The Eric Metaxas Show - Michel-Yves Bolloré & Olivier Bonnassies — Science and God

Episode Date: August 23, 2025

The authors of God: The Science unveil stunning discoveries where science meets faith, reshaping the debate about God’s existence.

Welcome to the Eric Mattaxas show. It's a nutritious smoothie of creamy, fresh yogurt, vanilla protein powder, and a mushy banana. For your mind? Drink it all down. It's nummy. I wub, vanilla. I wub, I wop, I wap, I wap, panela. Here comes Eric Metaxis.

Anybody who has followed me knows that I am very interested in the concept of whether we can prove the existence of God, or discuss evidence for God from science. I myself have written a spectacular book on the subject called Is Atheism Dead? And anytime I can talk to anyone about this, I'm thrilled. I'm particularly thrilled today because I have, as my guests, two Frenchmen with appropriately French names who have written a tremendous book called God, Science, the Evidence. They are Michel Yves Bollore and Olivier Bonassi. I think I may have pronounced their names correctly. Gentlemen, welcome. Thank you very much, Eric. Thank you. I'm very excited to talk to you about

this book. I have said since I wrote my book as atheism dead, that we're living in an amazing moment in history where the assumptions that many of us have labored under for at least decades are dramatically changed suddenly. And the evidence for God is dramatic. It's not just leaning in this direction, but it's become very, very dramatic. And there's so many different books and people, my friend Stephen Meyer, wrote a book called The Return of the God Hypothesis. It seems your book, which has been a bestseller in Europe, which is coming out in English very soon, talks along those lines. So let me ask either of you, Michelle or Olivier, to say, how did you come to this subject and to write the book? We are friends since a very long

I'm Olivia and I, and we are both scientists, and we have been very impressed by all the scientific discoveries of the 20th centuries. We have been looking to see if we could see a good book for the general public discussing all these new discoveries and their impact on the evidence of God. And we didn't find the right book in French, at least. We didn't find it. And one day we decided that Olivia and I, we should try to do it. But we started with a big mistake because we thought it would take one year only. And in fact, it took us four years with the help of 20 scientists. So it has been a very long, very long work.

But we are very pleased with that. Yes. Eric, we totally agree with. view when you say that there is a change. And this change, we call it the great reversal of science. It's a, in our book, the second page, we are speaking of this great reversal of science, saying that for four centuries, science seems to be able to explain the world without the hypothesis of God, but everything changed through a series of scientific discoveries, incredible. And now the picture is totally different. And what we, what?

What we would like to do with this book is that the great reversal in science achieves in a great reversal in public opinion, public perception. And this is not done for the moment. That's why we wrote this book. It's very accurate, but it's also easy to read. That's why it has a success in Europe last month. I'm very excited about the success of the book because as I, mentioned, and as I mention often, this is a subject as close to my heart as any. And we're living in a culture that has been so secular for so long that people can't even conceive that it's possible

that there is scientific evidence for God. And to see the evidence and to see how overwhelming it is, it's almost unbelievable until you look at it, that it's become utterly overwhelming. Well, before we get into the specifics of this evidence, what kind of science does each of you do? Michelle, we'll start with you. Personally, I am an engineer in computers. That's a long time ago, but that's my formation and my base, and it's mostly mathematics, I would say, and Olivier will let you say where you're from. Yes, me, I study. science from when I was young and I was in the polytechnic school in France is the best school in science. And I always was in form of the science in different fields.

But I did not work. I work as an entrepreneur and not as a scientist. But I was always aware of what happened in science, especially in some fields, very particular fields where God and miracles. are words that atheists or agnostics can pronounce when they are making their own business, their own science. It's very, very curious to see that very atheist people are speaking of God and miracles in their own field of science. Like Stephen Hawking, for example, Stephen Hawking said he was an atheist and all his life

he spoke of God. It's very curious. And many people like this, they can do otherwise. In their own field, we will speak of those kinds of those fields.

