Sentilong Ozukum
Our Physics teacher in secondary school once told our class of about thirty students that the Universe was created by chance and that life originated first in the form of unicellular organisms in the oceans which later evolved into multi cellular organisms and ultimately formed the present day plants and animals. Till then I always had the notion that the Universe was created by God. Later when I read the Genesis account of Creation I could not find the word chance in it.
Today the basic contention among most of the scientists and philosopher is that the Universe was created by chance. We go back across history and we find the Greek natural philosopher Epicurus (341-270 BC) who first possibly echoed that the cosmos came about by chance. In the same line Nobel Prize winner and molecular biologist Jacques Monod claims that Chance not God is the real creator. He writes in his book Chance and Necessity, “Chance alone is the source of every innovation, of all creation in the Universe. Pure chance, absolutely free but blind, is at the very root of the stupendous edifice of evolution.” Now if we are to accept this chance theory, there is no room for God. The mere existence of chance is enough to rib God out of his cosmic chair. But what actually is Chance? Of course we often use the word chance. We say things like, “You did it by chance” “If it rains by chance?” or “By chance if this question comes in the exam” But what in the world do we mean by the word Chance? Is it a kind of magical power? Is it a kind of unseen force?
A few days ago I happened to walk by two friends of mine in college who were betting twenty rupees with a one rupee coin. They explained the rules to me that whoever gets the maximum no of heads in a total of five tosses walks away with the money. The game was engaging so I watch them toss. “What are your chances of winning?” I asked to one of them. “Fifty-fifty” came his reply. “Can you increase your chances of winning to more than fifty” I asked. “What do you mean?” he said. “That would be impossible” replied the other friend, “Because the odds that heads would be up depends purely on chance. By chance I may get five heads in five tosses but I will not be able to repeat the same feat again…” What do you mean by the word Chance? I was tempted to ask but I dropped the idea fearing that they might label me as a very serious philosopher.
We toss a coin at the start of almost all the games. We always have the notion that the odd of winning the toss is fifty-fifty. But suppose we toss the coin in a completely controlled experiment and it starts up heads at the first toss. And if the experiment is carried out in a vacuum where exactly the same amount of force is exerted on the coin every single time and goes up the same height and landed at the same place then perhaps we might be force to conclude that the odd of winning the toss is hundred percent. Actually the word Chance had nothing to do in the coins coming up either heads or tails. When we are tossing the coin with our thumb the factors involved are- the force exerted by our thumb, the height the coin goes up, the no. of rotation it makes, whether we start heads up or tails up and so on. Since it is impossible to control all these variables with our thumb we say that the chances are fifty-fifty.
Chance I’m not implying that the word Chance is meaningless and nonsensical. It is a perfectly legitimate word. There is nothing wrong with the word Chance. It is a perfectly meaningful word when used to describe mathematical problems. We often say, “What are the Chances that something will happen?” It becomes a synonym with the odds. But when the word Chance is used in statements like, “The Universe was created by Chance” it really has a serious problem. If we grant that the statement is true, then we are assuming that the word Chance has casual power. But Chance is not a being. It is not a thing that operates and works upon other things. It is just a mental concept which refers to mathematical possibilities.
Philosophers have a better definition of the word- Chance. According to them Chance is that word which simply defines our ignorance. We throw the word Chance into equations when we don’t know what’s going on out there. Chance is nothing. When we say that the Universe was created by Chance we are saying it was created by nothing. We are not just attributing some power to Chance but we are attributing the supreme power to Chance. But if we attribute power to Chance we are talking nonsense because Chance is nothing more than a mental concept. If somebody goes around saying that Chance is something we ought to stop him and ask him what is that something? Is it an energy field? Is it an electromagnetic field? How much does it weigh? What is its size? When we say something is Chance we are saying that we don’t know. It is one thing to say, “I don’t know” but it is quite another to say, “Nothing is producing this effect” We ought to stop people who say that the Universe was created by Chance because it’s sheer nonsensical to admit that something can be created by nothing.
Then What or Who Created the Universe?
Let’s go back to the Coin tossing experiment. Suppose I stand before you with a coin. Now if I could toss the coin and get heads fifty times in a row and then proceeded to do it all over again, what would be your conclusion? Or Let me put it this way. Suppose I take ten coins and mark them A B C D E F G H I J and give them to you to put in your pocket. I’d ask you to give them a good shake, then I’d say, “I’m going to reach into your pocket and draw out coin marked A” My chance of doing this would be 1 out of 10 and you’d be surprised if I in fact pull out the coin marked A. Now I would put the coin back into your pocket, you’d shake them again and I’d say, “I will now pulled out the coins in the alphabetical order.” My odds are now much slimmer- 1 out of 100. If I were to draw out coin marked C in the same sequence the odds would be 1 in 1000. Now if I draw out each coin alphabetically the ultimate chance factor would reach the unbelievable figure of 1 in 10 billion. If I perform that act before your eyes you would probably say, “This game is fixed” That’s exactly what I’m saying about the Universe. The arrangement is fixed. There is a designer. Let’s think about that and look at some of the evidences of design with the help of Science.
1. We all know that the earth rotates 365 times each year as it passes around the sun. Suppose it rotated 36 times instead? Well our days and nights would be ten times as long. We’d be terribly hot on one side and unbearably cold on the other and life would begin to disappear. By Chance?
2. We all need oxygen to survive. We know oxygen constitutes about 21% of our atmosphere. Why 21%? Why not 5% 0r 10% of for that matter, 50%? Well, if 50%, the first time someone lights a matchstick we’d all be on fire? Is 21% by Chance?
3. The earth is 93 million miles away from the sun which is just the right distance to sustain the right temperature for living. Why 93 million miles? Why not 50 miles or 100 miles? If it’s 50 miles the earth would be an oven and if the distance is 100 miles we would all froze. Is 93 miles by Chance?
4. There are many planets surrounding the earth. Why? In the absence of the other planets the earth would be bombarded with space material. For instan
e the planet Jupiter saves the Earth from high speed asteroids and comets. Is it by Chance?
What is my point?
My point is that the Universe was created by God and not through some random chance and chaos. We ought to stop people who say that the Universe was created by Chance. We cannot leave this uncorrected. We’ve got to question them. There are many people who are lost in the designs. We have to point them to the Designer. To borrow the words from Kedo Peseyie, “I would rather sit with the Designer and learn from him than to be lost in His designs and miss the Designer.”
