An Interview with John Lennox
Apologetics comes from the Greek word apologia which means to make a defense. It also carries the idea of making a reasoned argument. In 1 Peter 3:15 we see the word used in the following passage:
1 Peter 3:15 (NASB) but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence;
Eighty-one year old John Lennox is a great resource when it comes to Christian apologetics. A mathematician by training, he is also known as a bioethicist and a Christian apologist. He graduated from Cambridge University and had the privilege of attending the last lectures given by C.S. Lewis in 1962. In some ways, he is like Lewis 2.0. A native of Northern Ireland, having academic training in a field outside theology, he is well-known for his Christian writings.
He has recounted an event that happened very early in his academic career. Being raised in a Christian home and given a copy of Mere Christianity by his father when he was young, he was off to a great start as a budding apologist. When he was a young man, just beginning his studies at Cambridge, he was seated at a dinner next to a Nobel Prize winning scientist. Lennox asked the man if any of his research ever caused him to question whether the universe had a creator. He quickly, and angrily, said no and turned away from Lennox for the rest of the meal. In a recent interview with Frank Turek, on Turek’s podcast I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist, Lennox says he thought that was the end of the matter. [i] However, after dinner, the scientist turned to Lennox and ordered him to come to his office.
When Lennox got there, he found several other senior members of the university in the office waiting for him. He was told to sit down and asked if he wanted a career in science. When Lennox said he did, they told him that if that was the case, he needed to “give up this naïve faith in God tonight in front of witnesses. Because, if you don’t you’ll never get anywhere.”
Lennox asked what the Nobel Prize winner could give him that would be better than what he already had with his Christian faith. The man replied that he could give him the evolutionary theory of Henri Bergson. However, because Lennox had read Lewis, he knew about Bergson’s teachings and said if that was all the man had to offer, he would stick with his Christian faith and take the risk.
Now, stick with me here as I take a detour that may seem unrelated, but I promise I will come back to Lennox and put a bow on this package. Are you aware of something called SETI? It is the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. In Hat Creek, California, an array of giant radio telescopes scan the heavens listening for a signal that might in any way be construed as a code or have what we might call a linguistic structure of any kind. Because they know if they detect that, they can infer there is intelligence behind it. To date, according to the SETI website, no extraterrestrial signal has been confirmed.[ii]
Years later, the now fully degreed John Lennox, no longer under threat of dismissal for his Christian faith, found himself at another dinner seated next to a biochemist studying DNA. Once again, Lennox turned the discussion toward the origin of the universe, human life and questions of God. To shorten the story, the biochemist quickly informed Lennox that he (the biochemist) was a reductionist and there was nothing he and Lennox had to discuss. He was shocked when Lennox started asking him questions about what “kind” of reductionist he was and then proceeded to tell him what kind he was and the biochemist agreed Lennox pegged him correctly. He was an ontological reductionist, which simply means he believed everything that exists can be explained by physics and chemistry. There is certainly no need for, or even room, for God.
Lennox suggested they do an experiment and asked him to pick up the menu and read out an item on it. “Roast Chicken.” Lennox then asked him to please explain how those marks, on that menu, carry the meaning of a roast chicken and asked him to do so using only physics and chemistry. You might think that should be easy for someone who says everything that exists can be explained by physics and chemistry, but Lennox met with dead silence.
Lennox was making the point that meaning cannot be explained by physics and chemistry. Lennox then asked the biochemist, who worked with DNA, and admitted it had a linguistic structure, how DNA came about and was told “chance and necessity. He was then asked how the words “Roast Chicken” appeared on the menu, to which the reply was, “someone must have written it there and had it printed.” This highlighted the fact that a 12-letter phrase with a space requires intelligence to create, a stark contrast to the 3.4 billion-letter “word” of DNA within each of our cells, which the biochemist attributed to chance and necessity.
Lennox then said, “I think you have a problem.” And he did. The nature of language always points to intelligence. The linguistic nature of DNA points to intelligence. And if finding any kind of simple linguistic structure coming from the heavens as detected by a radio telescope points to intelligence, certainly the linguistic nature of DNA, encoded in the cells of every living thing points to it as well.
Psalms 139:14 (NASB) I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Wonderful are Your works, And my soul knows it very well.
John 1:1-4 (NRSV) In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.
-Jim Shelton
[i] John Lennox Greatest Hits: Can science explain Everything? (2025, May 2). Apple Podcasts. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/john-lennox-greatest-hits-can-science-explain-everything/id1297439270?i=1000705869673
[ii] Berkeley SETI. (n.d.). https://seti.berkeley.edu/FAQ.html#:~:text=Our%20main%20challenge%20is%20distinguishing,to%20keep%20surveying%20the%20sky!