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Intro: What is the foremost presumption of the Bible? If we open our bibles it won’t take long to spot.
“In the beginning, God…” (Gen. 1:1)
1. The scriptures presume that there was a beginning. Thus, what we see and know has not always been. This is what the Bible assumes as a fact.
2. The scriptures presume that God exists. There is no long treatise or apologetic for the existence of God. To those who would read the scriptures, God is real.
3. We might also conclude that the existence of God has also been a presumption of our culture. The predominant debatable issues of religion focused on how to worship God, or how God saved His people, or when God would return to judge His creation. But for the most part, Americans did not spend much time debating the existence of God. But times have changed!
I. “The Lord lives!”This is what David declares in Psalm 18:46. That God is the living God is a frequent theme in the Bible.
A. “My soul thirsts for God, for the living God” (Ps 42:2). “We have fixed our hope on the living God” (1 Thess 4:10). Jesus said in John 5:26 that the Father has life in Himself.
B. The biblical description of God includes more than just the fact of His existence. God is a personal Spirit being who is the source and creator of all things that exist. He is dynamic and active in His creation. He exists for His people, ready to come to their aid, and bless them for His name’s sake. He is a good God. “For You are great and do wondrous deeds; You alone are God” (Ps 86:10). His mighty works are sufficient evidence for his existence.
C. Do you believe that God exists? Most, if not all of us here today do. But how can you know that God exists? You can’t see, hear, touch, smell, or taste Him. You cannot take a picture of Him to show to your friends, or prove His existence through empirical experiment. Some folks just assign their belief to blind faith that is verified by feeling alone. (“I feel Him at work in my life”, etc.) This type of belief in God (without regard to evidence) is worthy of criticism. But there are some who will not believe in God no matter what evidence is presented. This person is also exhibiting blind faith and is worthy of criticism. What is the evidence?
II. Evidence for the Existence of God: In one sense the existence of God is self-evident and intuitive: the entire creation declares his power and glory – David stated…The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament shows His handiwork. (Psalms 19:1). Paul wrote… For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse (Romans 1:20). But we can begin with just our own observations of the existence and nature of the world around us and contract valid arguments for the existence of God.
A. Matter Demands a Maker: No rational person denies the fact that matter exists. The question is, “Where did it all come from?”
1. One basic and undeniable law of science is known as the Law of Causality – every physical effect must have an adequate antecedent or simultaneous cause (the Law of Cause and Effect). The American flag on the moon; the robotic rovers on Mars) No one believes that they just appeared, or were the result of some cosmic explosion on earth.
2. The Big Bang? – The theory that atheistic evolutionists have advanced for several decades now, is known as the Big Bang. Allegedly, approximately 14 billion years ago all of the matter and energy in the Universe was concentrated in a tiny ball of matter that exploded, causing the eventual formation of galaxies throughout the Universe. Modern science is rejecting this theory in growing numbers. But the obvious problem that has plagued Big Bang since its first arrival, is where did the original ball of matter come from? It must have an adequate cause. What do some leading atheists and agnostics around the world argue about the cause of matter?
a. Atheistic cosmologist Stephen Hawking stated on national television in 2011, “Nothing caused the Big Bang” (“Curiosity…,” emp. added). In the book The Grand Design that Dr. Hawking co-authored, he and Leonard Mlodinow asserted: “Bodies such as stars and black holes cannot just appear out of nothing. But a whole universe can” (2010, p. 180, emp. added). In 2006, Todd Friel asked Dan Barker, one of America’s leading atheists, “Do you really believe that something came from nothing?” (emp. added). Barker responded with a simple, “Yes”.
b. Can Something Come From Nothing? This question is often referred to as the possibility of infinite regress. Can we keep going back further and further infinitely, or must there be a beginning, and thus a beginning cause. One of Thomas Aquinas’s famous “five ways” of proving God exists is the argument from contingency. To say that something is contingent means that it is possible for it not to exist. Now, says Thomas, whatever may possibly not exist at one time did not exist (otherwise it would be eternal and necessary, not contingent). But if everything were contingent, then at one time nothing at all would have existed, and therefore nothing would exist now, since from nothing comes nothing. Therefore some noncontingent, eternal, necessary being must exist, which has caused the existence of all contingent beings. We call this being God, and His existence is supported by the evidence.
