This is no trivial, insignificant question. If there is no God, then there is no Supreme Being to which we must give an account—no Judgment Day, no heaven or hell. If this is just a great cosmic accident, then there is no such thing as morality (there is no right or wrong, no good or evil). We should just live by the saying, “Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.” Because when you die there is nothing and nothing mattered.
But if there is a God—well, that’s a different story. Are we an accident or the image of God? Are we without purpose or have an eternal goal? Do we live like an animal or like a child of God? In the end, is it dust or eternity?
This is what I want us to examine today. Is it logical to accept the existence of an eternal Creator? Can modern science with its computers and rockets to the moon allow for such a notion? There is a modern-day attack on all that Christians believe and we are constantly being told that it is science versus religion. Is that true or does science actually point to a Creator?
Now, obviously we can’t “prove” that God exists or doesn’t exist, since He is outside of the physical realm. What we can do is look at the physical realm and see what the evidence points toward. It is more like proving a case in the courtroom by presenting and examining the evidence and then coming to a conclusion.
It certainly is reasonable to suggest that if there is a God, He would have made adequate evidence available for us to believe that He exists. And that’s what Rom. 1:20 says: “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.”
So, for our sermon today, I’m going to give you five arguments for the existence of God. Is it clearly seen? Now, before we begin, I want you to know that I am not a scientist; I am a researcher. But even if I was a scientist, as always, you need to be a critical thinker and check it out for yourself.
I.The Cosmological Argument.
The first one is the cosmological argument (today I just might teach you some big words you can impress your friends with).
The argument is simply this: The cosmos is here and must be explained as to how it got here. This argument is using the law of cause and effect, which states: Every effect must have a preceding and adequate cause (the cause must come first and be adequate). What does it mean by adequate? Well, the building didn’t collapse because a mosquito landed on it. The tsunami didn’t hit because someone threw a pebble into the ocean.
Now, when it comes to explaining the existence of the universe, you only get three possibilities: (1) the universe is eternal (it has always been here), (2) the universe created itself, or (3) something created the universe. There is no other possibility except to claim that the universe is simply an illusion and does not exist—but I don’t think you would buy that. So let’s examine these three possibilities to see which is the most reasonable.
First, is the universe eternal? Absolutely not. We know this is true because of the universally recognized second law of Thermodynamics (the law of energy decay or entropy). This law states that everything goes downhill from order to disorder, more usable energy to less. This law is the reason why heat flows from hot to cold and why this building will fall apart if it is not kept up with. If someone doesn’t believe in the second law of thermodynamics, just challenge them to live forever; even with this awesome machinery we have in our bodies, you will eventually wear out and die.
We can see that the universe is running down and wearing out; the stars are burning up, the radioactive atoms are decaying, etc. As Psalm 102:26 says, the heavens “will wear out like a garment.” Given enough time, the universe will experience what some call a “heat death” where there is maximum entropy; every part of the universe will be the same temperature, and no further work will be possible (speaking of energy transfer); all energy will be evenly distributed.
Eternal things obviously do not wear out because they would have had an infinite amount of time to come to their end. Since you cannot have an end without a beginning, the universe must have had a beginning. Evolutionary astronomer Dr. Robert Jastrow said, “Now three lines of evidence—the motions of the galaxies, the laws of thermodynamics, the life story of the stars—pointed to one conclusion; all indicated that the Universe had a beginning.” And everything that has a beginning has a cause. This building had a beginning, you had a beginning, therefore there must have been a preceding and adequate cause.
The evolutionists know this and so they came up with the “big bang” theory from that “cosmic egg” (the universe exploded into existence). But there is still a major problem—you have to explain where that “cosmic egg” came from. As it has been said, “There must be a cosmic chicken.”
Some scientists like Carl Sagan and Isaac Asimov proposed the oscillating universe theory to avoid a beginning. This theory states that the universe acts like a yo-yo; it explodes and then gravity pulls it back in, and then the process repeats itself over and over. But the second law of Thermodynamics still refutes that idea, since each cycle would exhaust more and more usable energy. The universe is not eternal!
