Faith, Reason, and the Miracle of Virgin Birth

there was a a conversation with someone that began to change my thinking about this i was emailing back and forth there was actually a retired princeton professor in the history of science and he was a friend of mine and we were we were emailing back and forth and i was kind of being drawn more towards the christian faith and he was opposed to it and in this email he was listing all of his different reasons for why he felt you couldn't believe in christianity and he listed a variety of different reasons and then in the last line as if to trump all the other arguments he simply wrote nor can i believe in a virgin birth full stop like no further explanation needed about why not it's just it's a virgin birth it's crazy i can't believe in that end of argument and sent the email and i remember being rattled by that and i can remember starting to draft an email back maybe trying to open up the conversation and say well maybe you could believe in a virgin birth if and then i sort of stopped and something struck me for the first time and i had this thought that everyone believes in a virgin birth not just christians [00:53:50]

christians believe in the virgin birth of jesus that's absolutely extraordinary but what do atheists believe about the birth of the universe for instance here's how the brilliant cambridge physicist stephen hawking puts it here's how he attempts to propose an atheistic birth of our universe he says the universe can and will create itself from nothing spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing why the universe exists why we exist that sounds a lot like a virgin birth to me or consider the words of clinton smith is a prolific atheist philosopher 12 books 150 peer-reviewed articles to his name a serious thinker here's what he says he says the fact of the matter is that the most reasonable belief is that we came from nothing by nothing and for nothing we should acknowledge our foundation in nothingness and feel awe at the marvelous fact that we have a chance to participate briefly in this incredible sunburst that interrupts without reason the reign of non-being [00:02:18]

i thought that definitely sounds like a virgin birth and so the conclusion that i came to is we live in a miraculous world like there is no getting around that theist atheist agnostic right now i am sitting on a rock that's rotating at a thousand miles an hour it's flying around the sun at 67 000 miles an hour it's part of a galaxy that's being hurled through the universe at over a million miles an hour like it's amazing how often we just walk through our days just thinking things are normal and reasonable and sober minded like we live in a miraculous world and we shouldn't be so surprised if therefore there are some miraculous explanations for the miraculous world that we live in so i began to read some of that and think some of that through and i thought to myself you know what it's not a matter of whether you believe in a virgin birth it's just a matter of which virgin birth you choose to accept [00:03:22]

there's a virgin birth of the universe and then what about a virgin birth of life even once you have a universal life within the universe we read similar sorts of things i mean here's professor james torre this is one of the world's like leading nanotechnologists leading chemists an absolute premier thinker here's what he says about the state of science with respect to where life came from once you have a universe how do we how did life emerge here's what he says he says we synthetic chemists should state the obvious the appearance of life on earth is a mystery we are nowhere near solving this problem the proposals offered thus far to explain life's origin make no scientific sense another virgin birth not a matter of whether we believe in a virgin birth but which one we choose to accept [00:04:11]

have you ever thought about the regularity in the universe another thing that most people go their whole lives and never even think about like take the strength of gravity right gravity has a certain strength that strength was the same two days ago and yesterday and today and we all believe it's going to be the same tomorrow and the next day and the day after why i mean logically there's an infinite number of different strengths that it can take and somebody say well that's the way it's always been in the past so that's why we think it's going to be that way in the future but i'm saying no that's not an answer to the question that is the question why logically there are all these different strengths it can take why is it taking the same strength every day until now and we assume it's going to every day into the future i actually think if you take god out of the picture you don't have an explanation for that [00:06:16]

if you put god into the picture and say actually this universe is governed by somebody who wants us to live coherent lives and to be able to make sense out of them and therefore there's a regularity and a predictability to the processes within the universe then you have a reason for why we have that regularity and the amazing thing is that it is that regularity that is at the foundation of the entire scientific enterprise that is why we have science that is why we can do experiments because the universe is regular and i think that only makes sense if god exists and so i really appreciate that this question is saying we shouldn't believe in the anti-scientific i actually couldn't agree more but i actually think you need the existence of god in order for the universe to have the regularity which is the precondition of science itself i don't think science disproves god i think only god actually proves science [00:07:14]

the other thing that my friend's letter made me ask was how come it's always the virgin birth that people go to like why not jesus walking on water or you know why not like why not the loaves and the five you know feeding five thousand people like there's lots of miracles to choose from and it's very often the virgin birth and i've given that some thought and i wonder if you know walking on water we're happy we're happy for god to do what he wants with his own body breaking the loaves feeding the five thousand great you want to give me gifts i'll take it but there's something arresting about the virgin birth there's something arresting about mary finding herself pregnant and her plans and the way people saw her and and everything being thrown up into the air right like god having a claim on our lives right there's something about the virgin birth that demands more of us [00:09:11]

when mary has to respond and chooses to respond i am the lord's servant it's a very different posture of the heart and so i think the virgin birth confronts us with that question of whether we are going to hold on to control of our lives no matter what or whether we're going to say look if there is a god who can make a virgin birth of the universe if there is a god who can make a virgin birth of life within the universe then maybe that's a god worth turning over what's dark and what's dead in my own heart as well and trusting that he can bring life out of that as well [00:09:43]

i resonate with this i mean this is this is like my starting point because i i just thought christianity believes the crazy stuff and science believes the same sober rational stuff i remember walking into a bookstore and finding a book on the on the shelf and and it described itself as trying to hold on to a form of christianity while explaining away all of the miracles in naturalistic terms and i can remember like hoping it could be done because i had started to read the bible at that point i was attracted i was drawn to the person of jesus but i just thought but this stuff is just too crazy to be true i can't just throw my brain out in order to take this blind leap of faith into the irrational abyss [00:00:17]

i was emailing back and forth there was actually a retired princeton professor in the history of science and he was a friend of mine and we were we were emailing back and forth and i was kind of being drawn more towards the christian faith and he was opposed to it and in this email he was listing all of his different reasons for why he felt you couldn't believe in christianity and he listed a variety of different reasons and then in the last line as if to trump all the other arguments he simply wrote nor can i believe in a virgin birth full stop like no further explanation needed about why not it's just it's a virgin birth it's crazy i can't believe in that end of argument and sent the email and i remember being rattled by that and i can remember starting to draft an email back maybe trying to open up the conversation and say well maybe you could believe in a virgin birth if and then i sort of stopped and something struck me for the first time and i had this thought that everyone believes in a virgin birth not just christians [00:00:57]

i thought that definitely sounds like a virgin birth and so the conclusion that i came to is we live in a miraculous world like there is no getting around that theist atheist agnostic right now i am sitting on a rock that's rotating at a thousand miles an hour it's flying around the sun at 67 000 miles an hour it's part of a galaxy that's being hurled through the universe at over a million miles an hour like it's amazing how often we just walk through our days just thinking things are normal and reasonable and sober minded like we live in a miraculous world and we shouldn't be so surprised if therefore there are some miraculous explanations for the miraculous world that we live in so i began to read some of that and think some of that through and i thought to myself you know what it's not a matter of whether you believe in a virgin birth it's just a matter of which virgin birth you choose to accept [00:02:18]

there's a virgin birth of the universe and then what about a virgin birth of life even once you have a universal life within the universe we read similar sorts of things i mean here's professor james torre this is one of the world's like leading nanotechnologists leading chemists an absolute premier thinker here's what he says about the state of science with respect to where life came from once you have a universe how do we how did life emerge here's what he says he says we synthetic chemists should state the obvious the appearance of life on earth is a mystery we are nowhere near solving this problem the proposals offered thus far to explain life's origin make no scientific sense another virgin birth not a matter of whether we believe in a virgin birth but which one we choose to accept [00:04:11]