They are in our book, we have 63 Nobel Prize winners and we, most of them are not believers, but at the end, they all speak of mysteries, of miracles of God. And it's something that strikes me from the beginning.

What is the great evidence? I want to ask each of you about your own path to this conclusion. But what are the categories of evidence when we talk about, because whenever I have said, you know, science points to God, people don't even know what that means. How is it possible that science can point to the existence of God? In fact, the discoveries are showing that there is three problems. The materialism has three problems. The first one is linked to the absolute beginning of the universe. That's the first point. We all understand, like the philosophers have said in the past, for example, Parmenides, 2,500 years,

ago that from nothing, nothing can come. So if I think that everybody agrees on that, from nothing, nothing can come. So our universe is here. So necessarily for the Aseist, the universe is eternal, eternal. It has had never a beginning. So this first point, which is very important, is to know if our universe had an absolute beginning or not. And there has been several evidence which have a reason from science that our universe had the beginning. And the first thing has been the thermodynamic. Thermodynamic science was a new

science which has been invented in the 19th century. And the conclusion of thermodynamic was that everything wears out. So our universe will wear out and will finish one day. And And this was a very terrible conclusion arising from that. It was at the middle and end of the 19th century, but for a long time it was not recognized, including by scientific, until it was finally completely recognized, especially by Einstein in 1920, and even said that thermodynamics was the most important science of all. And after a thermodynamic, which shows that our universe will have an end, which proves that it has a beginning, there has been some other discoveries saying exactly the same thing.

And we know all the question of the expansion of the universe. And the expansion of the universe shows that there is a beginning also. But there has been some other discoveries. We probably not have time here. But everybody will find that in our book easily. there has been several discoveries. We believe that there are seven evidence that our universe at the beginning.

So that's the first thing, the absolute beginning of the universe. A major retail chain just canceled a massive order, leaving My Pillar with an overstock of the classic My Pills, and this is your gain, because for a limited time, my Pillar's offering their entire classic collection

at true wholesale prices. Get a standard My Pillar for just 1798. Want more, upgrade to Queen's size for only 2298 or king size for 2498. Snag body pillows for 2998 and versatile multi-use pillows for just 998. Give your bet a whole new pillow set only while supplies last. Visit mypillow.com today. Use promo code Eric or call 800-978-3057 to score these amazing deals while they're in stock. Plus, when your order totals $75 or more, you'll receive $100 in free digital gifts, no strings attached. That's right. Premium pillows at unbeatable prices and bonus gifts.

to top it off. Don't wait, head to mypillow.com today or call 800-978 3057. Now. Don't forget to use promo code Eric to grab your standard MyPillow for only 1798 only while supplies last. Second problem, which has been discovered, is that our universe is very finely chewed. And this is an extraordinary discovery. It's something completely different from all the others. And it is a discovery from the 1960s, 1970s, which is continuing, and even today it's continuing. So the question is, is there a possible materialistic explanation of the fine-tuning of the universe? And when we read everything and we see all what we can see, in our opinions, there is no materialistic explanation of the expansion of the fine, you know, the fine.

tuning of the universe. So the assays, they have only one possibility today, is to believe that there is an infinite number of different universe, universe, parallel universe, et cetera. But this really is something which is not scientific at all. Well, it's, I can say that it's preposterous. It's so fascinating. I want to say that you're, when we're talking about materialism, just so everybody's clear. We're talking about this idea that everything that exists just exists. It didn't come from anywhere. There is no intelligence that fine-tuned things. But as you were saying, Michelle, the evidence, I mean, first of all, from the early 20th century, the evidence for the Big Bang, it was very disturbing to Einstein initially. He didn't want to believe it. He wanted to

sweep it under the rug, but people like Le Maitre and others said, sorry, there's no doubt. Your equations are correct. The universe is expanding. It began at some moment. But this was terrifying for secularists or for materialists. And for decades and decades, they were dragging their feet saying we don't want to believe this. And I find this, I mean, it's the first chapter of my own book because I find it very funny how through the decades this story carries on until eventually everyone has to admit, okay, yes, the universe came out of nothing 13.8 billion years ago. It was a very humbling moment for materialists, wouldn't you agree? Well, yes.

