Argument for the Existence of God

Be confident in the classroom

1 Peter 3:15 “but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect,”

2 Corinthians 10:5 “We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ,”

“What I believe in my heart must make sense in my head”- Ravi Zacharias

Accurate View of Science

Science can answer the questions of what and how, but it can’t answer the why question.

“Science isn't in the business of proving things. Rather science judges the merits of competing models in terms of their simplicity, clarity, comprehensiveness, and fit to the data. Unsuccessful theories are never disproven, as we can always concoct elaborate schemes to save the phenomena. They just fade away as better theories gain acceptance.”- Sean Carroll (atheist cosmologist)

Science full of assumptions and can’t prove everything (William Lane Craig)

Logical and Mathematical Truths

Science presupposes logic and math so to try to prove them with science would be to argue in a circle

Metaphysical Truths (the branch of philosophy that deals with the first principles of things, including abstract concepts such as being, knowing, substance, cause, identity, time, and space)

There are other minds than my own, that the external world is real, or that the past was not created 5 minutes ago with the appearance of age.

Ethical Beliefs About Statements of Value

You can’t prove with science that the Natzis did anything evil

Aesthetic Judgments

Beauty cannot be quantified or proven by science

Science Itself

Science cannot be justified by the scientific method. Science is permeated with unprovable assumptions.

The special theory of relativity hinges on the assumption that the speed of light is constant in a one way direction between any two points A and B. We have to assume that to uphold the theory.

None of these beliefs can be proven yet they are upheld by virtually the entire scientific community.

Science founded on Christianity

The modern science movement was founded on Christianity. Men like Isaac newton and Blaise Pascal were Christians. Newton actually wrote more about his faith than science. When he made scientific discoveries he didn’t lose his faith.

Science shouldn’t scare Christians. We should embrace it.

Those in awe moments of creation many will say are proof of God. I would agree, but when you begin to dive into the science of why those things exist and function as they do, it’s even more awe inspiring.

3 Initial Universe Creation Scenarios

God created the universe

The universe came into existence from nothing

The universe is infinite

Kalam Cosmological Universe

Whatever begins to exist has a cause

The universe began to exist

Therefore the universe has a cause

Premise Breakdown

Premise 1

I’ve never seen anything spontaneously come into existence

Believing that something could just suddenly pop into existence from nothing is more incredible than believing in magic. At least with magic you have a hat and a magician when he makes the rabbit appear.

If things could come into existence from nothing, why don’t we see this happening all the time?

Everyday experience and scientific evidence support the first premise.

Premise 2

The 2nd theory of thermodynamics supported this premise because it holds that the universe is running out of usable energy. If the universe was infinite, it would have run out of energy by now.

Lawrence Krauss even says that he would bet that the universe had a beginning.

Alexander Friedmann and George Lemaitre used Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity to predict that the universe is and had been expanding.

In 1929 this was confirmed by Edwin Hubble (the inventor of the Hubble Telescope) when he measured the red shift in light from distant galaxies. This empirical evidence confirmed that not only was the universe expanding, but that it sprang into being from a single point in the finite past.

Big Bang

Most likely mechanism for the initiation of the universe

The Big Bang explains the mechanism of the beginning of the universe, but it doesn’t explain how the matter involved in the bang come to be. God created this matter and initiated the Big Bang.

God’s Not Dead “3 minutes Let there be light” quote

Genesis 1:3 “And God said, ‘Let there be light,’”

Life or Time magazine editor, who was an atheist, didn’t want scientists to claim the Big Bang because he knew it would give Christians scientific footing to claim the universe had a beginning.

Bible Interpretation (Lennox Fixed Earth)

Isaac Newton and other famous scientists along with John Calvin and Martin Luther, famous theologians believe the earth didn’t spin on its axis. This belief stemmed from verses like 1 Samuel 2:8, 1 Chronicles 16:30, Psalm 93:1, and Psalm 104:5.

Psalm 104:5 “He set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved.”

1 Chronicles 16:30 “tremble before him, all the earth; yes, the world is established; it shall never be moved”

Today we know that the earth is helio-centric, meaning that it spins on its axis, because of advancements in science.

But those verses sure make it seem like the earth should be fixed in position and unmovable. Sounds like we have a problem in the Bible, right? Wrong.

Through scientific discoveries, we have learned that the earth is firmly fixed in its place of orbit because of the gravitational pull of the sun, moon, and other planets. It is virtually immovable.

The problem isn’t the Bible, it’s the interpretation of the Bible.

The Bible will always get it right. We just have to be willing to change our interpretation when new truths come to light.

God knows how the universe He created works. He won’t put false statements in His Word to us.

Mulitverse

Alexander Vilekin and a team of scientists have discovered evidence that any universe which has, on average, been expanding throughout its history, cannot be eternal, but must have an absolute beginning. After concluding the research that discovered this, Vilenkin (a non-Christian) even went as far as to say that, “[Scientists] can no longer hide behind a past-eternal universe. There is no escape, they must face the problem of a cosmic beginning”

Emergent Universe

“It is very difficult to devise a system, especially a quantum one, that does nothing ‘forever’, then evolves. A truly stationary or quantum state, which would last forever, would never evolve, whereas one with any instability will not endure for an indefinite time”- Anthony Aguirre and John Kehayias “Quantum Instability of the Emergent Universe” (2013)

Basically, a universe wouldn’t exist infinite in a state of nothingness and then suddenly evolve.

Atheist Scientists propose models of the universe coming from “nothing”, but in reality, they just dance around the true definition of nothing and alter it to include something masked as nothing.

