A Case for Creation: The importance of understanding the evidence for the existence of God, Part 1 – Biblical, Philosophical and Cosmological Arguments

THE EXISTENCE AND NATURE OF GOD

The control of public education today, particularly in higher academia, is in the hands of a majority who do not believe in God, or who are so ingrained in the belief of secular evolution through the philosophy of humanism. Thus the prevailing paradigm upon which research is based, and curriculums are written from, in almost every field of study is from this dogma. Admittedly, they close the door on any evidence that has a “Divine Footprint” or points to a supernatural cause of any kind.

When a paper is presented by credentialed researchers, evidenced with facts that point to intelligent design or anything with a “creation vs. evolution” aspect, it will be mocked, decried, and dismissed. If it does not fit the dogma of the elites it will never get published in secular-humanist controlled journals or periodicals. Therefore, most people are indoctrinated without even knowing the alternatives!

There is a lot of legitimate research out there by top-notch scholars, both Christians non-Christians that are aware of this secular-humanistic monopoly. Check out some of these groups whose members include scholars at the highest levels in chemistry, biology, geology and more. Read through some of their publications with research articles on topics ranging from the age of the earth and the problem with evolutionary theory,  to the fossil record and the world-wide flood of Noah’s day:

From a Young Earth Christian view:

Institute for Creation Research: icr.org

Creation Ministries International: creation.com

Creation, Evolution and Science Ministries: creationministries.org

Creation Today: creationtoday.org

Answers in Genesis: answersingenesis.org

From an Old Earth/Day-Age Christian view

Reasons to Believe: reasons.org

Center for Science and Culture: cscinfo@discovery.org

“Only fools say in their hearts, “there is no God”. They are corrupt and their actions are evil; not one of them does good!” 

Psalm 53:1

Here is Part 1 of Session Two from our Case for Creation Class:

Does God Exist?

If God exists His attributes can be logically deduced, and He would have to have the properties of a first cause:

1. Supernatural in nature, (Existing outside and beyond the natural physical universe)
2. Uncaused, beginningless, and eternal (self-existent, existing without a cause, outside of time and space, besides the fact that infinite regress of causes is impossible)
3. Omnipresent, omniscient and immaterial (Creating and transcending space, not limited by it or created matter, since He created it)
4. Changeless (Change depends on physical being)
5. Timeless (Without physical events, there can be no time, and time had a beginning)
6. Personal (The impersonal can’t create personality, and only a personal, free agent can cause a change from a changeless state)
7. Enormously Powerful (Bringing the entire universe, space-time and matter into existence)
8. Necessary, absolutely independent and self-existent (As everything else is dependent on Him, He would not depend on a higher causal agency to exist otherwise there would be infinite regress of cause which is impossible)
9. Infinite and singular (As you cannot have two infinities)
10. Diverse yet has unity (As all multiplicity implies a prior singularity)
11. Supreme Intelligence (Created everything in special language, complexity, factories and machines)
12. Purposeful (Deliberately created everything with goals in mind)

An agent endowed with free will can have a determination in a timeless dimension to operate causally at a (first) moment of time and thereby to produce a temporally first effect

From a Biblical perspective we find these same attributes in the Christian God…

Genesis 1:1

In the beginning God…

The Bible always assumes, and never argues, God’s existence

• Genesis is God’s eyewitness account of the beginning, given to Moses (Exodus 31:18, 34:1-2, 34:27-28, Psalm 111:1-4, Isaiah 42:5-9).
• God is necessary (Genesis 1:1)
• God is supernatural in nature (Acts 17:24-25)
• God is immaterial (John 4:24)
• God is uncaused, beginningless, timeless and eternal (1 Timothy 1:17; Revelation 1:8)
• God existed before the beginning of time (Colossians 1:17)
• God existed at the beginning of time (John 1:1-2)
• God is enormously powerful (Genesis 17:1)
• God is absolutely independent and self-existent (Isaiah 46:9)
• God is omnipresent (everywhere present) and omniscient (all-knowing with supreme intelligence), not constrained by time/space (Psalm 139:7-12; 147:4-5; Proverbs 15:3; Jeremiah 23:24; 32:17)
• God is the Creator of all things (Genesis 1:1-2; John 1:1-3; Colossians 1:16)
• God is eternal and unchangeable (Psalm 9:7; 1 Timothy 1:17; Malachi 3:6; Hebrews 13:8
• God is the sustainer of everything (Colossians 1:17; Hebrews 1:3)
• God is all-understanding (Psalm 147:5)
• God’s wisdom is without limit and His understanding is complete (Psalm 147:5; 1 John 3:20)
• God knows the beginning from the end (Isaiah 42:9)
• God is One, yet He exists in three persons (Matthew 3:16-17)
• God is personal (John 4:24, 1 Thessalonians 5:18, Isaiah 25:1, Isaiah 63:7, Psalm 78:1, 1 Chronicles 16:8, Micah 4:12, Job 29:4, 2 Corinthians 13:14)
• God is merciful, graceful and full of love (John 3:16; 1 John 4:7-12)
• God is purposeful (entirety of Scripture)

In the beginning God…

No one created God. To ask, ” who created God?” is a category error. It is like asking, what does the color blue smell like? Or, what does the sound of a trumpet look like? Or, what does a circle taste like?

• The Creator of a thing does not fall under, and is not held to, the rules of the thing He created
• God exists outside and inside His created time-space continuum and although everything we know to exist had a beginning God has always existed—He must
• God is the uncaused, first cause of all things and there must be a first uncaused cause for anything to exist
• The Creator would have to be, by definition, an uncaused causer

Something cannot come from nothing, being cannot come from non-being, life cannot come from non-life, and intelligence (a mind) cannot come from non-intelligence

The Bible describes God as the Creator who is all-knowing, all-powerful, all-holy, all-righteous, everywhere present; He is perfect in justice, full of truth and mercy, complete in love and grace! The Christian God fits the first cause definition and that is the God I serve!