Perhaps I could add two things. First, Einstein demonstrated that our universe is composed of time, space, and matter that are inextricably linked together. And it's very important because the beginning we are talking is not only the beginning of time and matter. It's also the beginning of space. Yes. which means that it's very curious, George Le Maitre, the one of the one who discovered,

who imagined the theory of the Big Bang, Georges Le Maitre immediately saw this. He said it's not only the beginning of time and matter, it's also the beginning of space. And it's very, if you, everybody can understand that if it's the beginning, if before there's no space, the cause at the origin of the emergence of all this

is by definition, definition outside of space, outside of time, outside of matter. It's exactly we are near to the definition of God of the philosophy or the religion. Being outside transcendent to the universe that make it happen and create not only time and matter, but also space. Everybody can understand at the end what strikes me in this book and in less work that we did. At the end, it's very simple. So this first point is very important.

Time, space, and matter are linked, and the three are emerging together. And the second one is that all the speculative theories that were in, that atheists try to, to set in order to answer to those new discoveries are dead. It's not me saying that it's Stephen Hawking just before he died. He said, we need another theory because the multiverses are dead. The cyclical universes are dead. The theory of everything is dead. Everything is dead.

Because if you dig a little, you will find that it does not work. So in this moment, it's a very special moment, as you said in the beginning. When our book tried to make a summary, a synthesis of the situation. and the situation is very clear that all science converge to say that we are in a space time. The space time at an absolute beginning, and it all is absolutely fine-tuned, and there is no other serious explanation today except God. Yes, and for some people that's very troubling, and for some people it's good news, It is what it is. And the fact that we can now know this is so, it's so interesting. Before we go on, I want to ask you about the fine tuning, which is astonishing. Was there a moment for each of you, Michelle and Olivier, where you turned a corner and said, I think there is a God? Or were you raised with this as a

an assumption. What are your stories along the lines of our discussion? I think it's very interesting because in fact, we are two different cases. Personally, I have always been in a Christian family. So, in fact, for me, there has never been any change. I have been just increasing my knowledge and digging into this topic. At the opposite, and Olivier, but perhaps he will say, when he was 20, he was an atheist. So it's, it's. is by discovering the reason and science that he has become slowly by slowly he has become a Christian. Perhaps, Olivier, if you want to add a word about that. When I was 20, I was like everybody, like many people, thinking that this question of the existence of God was undecidable, that we cannot make a decision on this.

And when you look at the world, you see that there is many people who are believers, many people who don't believe, and very smart, very clever people in very, very intelligent in both camps. And so you say, why can I, is it possible that one day I will have a certainty? And I was sure that there was no evidence, no reasons to believe in one vision or the other. And my surprise, my big surprise was to discover that it exists very strong evidence. And I'm not the only one. Many scientists, Einstein or Fred Oil, Sandage, many, many people, they discover they have the same surprise. Because the thesis of the existence of the non-existence of God have implications in the real world.

That's the point that the people don't know. In fact, as Micheliev said, all atheists, all philosophers, all people, all people, scholars, all scientists that are atheist, always believe that there is no beginning at the universe. And as Michelinib said, with Parmenides and others, they can do differently. So the simple fact of the beginning is something that cannot be explained in an atheist vision of the world. And so, and it's not the only one, of course, in our book, we were speaking of many things. We are speaking of also of philosophy, morality, history, and also science. And science is the most important point because science, there is in science, there's great reversal that we talk.

