Famous Scientists on God

Note: Last Updated 7/29/2024.

Sir Isacc Newton (Mathematician, Physicist and Astronomer Who Discovered Classical Mechanics):

The most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being. …This Being governs all things, not as the soul of the world, but as Lord over all; and on account of his dominion he is wont to be called “Lord God” παντοκρατωρ, or “Universal Ruler”; …The Supreme God is a Being eternal, infinite, absolutely perfect; but a being, however perfect, without dominion, cannot be said to be “Lord God”; for we say, “my God,” “your God,” “the God of Israel,” the “God of Gods,” and “Lord of Lords,” 

(Isacc Newton, Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, The General Scholium, Book III; trans. Newton’s Philosophy of Nature: Selections from His Writings, The Hafner Library of Classics [Number Sixteen], ed. H. S. Thayer, [New York: Hafner Publishing Company, 1953], III. God and Natural Philosophy, I. General Scholium, p. 42.)

Cf. Sir Isacc Newton (Mathematician, Physicist and Astronomer Who Discovered Classical Mechanics):

     Opposite to the first is Atheism in profession and idolatry in practice. Atheism is so senseless and odious to mankind that it never had many professors. Can it be by accident that all birds, beasts and men have their right side and left side alike-shaped (except in their bowels), just two eyes and no more, [one] on either side the face, and just two ears, [one] on either side the head, and a nose with two holes and no more between the eyes, and one mouth under the nose, and either two fore-legs, or two wings, or two arms on the shoulders, and two legs on the hips, one on either side and no more? Whence arises this uniformity in all their outward shapes but from the counsel and contrivance of an Author? Whence is it that all the eyes of all sorts of living creatures are transparent to the very bottom and the only transparent members in the body, having on the outside a hard transparent skin and within transparent layers with a crystalline lens in the middle and a pupil before the lens—all of them so truly shaped and fitted for vision that no Artist can mend them? Did blind chance know that there was light and what was its refraction, and fit the eyes of all creatures after the most curious manner to make use of it?

     These and such like considerations, always have, and ever will prevail with mankind, to believe that there is a Being who made all things, and has all things in his power, and who is therefore to be feared.

(Isacc Newton, “A Short Scheme of the True Religion;” In: Sir Isaac Newton: Theological Manuscripts, ed. H. McLachlan, [Liverpool: At the University Press, 1950], pp. 48-49.)

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (One of the Fathers of Calculus):

     7. Thus far we have spoken as simple physicists: now we must advance to metaphysics, making use of the great principle, little employed in general, which teaches that nothing happens without a sufficient reason; that is to say, that nothing happens without its being possible for him who should sufficiently understand things, to give a reason sufficient to determine why it is so and not otherwise. This principle laid down, the first question which should rightly be asked, will be, Why is there something rather than nothing? For nothing is simpler and easier than something. Further, suppose that things must exist, we must be able to give a reason why they must exist so and not otherwise.

     8. Now this sufficient reason for the existence of the universe cannot be found in the series of contingent things, that is, of bodies and of their representations in souls; for matter being indifferent in itself to motion and to rest, and to this or another motion, we cannot find the reason of motion in it, and still less of a certain motion. And although the present motion which is in matter, comes from the preceding motion, and that from still another preceding, yet in this way we make no progress, go as far as we may; for the same question always remains. Thus it must be that the sufficient reason, which has no need of another reason, be outside this series of contingent things and be found in a substance which is its cause, or which is a necessary being, carrying the reason of its existence within itself; otherwise we should still not have a sufficient reason in which we could rest. And this final reason of things is called God.

(Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, “The Principles of Nature and of Grace;” trans. The Philosophical Works of Leibnitz: Second Edition, trans. George Martin Duncan, [New Haven: The Tuttle, Morehouse & Taylor Company, 1908], p. 303.)

Johannes Kepler (Astronomer and Mathematician Who Discovered the Laws of Planetary Motion):

     Purposely I break off the dream and the very vast speculation, merely crying out with the royal Psalmist: Great is our Lord and great His virtue and of His wisdom there is no number: praise Him, ye heavens, praise Him, ye sun, moon, and planets, use every sense for perceiving, every tongue for declaring your Creator. Praise Him, ye celestial harmonies, praise Him, ye judges of the harmonies uncovered (and you before all, old happy Mastlin, for you used to animate these cares with words of hope): and thou my soul, praise the Lord thy Creator, as long as I shall be: for out of Him and through Him and in Him are all things, τά αἰσθητά καὶ τὰ νοερά (both the sensible and the intelligible); for both whose whereof we are utterly ignorant and those which we know are the least part of them; because there is still more beyond. To Him be praise, honour, and glory, world without end. Amen.

