Episode 194 – Eternal Information – Part 2 – Information and God
Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. In John 14:6, Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” The goal of Anchored by Truth is to encourage everyone to grow in the Christian faith by anchoring themselves to the secure truth found in the inspired, inerrant, and infallible word of God.
Script:
And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.”
Genesis, Chapter 1, verses 3 through 5, New International Version

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VK: Hello! I’m Victoria K. Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. We’re excited to be with you at the start of a New Year. We pray that this year will bring everyone the joy of having a closer fellowship with our Lord Christ Jesus. Today on Anchored by Truth we’re continuing the series we began during our last episode which we are calling “Eternal Information.” I think most listeners to Anchored by Truth know that the Christian faith in America has been subjected to more challenges in the last couple of decades than in the preceding two centuries of existence. So, as we open up a New Year we want to again call attention to a subject that has special importance in our day and time – demonstrating that the Christian faith has a firm basis in reason and evidence. Today in the studio we have RD who is an author and the founder of Crystal Sea Books. RD, “information” is not a topic typically associated with Christian apologetics but you believe information is one of the most straightforward ways we can direct people to the necessary existence of a personal Creator.
RD: Well, I’d also like to greet everyone joining us on Anchored by Truth. I became intrigued about the possibilities offered by the concept of information for demonstrating the existence of God when I ran across a book called In the Beginning was Information. The book was written by a German information specialist named Dr. Werner Gitt.
VK: Dr. Gitt was a director and professor at the German Federal Institute of Physics and Technology and he was the head of the Department of Information Technology there. And just to remind everyone the word “apologetics,” is a broad umbrella term for what we’re talking about when we say that the concept of information points to the need for God to exist. Apologetics can broadly be defined as “a defense for our faith.” Apologetics comes from a compound Greek word. Greek, like English, has compound words made of two or more other words. In this case the Greek words are apo, primarily used to mean “from;” and logos, primarily meaning, in its most generic sense, “word.” Logos is also commonly used in an expanded way to mean “reason, the mental faculty of thinking, meditating, reasoning, and calculating.” The Greek philosopher Heraclitus first used the term Logos around 600 B.C. to designate the divine reason or plan which coordinates a changing universe.
RD: The Apostle John’s used that same word, logos, in John 1:1. The Gospel of John, chapter 1, verse 1 says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Apologetics means “from the mind,” and, in the sense of John 1:1 it means “from the mind of God.” We now use the term “apologetics” to mean the defense of the Christian faith. when I heard about Dr. Gitt’s book I became intrigued because just hearing the title made me look at John 1:1 and Genesis 1:1 in a different light. It’s not just the title of Dr. Gitt’s book calls those verses to mind. It’s that understanding the nature and use of information gives us a whole new way of demonstrating to the unbelieving world that it is impossible to form a coherent view of life and the universe without acknowledging the existence of God.
VK: So, how do we go about doing that?
RD: Well, let’s take a look at a couple of definitions for the term “information” that we covered in our last episode. And then I want to propose my own definition for information which I think of as a sort of theological definition of information.
VK: So, now you’re conjuring up your own definitions of words?
RD: Well, what I try to do is to think carefully through concepts to see how they’re related and then reduce that down to one or two sentences where possible. The result resembles a definition so that’s what I’m going to call it. But before we get to mine let’s look at one from more authoritative sources. We covered this on our last episode but it’s important for this one too. Why don’t you start by reading the definition of information from the Merriam Webster Dictionary?
VK: The online Merriam Webster Dictionary defines information as (1 ) knowledge obtained from investigation, study, or instruction; or (2 ) the attribute inherent in and communicated by one of two or more alternative sequences or arrangements of something (such as nucleotides in DNA or binary digits in a computer program) that produce specific effects.
RD: Right. And as we pointed out in the last episode the second portion of the definition is particularly intriguing because even the Merriam Webster Dictionary takes notice of the fact that DNA, which is a component of the cells of all living creatures, contains information. One of the episodes that we are going to do during this “Eternal Information” series is going to focus on the information present in biological entities – in living creatures. Now let’s take a look at a definition for “information” that Dr. Gitt has developed.
