THE COSMOLOGICAL ARGUMENT FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD

This proof argues that the first Cause had to always exist or it too would have required a cause, and only God can fulfill the necessary requirements. Here’s what it looks like

1.     All things that have come into existence are caused to exist by other things.

2.     If there is no eternal uncaused Causer, then nothing can exist.

Conclusion: Therefore, there must be an eternal uncaused Causer - God.

PREMISE #1 All things that have come into existence are caused to exist by other things:

To deny this is absurd. To illustrate, if I tell you that my cup of coffee just appeared without any cause, you would think me crazy. This is because we never see uncaused things materialize out of nothing.

We reasonably assume that there are causes for any phenomena. That’s why we do science – to discover the causal relationships. Therefore, to deny that phenomena require causes is to reject the basic assumption of science – that everything has a reason or a cause.

PREMISE #2  If there is no eternal uncaused Causer, then nothing can exist:

It follows that something or Someone must be uncaused and therefore eternal in order to explain the existence of everything else. If this ultimate Causer is eternal, there is no need to explain its cause, because it always was.

However, the eternal can’t be a something – the universe or some part of it. Matter and space cannot exist apart from time, but time could not have been eternal. This would have required that an infinite number of years to have already passed to have arrived in the present – a logical impossibility. Why? Because only a finite number of years could possibility have been accomplished to bring us into this moment! It’s impossible for an infinite number of years to have already passed. Infinity knows no limits.

Big Bang cosmology also maintains that the universe – time, space, and matter – had a beginning in time. According to Stephen Hawking:

·       “Almost everyone now believes that the universe and time itself had a beginning in the Big Bang!”

Besides, the law of entropy argues against an eternal universe, since by now, after an infinite amount of time, everything in the universe would have dissipated. Besides, if the universe had been expanding infinitely, space and matter would also be infinite. However, modern science denies that any of these are infinite.

CONCLUSION: This leaves us face-to-face with a Being who transcends time, space, and materiality, a Being who has the causal power to produce everything else.

Challenges:

Many atheists argue that we know so little about cosmology that we should not come to any conclusions.

While they are correct about knowing so little, nevertheless, I think that the little we know points to God.

The skeptic will also raise the God-of-the-Gaps argument: “Because we don’t know, you assume that God did it.”

This however misrepresents theistic proofs. Here’s why:

1.    We can just as easily charge them with Naturalism-of-the-Gaps – Because we don’t know, natural unintelligent forces must have done it.

2.    There does not exist one shred of evidence that causal agents operate naturally and without intelligence or purpose.

3.    The theistic proofs do not conclude, “We don’t know, so God must have done it.” Instead, these proofs compare ID (supernaturalism) with naturalism and demonstrate that ID is the most reasonable conclusion.

Others charge that theistic proofs only make God seem probable and, therefore, are unable to serve as a basis for our faith and relationship with God.

Actually, I agree. Consequently, I do not invoke theistic proofs as a basis for faith but as a means to challenge the skeptical assaults against the faith. Besides, since I have a highly doubting disposition, I sometimes think about these proofs to silence my doubts, and they do.

A RESPONSE TO A SEEKER

I am glad that you are seeking, because a true seeker will find. I am also confident that you will see through Dawkin’s claim that science has made God irrelevant. Why?

For one thing, science has never demonstrated that anything ever happens naturally and without Divine guidance. To do this, science would have to demonstrate that our causal laws/forces of science are of natural derivation and continuation. However, science is ill-equipped for such a task.

More to the point, these laws or causal agents give every indication that they are designed and divinely pieced together (fine-tuned) to promote life. Science cannot disprove the divine origin of these laws but, instead, depends upon them for each of its findings. If these laws were simply a part of this universe, they would be changing as the universe changes, automatically voiding the possibility of any coherent scientific proclamation. Indeed, if it had been possible for our laws to have been created by an explosion (the “Big Bang”), there is no reason to expect them to be immutable and universal, making science possible.

We should not expect these laws to be elegant (simple), enabling scientific discovery and understanding. Instead, we should expect what explosions usually produce – Chaos!

But please continue your exploration. If you want the truth, you will find the truth.

A PROOF OF GOD FROM THE LAWS OF PHYSICS

There are many weighty proofs for the existence and character of God. This is just one of the many:

1. The laws of physics are immutable, universal, and elegant.

2. ID (supernaturalism) is a better explanation for these observations than is naturalism.

3. An Intelligent Designer must exist.

PREMISE #1  The laws of physics are immutable, universal, and elegant.

THE LAWS OF PHYSICS ARE IMMUTABLE. This should be obvious. If they were in flux, any scientific conclusion or description would be impossible, along with replication of findings. Textbooks would have to be changed every so often. Predictions could not be made. Any form of science would be impossible.

THE LAWS OF PHYSICS ARE UNIVERSAL. This too should be obvious. It is only because they are universal can we say anything about other galaxies, planets, stars, light, or anything else within the domain of science. Universality also ensures that the findings in China would match those in California.