(Johannes Kepler, Harmonies of the World: Book Five, ed. Stephen Hawking, [Philadelphia: Running Press, 2002], p. 89.)

Nicolaus Copernicus (Mathematician and Astronomer Who Discovered Heliocentrism):

For who, after applying himself to things which he sees established in the best order and directed by Divine ruling, would not through diligent contemplation of them and through a certain habituation be awakened to that which is best and would not admire the Artificer of all things, in Whom is all happiness and every good? For the divine Psalmist surely did not say gratuitously that he took pleasure in the workings of God and rejoiced in the works of His hands, unless by means of these things as by some sort of vehicle we are transported to the contemplation of the highest good.

(Nicolaus Copernicus, On the Revolutions of Heavenly Spheres, ed. Stephen Hawking, [Philadelphia: Running Press, 2002], Book One, p. 7.)

Cf. Nicolaus Copernicus (Mathematician and Astronomer Who Discovered Heliocentrism):

Similarly, in the case of the other planets I shall try—with the help of God, without Whom we can do nothing—to make a more detailed inquiry concerning them…

(Nicolaus Copernicus, On the Revolutions of Heavenly Spheres, ed. Stephen Hawking, [Philadelphia: Running Press, 2002], Book One, p. 8.)

Galileo Galilei (Father of Observational Astronomy):

No, when I consider what marvelous things and how many of them men have understood, inquired into, and contrived, I recognize and understand only too clearly that the human mind is a work of God’s, and one of the most excellent.

(Galileo Galilei, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, Ptolemaic and Copernican, trans. Stillman Drake, ed. Stephen J. Gould, [New York: The Modern Library, 2001], p. 120.)

Robert Boyle (One of the Fathers of Modern Chemistry):

…when with bold telescopes I survey the old and newly discovered stars and planets, and when with excellent microscopes I discern, in otherwise invisible objects, the inimitable subtlety of nature’s curious workmanship; and when, in a word, by the help of anatomical knaves, and the light of chymical furnaces, I study the book of nature . . . I find myself oftentimes reduced to exclaim with the Psalmist, How manifold are Thy works, O Lord! in wisdom hast Thou made them all!

(Robert Boyle, Some Motives to the Love of God; In: The Works of the Honorable Robert Boyle: In Five Volumes: Volume I, [London: A. Millar, 1744], p. 167; cf. Franjo Stvarnik, Portraits of the Great Bible-Believing Scientists, [Fort St Victoria: FriesenPress, 2018], p. 111.)

Sir Francis Bacon (Father of the “Scientific Method”):

It is true, that a little philosophy inclineth man’s mind to atheism; but depth in philosophy bringeth men’s minds about to religion. For while the mind of man looketh upon second causes scattered, it may sometimes rest in them, and go no further; but when it beholdeth the chain of them, confederate and linked together, it must needs fly to Providence and Deity.

(Francis Bacon, “Of Atheism;” In: Bacon’s Essays: With Annotations, ed. Richard Whately, [Boston: Crosby, Nichols, Lee & Co., 1861], Essay XVI, p. 155.)

Blaise Pascal (One of the Fathers of Probability Theory, and the Development of Modern Economics):

What else does this craving, and this helplessness, proclaim but that there was once in man a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace? This he tries in vain to fill with everything around him, seeking in things that are not there the help he cannot find in those that are, though none can help, since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object; in other words by God himself.

(Blaise Pascal, Pensées, trans. A. J. Krailsheimer, [London: Penguin Books, 1966], # 148 (428), p. 75.)

James Clerk Maxwell (Responsible for the Classical Theory of Electromagnetic Radiation):

I believe, with the Westminster Divines and their predecessors ad Infinitum, that “Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him for ever.”

(James Clerk Maxwell; In: Lewis Campbell, William Garnett, The Life of James Clerk Maxwell: With Selections from His Correspondence and Occasional Writings, [London: Macmillan and Co., 1884], p. 110; cf. George Mulfinger, Christian Men of Science, [Greenville: Ambassador Emerald International, 2001], p. 194.)