And it's very important because science has a very important influence and prestige. The fact that science change is a very, very important thing for our time. And the problem is that the people don't know this. So that's why we are friends of Steve Meyer, of John Lennox and many, many people who said the same thing. And with this book, we are trying to reach the public, the global audience, the broad audience. because that's the key point in my opinion. It's very curious to see that all those new discoveries have a clear impact because they point to God,

but the people for the moment are not aware of this. So this is why we try to write this book in a very easy way in order that it's easy to read and also very accurate and with many references and many scientists will review this, and we hope that it will work. Well, I think it's delightful. As I said, we are working in the same way, because I feel the same way that it's one thing for something to be true,

but if no one knows that it's true, or if most people don't know that it's true, then what's the point? You want people to know what's true, and we're living at a time where secularism, has become the default philosophy. Secularism, materialism is the default philosophy. Most people don't think that's something even to consider, as you were saying earlier, when you were young. You just didn't think this is something that we can take seriously. So we're living in a really new day. And with your book and Stephen Myers book and John Lennox books and I hope my book,

we're beginning to get people interested in daring to think about this controversial subject. Let's talk a moment about the fine tuning. You mentioned Fred Hoyle, who coined the big bang pejoratively a long time ago. But he, I think over the decades more and more was himself amazed. He didn't want to believe in the fine-tuning. He was himself an atheist, but he simply couldn't deny the layers and layers and layers of fine-tuning. Exactly. Fred Hoyle, he not only discovered the word Big Bang, but also the word fine-tuning. The two words comes from him. And you know when it was in in 1963, he was an atheist. He was against, he built a theory against George Le Maitre in order to explain the

expansion of the universe without the Big Bang. And at the end, he works on the production of carbon in the stars and with a triple alpha reaction. And for this to work, you need to have very strong. special carbon excited in a very special value. And if this value who comes from the laws of the universe is not exactly this one, stars cannot produce carbon and oxygen and a thing like this. And as he discovered that all the laws of the universe converge to create this exact value

of the excited carbon, he became a believer. And he said there is a. supercalculator behind all this. And he finished his life as a deist. And it was one of the big chances. You know, in this book, we have a chapter where we are listing 100 citations from top scientists. 100 citations like this. And the second one is very impressive because it's Roger Penrose.

You know, Roger Penrose is the Nobel Prize in 2020. And he is saying that in this sentence, he said that the creator has to, in order to have a very low entropy at the beginning of the universe, the creator has to organize matter and energy in a very special way in order. And the result needed in order to have galaxies and stars and life, is one chance to the power of 10, 10 to the power of 10 to the power of 10 in the power of 123. So it's an incredible figure. It's something that he said that it's unbelievable.

It is the most important fine-tuning ever. And he's speaking like this of this discovery that he made at the end of the, 20th century and he is still an atheist or an agnostic and I ask John Lennox how is it possible and he told me you don't you can't imagine the pressure of the academics on the against God so that's the point what you said is exactly true we have a problem because there is a lot of evidence and there is a problem in the public and also in the scientific academic because they are not yet open to death. Part of what I noticed, I mean, when I wrote my own book is atheism dead,

I realized that part of the problem is that you have many Christians who are themselves hostile to the Big Bang and to the old Earth theory, the idea that the earth is 13.8 billion years old. And so I think many times scientists think that if I lean in the direction of believing in God, I have to believe that the earth is 7,000 years old or whatever it is. And so that we have cartoon versions in a sense of what the faith is. And I think that there are many scientists, they just fear being lumped in with people like that. In fact, the question of the existence of a creator God is both a scientific question,

and we have been talking of that, discussing that, it's very interesting, but it's also a passionate question. This is why it is a difficult question, because people are passionate. For many people today, they imagine that God can be, if he exists, can be a limitation to their freedom. So many people see God as a limitation of their freedom, as a judge, perhaps even as a tyrant. So all this, which is of course not true at all, but anyway, it is in the mind of many people. And this is why they have such a difficult or passionate reaction to the scientific discoveries. Because in fact it's not only the discoveries is the fact that they don't want. to hear about this Covgris. So we understand that we are dealing with a topic which is not a neutral