Ok, that brings us to the second possibility: Did the universe create itself? I think Heb. 3:4 answers that pretty well, “...every house is built by someone...”
Let’s say I walk into my living room and see a crayon drawing of our family on the wall. When I ask my daughter where it came from, will I accept her answer of, “It just appeared there; it came from nothing”? Her grandparents might, but I won’t.
It is pretty clear that something cannot bring itself into existence. As R.C. Sproul has said, “It is impossible for something to create itself. The concept of self-creation is a contradiction in terms, a nonsense statement . . . It would have to have the causal power of being before it was. It would have to have the power of being before it had any being with which to exercise that power.” As it has been said, “Nothing scratched its head one day and decided to become something.” I’m sorry to have to drop this bombshell on you, but from nothing, comes nothing.
Besides, the First Law of Thermodynamics (the law of energy conservation) argues against it. The First Law of Thermodynamics states that in a closed system (without a God, this Universe would have to be a closed system) the amount of energy present in that system is constant (it cannot be created or destroyed), it can only be converted from one form to another. So, if the Universe initially contained no energy, and then it spontaneously generated all of the energy in the Universe now, the First Law would be violated. Without intervention from an outside force, the amount of energy in the Universe would have remained constant and unchanged at zero.
And now the third possibility: Did something create the universe? If the universe is not eternal and could not have created itself, then the only remaining alternative is that the universe was created by something or Someone. This would have to be a transcendent, eternal, self-existing being. I can find only one satisfactory explanation to our conundrum, and that is found in Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”
Someone may argue, “If the universe needs a cause, then why doesn’t God need a cause; who created God?” The answer is, everything that has a beginning has a cause; God, unlike the universe, did not have a beginning. Time is linked to matter and space (as we can see from Einstein’s general relativity). If God created the universe, then He created time along with matter and space. If God created time, then He is outside of time and doesn’t need a beginning.
What is more absurd, to believe that God Created everything out of nothing or that nothing turned itself into everything? The fact is, we live in a Universe that is an effect. There must be a preceding and adequate cause for it. The only thing that makes sense is a Creator who is more powerful than anything we can imagine.
II.The Teleological Argument.
The second one is the Teleological Argument. The word “teleology” has reference to purpose or design. The argument goes something like this: There is purposeful design in the Universe and design demands a designer.
Now, is this a valid argument? Well, we detect design all the time. If you find an arrowhead on a deserted island, you assume it was made by someone, even if you can’t see the designer. We can tell the difference between a message written in the sand and the results of the wind and waves on the sand. The carved heads of the presidents on Mt. Rushmore are clearly different from erosional features.
Although it has been around, in one form or another, since the time of ancient Greece, William Paley is probably the most famous for using the design argument. In 1802, he came out with a treatise called Natural Theology. He began by arguing that if one were to discover a watch lying in the middle of nowhere and they were to examine that watch closely, the person would logically conclude that it was not an accident, but had purpose; it had a designer. He went on to argue that the overwhelming design in the universe is evidence of a Grand Designer.
Psalm 19:1 says, “The heavens are telling of the glory of God; and their expanse is declaring the work of His hands.” As Dr. Werner Von Braun said, “One cannot be exposed to the law and order of the universe without concluding that there must be design and purpose behind it all.”
So let’s talk a bit about this design. The first is our fine tuned, tailor made, universe. This is called the “anthropic principle” (From the Greek word Anthropos—man). This principle is that the universe in general, and our solar system in particular, appears to have been specially designed for human existence.
Listen to what some scientists have said:
George Ellis, “The symmetries and delicate balances we observe in the universe require an extraordinary coherence of conditions and cooperation of laws and effects, suggesting that in some sense they have been purposely designed. That is, they give evidence of intention, realized both in the setting of the law of physics and in the choice of boundary conditions for the universe.”
F.J. Dyson, “As we look out into the universe and identify the many accidents of physics and astronomy that have worked together to our benefit, it almost seems as if the universe must in some sense have known we were coming.”