Michael Faraday (Father of Electromagnetism and Electrochemistry):

Yet even in earthly matters I believe that “the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead,” and I have never seen anything incompatible between those things of man which can be known by the spirit of man which is within him, and those higher things concerning his future, which he cannot know by that spirit.

(Michael Faraday, “Observations on Mental Education;” In:

Lectures on Education: Delivered at the Royal Institute of Great Britain, [London: John W Parker and Son West Strand, 1855], Lecture II, p. 41.)

Cf. Michael Faraday (Father of Electromagnetism and Electrochemistry):

…I cannot doubt that a glorious discovery in natural knowledge, and the wisdom and power of God in the creation, is awaiting our age, and that we may not only hope to see it, but even be honoured to help in obtaining the victory over present ignorance and future knowledge.

(Michael Faraday; In: Bence Jones, The Life and Letters of Faraday: Vol. II, [London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1870], p. 244.)

Gregor Johann Mendel (Father of Modern Genetics):

The victory of Christ gained us the kingdom of grace, the kingdom of heaven. Easter is the sky banner flag, the flag of eternity, the victory blowing over the gates of the Holy City of Jerusalem. [Der Sieg Christi hat uns das Reich der Gnade gewonnen, das Himmelreich. Osterfahne wird zur Himmelsfahne, zur Flagge der Ewigkeit, die siegreich weht über den Toren der Heiligen Stadt Jerusalem]

(Gregor Johann Mendel; In: Folia Mendeliana: Volumen 6, [Museo Moravo, 1971], p. 251; cf. Augustiniana, Volume 21, [Augustijns Historisch Instituut., 1971], p. 342.)

Louis Pasteur (Chemist and Microbiologist Who Discovered the Principles of Vaccination, Microbial Fermentation, and Pasteurization):

Posterity will one day laugh at the sublime foolishness of the modern materialistic philosophy. The more I study nature, the more I stand amazed at the work of the Creator. I pray while I am engaged at my work in the laboratory.

(Louis Pasteur; Quoted in: James J. Walsh, Makers of Modern Medicine: Catholic University Edition, [New York: Fordham University Press, 1915], p. 318.)

Lord Kelvin [William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin] (Mathematical Physicist who Formulated the First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics):

I have long felt that there was a general impression that the scientific world believes science has discovered ways of explaining all the facts of nature without adopting any definite belief in a Creator. I have never doubted that impression was utterly groundless.

(Lord Kelvin; In: Twelfth Report of the Committee of the Christian Evidence Society: June, 1883: Instituted A.D. 1870, [London: G. Norman and Son, 1883], p. 46.)

Max Planck (1918 Nobel Laureate in Physics):

There can never be any real opposition between religion and science; for the one is the complement of the other. Every serious and reflective person realizes, I think, that the religious element in his nature must be recognized and cultivated if all the powers of the human soul are to act together in perfect balance and harmony. And indeed it was not by any accident that the greatest thinkers of all ages were also deeply religious souls…

(Max Planck, Where is Science Going? trans. James Murphy, [New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1932], p. 168.)

Werner Karl Heisenberg (1932 Nobel Laureate in Physics, and the Father of Modern Quantum Physics):

In the history of science, ever since the famous trial of Galileo, it has repeatedly been claimed that scientific truth cannot be reconciled with the religious interpretation of the world. Although I am now convinced that scientific truth is unassailable in its own field, I have never found it possible to dismiss the content of religious thinking as simply part of an outmoded phase in the consciousness of mankind, a part we shall have to give up from now on. Thus in the course of my life I have repeatedly been compelled to ponder on the relationship of these two regions of thought, for I have never been able to doubt the reality of that to which they point. 

(Werner Heisenberg, Across the Frontiers, World Perspectives: Volume Forty-eight, ed. Ruth Nanda Anshen, trans. Peter Heath, [New York: Harper & Row, 1974], p. 213.)

Wernher von Braun (The Father of Modern Aerospace Flight):

My experiences with science led me to God. They challenge science to prove the existence of God. But must we really light a candle to see the sun?

(Wernher von Braun, In a letter to the California State Board of Education, September 14, 1972; Quoted in: Christopher H. K. Persaud, Blessings, Miracles & Supernatural Experiences: A Biblical Perspective: A Christian’s Story, [The Standard Publishing Company, 2015], p. 39.)