VK: In an article that Dr. Gitt produced for Creation Ministries International Dr. Gitt stated this: “…we developed an unambiguous definition of information: namely an encoded, symbolically represented message conveying expected action and intended purpose. We term any entity meeting the requirements of this definition as “universal information” (UI).” We’ll put a link to this article in the podcast notes that are available on certain podcasting apps.
RD: So, immediately we see some common elements between the Merriam Webster definition and Dr. Gitt’s definition of information even though Dr. Gitt is being more technical for purposes he comes to later in his discussion. Merriam Webster talks about “alternative sequences or arrangements of something …that produce specific effects.” Dr. Gitt speaks about an “encoded, symbolically represented message.” Merriam Webster says that the sequence or arrangement of something is intended “produce specific effects.” Dr. Gitt says that the symbolically coded message is “conveying expected action and intended purpose.” So, both of these definitions are pointing to some essential elements that are inherent in “information.” Information contains specified sequences, elements, codes, and symbols. And those specified sequences, elements, codes, and symbols have been arranged or encoded for a specific purpose to produce specific effects. The overarching concept is that information is ordered, organized, and specified.
VK: So, what is your definition for information?
RD: My definition for information is “Information is the expression of God’s essential omniscience manifested in creation where it imposes order and enables life.” I know on first hearing that’s a lot to consume but we’re going to use the rest of this episode to go through it. So, let me repeat it. Information is the expression of God’s essential omniscience manifested in creation where it imposes order and enables life.
VK: I can see why you said it was a sort of theological definition of information. What you’re doing is pointing out that there is nothing present in the created order that did not come from God. And God can only express what God possesses. Of course, God is omnipotent and omniscient so He pretty much possesses everything. But that’s the point isn’t it. As long as our worldview includes God as creator it’s easy to explain the existence of things that is impossible to explain coherently without Him.
RD: Yes. Without acknowledging God you’re forced to conceive of the universe as having no superintending intelligence. As such you’re forced to trace everything that exists to somehow being generated by the random, chaotic, and undirected interaction of matter with matter, or matter with energy. Atoms might collide with other atoms and form molecules and even remain together if the right electromagnetic forces are present but in a God-less universe nothing helps those atoms and molecules do anything useful in an inanimate way much less create life.
VK: It’s well known that simplest bacterial cell that doesn’t have a nucleus contains 100 billion atoms. Human cells are far more complex. Human beings have over 35 trillion cells. And all those cells have jobs. And there are thousands of protein machines within those cells that also have their own jobs – building the cell’s wall; bringing energy supplies in and taking waste products out; guiding the process of duplication and replication; repairing damage. The number of tasks performed by an ordinary human cell dwarfs the activity within an ordinary factory. When you consider those relatively simple facts it does stagger the mind that anyone believes that all that ordered, specified complexity could have arisen by chance.
RD: Exactly. Without God the possibility of the simplest cell being assembled accidently is off the charts in terms of probability. Michael Denton who wrote the book Evolution: A Theory in Crisis points out that the task of randomly assembling a single protein, which contains thousands of atoms, is 1 in a number that is greater that the number of atoms in the known universe.
VK: But, of course, with God all things are possible just as Jesus told his disciples in Matthew, chapter 19, verse 26. But that’s the point. An omnipotent God overcomes the need to envision chance as building the complex structures of the universe including life. And, frankly, without God there isn’t a coherent explanation for why atoms would exist in the first place.
RD: Yes. So, my definition for information is designed to point to the fact that information is not itself just sort of a “feature” of the universe. Information arises from a source and that source would have to be intelligent because information is ordered, organized, and specified. The Merriam Webster definition says that the sequence or arrangement of something is intended “produce specific effects.” Dr. Gitt says that the symbolically coded message is “conveying expected action and intended purpose.” Therefore, information reflects both order and intent. But … and here is the big point of my definition – information was present at the very beginning of creation. And when we think carefully about that fact it points to information being in use by God prior to the creation of the physical universe.
VK: I see where you’re going with this. Information is not just an undeniable feature of the physical order. It was present with God even before He created this physical universe. The Apostle Paul says as much. In Ephesians, chapter 1, verse 4, Paul say, “Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes.” That’s from the New Living Translation. But what that says very quickly is that God “chose us in Christ” even before God made the world. That means God was using information in His eternal realm even before He made the earth.