topic. For example, you could compare this topic with the Martians, the extraterrestrials. It's exactly the same question. Does someone we don't know exist or not? Is there a Martian? Do they exist somewhere? And this is not passionate at all. And everybody discussed very nicely about. are spending a lot of money to know if extraterrestrials exist. We are sending satellites and rockets in the space and spending a lot of money. And people say, well, if they exist, it's very nice. If they don't exist, well, it's too bad. But there is no, you see, there is no fight. And as soon as you replace extraterrestrials by the word God, then you see it's passionate. And in fact, it's funny because in fact it's the same question, because God is more or less something like an extraterrestrial,

but in much larger, of course. You know, you mentioned that it's a fairly recent thing, the evidence for fine-tuning, and that you mentioned Fred Hoyle was one of the first who began, is it the ground state of carbon? sure what it is. I never remember. But it really bowled him over. He knew that this cannot be randomly. It's not possible that this could have just happened. I mean, that was his first inkling. Yes. Absolutely.

The fine tuning is not disputed by anyone. Everybody agrees with the incredible fine tuning of our universe. Everybody agrees. Nobody agrees. nobody is saying it's not true. Everybody agrees, including atheists and agnostic and everybody agrees. So what can the materialists can reply to that? Well, they say, well, that's true.

Our universe is fantastic, but probably there are billion of other universe, which is the theory of multiverse, which Olivier was talking off just a minute ago. So there are billion of universe and we are lucky. We are in the good one. And in the other one there is nothing. It is interesting to see that this theory of multiverse now has very little chance to be, of course, exact. We have even probably the demonstration.

It's not possible. But in addition, it's something which is non-scientific at all because there will be never. you know, there will be never a possibility to have, there is no implication in the real world of a billion of other universe if they do exist. But even to be fair, to be fair, Michelle Eve, even billions of universes, if they existed, they probably don't, and there's no scientific evidence that they do.

But even if they did, that still wouldn't be sufficient. You would need septillion, quintillion. Quintillion, an infinite number. An infinite number, which becomes preposterous. This is why, you know, materialism, we should say that materialism is a belief like anyone. But the difference between yesterday and today is that materialism is a belief like any other, but now it has become, because of science, it has become an irrational belief. And I think that the main thing of our book, there has been many other book, and it's very good, it's very lucky.

But the main conclusion of the book is that if you believe that you are, if you want to be a materialist today, you must know that you are a believer, an incredible believer, because you have to believe in crazy things. You have to believe that there is an infinite number of universe. you have to believe plenty of things that life is coming from matter naturally. You have to believe. So you have to believe in many, many things. So it's an irrational belief and probably materialists are not realizing themselves that they are incredible believers. Do you write in the book, I've become friends with Dr. James Tour of Rice University

and I interviewed him for Socrates in the city. And it was really a conversation with him about the theory of abiogenesis that led me to write my own book. Do you speak about abiogenesis in your book? There's so many different things to talk about. I don't know if you touch on that one. Well, we should say, Olivier, that we have a chapter about, a very important chapter about the,

the big leap between matter and life, because that's a very important point. So we have an important chapter, and this also is something which is very important because at the time of Darwin in 1850, Darwin thought that the leap from matter to life was quite simple or should happen very simply in, you know, in some hot water at the feet of the volcano.

And with the discovery one century after of the DNA, people have realized that the simplest cell is such a complicated thing, is such a something wonderful, that there is really no chance that a first cell would appear, could appear in some hot water at the foot of a volcano. And what I think is extremely impressive is that in the 1950s, there were several laboratories in the U.S. making experiences of the primitive soup. I don't know exactly what was the word. I think it's primitive soup. The primordial soup. Primordial soup. And the experience, for example, of a scientist Steve Miller, were very well known in the 1950s. And they were trying to shake a primordial soup and to see what they could obtain with that. But after just a few years after, the discoveries of DNA, but all the rest, all the quantity of information, which is in a cell, which means it's like it's much more than huge computers in a cell.

Now they know that it's impossible. That cannot have happened like that. it has happened differently. It's probably resulting also from from special parameters from the universe, which is another fine tuning. But the leap from matter to life is also another evidence.