Sir Derek Harold Richard Barton (Organic Chemist and 1969 Nobel Prize Laureate):

God is Truth. There is no incompatibility between science and religion. Both are seeking the same truth. Science shows that God exists. Our universe is infinitely large and infinitely small. It is infinite in time past and in future time. We can never understand infinity. It is the ultimate truth, which is God.

(D. H. R. Barton, “The Ultimate Truth is God;” In: Cosmos, Bios, Theos: Scientists Reflect on Science, God, and the Origins of the Universe, Life, and Homo Sapiens, ed. Henry Margenau, Roy Abraham Varghese, [La Salle: Open Court, 1992], p. 144.)

Charles H. Townes (1964 Nobel Laureate in Physics):

Some accept both religion and science as dealing with quite different matters by different methods, and thus separate them so widely in their thinking that no direct confrontation is possible. Some repair rather completely to the camp of science or of religion and regard the other as ultimately of little importance, if not downright harmful. To me science and religion are both universal, and basically very similar. In fact, to make the argument clear, I should like to adopt the rather extreme point of view that their differences are largely superficial, and that the two become almost indistinguishable if we look at the real nature of each.

(Charles H. Townes, Making Waves, [Woodbury: The American Institute of Physics Press, 1995], p. 157.)

Francis Collins (Geneticist, and the Lead Scientist of the “Human Genome Project”):

The God of the Bible is also the God of the genome. He can be worshiped in the cathedral or in the laboratory. His creation is majestic, awesome, intricate, and beautiful—and it cannot be at war with itself.

(Francis S. Collins, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence For Belief, [New York: Free Press, 2007], p. 211.)

Gerald Lawrence Schroeder (Physicist Whose Arguments were Instrumental in the Conversion to Deism of Atheist Philosopher Anthony Flew):

Wisdom, information, an idea, is the link between the metaphysical Creator and the physical creation. It is the hidden face of God.

(Gerald L. Schroeder, The Hidden Face of God: How Science Reveals the Ultimate Truth, [New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002], p. 49.)

William D. Phillips (Physicist and 1997 Nobel Laureate):

I am a physicist. I do mainstream research; I publish in peer-reviewed journals; I present my research at professional meetings; I train students and postdoctoral researchers; I try to learn from nature how nature works. In other words, I am an ordinary scientist. I am also a person of religious faith. I attend church; I sing in the gospel choir; I go to Sunday school; I pray regularly; I try to “do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with my God.” In other words, I am an ordinary person of faith.

(William D. Phillips, “Does Science Make Belief in God Obsolete?” Big Questions Essay Series, John Templeton Foundation.)

Stephen Weinberg (Theoretical Physicist and 1979 Nobel Laureate):

…science can never explain any moral principle. There seems to be an unbridgeable gulf between “is” questions and “ought” questions.

(Steven Weinberg, Lake Views: This World and the Universe, [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2009], p. 21.)

Arno Penzias (Physicist and 1978 Nobel Laureate):

…the best data we have (concerning the big bang) are exactly what I would have predicted, had I nothing to go on but the first five books of Moses, the Psalms, the Bible as a whole.

(Arno Penzias, Quoted in: Malcolm W. Browne, “Clues to Universe Origin Expected,” New York Times, March 12, 1978.) 

Freeman John Dyson (Theoretical and Mathematical Physicist):

The more I examine the universe and the details of its architecture, the more evidence I find that the universe in some sense must have known we were coming.

(Freeman Dyson, Disturbing the Universe, [New York, Harper & Row, 1979], p. 250.)

Stephen Hawking (Theoretical Physicist, Cosmologist and Atheist):

It would be very difficult to explain why the universe should have begun in just this way, except as the act of a God who intended to create beings like us.

(Stephen Hawking, A Brief History Of Time: From The Big Bang To Black Holes, [New York: Bantam Books, 1988], p. 127.)

Cf. Stephen Hawking (Theoretical Physicist, Cosmologist and Atheist):

“The odds against a universe like ours emerging out of something like the big bang are enormous . . . I think there clearly are religious implications whenever you start to discuss the origins of the universe. There must be religious overtones . . . But I think most scientists prefer to shy away from the religious side of it.”

