ANOTHER THEISTIC PROOF - THE UNIVERSE IS NOT SELF-PERPETUATING

 

 

God is not just the Creator but also the sustainer of the universe. As the universe requires an adequate uncaused Cause to account for its existence, it also requires an uncaused Cause or Force to account for its maintenance. This has been written to combat Deism and the Gaia Principle, which claim that the universe is self-sustaining.

 

 

The universe must be maintained - sustained - by an intelligent Force that does not require an outside force to sustain itself.

 

If instead the universe is self-sustaining, it requires a mechanism that does not itself require maintenance, but must be unchanging, omnipotent, and omniscient.

 

If this force is changing, then we would expect the laws of science to correspondingly change. However, they do not. Instead, these laws operate immutably. Therefore, we have been able to acquire a body of scientific knowledge and to make accurate predictions based upon the laws of science.

 

This Force must also be omnipotent to maintain all the moving parts of the universe. To put it another way, this Force must defend the universe against Entropy, gradual breakdown, which threatens everything with destruction.

 

This requires omniscience regarding all the moving parts of the universe to harmoniously reorder them once they become out-of-alignment in this universe of molecules-in-motion. The Force must know when the harmony of the universe is in peril or when its glue is beginning to dissolve.

 

Well, isn’t this the job of the laws that govern the universe? Yes, but what maintains these elegant laws immutably in a universe that is always changing? There must be a Force that does not require another cause for its maintenance  that is self-sustaining, eternally uncaused, and immutable but causing and sustaining all else. This would lead to an infinite regress of causes.

 

The Bible identifies this sustaining Force:

 

◦ For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible...—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. (Colossians 1:16-17)