On the hunt for evidence: One book reviews the science in the search for God

After four years and interviews with at least 20 scientists and specialists, co-authors Michel-Yves Bolloré and Olivier Bonnassies have decided to let the world in on what they’ve uncovered in a newly released book.

God, the Science, the Evidence: The Dawn of a Revolution spins a long but intriguing narrative where the authors look at what science has revealed about the universe and humanity to show what they are calling rational and possible scientific ‘evidence’ for God.

Using the writings of renowned scientists as well as astonishing scientific facts, the book is a dizzying blend of science history and accessible explanations of scientific theories and how they have changed over the years. The final quarter of the book explores religion and materialist arguments against religion.

Neither Bolloré nor Bonnassies are scientists, but the pair share a longtime interest in the topic of religion and science.

For Bolloré, he is an engineer by training and has run various industrial businesses over the years. For Bonnaissies, he was an unbeliever until the age of 20. Now he is the author of several books and videos on subjects related to faith and reason, and runs a Catholic news website called Aleteia.

Covalence interviewed Yves Bolloré about the book upon its U.S. release and what he hopes readers will gain from the pair’s research.

Covalence: Why does evidence matter?

Bolloré: The relationship between evidence and faith is often misunderstood.  

Many Christian thinkers have likened humanity to a bird: just as a bird requires two wings to fly, so too does a person need both faith and reason. It is neither healthy nor logical to rely solely on faith while dismissing reason, intelligence, science, or evidence. If God truly exists, then every authentic form of knowledge must ultimately point in the same direction. Indeed, it is both significant and deeply satisfying to observe how science, philosophy, morality, and history increasingly converge toward the same truth.

Covalence: In the book you point to stats showing that there are fewer scientists of faith today than, say, 20 years ago? Could those figures change? What would it take?

Bolloré: Faith has declined sharply across Western countries over the past century, so it’s only logical that the proportion of scientists who believe in God has declined as well.

In our book, we cite an interesting survey on faith among scientists. According to a Pew Research Center study, 51% of scientists in the United States (PhD or higher) believe in God — a majority, which may surprise some readers. Even more striking, younger scientists show higher levels of belief: 66% say they believe in God, compared with lower rates among older scientists. This suggests that a reversal may already be underway, perhaps influenced by the new scientific discoveries we discuss throughout the book.

Covalence: Your book provides so many instances where conditions seem to line up so inexplicably perfectly for life to thrive on this planet against all odds. Do you have a favorite example of evidence?

Bolloré: One of my favorite examples concerns the speed of expansion of the universe just after the Big Bang — an astonishingly precise figure we know to the 15th decimal place. If that value were even a fraction higher or lower, the universe as we know it would not exist. It would have either blown apart before a single galaxy formed or collapsed back into itself.

The extraordinary precision of this expansion rate underscores how delicately balanced our universe is. Physicist Brian Greene highlighted this mystery in a 2012 TED Talk, showing a constant so vanishingly small — one part in a billion, billion, billion, billion, billion, billion, billion, billion, billion, billion, billion, billion, billion — that even the slightest deviation would have rendered life impossible.

Covalence: The mathematical improbability of the rise of life on Earth is detailed in numerous ways from amino acids to the very conditions of our planet’s place in the universe. Is there a danger in asserting that this serves as scientific proof of a creator? Essentially serving as a ‘God of the gaps’ kind of theory. 

Bolloré: There is no “God of the gaps.” God either exists or does not — it’s a matter of truth, not a placeholder for what we don’t yet understand. The fact that we don’t have a definitive answer today is simply a matter of incomplete knowledge. One day, perhaps, we will have a final answer to this ancient question.

 If God does not exist, then life must have arisen naturally from inanimate matter. In the past, many believed that this was a small step—that life could easily emerge from the right chemical conditions. Today, however, scientists increasingly recognize that the transition from inert matter to living organisms is not a small leap but an enormous chasm. At present, we have no convincing theory that adequately explains how this extraordinary transformation could have occurred.

Covalence: What do you say to the notion of religion explains the why and science the how? Does that line up with the ideas you are conveying here?

Bolloré: It’s true that, generally speaking, science seeks to explain the how while religion addresses the why. However, the boundary between these two domains — physics and metaphysics — is no longer as clear-cut as it once seemed. Today, there is an area of overlap defined by three profound questions that belong simultaneously to both realms:

• Did our universe have an absolute beginning?
• Do we have a plausible material explanation for the fine-tuning of the universe?
• Do we have a plausible material explanation for the emergence of life from inanimate matter?