(Stephen Hawking, In an Interview with John Boslough; Quoted in: John Boslough, Masters of Time: Cosmology at the End of Innocence, [Reading: Addison-Wesley, 1993], pp. 55-56.)

Sir Fred Hoyle (Atheist Astronomer Who Formulated the Theory of Stellar Nucleosynthesis):

The popular idea that life could have arisen spontaneously on Earth dates back to experiments that caught the public imagination earlier this century. If you stir up simple non organic molecules like water, ammonia, methane, carbon dioxide and hydrogen cyanide with almost any form of intense energy, ultraviolet light for instance, some of the molecules reassemble themselves into amino acids, a result demonstrated about thirty years ago by Stanley Miller and Harold Urey. The amino acids, the individual building blocks of proteins can therefore be produced by natural means. But this is far from proving that life could have evolved in this way. No one has shown that the correct arrangements of amino acids, like the orderings in enzymes, can be produced by this method. No evidence for this huge jump in complexity has ever been found, nor in my opinion will it be. Nevertheless, many scientists have made this leap—from the formation of individual amino acids to the random formation of whole chains of amino acids like enzymes—in spite of the obviously huge odds against such an event having ever taken place on the Earth, and this quite unjustified conclusion has stuck. 

     In a popular lecture I once unflatteringly described the thinking of these scientists as a “junkyard mentality.” Since this reference became widely and not accurately quoted I will repeat it here. A junkyard contains all the bits and pieces of a Boeing 747, dismembered and in disarray. A whirlwind happens to blow through the yard. What is the chance that after its passage a fully assembled 747, ready to fly, will be found standing there? So small as to be negligible, even if a tornado were to blow through enough junkyards to fill the whole Universe. 

(Fred Hoyle, The Intelligent Universe: A New View of Creation and Evolution, [New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1984], pp. 18-19.)

Cf. Sir Fred Hoyle (Atheist Astronomer Who Formulated the Theory of Stellar Nucleosynthesis):

Would you not say to yourself, “Some super-calculating intellect must have designed the properties of the carbon atom, otherwise the chance of my finding such an atom through the blind forces of nature would be utterly minuscule.”? Of course you would. . . . A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a super-intellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question.

(Fred Hoyle, “The Universe: Past and Present Reflections,” Engineering & Science, (November 1981), pp. 8-12.)

Robert Jastrow (American Astronomer and Planetary Physicist):

For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountain of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.

(Robert Jastrow, God and the Astronomers, [New York, London: W. W. Norton and Company, Inc., 1978], p. 116.)

Owen Gingerich (Professor of Astronomy and the History of Science at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge):

“There are so many wonderful details which, if they were changed only slightly, would make it impossible for us to be here, that one just has to feel, somehow, that there is a design in the universe and, therefore, a designer to have worked it out so magnificently.”

(Owen Gingerich, In a National Public Radio Interview; Quoted in: Luis Palau, David Sanford, God Is Relevant: Finding Strength and Peace in Today’s World, [New York: Doubleday, 1997], p. 32.)

Paul Davies (Agnostic Physicist):

Scientists are slowly waking up to an inconvenient truth - the universe looks suspiciously like a fix. The issue concerns the very laws of nature themselves. For 40 years, physicists and cosmologists have been quietly collecting examples of all too convenient “coincidences” and special features in the underlying laws of the universe that seem to be necessary in order for life, and hence conscious beings, to exist. Change any one of them and the consequences would be lethal. Fred Hoyle, the distinguished cosmologist, once said it was as if “a super-intellect has monkeyed with physics”.

(Paul Davies, “Yes, the universe looks like a fix. But that doesn’t mean a god fixed it,” The Guardian, June 25, 2007.)

Cf. Paul Davies (Agnostic Physicist):

I cannot believe that our existence in this universe is a mere quirk of fate, an accident of history, an incidental blip in the great cosmic drama. Our involvement is too intimate. The physical species Homo may count for nothing, but the existence of mind in some organism on some planet in the universe is surely a fact of fundamental significance. Through conscious beings the universe has generated self-awareness. This can be no trivial detail, no minor byproduct of mindless, purposeless forces. We are truly meant to be here.

(Paul Davies, The Mind of God: The Scientific Basis for a Rational World, [New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992], p. 232.)

καὶ αὐτός ἐστιν πρὸ πάντων καὶ τὰ πάντα ἐν αὐτῷ συνέστηκεν ~ Soli Deo Gloria