than Eric Metaxas’s Christmas Day article in the Wall Street Journal. We’ve embedded a video at the bottom of the piece with Metaxas chatting to another wonderful writer, Malcolm Gladwell. Well worth watching the part about Faith (1:06) – and even more especially Gladwell’s answer to a question of what young North American graduates should consider doing with their lives (comes at 1:22 in the video – skip there for a proudly SA moment). Also below my piece is a related contribution from SA branding guru Jeremy Sampson who tells how he did the cover design for Fred “Big Bang” Hoyles’s book. Happy New Year. – AH  Â
On Christmas Day, appropriately, The Wall Street Journal explained how the latest scientific information proves the case for intelligent design of our universe. In other words, after long being a heartland for atheists, science now makes the case for God.
Unfortunately, author Eric Metaxas’s brilliant analysis is behind the WSJ’s pay-wall (UPDATE: He gave us permission to republish – click here). But to summarise, scientists now realise 200 variables must happen together for any planet to support life.
That’s nothing, though, compared with conditions required for the universe itself to exist. The odds of them occurring simultaneously are one in 100 000 000 000 000 000. (17 noughts). That’s the same as a randomly tossed coin coming up heads 10 quintillion times in a row.
These latest developments have rocked science to its core. Most famously, writes Metaxas, the beliefs of astronomer Fred Hoyle who coined the term “big bang.” Hoyle admits his atheism has been “greatly shaken by developments…. a super-intellect has monkeyed with the physics……the numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question.”
Scientists like Hoyle could have saved themselves trouble by simply observing meetings of now numerous 12-Step Programmes. In those rooms, Higher Power-inspired miracles happen all the time. To find God, it seems, one just needs to know where to look.
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Cover design for Fred Hoyles’ famous book – by Jeremy SampsonÂ