With all of the evidence displayed, it’s clear premise 2 is true.

Premise 3

If the first two premises are true then the third premises is true.

The cause of the universe would have to be spaceless, timeless, changeless, immaterial, uncaused, and enormously powerful. All of these attributes describe God .

God is the uncaused, First cause.

He never began to exist. He is internal. He didn’t need a creator because he transcends all things.

Stephen Hawking theory false

The theory claims that because the universe has a law of gravity it will create itself from nothing.

Laws don’t create or cause anything. They are merely observations of our world.

The law of gravity simply describes things we have observed.

You can’t have gravity without matter. The universe couldn’t have been created with the law of gravity from nothing because to have gravity means you would have to have matter. Having matter means there is something rather than nothing.

If I say X creates Y, I’m presupposing the existence of X to explain the existence of Y. That’s common understanding of language. If I say that X creates X, I’m presupposing the existence of X to explain the existence of X. That’s self-contradictory, logically incoherent, and exactly what Hawking is doing.

Teleological Argument/Fine Tuning

Something that scientists have discovered that also points to the existence of God is the reality that the universe is fine tuned to support life. Scientists have confirmed over 30 finely tuned aspects of the universe that must be at exact levels and in exact ratio to each other for life to be even remotely possible. The specifications are so incredibly finely tuned that in the words of renown Cambridge physicist John Polkinghorne, the chances of this just happening are equal to aiming at a one square inch object 20 billion light years away and hitting it bulls-eye.

Teleological Argument

1.) The fine-tuning of the universe is due to either physical necessity, chance, or design.

2.) It is not due to physical necessity or chance.

3.) Therefore, it is due to design.

Premise breakdown

Premise 1

This premise just gives the 3 possibilities so it doesn’t really require much of a breakdown.

Premise 2

Even Richard Dawkins agrees to this premise. There is no physical necessity for the particular tuning of our universe. This is especially true when you consider that even in the multiverse model, with an infinite set of possible circumstances, only an incredibly small number of possible universes would allow for life. When it comes to chance, the chances of our universe having its particular life permitting fine tuning is so incredibly small that it defying human comprehension. This is further seen in the multiverse model. Therefore, chance is not an acceptable option.

Premise 3

The most probable option is that it is due to design. This seems clear.

Sir Fredrick Hoyle’s Odds

These are the numbers that atheists don’t want to hear. Sir Fred Hoyle determined conservatively that there is a 1 in 1040,000 chance that a cell could be assembled from organic materials. Basically that life could come from non-life.

Sir Fred Hoyle once said in an address to the British Academy of Science, “Let’s be scientifically honest. The probability of life arising to greater and greater complexity by chance through evolution is the same probability as having a tornado tear through a junkyard and form a Boeing 747 jetliner.”

The next number to know is 1 in 10 to the 67th power. Those are the chances of amino acids combining to form the necessary proteins by undirected means. That is like taking 10 to the 67th power silver dollars, painting one black, putting them in the state of Texas which would cover it well over 50 feet deep, mix it up, then pick the black one, blindfolded on the first try.

Anything greater than 1050 is considered mathematically impossible. Instead to try and make the odds better, some scientists like Francis Crick (the discoverer of the double helix of DNA) believes aliens on a space ship placed the proper materials on earth to allow for life. Clearly intellect isn't what separates Christians and non- believers. Plus, who created the aliens?

It is mathematically impossible for the universe to coming into being and for life to exist in the evolutionist’s model. For the full evolution model to take place on chance alone is so improbable that it would be a miracle if it actually happened, therefore pointing to the existence of God because naturalists don’t believe in the supernatural.

To be an atheist, you have to believe in miracles.

I don’t have enough faith to be an atheist.

Dawkin’s Gaffe Video

Morality

Ravi Zacharias Morality Video

The beauty of all of this is that we’re not just dancing to our DNA and we have objective morality and intrinsic worth.

Richard Dawkins Cricket joke

“But the new rebel is a skeptic, and will not entirely trust anything. He has no loyalty; therefore he can never be really a revolutionist. And the fact that he doubts everything really gets in his way when he wants to denounce anything. For all denunciation implies a moral doctrine of some kind; and the modern revolutionist doubts not only the institution he denounces, but the doctrine by which he denounces it. . . . As a politician, he will cry out that war is a waste of life, and then, as a philosopher, that all life is waste of time. A Russian pessimist will denounce a policeman for killing a peasant, and then prove by the highest philosophical principles that the peasant ought to have killed himself. . . . The man of this school goes first to a political meeting, where he complains that savages are treated as if they were beasts; then he takes his hat and umbrella and goes on to a scientific meeting, where he proves that they practically are beasts. In short, the modern revolutionist, being an infinite skeptic, is always engaged in undermining his own mines. In his book on politics he attacks men for trampling on morality; in his book on ethics he attacks morality for trampling on men. Therefore the modern man in revolt has become practically useless for all purposes of revolt. By rebelling against everything he has lost his right to rebel against anything.”- GK Chesterton

The modern day atheist must have such a conflicting world view

Proof of our value seen in the laws. Laws Moses-613 -> David-15 -> Isaiah-11 -> then 6 -> Micah 3 (do justice, do mercy, walk humbly before your God) -> Jesus 2 (not 1). The proof of our value can be seen here as all of the laws hang on it.

Luke 20:20-26 value

Jesus sent to save us is proof of our value.

Proof of Christianity is the fact that we’re still talking about Jesus and today. We’ll cover that in the following weeks.

Discussion/Q & A