October 1, 2026
Apologetics is the art of defending the truth of God’s Word and even of His existence. To believers, there is overwhelming evidence, actual proof, of intelligent design of all life and much of the world.
But skeptics are deceived by Satan, and only some of them are ever able to escape his tricks and lies. It is the job of every Christian to tell the gospel to everyone, especially any who doubt it. But no Christian is to bemoan the response, which may well be negative. The response of the individual is entirely up to the Holy Spirit of God
One of the greatest helps for apologetics is the testimony of great men who have and do believe the Bible. And there are a great number of them, both in the past and even today. One who presents a very credible case is Werner Heisenberg.
Heisenberg was a brilliant and famous physicist who won the Nobel Prize and greatly advanced the discipline. He is best remembered for his Uncertainty Principle. In fact, Heisenberg founded the science of quantum mechanics, foundational to understanding much of the physical world today.
After a lifetime of studying the deepest layers of reality, he reached a conclusion that is still surprising for many. He stated, “The first gulp from the glass of natural science will turn you into an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting for you.”
Heisenberg understood that shallow science makes things look simple, whereas deep science reveals complexity, order, mathematics, and mystery. He observed that at the deepest level, the universe looks more like mind than matter. This is reminiscent of what C. S. Lewis stated in his great little book, Mere Christianity. He said, “What is behind the universe is more like a mind than it is anything else we know.” Many years earlier, Francis Bacon expressed this same principle by stating, “A little philosophy inclineth man’s mind to atheism; but depth in philosophy bringeth men’s minds about to Religion.” Bacon took God at His Word when the Lord said, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding” (Proverbs 3:5).
Quantum physics showed Heisenberg that the universe is not chaotic, but structured. It demonstrated to him that the laws of nature are precise beyond imagination and that reality responds to observation. Much of his work cannot be comprehended by ordinary people, even by many trained scientists.
But his case for God is very eloquent and simple. He observed, as any intelligent thinker should, that life and all physical processes, especially those necessary for life, are far more complex than most people can ever appreciate or even imagine. Unfortunately, many scientists, who of all people should see truth, are blind to the reality of God and His creation.
The thing that impressed and even amazed me the most when I studied molecular biology was the extreme complexity of life. For example, we take eating and nutrition for granted. But the truth is that digestion and assimilation of nutrients are vastly complicated. Inside every living cell, it takes dozens of complex actions to convert nutrients into glucose that is used for energy inside each cell. The whole process is staggeringly complex. Dozens of other examples, such as DNA direction of protein synthesis, could be cited.
I think Alexander Pope summed it all up nicely many years ago by saying, “A little learning is a dangerous thing. Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring. There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, and drinking largely sobers us again.”
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Ralph Fudge is the pastor of Big Ochlocknee Baptist Church in Coolidge, Ga., and has a Master’s degree in theology from Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.
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