RD: Yes. So, let’s think about this. God was “choosing,” as well as performing other activities before He made the earth – which was the first thing He did in creating the universe. Remember the first verse of the Bible says, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” But God was using information before that. To choose “us” – “us” meaning His children, believers – He had to already have identified us by name. Revelation 13:8 refers to the “Lamb’s Book of Life” which was available before the foundation of the world. Writing names in a book, however God did that in the eternal, heavenly realm is an activity involving information. We are not told how much planning God did of the created order before He began actually created matter, energy, time, and space but it seems likely He did some. Even before matter, energy, time, and space were actually present God had already laid out their boundaries, how they would function, how they would relate to each other, etc. All that involves the use of information.
VK: This is one of those lines of reasoning that starts to give you headaches.
RD: Well, we might think of them as “holy headaches.” We are using our brains to try to see our God at the time He was forming our universe.
VK: Holy maybe but headaches, nonetheless. But I see what you’re saying. God was using information in His eternal realm even before He began using information in His own creative activity. In Job, chapter 38, verses 4 through 7, God asks Job:
Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?
Tell me, if you understand.
Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!
Who stretched a measuring line across it?
On what were its footings set,
or who laid its cornerstone—
while the morning stars sang together
and all the angels shouted for joy?
God asks Job who marked off the dimensions of the earth’s foundation. The question is rhetorical but nevertheless it involves the clear use of some kind of information. God’s reference to dimensions, measuring lines, cornerstones all call to mind that God knew the answers but Job did not. Job could not. God had the information that Job lacked. But God clearly had “information.”
RD: Exactly. And God used that information – as my definition points out – “to impose order and enable life.” There is a certain sense, then, that information is a feature of both the spiritual realm and the physical realm. Last time we talked about the fact that information is non-material, or speaking precisely, information is massless. But we were clear that information was different from other massless parts of the physical universe. Photons are massless but they can be generated by matter and interact with matter. Information is neither generated by matter nor does it interact with matter. We use matter and energy to transmit, receive, and store information but the information itself is indifferent to, and unaffected by, the matter and energy employed. A chemical formula remains the same whether it is sent via email, mailed via a postcard, carved on a wax tablet, embossed in Braille dots, or sent using sign language. The matter and energy used to communicate the information do not generate the information and do not contain or constrain the information.
VK: But what you’re saying is that the “non-material” attribute of information does not make it automatically a part of the spiritual realm. Information is still quite real in the physical universe. But now you are saying that information appears to be the one part of the physical universe that was also available in the spiritual realm because God was clearly using information even before He created the physical universe. Yikes. Like we said last time, “information is a tricky thing.”
RD: Yes. It might be reasonable to think of information as the one component of God’s eternal realm that He imparted into the physical realm. But of course God couldn’t do that if God didn’t possess information. And since God possesses information God is also the source of information – all information. Nothing exists apart or separate from God. So, my definition points out that information is one expression of God’s innate omniscience. Omniscience, of course, means all-knowing. We sometimes think that means that God knows everything about the physical creation and us. And He does. But God’s knowledge doesn’t stop there. God not only knows everything that is known about the physical world but also the spiritual world.
VK: God knows the names of all the angels. God knows where they are in space and time or where they are if they are presently in the spiritual realm. God knows the names and locations of the demons currently confined in the abyss that Jude refers to in Jude, verse 6. The book of Jude is only one chapter so we only need the verse number. What you’re saying is that God not only knows everything about everything that exists, God knows everything about anything that could exist. God knows everything that can be known not just what might be known about this creation. That’s what omniscience really means.
RD: Yes. And as a part of His “knowing” God uses information. Though no human knows how the three Persons of the Trinity communicate with one another, we know that they do communicate. In that sense they employ information. The point of all this is that when we begin to ponder the role of information within the physical universe we begin to see that information is not confined to the physical universe. It is not. In that sense information may be distinguished from the other components of the physical universe: matter, energy, time, and space. In a poetic sense we might say that information pierces the veil that separates time and eternity. In doing so, it points to the fact that there is a need for an origin for this rather unique component of the created order.
VK: God creates all information. God uses information for whatever purposes His sovereign will wants. God was doing that before he laid the foundation of our world or put the sun and moon in their place. And when God chose to create a creature that would bear His image, man, one attribute that God communicated to that creature was the ability to recognize and employ information.
