MICHEL-YVES BOLLORÉ
COMPUTER ENGINEER, ENTREPRENEUR, AND AUTHOR
Michel-Yves Bolloré's defining pursuit has been the relationship between faith and reason. Raised in a Christian family, he felt from adolescence a deep need to know whether the faith he had received was supported by reason. His scientific background allowed him to engage seriously with the literature on this question, and over time, he came to see it as not only important but also fascinating. Recognizing that no accessible book existed for a general audience that brought together all the reasons to believe in the existence of God, he partnered with Olivier Bonnassies to write God, the Science, the Evidence, first published in France and subsequently translated into twelve languages. It has now sold over 450,000 copies worldwide. He has spoken on science and faith at Princeton, Berkeley, Oxford, and Cambridge, and helped finance Aleteia, a Christian information platform co-founded by Bonnassies.
Born the third of five children of Michel and Monique Bolloré, a family of Breton industrialists, he trained as a computer engineer and holds a Master's and Doctorate in Business Management from the University of Paris Dauphine. He served as Managing Director of Bolloré Technologies before founding the industrial group France Essor as Chairman and CEO. He is currently Director of Stelarux Investment, Pierre Real Estate, Smile Invest, and Polimiroir Group.
Passionate about education, he founded three private schools: The Laurels in London, Agnès School in Brussels, and Les Vignes in Courbevoie, France. He is married with three children and resides in London.
The 20th-Century’s Unexpected Reversal
MICHEL-YVES BOLLORÉ
Is it not true that the question of whether or not God exists is the most important question of our lives? For if He does not exist, we are merely particles fortunately organized by chance and necessity—particles that will disintegrate at death and recompose into something else: a blade of grass, perhaps, in some distant forest. No one will remember us after a few centuries. What we do with our lives is of no importance whatsoever. There is no essential difference between us and a mosquito; we are just larger and more intelligent. If this is true, it is good to know so that we may eat, drink, and dance in total serenity and without regret, for in the end, nothing counts and nothing matters.
Conversely, if God exists, everything counts and everything is important, because the prospect of eternal life is open to us if we act well. This is the teaching of all monotheistic religions.
It is therefore surprising to see so few people genuinely engaging with this question, or devoting even a fraction of their time to it. We often hear dismissive claims: “This question is indeterminable—there is no point in thinking about it!” or “There is no proof of God's existence; if there were, we would already know!”
And yet, in an unexpected reversal, the 20th century produced a great number of scientific arguments showing that the materialist thesis has become highly improbable—if not altogether untenable. A few clarifications of this new reality are in order.
If God does not exist, our universe must be eternal. On this, everyone agrees. It could not have had a beginning, for the Greek philosopher Parmenides established the principle long ago that “out of nothing, nothing comes.” A universe could not emerge from nothingness. If our universe has a beginning, it necessarily had a cause.
However, in less than 100 years, modern science has converged on several independent lines of evidence that suggest an eternal universe is, in fact, highly improbable:
· The Second Law of Thermodynamics has shown that every closed system inexorably deteriorates, which points toward a finite past.
· Relativity and the expansion of the universe have shown the necessity of a beginning, whether it be our Big Bang or something that preceded it.
· Modern physics has shown that nothing in the universe is infinite.
· Mathematics—through the work of Hilbert and Cantor—has formalized that infinity is a purely and uniquely mathematical concept.
· The fine-tuning of the universe has forced materialists to retreat into the multiverse theory which posits the existence of an infinity of universes. For those who once prided themselves as “unbelievers,” they now find themselves forced to believe in a series of theses as improbable as they are bizarre.
So the thesis of God's existence reemerged as the simplest and most probable explanation. What an extraordinary reversal of the situation compared to the beginning of the 20th century.