What do I answer when someone says science does not need God?

Do not begin with the question of who created the world, but with the order that science itself observes. That the universe has developed in a clear direction from the simple to the complex since its beginning cannot be explained by chance.

First it is worth listening carefully. Many thoughtful people do not say that God certainly does not exist. They only say that they do not know and that they lack proof. Others, however, claim that there is clear evidence against God. This second position is harder to hold, because it has something to prove. It helps to know who you are talking to.

The conversation often begins with the statement that someone must have made the world. The immediate reply is, then who made God? The discussion goes round in a circle. A better starting point is a different question. Is everything that exists eternal, or has it changed? And if it changes, what gives that change its direction?

Science itself describes that the universe had a beginning and has never stood still since. More and more complex things keep arising from simpler ones, right up to life itself. That is remarkable. Complex things easily fall apart into simple ones by themselves, but simple things do not by themselves become ordered. That requires energy and an ordering power from outside.

This order also shows in small things. Almost every substance contracts as it cools. Water, however, expands when it freezes, so ice floats on top. Beneath it lakes and seas stay liquid, and the life in them survives the winter. Exceptions like this, exactly where life needs them, are hard to explain as chance.

The verses above invite exactly this kind of looking. The Holy Qur’an does not tell us to stop investigating. It tells us to look, and to look again. Science and faith are therefore not opposed. The more precisely science describes nature, the clearer the order becomes that points to a Creator.