These questions cannot be confined purely to physics or purely to metaphysics; they sit at the intersection of both. This is why it’s not entirely accurate to say that science only concerns itself with the how. If science were one day able to provide a definitive answer regarding the absolute beginning of the universe, it would, at the same time, be touching upon one of the deepest whys — the question of whether a Creator is necessary.

Covalence: What is the story behind writing this book? How did the research come together and what is some of the latest science that you see as evidence for God?

Bolloré: Olivier and I wrote this book because we were looking for a clear, accessible work that would explain, for a general audience, what science and reason can tell us about the existence of God. We searched for such a book — and realized it didn’t exist. So, we decided to write it ourselves.

 In recent years, several major scientific discoveries have provided striking evidence that points toward the existence of God. Among them are:

• The Second Law of Thermodynamics, which tells us that everything in the universe is running down — that everything that has an end must also have had a beginning.
• The expansion of the universe and the Big Bang, which confirm that the cosmos is not eternal but had an origin in time.
• The extraordinary fine-tuning of the universe, for which there is no plausible materialistic explanation.
• The vast gulf between inert matter and living organisms, a leap so great that we still lack any credible theory for how life could have arisen spontaneously from non-living matter.

These findings, taken together, do not “prove” God’s existence in the mathematical sense — but they do make the hypothesis of a Creator far more intellectually compelling.

Covalence: Can evidence change the minds of atheists?

Bolloré: Yes, of course. One of the best examples is Fred Hoyle, the illustrious cosmologist and atheist who originally coined the term “Big Bang” to mock Georges Lemaître’s theory. Yet after studying the extraordinary precision of the universe’s fine-tuning, Hoyle changed his mind and became a deist.

Unfortunately, the question of God’s existence is a deeply emotional and polarizing one. Many people reject the idea of God, not because of evidence, but because they fear it could diminish their sense of freedom.

Covalence: Is it possible that for faith communities the sharing of the wonder of science can inspire new conversations?

Bolloré: Of course. The wonders of the universe have always been among the most powerful signs pointing to the existence of God. This theme runs throughout the Bible — an invitation to marvel at creation as a reflection of divine intelligence and beauty. Sharing the discoveries of modern science can rekindle that same sense of awe, inspiring new conversations between faith and reason.

Covalence: Do you view science as a God-given calling? If so, how?

Bolloré: If by that you mean whether science itself can be seen as a path through which we come closer to understanding God’s creation — then yes, absolutely. The desire to understand the universe, to uncover its laws and its beauty, is in itself a noble and perhaps divinely inspired impulse.

Science allows us to contemplate the order, harmony, and intelligibility of the cosmos — all of which point toward a higher intelligence. In that sense, doing science can indeed be viewed as a kind of calling: a way of participating in the ongoing discovery of the Creator’s work.

Covalence: Have scientists who are atheists taken you to task for some of the quotes in the book that have them describing something immeasurable behind the universe and seemingly holding it all together?

Bolloré: Not really. Our aim was never to attack or ridicule anyone, but to present the evidence and let the facts speak for themselves. We cite many great scientists — some believers, some not — who, through their own research, have expressed awe at the extraordinary precision and order of the universe.

One striking example is the Nobel laureate biologist George Wald, who wrote: “When it comes to the origin of life there are only two possibilities: creation or spontaneous generation. There is no third way. Spontaneous generation was disproved one hundred years ago, but that leads us to only one other conclusion, that of supernatural creation. We cannot accept that on philosophical grounds; therefore, we choose to believe the impossible: that life arose spontaneously by chance.”

Wald’s words capture something profound: even brilliant scientists who reject the idea of God often recognize how improbable a purely materialistic explanation for life truly is. We don’t use such quotes to prove faith, but to show that the mystery remains — and that honest science continues to point toward questions that reason alone cannot yet answer. 

Covalence: Is creation still happening today? Where should we look?

Bolloré: Science is not able to answer that question. It can describe the laws and mechanisms that govern the universe, but it cannot tell us whether creation — in the deeper, metaphysical sense — is ongoing.

From a scientific point of view, the processes of evolution, cosmic expansion, and the birth of new stars and galaxies continue. Whether these are expressions of continuous creation or simply the unfolding of natural laws depends on one’s philosophical or spiritual perspective.

In that sense, the question of whether creation is “still happening” belongs as much to metaphysics and theology as it does to science.