RD: Yes. The big reason we are undertaking this series on information is not just to have a philosophical discussion about information but to point out that information points undeniably to existence of the God of the Bible. As we’ve been discussing information is always the product of intelligence. So, if information is present as a component of the observable universe that means that intelligence must be also. Let’s say this a little differently. Our contemporary culture views the universe as being a construct composed of matter, energy, time, and space. The most radical among us say that that is all that is present anywhere and by doing so they are trying to exclude the possibility of God’s existence as a reasonable proposition.
VK: But God refuses to be excluded doesn’t He? You don’t have to be a poet to perceive that God left His fingerprints all over creation. Psalm 19, verses 1 and 2 famously say, “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge.” Declaration, proclamation, revealing knowledge – those are all forms of communicating information. God designed this universe in such a way that His omnipotence would be revealed by the size and scope of the universe. But He also designed in such a way that our ability to understand that even the physical universe contains non-material components point to His omniscience.
RD: Yes. We frequently mention the fact that not only do logic, reason, and evidence – and science - affirm God’s existence but the notion that God doesn’t exist always runs into irreconcilable conflicts and logical fallacies. This discussion of information is simply pointing to another one of those conflicts and fallacies. The universe as we see it around us contains, and must contain, information. So, we may be absolutely sure that when the skeptics and atheists tell us that God can’t be real we can’t see or touch Him they are wrong. The skeptics automatically assume that the material portion of the universe gives rise to such non-material phenomena such as information. But that makes no sense at all. How can atoms and molecules, electricity and heat create the very awareness that we possess that atoms and molecules, electricity and heat exist.
VK: What people need to recognize is that the observable universe goes beyond the material. Yet, that very fact is rarely acknowledged in so-called scientific discussions. In all the discussions about the Big Bang and evolution you never hear anyone go beyond theories about how matter and energy behave. Conventional science wants to confine the universe to the material elements because that’s all that they can claim jurisdiction over. But real science simply follows the evidence where ever it leads. And the evidence clearly leads to the fact that even the physical universe gives testimony that limiting our understanding of reality to matter, energy, time, and space is neither sound science or good logic. And next time we’re going to see that a careful examination of information shows that it is possible to formulate “laws of information” that closely resemble other natural laws with which we’re more familiar – like gravitation, electricity, or thermodynamics.
RD: Yep. The universe we see around us is more than just matter, energy, time, and space. I sometimes ask people what I call a “trick question.” The question is whether physics plus chemistry can produce biology. That’s the notion that undergirds the entire idea of evolution. The basic idea is that some chemical components eons ago randomly collided with each other. There was an energy source, though no one knows quite what it was, that somehow activated the chemical elements and voila – life started. The question confuses most people – not because they don’t understand it but because thinking about it points out the error of evolution. Chemistry plus physics do not equal biology. They can’t. Chemistry plus physics plus information equals biology. And information points to intelligence. And that’s the idea that materialists can’t stand. Matter and energy are material components of the universe and the space-time continuum defines the boundaries within which matter and energy interact. But, at a bare minimum, those four components by themselves could never give rise to life, even if they could somehow explain all of the inanimate elements of the universe.
VK: So, again, the big idea that we are discussing is that information is another line of evidence that proves that if God did not exist the universe could not appear as we see it. Information is non-material and information always exhibits order, organization, specificity, and purpose. And those things require intelligence. Well, our thought-provoking journey continues. This sounds like a great time to pray. Today let’s listen to a prayer of praise that those who do not yet know Christ as their savior will be brought to saving faith in Him. He set the cosmos into motion, established a home on the earth for His people, and continues to prepare them for an eternity with Him in heaven.
---- PRAYER FOR THE SPIRITUALLY LOST
VK: We’d like to remind our audience that a lot of our radio episodes are linked together in series of topics so if they missed any episodes or if they just want to hear one again, all of these episodes are available on your favorite podcast app. To find them just search on “Anchored by Truth by Crystal Sea Books.”
If you’d like to hear more, try out crystalseabooks.com where “We’re not perfect but our Boss is!”
(Bible Quotes from the Good News Translation)
Genesis, Chapter 1, verses 3 through 5, New International Version
Laws of information 1 (creation.com)
Laws of information 2 (creation.com)
We are less than dust (creation.com)