From Science to God

We may not be able to account for consciousness, yet the fact that we are conscious is one thing of which we are absolutely certain. This realization was one of René Descartes’s great contributions to Western philosophy, some three hundred and fifty years ago. Like many philosophers before and since, Descartes was looking for absolute truth. To this end, he created his method of doubt. Anything that was open to doubt, he argued, could not be the absolute truth.

Scientists are in the strange position of being confronted daily by the indisputable fact of their own consciousness, yet with no way of explaining it.

Most intriguing of all was how the whole world of mathematics unfolded by the simple application of reason. It seemed to describe a preordained universal truth that transcended matter, time, and space. Mathematics depended on nothing, and yet everything depended on it. If you had asked me then whether there was a God, I would have pointed to mathematics

People travel to wonder at the height of
mountains, at the huge waves of the sea,
at the long courses of rivers, at the vast
compass of the ocean, at the circular
motion of the stars; and they pass by
themselves without wondering.
St.