And I like what Philip Ball said, “Our Universe is so unlikely that we must be missing something.” Yeah, duh! Read your Bible.
And look at what we have with this earth in our solar system.
(1)The right kind of galaxy.
(2)The right place in the galaxy.
(3)The right kind of star.
(4)The right distance from that star.
(5)The right sized planet.
(6)The right spin of the planet.
(7)The proper magnetic field.
(8)The high composition of carbon.
(9)The high water content.
(10)The nitrogen and oxygen atmosphere.
(11)The size and distance of our moon.
(12)And on and on. The thing you have to realize is, any slight variation in any of these would make the earth uninhabitable as we know it. Boy, we sure are lucky, aren’t we?
Now, what about life? First of all, life is more than just physics and chemistry; life is built on information. Tightly coiled up inside the center of every cell, this information is contained in that molecule of heredity, called “DNA” which has a digital code inscribed alone its spine.
Now, information is something different from matter and energy. For example, a book contains information, but the paper and ink are not the information—they can only transmit it.
Life is an information-based process in which the DNA contained within each cell is based on a genetic language using four nucleotide bases. It has been estimated that if transcribed into English, the DNA in the human genome would fill a 300-volume set of encyclopedias of approximately 2,000 pages each.
And, of course, an order of letters is meaningless unless there is a language system and a translation system already in place that makes it meaningful. The language system that reads the order of the molecules in the DNA is itself specified by the DNA.
It has also been said that if the amount of information in just a pinhead volume of DNA was written into paperback books, it would make a pile 500 times the distance from here to the moon. The knowledge currently stored in all of the libraries of the world would only take up about 1% of that. Living things have by far the most compact information storage and retrieval system in the known universe.
And we know from experience: If you have a computer program, you need a computer programer. Any time we find information, whether it is in the form of a hieroglyphic inscription or a newspaper article, there was invariably an intelligent agent behind that information.
Evolutionists have not been able to explain the origin of information in cells; information has not been shown to spontaneously arise from matter and energy. The existence of the information can only be explained through a pre-existing intelligence that put it there.
Dr. Werner Gitt (an information scientist who was a director and professor at the German Federal Institute of Physics and Technology) said, “A code system is always the result of a mental process (it requires an intelligent origin or inventor) … It should be emphasized that matter as such is unable to generate any code. All experiences indicate that a thinking being voluntarily exercising his own free will, cognition, and creativity, is required ...There is no known natural law through which matter can give rise to information, neither is any physical process or material phenomenon known that can do this.”
The thing is, reliable methods for detecting design exist and are employed in forensics, archeology, and data fraud analysis. These methods can easily be employed to detect design in biological systems. When being interviewed by Tavis Smiley, Dr. Stephen Meyer said, “There are developments in some technical fields, complexity and information sciences, that actually enable us to distinguish the results of intelligence as a cause from natural processes. When we run those modes of analysis on the information in DNA, they kick out the answer, ‘Yeah, this was intelligently designed’ . . . There is actually a science of design detection and when you analyze life through the filters of that science, it shows that life was intelligently designed.”
I think we can therefore deduce that the huge amount of information in living things must have originally come from an intelligence, which had to have been far superior to ours, as scientists are revealing every day.
Now, scientists have found that within a cell, there are thousands of what are often called “biochemical machines.”
Lester and Hefley said, “We once thought that the cell, the basic unit of life, was a simple bag of protoplasm. Then we learned that each cell in any life form is a teeming micro-universe of compartments, structures, and chemical agents...”
Dr. Stephen Meyer said, “Over the last 25 years, scientists have discovered an exquisite world of nanotechnology within living cells. Inside these tiny labyrinthine enclosures, scientists have found functioning turbines, miniature pumps, sliding clamps, complex circuits, rotary engines, and machines for copying, reading and editing digital information—hardly the simple ‘globules of plasm’ envisioned by Darwin's contemporaries.”