From a philosophical and scientific perspective, evidence for the existence of God is overwhelming based on facts and inferences from the following categories:

1. Philosophy
2. Cosmology
3. Teleology
4. Moral law

Philosophical Argument for the existence of God

1. Anselm’s Ontological Argument:

“God is a being of which nothing greater can be thought. This is a greatness, not in size or space, but in perfection—perfection of intelligence, power, truth, love, and all that makes perfection is found within this being.”

Therefore, if you try to describe God in human terms then He must be greater than what you can describe.

Short version:

1. God is the greatest thing you can think of.
2. It is greater to exist in reality than merely in thought.
3. So if God existed only in thought, then you could think of something greater than God—namely, God existing in reality, not just in thought (by definition of 1 and 2).
4. But you can’t think of anything greater than God (by definition of 1).
5. So God can’t exist only in thought, but must exist in reality too (by definition of 3 and 4).

2.  The Kalam Cosmological Argument

1. An infinite number of days has no beginning and no end, but today is an end day of history (history being a collection of all days)
2. There were not an infinite number of days before today (i.e. time had a beginning), for example, count forward—will you ever get to the last number? Count backward (negative numbers)—will you ever get to the beginning?
3. Therefore, life’s history had to have a beginning

“The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them. Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.”  

Psalm 19:1-4

Cosmological Argument for the existence of God 

Premise #1:  Whatever begins to exist must have a cause – all effects must have a cause.

*Premise #2:  The Universe began to exist: All that we see in the universe, the second law of thermodynamics and the explosive beginning known as the big bang are evidence of effects requiring a cause.

Premise #3:  Therefore, the Universe has a cause – evidence of an effect implies a cause, therefore there must be a causer.

*We must provide evidence for premise #2 for #3 to be true. 

Cosmological Evidence:

1. The second law of thermodynamics (the law of entropy)

“In a closed system the amount of useful energy is moving toward zero, or in other words it is being used up. A closed system is where no matter or energy can come in from the outside. Within this system you have energy in it, entropy, and over time it is being used up.”

Relating this law to our Universe scientific evidence shows that the Universe is winding down, energy is being lost and stars are cooling. Like a hot cup of coffee, it is not going to remain static. The inference: If something is coming to an end, it must have had a beginning.

“In the beginning you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment. Like clothing you will change them and they will be discarded. But you remain the same, and your years will never end.”  

Psalm 102:25-27

2. The Theory of Relativity

In 1905 Albert Einstein unintentionally proved that the Universe was expanding as he proposed the theory of relativity (he thought he had made a calculation error).

In 1920 Edwin Hubble and his studies confirmed Einstein’s theory and showed that there was an expansion going on in the Universe and the movement of the galaxies was away from the earth. This is confirmed based on measurements of Red Shift, Background Radiation and Background Noise.

3. The Big Bang

Definition: The sudden and immediate expansion resulting from an explosive beginning.

“That there are what I or anyone would call supernatural forces at work is now, I think, a scientifically proven fact.”

Robert Jastrow, Astronomer and Director of Mount Wilson, Founder of NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies

“If the universe is continually expanding, then at earlier points in history, it must have been smaller and smaller. This literally represents the origin of the universe from nothing.”  

Dr. William Lane Craig, Christian Philosopher, Theologian and Apologist

This is what God the LORD says – he who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spreads out the earth and all that comes out of it, who gives breath to its people, and life to those who walk on it…

Isaiah 42:5

Genesis 1:1

The Bible right away grounds the scientific argument for the existence of God. If God is the Creator of all things then it would only make sense that His first act would institute the things we use to measure scientific evidence in our world today:

In the beginning God…

According to the laws of Physics and Chemistry, everything that we know to exist has the following properties: Time—force—energy—space—matter

Genesis 1:1 gives us these same properties when it describes God’s act of creation:

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

In the beginning = time

God = force

Created = energy

The heavens = space

and the earth = matter 

“Oh LORD, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens. From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praises because of your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger. When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place. What is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You made him ruler over the works of your hands; you put everything under his feet: all flocks and herds, and the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, all that swim the paths of the sea. O LORD, our lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!”  

Psalm 8

Going Deeper

Watch this amazing documentary called “God of Wonders” to reflect on all that God has done in His creative abilities:

Reflection

1. Write out and memorize two examples of Biblical evidence for the existence of God:
2. What is the Cosmological argument for the existence of God (three premises)? In your own words, give two supporting examples.
3. PTRs: Prayer focus God’s creation of the Universe

Bible Study

Each week we will do a Bible study in the book of Genesis to practice our Bible study skills. This week read or re-read Genesis Chapter One, then, to the best of your ability, answer the following questions:

Always remember to pray before reading and studying Scripture.

1. The Biblical story begins with familiar words: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). Describe what God’s actions in chapter 1 reveal about His character (list some of the attributes you see in God). Cross-reference by reading Psalms 8, 19 and 104 for further emphasis on God’s supreme creativity, character and attributes.
2. List each of the days of creation and what God made in each one, or you can put it in a chart form (Genesis 1:2-31). Do you see any pattern or plan in God’s process of creating?
3. How did God describe His creation at the end of the sixth day and why do you think that His description is important to know and understand (1:31)?

Join us next week as we continue our Case for Creation and A Study in Genesis – Session #2: The Nature of God and A Study in Genesis, Part 2 – The Teleological and Moral Law Arguments