THE LAWS OF PHYSICS ARE ELEGANT. This is equally obvious. Just observe their elegance and simplicity:

• Einstein field equation: The cornerstone of Einstein's general theory of relativity, relating the gravitational tensor G to the stress-energy tensor T by the simple equation- G = 8 pi T.

Many such formula’s exist. Perhaps the most famous is E=MC². Notice how the speed of light must be precisely squared. Without such elegance and simplicity, science laws would have been undiscoverable and incomprehensible.

PREMISE #2  ID (supernaturalism) is a better explanation for these observations than is naturalism.

IMMUTABILITY. In a universe of molecules-in-motion, it is hard or impossible to account for the unchanging-ness and origin of these laws. Explosions (the Big Bang) do not create laws, let alone immutability. It is therefore more likely that these laws have a Transcendent origin in the Mind of God. This immutable Mind can account for immutable laws and their stability in the midst of change. They affect everything, but nothing affects them.

UNIVERSALITY. Causation within our universe is all localized. The further that we travel away from a radio station, the weaker the signal and reception. The further away from a bonfire, the less the warmth. However, the laws of physics operate uniformly (universally) throughout the universe. It is easier to account for this phenomenon supernaturally and naturally.

ELEGANCE. There is absolutely no natural mechanism that can account for the elegant design of the laws of physics. Explosions do not create immutable elegance.

Of course, it can be argued that presently we are simply unaware of natural forces that might account for these laws. While this is true, such pleading faces major obstacles:

1. There is absolutely no evidence that anything happens because of natural, undesigned laws.

2. Postulating a collection of natural laws is less parsimonious that postulating one God.

3. Even if a natural mechanism could be identified that creates and maintains natural laws, it too would require its own explanation or causes. However, this leads to the problem of an infinite regress.

4. Causes are always greater than their effects. If a cause is less than its effects, then it means that some aspects of the effect are uncaused – a science stopper. An intelligent and eternal Designer/Creator is greater than any series of mindless causes. Therefore, ID can better account for phenomena like the laws of physics, the fine-tuning of the universe, life, intelligence, and consciousness.

CONCLUSION: An intelligent Designer most probably exists.

Proving God Requires Extraordinary Proof

The way we frame a question makes all the difference. For example, atheists argue:

·       The more extraordinary the claim, the more extraordinary the evidence should be… So to claim that gods, virgin births, resurrections, and spirits living among us are ordinary, is to say that they are common, routine, standard, or typical. But things that are ordinary are uncontroversial because they are backed up by lots of empirical data and we experience them frequently.

Now let’s re-frame the discussion:

·       The more extraordinary the claim, the more extraordinary the evidence should be… So to claim that Big Bangs can create order, unchanging natural laws, and a precisely tuned universe, and that life can spring out of non-life, is to say that these occurrences are common, routine, standard, or typical. But things that are ordinary are uncontroversial because they are backed up by lots of empirical data and we experience them frequently.

Meanwhile, it makes far more sense that everything was caused and maintained by an eternal, transcendent, intelligent Being than by nothing at all. Do we have just one stitch of evidence that the latter ever happens! In fact, the latter is actually anti-science.

Who is Anti-Science?

Creationists have long been smeared with being anti-science. However, few remember that atheism had also been notably anti-science. In Awesome Creation, Yosef Bitton writes:

•  In the 1940s, the Soviet communist regime rejected Hubble and Gamow’s conclusions [regarding the Big Bang] completely, despite their scientific soundness, on the grounds that their hypothesis failed to comply with the tenets of Marxist Leninist ideology (i.e., atheism). The Soviets’ opinion on the Big Bang was summarized by Comrade Andrei Zhdanov: “Falsifiers of science want to revive the fairy tale of the origin of the world from nothing.”  The Soviets persecuted physicists who supported the Big Bang theory. Some of those scientists paid for their support of the Big Bang theory with their lives like Matvei Bronstein, who was shot after being arrested on trumped-up charges of espionage.

For these atheists, the findings that the universe had a beginning gave too much support to the biblical account. It wasn’t just the communistic atheists who were disturbed by this support. According to Bitton, C. J. Isham said it best:

•  “Perhaps the best argument...that the Big Bang supports theism is the obvious unease with which it is greeted by some atheist physicists. At times this has led to scientific ideas...being advanced with a tenacity which so exceeds their intrinsic worth that one can only suspect the operation of psychological forces lying very much deeper than the usual academic desire of a theorist to support his or her theory”

I don’t mean to pick on atheism. We all have our theistic-philosophical lenses through which we attempt to conform reality. However, I think that we need to be particularly suspicious of the pervasive influence of atheism since it now exercises such extensive control over the scientific community.

Here’s just one thing that should make us suspicious. Only natural, unintelligent causation or explanations are acceptable. Others are labeled and denigrated as “non-science.” However, it might be relevant to ask if this naturalistic monopoly is instead non-science. Is our determination to find only naturalistic explanations for the origins and fine-tuning of the universe, the laws of science, life, the cell, DNA and consciousness the product of science or religion?