As Dr. Michael Behe has said, “Cells swim using machines, copy themselves with machinery, ingest food with machinery. . . highly sophisticated molecular machines control every cellular process.” And Dr. Behe has pointed out that many structures show irreducible complexity; all of their parts have to be in place simultaneously or they can’t function.
These elegant machines are of greater sophistication than we are capable of making. Dr. Michael Denton (a non-Christian molecular biologist) said, “Alongside the level of ingenuity and complexity exhibited by the molecular machinery of life, even our most advanced artifacts appear clumsy. We feel humbled, as neolithic man would in the presence of twentieth-century technology . . . It would be an illusion to think that what we are aware of at present is any more than a fraction of the full extent of biological design. In practically every field of fundamental biological research ever-increasing levels of design and complexity are being revealed at an ever-accelerating rate.”
In trying to understand these biological systems, molecular biologists actually need to “reverse engineer” them. Is that not strong evidence that they were engineered to begin with? But they can’t or won’t see it. That just blows my mind.
And speaking of mind, there is so much about the brain and the brain-mind relationship that we don’t understand; it is far too complex for us.
In the words of Isaac Asimov (the anti-creationist), “In man is a three-pound brain, which as far as we know, is the most complex and orderly arrangement of matter in the universe.”
It has been estimated that the human brain processes more than a million messages a second, with all that is going on in our bodies. It has also been estimated that if we learned something new every second of our lives, it would take three million years to exhaust the capacity of our brain.
Ornstein and Thompson speaking about the human brain said, “After thousands of scientists have studied it for centuries, the only word to describe it remains amazing.”
It makes the complex computer look like a child’s toy in comparison to complexity. If you were walking along a deserted Island and just so happen to come across a computer, the first thing you would think is, “Look what nature made,” right? Is it logical to believe that the brain designed the computer, but the brain is a product of time and chance?
The logical response, is to say as the Psalmist did, “I give thanks to Thee, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made” (Ps. 139:14).
So here is my question: What is more absurd? To believe God designed all of this, or given enough time, hydrogen turns into humans, molecules to man, particles to people, microbes to microbiologists, protozoa to ponies, pelicans and politicians? If a frog turns into a prince in an instant—well, that’s a fairy tale. But if a frog turns into a prince over millions of year—well, that’s evolution. But I still say it’s a fairy tale.
As T. Wallace has said, “A major reason why evolutionist arguments can sound so persuasive is because they often combine assertive dogma with intimidating, dismissive ridicule towards anyone who dares to disagree with them. Evolutionists wrongly believe that their views are validated by persuasive presentations invoking scientific terminology and allusions to a presumed monopoly of scientific knowledge and understanding on their part. But they haven’t come close to demonstrating evolutionism to be more than an ever-changing theory with a highly questionable and unscientific basis. (The situation isn’t helped by poor science education generally. Even advanced college biology students often understand little more than the dogma of evolutionary theory, and few have the time [or the guts] to question its scientific validity.)”
III.The Aesthetical Argument.
The third one is the Aesthetical Argument. “Aesthetics” has to do with beauty. The argument is this: The universe exhibits beauty, and man has the ability to appreciate beauty; where did this come from? You see, aesthetic values serve no purpose in a purely materialistic universe. Why do we have it and where did it come from?
Have you ever said to someone, “Look at the beautiful flower or sunset”? You expect the other person to naturally agree with you that it is beautiful: flowers, butterflies, tropical birds and fish, rainbows and sunsets, galaxies and nebula, etc. And we also appreciate beauty in the art of men; how is it that art can sell for millions of dollars?
What is beauty for? What personal or evolutionary end is met by the appreciation of a rainbow, a flower, or a butterfly? As it has been said, “I would like to know how evolution would produce a species that likes to smell and look at flowers that we don’t eat.”
William C. Davis writes, “Humans have numerous features that are more easily explained by theism than by metaphysical naturalism, if only because metaphysical naturalism currently explains all human capacities in terms of their ability to enhance survival. Among these features are the possession of reliable faculties aimed at truth, the appreciation of beauty, and a sense of humor.”