We should not keep only cosmology. We have cosmology and what. Well, that's the thing. There's so much evidence that you don't know where to start. I mean, we mentioned the Big Bang. that's huge. The fine-tuning is huge. But for me, what we're talking about now, in some ways is as dramatic or more dramatic than anything. The leap from non-life to life, it is an infinite leap. And for so many years, you mentioned Darwin. I mean, they thought, well, what's the big deal?

What's a cell? It's a little protoplasm. But once we discovered what a cell is, once we discovered DNA in 1953, The Miller-Yuri experiment that you're referring to was 1952 in the University of Chicago. They created some amino acids, and they said, aha, we're on our way. And then only a year later, we find DNA, and you realize it's been 70 years. And no one has any idea how it's possible to go from non-life to life. But they keep pretending that, oh, we'll figure it out, we'll show it. but it's really an infinite distance that needs to be traveled. Anyway, I don't want to get stuck on this.

So what is the other thing? I think it's very important because the fact that they have given up, they have stopped, they have completely given up to the experiences of getting something really strong from a primordial soup. This is the fact that they have given up this hope is a real evidence that they know it's impossible. Yeah. Make like a Mr. Milk Toast. get shut out.

What other things do you go into in the book? I know there's so much. Of course, science, you know, science is very important. It's two-thirds of the book. And it's normal because science today is the past to knowledge, which is the most credible, not only the most credible, but it's also, you know, there is adhesion to science. But we have a chapter about philosophy,

We must not forget that for centuries, the evidence coming from philosophy had a very strong importance. Now, almost nobody speaks about the philosophic proofs or the philosophic evidence of the existence of God, but they still are very serious. And we have a chapter for the general public also, which is it's not too difficult to read. And I think it's very important. So we have a chapter about philosophy, and after the chapter of philosophy, we have a chapter which is, in my opinion, extremely important about morality, because if God does not exist, we must accept that everything is permitted. And if you ask people, do you really think that everything is permitted? Nobody will say yes. For example, could we vote at the two chambers and Senate, et cetera? could we vote that we are going to kill all the babies or we are going to kill the Jews?

Could we have a majority and make this legal? And people say, of course not, of course not. But let's be logic. If God does not exist, as used to say, Dostoevsky in one of his famous book, if God does not exist, then everything is permitted. And we would have to, a reasonable, a logic, coherent atheist should have to accept that. And in fact, it's almost impossible to accept. So we have this chapter on morality and after we have chapters on enigmas.

And chapter of enigmas are, in our opinion, important. There is a chapter about Jesus, a chapter about Bible and a few others, and one about a miracle. and all this gives to the reader an overview, general overview, you know, 180 degree of a view, of all the evidence of the existence of the existence of a creator God. Because our book is not a book of faith and it's not a book of religion. It's just a book which wants to answer to only one question, is there a creator God or is there nothing? we don't want to go really much further than that. It's enough. Is there a creator of God or is there nothing?

And the conclusion is that at the general surprise of everybody, yes, everything shows that there is a creator God in our opinion. Do you think that there is any movement in the scientific world to accept the evidence that you're talking about? there are scientists who are maybe quietly beginning to see that the evidence for God is too dramatic to ignore? We have a chapter. I forget to say that, but we have a chapter. It's important what you say. We have a chapter of statistics, because that's also important. So we have a chapter of just statistics, who believes in God. So we have a chapter. It's all the statistics which have been made by the Pew Research Center. And what we know is that the scientist in the United States, the scientist, more than a PhD, so the very top scientist, there is still a slight majority

of them who are believing in something, a creator god or something. It's not a question of religion, it's just to know, is there a creator God? And it's a minority, something like 45% with believing that there is nothing at all. And more interesting is that in this statistic, the young scientist, at the opposite of what we could think, they believe more than the old one in the existence of a creator god. I would not draw really a conclusion of that because it could be for another reason,

but it's possible that there is some, yes, there is some consequences of the science on the young scientist today. It's possible.