c. The evolutionists’ answer is not scientific at all. In fact, it is unscientific. It is blind acceptance. The observable truth in nature is that matter and energy are neither created nor destroyed. Scientists refer to this fact as the First Law of Thermodynamics, or the law of the conservation of matter and energy. The evolutionists continue to struggle…
(1) In 2007, the pro-evolutionary New Scientist magazine ran a cover story titled “The Beginning: What Triggered the Big Bang?” in which the publication attempted to explain the origin of the Universe. But consider the last line of the featured article: “[T]he quest to understand the origin of the universe seems destined to continue until we can answer a deeper question: why is there anything at all instead of nothing?” (“The Universe…,” 194[2601]:33, emp. added). The implication of such a question is quite clear: if at one time in the past “nothing” existed, then nothing should exist today.
(2) Famous evolutionary astronomer, Robert Jastrow, the founder and former director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies at NASA wrote… “But the creation of matter out of nothing would violate a cherished concept in science—the principle of the conservation of matter and energy—which states that matter and energy can be neither created nor destroyed. Matter can be converted into energy, and vice versa, but the total amount of all matter and energy in the Universe must remain unchanged forever. It is difficult to accept a theory that violates such a firmly established scientific fact (1977, p. 32).
(3) Can something come from nothing? In a panel discussion in 2012 on Australian national television, Dr. Richard Dawkins was asked “how it is that something as enormous as the universes came from nothing?”Dawkins admitted: “Of course it’s counterintuitive that you can get something from nothing. Of course common sense doesn’t allow you to get something from nothing. That’s why it’s interesting. It’s got to be interesting in order to give rise to the universe at all. Something pretty mysterious had to give rise to the origin of the universe”. According to Dawkins’ the idea of getting something from nothing in nature defies “common sense.” It also denies good science.
3. Eternal Matter? Atheists cannot logically argue that the Universe is eternal. It seems that relatively few scientists even propose an eternal Universe anymore. (hence the argument for Big Bang).
a. The Second Law of Thermodynamics: Well-known atheist, physicist, cosmologist, and astrobiologist of Arizona State University, Paul Davies, explained this law of nature this way… [T]he celebrated second law of thermodynamics…says, roughly speaking, that in any change the Universe becomes a slightly more disorderly place; the entropy goes up, the information content goes down. This natural tendency towards disintegration and chaos is evident all around us (1978, 80[1129]:506).Therefore, the universe, and all closed systems move from order to disorder; complex to simple, and the retrievable and useable energy irreversibly decreases. This has led most scientists to conclude that the Universe has not always existed, else we would be out of usable energy. This law also conflicts with the general concept of organic evolution which requires a movement from disorder to order; simple to complex.
(1) The fact is, the Universe had a beginning. Alex Vilenkin, cosmologist from Tufts University, stated “It is said that an argument is what convinces reasonable men and a proof is what it takes to convince even an unreasonable man. With the proof now in place, cosmologists can no longer hide behind the possibility of a past-eternal universe. There is no escape: they have to face the problem of a cosmic beginning” (Many Worlds in One: The Search for Other Universes, 2006, p. 176) Since matter is not eternal and cannot create itself from nothing, then something outside of the material realm must have brought matter into existence. In short, matter demands a Maker.
(a) Romans 1:20 says, “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse.”
(b) Speaking of Christ as God pre-incarnate, Paul wrote in Col 1:16-17 – For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. 17 And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. Matter is not eternal; God is. The universe is not self-sustaining; God sustains it. The word “consists” in this passage means “holds together” or sustains. Without some type of eternal power, our Universe could not come into existence, nor could it continue to exist. The atheistic answer that our Universe created itself from nothing, has always existed, or even sustains itself, is the furthest thing from either a scientific or a rational explanation. The evidence points to a Creator, God.
Conclusion: Next week we will continue our investigation of the evidence for God’s existence, particularly as it relates to the world we see around us. Even if we accept the enormous evidence from nature that God exists, how can we know what type of God He is? What is the evidence for the character of God? Certainly God cares for creation, but… The events of the cross are the most powerful evidence that God is good.
- John 3:16 – 16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.