And as Anthony O’Hear has said, “From a Darwinian perspective, truth, goodness, and beauty and our care for them are very hard to explain.”
Every effect must have an adequate cause to produce it. The Scriptures attribute beauty to God.
Ps. 96:5-6, “For all the gods of the people are idols, but the Lord made the heavens. Splendor and majesty are before Him, strength and beauty are in His sanctuary.”
Ecc. 3:11, “He has made everything beautiful it its time.”
Matt. 6:28-29, “Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin, yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory did not clothe himself like one of these. But if God so arrays the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more do so for you, O men of little faith?”
I have to agree with W.S. Rhodes, “It is difficult to believe that so many beautiful things came into being without any kind of direction by a power sensitive to beauty.”
Now, many people try to dismiss this argument by saying, “What about ugliness?” Well, this is a fallen earth that has been cursed because of sin (Gen. 3), and so we should expect ugliness. But the question is: Where did the beauty and the appreciation for it come from? I come to the same conclusion as Aristotle, “Beauty is the gift of God.”
IV.The Moral Argument.
The fourth is an anthropological argument that is known as the “moral argument.” The argument is this: Man has within him a moral nature, a sense of “oughtness”; where did it come from?
As C. S. Lewis said, “Human beings all over the earth, have this curious idea that they ought to behave in a certain way, and cannot really get rid of it.”
You see, there arises in all of us, in any culture, universal feelings of right and wrong.
Wherever you go, people in every place and every walk of life, say things like: “That’s not fair.” “How would you like it if someone did that to you?” “That’s my seat, I was there first.” “Come on, you promised.” When people say things like that, they are appealing to some kind of standard of behavior which they expect the other person to know.
The other person doesn’t say, “forget your standard,” but almost always tries to make an excuse to show that they really didn’t go against the standard. As C.S. Lewis said about this standard, “...the moment anyone tells me I am not keeping it, there starts up in my mind a string of excuses as long as your arm.” You know, there are reasons why you should be let off the hook. That time you were unfair to the children was when you were very tired. That slightly shady business about the money came when you were very hard-up. You never would have promised that if you would have known how busy you were going to be. And then comes the argument between these two people. It is clear that they both believe in a standard or they couldn’t argue about it. You can’t argue that a football player committed a foul unless there is some agreement about the rules of football.
If morality is simply something learned from our culture, as they want us to believe, then why are the moral teachings of the ancient Egyptians, Babylonians, Hindus, Chinese, Indians, Greeks and Romans so very similar? C. S. Lewis talked a lot about this. Has there ever been a culture where people were admired for running away in battle? Or admired for being selfish? Now, they might differ about who you should be unselfish to, and men have differed on things like whether you should have one wife or four, but they have always agreed that you must not simply have any woman you liked. In the words of Thomas Mayberry, “There is broad agreement that lying, promise breaking, killing, and so on are generally wrong.”
And whenever you find someone who says they don’t believe in right or wrong, you will find them going back on it a moment later. He may break his promise to you, but if you break one to him, he will immediately be complaining “It’s not fair!” Even a thief gets upset and feels wronged when someone steals from him. As it has been said, “If there is no God, no atheist can object on moral grounds if I want to kill him.”
I had an atheist friend some years back that I would always argue creation/evolution with. One day he came in and told me how mad he got from watching a documentary on the Holocaust. I can’t remember exactly what I said, but I thought, “Why are you so mad; it’s just survival of the fittest, right? You don’t even believe there is such a thing as right and wrong.” You see, no matter how much he denies it, he feels that standard as well as I do.
So, where did it come from? We don’t see it in animals. Oh, they will sometimes act nice toward their own families and we see some reciprocal altruism (and evolutionists try to point to that as the beginnings of morality), but that is a far cry from what we see in humans. A dog doesn’t feel guilt from stealing another dog’s bone. Apes don’t sit down and talk about morals and ethics. If an ox gores a man to death, it is not arrested, tried, and condemned to the electric chair. We recognize its inability to make moral judgments and so we might just confine it in a sturdier pen and warn people to stay away. If we evolved from animals, how did we come to be moral creatures? And where did true altruism come from (that which is done without any expectation or hope for reward)?
