John Lennox & Alex O'Connor: Science, Religion, and the Word-Based Universe
Date: 2025-08-24
Source: Alex O'Connor Podcast - "Why This Oxford Mathematician is Confident God Exists"
Participants: Professor John Lennox (Oxford mathematician) & Alex O'Connor (philosopher/podcaster)
Location: Oxford Union Goodman Library
Key Themes & Powerful Insights
On Science and Religion Compatibility
Lennox's Core Thesis:
"Men became scientific because they expected law and nature and they expected law and nature because they believed in a lawgiver... arguably it was the Judeo-Christian worldview that gave me my subject."
The Real Conflict:
"I see a real conflict between the theistic worldview and the atheistic worldview. And there are scientists on both sides... it's not between science and faith in God... Their difference isn't in the realm of physics at all or science. It's in worldview."
On the Historical Development of Science
Why Science Arose in Christian Context:
"Modern science arose in a particular place in a particular time where in a sense the general background was Christian but in the other hand it didn't arise where the general background was very different."
Lennox references research by a Marxist historian who concluded that modern science didn't develop in China because they lacked "the idea that there was a unification in the sense that there was one creator who had created the universe and created the human mind to study it."
On Evolution and Intelligent Design
The DNA Information Problem:
"The DNA molecule was not simply complex. It was linguistically complex. That is it gave us a 3.4 4 billion letter long word in a chemical alphabet and all those letters had to be in the right order. That is a stupendous level of complexity which is no chance of being generated by random processes and Richard Dawkins agrees with that."
Distinguishing Evolution from Origin of Life:
"Evolution again, whatever does or doesn't do depends on the existence of life. Yes. To do anything. So it cannot be the explanation for life."
Systems Biology Challenge:
"Most simply perhaps can be realized here is DNA. You can't get DNA without a cell. You can't get a living cell without DNA. So, how does that work?"
On the Word-Based Universe
Biblical Creation and Information:
"In the beginning was the word. That is the word already was... through the word all things came to be... So the word already was the word never came to be. The world came to be."
Evidence of Word-Based Reality:
"Lots of things in our universe are mathematically describable. That is we can use the language of mathematics to describe them... Einstein saw that there was a problem... 'the most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it's comprehensible.'"
Information as Non-Material:
"Information in the sense of we live in an informationbased world is not derivable from physics and chemistry... if information is not in the end material, then no material explanation is going to work for it... the death blow to materialism in the ultimate sense has been given by physics in talking about information not being reducible to physics and chemistry."
On Certainty vs. Fundamentalism
The Danger of Closed Certainty:
"Certainty can become what I call fundamentalist certainty... Where people are so certain that their receptors are completely closed to anything else... And that justifies almost any kind of behavior. And that's appalling."
Lennox's Approach:
"I've been prepared for the last 70 years or more to be vulnerable. In other words, I'm always prepared to question what I believe."
His Father's Example:
"Scripture teaches us that every man and woman, irrespective of what they believe, is made in the image of God, and I intend to treat them like that."
On Faith and Experience vs. Arguments
Priority of Experience:
"Intellectually one one's reasons for God often come after one's experience of God and that's quite important Because if it were the case that people had to understand a huge number of philosophical arguments and answers to them to come to faith in God, I would doubt whether that God was worth believing in."
Meeting People Where They Are:
"One of the biggest evidences for God is meeting people where they're at... God meets people where they're at have been hugely important in my life."
Story of Stan Ford:
The ex-fairground heavyweight boxer who "couldn't read or write" but became a Christian at 19 and later "could give you a summary by heart of every chapter in the Bible... he was a living example of what God can do to a person."
On Problem of Evil and Suffering
Reframing the Question:
"Perhaps we're asking the wrong question... Granted that it's like that [beauty and bombs]. Is there any evidence anywhere that there is a God who understands it and to such an extent that I can feel not that I've got an answer but that I can see there's a possibility of coming to some peace about it."
God's Participation in Suffering:
"The God presented in the Christian gospels is a God who in that sense has suffered because the central claim of Christianity is that God became human and that Christ is God. So crudely put what is God doing on a cross? Well, one thing it certainly shows me is that God has not remained distant from human suffering, but has become part of it."
On Debates vs. Discussions
The Problem with Formal Debates:
"The so-called confrontational debate... Have serious defects. And one of them is cutting corners... not really listening to the other person and trying to win... it's a sport... it tells you who's the better boxer, but it doesn't tell you who the better fighter is... it doesn't tell you what the truth is."
O'Connor's Agreement:
"The best way to do debates of the format opening statement rebuttal round... would be to produce your opening statement and then everyone goes away for a week... otherwise what's the point in presenting ideas? It becomes more about who can think on the spot."
On Current Cultural Shifts
Encouraging Signs:
"I see encouraging signs on the horizon because many young people particularly in Gen Alpha are beginning to come back and be interested in God and exploring these questions not so much against the background of what science says or doesn't say but against the much more cultural background of meaning and purpose in life."
Church Attendance Increase:
Discussion of recent studies showing surprising increases in young people attending church, not just believing in God.
Notable Personal Anecdotes
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Anthony Flew's Conversion: Flew, the famous atheist philosopher, was convinced by "the argument... about the languageike nature of DNA" and said "I was wrong about Hume" regarding miracles.
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Chandra Wickramasinghe Encounter: The astrophysicist challenged Lennox to prove the Bible wasn't naive, leading to a discussion about "In the beginning was the word" that impressed him enough to arrange a meeting with Fred Hoyle.
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Northern Ireland Background: Lennox's father employed both Catholics and Protestants equally during the troubles, despite bombing threats, because "every man and woman, irrespective of what they believe, is made in the image of God."
Philosophical Convergence
Both O'Connor and Lennox express preference for open discussion over formal debate, with O'Connor noting:
"I much prefer it that way... they can listen to them separately and they can listen to them and and think about them."
And Lennox reciprocating:
"I decided not to push you on certain things beyond limits... this podcast achieves more because it's yours."
This represents a mature approach to intellectual disagreement focused on understanding rather than winning.