# Michael Guillen American theoretical physicist, mathematician, and astronomer; born in East Los Angeles in 1953. From 1988 to 2002 he was the Emmy-winning Science Editor at ABC News. He is **the only working scientist in the codex with a triple ("3D") Ph.D. in physics, mathematics, and astronomy from Cornell University**. He also taught physics at Harvard University for eight years and won teaching awards there. In 2021 he published the New-York-Times-bestselling memoir and apologetic ***Believing Is Seeing: A Physicist Explains How Science Shattered His Atheism and Revealed the Necessity of Faith*** (Tyndale Refresh). The book tells the story of his journey from a Christian upbringing to atheism and then back to Christianity. It is anchored on four families of scientific discovery: physics (quantum mechanics and fine-tuning), cosmology, neuroscience, and mathematics. Guillen is the clearest contemporary case of a credentialed working physicist (not just a philosopher or science journalist) reaching **full Christian theism, not just deism**, through the foundational findings of his own field. He pairs with [Antony Flew (Deism Conversion 2004)](/codex/antony-flew-deism-conversion-2004/) on the philosophical-cosmological track (Flew stopped at deism; Guillen continued to Christianity) and with [Lee Strobel (Conversion 1981)](/codex/lee-strobel-conversion-1981/) on the cumulative-evidence track (Strobel arrived through historical-Jesus evidence; Guillen arrived through physics, neuroscience, and mathematics). ## Background - **1953**, born in East Los Angeles, California. Pastor's kid, Mexican-American evangelical background. - **c. 1974**, **B.S. in physics and mathematics from UCLA.** - **c. 1976 to 1981**, **M.S. in experimental physics + a triple Ph.D. in physics, mathematics, and astronomy from Cornell University.** Holding a single doctorate that spans three fields is unusual. - **c. 1981 to 1988**, **physics instructor at Harvard University** for eight years, with teaching awards. - During his Harvard and graduate years, he moved from his evangelical upbringing into atheism. He treated science as the only reliable way to know things and viewed religion as a story that could not be tested. - **1988 to 2002**, **ABC News Science Editor for 14 years.** Regular on *Good Morning America*, *20/20*, *Nightline*, and *World News Tonight*. Three-time Emmy Award winner. - Wrote and hosted the PBS series *Great Minds of Business*, *Great Minds of Medicine*, and *Wit Grit and Robot Games*, plus the ABC-TV special *SeaWorld Mother Earth Celebration*. - Member of the Explorers Club. Honorary doctorates from the University of Maryland and Pepperdine University. - Articles in *Science News*, *Psychology Today*, the *New York Times*, and the *Washington Post*. - During his ABC News years and after, his engagement with the foundations of physics, cosmology, neuroscience, and mathematics slowly reversed his atheism. He describes the conversion as a gradual buildup of considerations, not a single dramatic moment. - **2021**, published *Believing Is Seeing: A Physicist Explains How Science Shattered His Atheism and Revealed the Necessity of Faith* (Tyndale Refresh). New York Times bestseller. The book has three sections: (1) *My Journey* (5 chapters of personal narrative), (2) *The Truth about Faith* (6 chapters arguing both science and religion rest on faith commitments), and (3) *Your Destiny* (2 chapters on worldview application). - Currently active with the C.S. Lewis Institute (Washington, DC), with speaking tours and ongoing book promotion. ## Earlier books Guillen is also the author of: - *Bridges to Infinity: The Human Side of Mathematics* (Tarcher, 1983) - *Five Equations That Changed the World: The Power and Poetry of Mathematics* (Hyperion, 1995), New York Times bestseller. A friendly tour of Newton's universal gravitation, Bernoulli's pressure equation, Faraday's electromagnetic induction, Clausius's second law of thermodynamics, and Einstein's *E = mc²*. - *Can a Smile Be Heard? And Other Questions Scientists Are Asking* (Andrews McMeel, 1997) - *Amazing Truths: How Science and the Bible Agree* (Zondervan, 2016), a shorter and earlier forerunner of the 2021 *Believing Is Seeing* ## The five arguments of *Believing Is Seeing* Guillen's case in *Believing Is Seeing* is built around five distinct argument families, each rooted in his scientific training and each treated as a separate codex page: 1. **[Argument from Science as Faith-Based (Guillen)](/codex/argument-from-science-as-faith-based-guillen/)**, the meta-argument that science itself rests on starting assumptions that cannot be proven by science. So the atheist's claim to stand on *"neutral"* or *"evidence-only"* ground fails. Atheism is itself a faith commitment. 2. **[Argument from Physics (Guillen)](/codex/argument-from-physics-guillen/)**, the argument from quantum mechanics' observer-dependence (in some interpretations, the act of measurement is part of what fixes the outcome), the fine-tuning of the physical constants, and the major unsolved puzzles of physics (such as how to combine quantum mechanics with gravity), all of which point toward design and a Mind beyond nature. 