Could non-moral matter combined with time and chance and natural selection be an adequate cause for this? If people are merely products of physical evolution and “survival of the fittest,” why do we sacrifice for each other? Where does courage, dying for a cause, love, dignity, duty, and compassion come from?
How could over $4.2 billion be raised for Hurricane Katrina-related relief and recovery? And why do we have hospitals? We should let the sick people die; we don’t want them passing on their genes. An evolutionist who is a medical doctor is really inconsistent.
How does “survival of the fittest” fit with jumping on a grenade to save your fellow soldiers? Or pushing someone out of the way to take the oncoming car yourself? It is often the strong who do these things. How can you procreate and pass your genes on to your offspring if you are dead?
This seems to be the opposite of what evolution would produce; in a struggle for survival, will the existence of a conscience help or hinder survival? As Eric Lyons has asked, “Why are humans moral beings if, as evolutionists teach, we merely evolved from lifeless, mindless, unconscious matter over billions of years? Why do humans feel a sense of ‘ought’ to help the poor, weak, and oppressed if we simply evolved by the natural law of ‘might makes right’ (i.e., survival of the fittest)?”
And I have to agree with John Adam, “...according to the evolutionary principle of survival of the fittest, a loving human with a conscience is at a great disadvantage and would be unlikely to have survived the evolutionary process.”
It fits much better that there is a moral God who placed morals within us.
V.The General Argument.
The fifth is another anthropological argument called “The General Argument” or “Universal Belief Argument.” The argument is this: Every nation and culture has held a belief in a god or gods; where did this universal belief in deity come from?
The examples of this are found in all ancient civilizations. How could so many diverse people, so widely distributed geographically and historically, all hold to a belief in deity. Billions of people, who represent diverse sociological, intellectual, emotional, and educational makeups, have believed that there is a Creator and have engaged in acts of worship and devotion. The atheist has been an exception in every society!
That so many societies have independently come to religious belief requires an explanation. Where did this deep need for God within the human heart come from?
The interesting thing is, for every longing, there seems to be something that satisfies it. C. S. Lewis said, “Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for these desires exists. A baby feels hunger; well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim; well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire; well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.”
We know why we get hungry for food, but why do people get hungry for God; where did that come from? I think I have an answer:
Ecc. 3:11 says that God has put eternity in our hearts.
And Acts 17:27 says that God created us to seek Him.
Conclusion:
So there you have five of the many arguments for the existence of God: The Cosmological, the Teleological, the Aesthetical, and the two anthropological arguments (the Moral and General Arguments).
The conclusion I reach is this: There is no reason for you to apologize for your belief in God. Christians have a solid, logical, and scientific basis to stand on.
Lord Kelvin (the Father of Thermodynamics) said, “Do not be afraid of being free thinkers! If you think strongly enough you will be forced by science to the belief in God, which is the foundation of all religion. You will find science not antagonistic but helpful to religion.”
Are we the ones with blind faith? Where you there when something popped into existence from nothing and exploded? No, well do you see something pop into existence from nothing today? Were you there when non-living matter gave rise to life? No, well do you see non-living matter giving rise to life today? Where you there when single-celled organisms gave rise to many-celled organisms, when invertebrates gave rise to vertebrates, when ape-like creatures gave rise to man? No, well do you see it happening today? You have to believe that matter came into existence by itself and then arranged itself into information systems by blind chance. That is what goes against real science.
We are told in 1 Pet. 3:15, “...but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you...” That is why you should subscribe to magazines like Answers, Reason and Revelation, and Think. That is why you should go to websites like answersingenesis.org, apologeticspress.org, and icr.org. The ammunition is there—always be ready!
The universe is here, intelligent design is here, beauty is here, morality is here, the desire for God is here—what is their adequate preceding cause?
Ps. 14:1, “The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God.’”