3. **[Argument from Cosmology (Guillen)](/codex/argument-from-cosmology-guillen/)**, the argument from the Big Bang's absolute beginning of space, time, matter, and energy, plus the precisely tuned starting conditions of the universe, to a transcendent Creator. 4. **[Argument from Neuroscience (Guillen)](/codex/argument-from-neuroscience-guillen/)**, the argument from the *hard problem of consciousness* (David Chalmers' phrase for the puzzle of why there is felt experience at all), the unity of the conscious self, *qualia* (the felt quality of experience, like the redness of red), and intentionality (the way thoughts can be *about* things) to the inadequacy of materialist accounts of mind. A Mind grounding mind is needed. 5. **[Argument from Mathematics (Guillen)](/codex/argument-from-mathematics-guillen/)**, the argument from the **unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the natural sciences** (Wigner 1960). The point: pure mathematics, often invented for its own sake, turns out to describe the physical world with uncanny precision. Mathematicians experience themselves as *discovering* truths rather than *inventing* them. This pattern points to a transcendent Mind that grounds the mathematical structure of physical reality. The five arguments form a cumulative case, not a single deductive proof. Each one pokes a hole in the materialist program; together they shift the burden of explanation onto naturalism in a way that, by Guillen's own report, naturalism could not carry. ## Apologetic significance Guillen's value to apologetics is distinctive in three ways: - **Working physicist credentials.** He is not a philosopher (Flew), a journalist (Strobel), a theologian, or a popular apologist. He is a Cornell-trained triple-doctorate physicist who taught at Harvard for eight years and worked at ABC News for fourteen. He cannot easily be dismissed as a *"non-scientist apologist."* - **Full Christian (not merely deistic) conversion through scientific evidence.** Flew converted to deism using philosophical-cosmological arguments. Guillen converted to full Christianity through that same family of arguments plus the science-as-faith meta-argument plus the neuroscience and mathematics arguments. So the Guillen pathway shows that the philosophical-cosmological cluster *can* lead to full Christian commitment when joined with the broader cumulative case. - **Mainstream-media platform.** As the former ABC News Science Editor with broad public name recognition, Guillen's conversion carries unusual social weight. A known mainstream-media science figure converting to Christianity hits differently from the conversion of an unknown academic. The cumulative cluster pattern (Flew + Strobel + Qureshi + Guillen) anchors four different conversion pathways in the codex (philosophical-deistic, historical-investigation, vision-driven Muslim background, and scientific-full-Christian). It is one of the strongest apologetic patterns the codex aggregates. ## Public profile and recognition - Three-time **Emmy Award winner** (ABC News science journalism) - Honorary doctorates from University of Maryland and Pepperdine University - Member of the Explorers Club - C. S. Lewis Institute fellow and speaker - Premiere Speakers Bureau client ## See also ### Other conversion-narrative scientists and apologists - [Antony Flew (Deism Conversion 2004)](/codex/antony-flew-deism-conversion-2004/), the deistic-conversion philosopher - [Lee Strobel (Conversion 1981)](/codex/lee-strobel-conversion-1981/), the historical-Jesus-evidential conversion journalist - [Nabeel Qureshi (Conversion 2003-2014)](/codex/nabeel-qureshi-conversion-2003-2014/), the vision-driven Muslim-background conversion case ### Other scientists in the codex - [John Wheeler](/codex/john-wheeler/), the *it from bit* physicist Guillen draws on - [Stephen Meyer](/codex/stephen-meyer/), the contemporary information-theoretic apologist - [Hugh Ross](/codex/hugh-ross/), the astronomer-apologist - [Frank Tipler](/codex/frank-tipler/), the Omega Point cosmologist - [Gerald Schroeder](/codex/gerald-schroeder/), the Jewish theistic-cosmology author - [Fred Hoyle](/codex/fred-hoyle/), the *"my goose was cooked"* astronomer (anti-naturalist data anchor) ### Argument anchors - [Argument from Science as Faith-Based (Guillen)](/codex/argument-from-science-as-faith-based-guillen/) - [Argument from Physics (Guillen)](/codex/argument-from-physics-guillen/) - [Argument from Cosmology (Guillen)](/codex/argument-from-cosmology-guillen/) - [Argument from Neuroscience (Guillen)](/codex/argument-from-neuroscience-guillen/) - [Argument from Mathematics (Guillen)](/codex/argument-from-mathematics-guillen/) ### Related codex hubs - [It from Bit](/codex/it-from-bit/), the Wheeler thesis Guillen connects to - [Anthropic Principle](/codex/anthropic-principle/), the fine-tuning cluster Guillen draws on - [Fine-Tuning Argument](/codex/fine-tuning-argument/), the cosmological-design argument - [Argument from Consciousness](/codex/argument-from-consciousness/), the mind-from-mind argument - [Cumulative Case for Christian Theism](/codex/cumulative-case-for-christian-theism/), the integrating frame