Download Unlocking the Knowledge of God: Evidence for His Existence

“Say What?” Series:
Is there a God?
Bill Akright
B.S. Mathematics
M.S. Industrial Engineering
Can God’s Existence be Proved?
 Proof is a rather subjective commodity.
 God’s existence cannot be proved in a
mathematical or scientific sense.
 Instead we should ask if belief in God’s
existence is reasonable.
Life Without God?
 Each of us will one day grow old, die, and
our bodies disintegrate. What then?
 If the moral and the immoral eventually
come to the same end, what does it matter
how we live our lives?
Life Without God?
“No species, ours included, possesses a
purpose beyond the imperatives created by its
genetic history…we have no particular place
to go.”
E. O. Wilson
Life Without God?
“There are only three types of people; those who
have found God and serve him; those who have not
found God and seek him, and those who live not
seeking, or finding him. The first are rational and
happy; the second unhappy and rational, and the
third foolish and unhappy.”
Blaise Pascal
Evidence for God
 The Cosmological Argument
 The Teleological Argument
 The Moral Argument
Cosmological Argument: Why Is
There Something Rather than
Nothing?
 The universe had a beginning.
 Anything that had a beginning must have
been caused by something else.
 Therefore the universe was caused by
something else (a Creator).
Cosmology’s Big Bang
“Horrendous space kablooie”
Calvin
“The universe began as a ‘particle’ that
was infinitely dense and occupied no
space.”
Cosmology’s Big Bang
 Something must be eternal
 The material universe had a beginning and,
therefore, is not eternal
 Something immaterial, spiritual, or
supernatural MUST be eternal
Reactions
“Philosophically, the notion of a beginning is
repugnant to me. . . . I should like to find a genuine
loophole.” “We [must] allow evolution an infinite
time to get started.”
Sir Arthur Eddington
“It is simpler to postulate creation ex nihilo- divine
will constituting nature out of nothingness.”
Edmund Whitaker
“For the scientist who has lived by his
faith in the power of reason, the story
ends like a bad dream. He has scaled
the mountains of ignorance; he is
about to conquer the highest peak; as
he pulls himself over the final rock, he
is greeted by a band of theologians
who have been sitting there for
centuries.”
Robert Jastrow
Teleological Argument: Is the
Universe and Life Designed?
Is the Universe and Life
Designed?
“I think that the most impressive arguments for
God’s existence are those that are supported by
recent scientific discoveries…I think the argument to
Intelligent Design is enormously stronger than it was
when I first met it.”
Anthony Flew
Anthony Flew - legendary British philosopher and atheist and has
been an
icon and champion for unbelievers for decades. His change of mind
is
significant news, not only about his personal journey, but also about
the
A “Just Right” Universe
51 Fine-tuned Parameters to our Galaxy, Solar
System, and Planet
 Distance from the sun
 Size, temperature, & type of sun
 Size, axial tilt, rotation speed, moon, &
composition of earth
 Stability of Jupiter and Saturn
– Jupiter acts as a comet and asteroid magnet shielding earth from
catastrophic collisions.
A “Just Right” Universe
 Our sun is located between spiral
arms of the Milky Way Galaxy
– Fewer stars
• less harmful radiation and disruptive gravity
– Less gas and dust
• we can see the rest of the galaxy and
universe
 Probability that just one planet in the
Universe is suitable for life?
– 10 -166 x 10 22 = 1 in 10 144
• 1 in 10 166 - Probability of all 123 fine-tuned
“Universal” parameters occurring by chance
• 10 22 - Upper limit for planets in the
universe
A “Just Right” Universe
 1 in 10161
– The probability of a single protein molecule being
arranged by chance using all atoms on earth and
allowing all the time since the world began.
 1 in 10119,879
– Probability for a minimum set of the required 239
protein molecules for the smallest theoretical life.
 10119,879 Years
– Average time it would take to get a set of such proteins.
Dr. James Coppedge
A “Just Right” Universe
“If we need an atheist for a debate, I go to
the philosophy department. The physics
department isn’t much use.”
Robert Griffiths
A “Just Right” Universe
“As we survey all the evidence, the thought
insistently arises that some supernatural
agency - or rather Agency - must be
involved. Is it possible that suddenly,
without intending to, we have stumbled
upon scientific proof of the existence of a
Supreme Being?”
George Greenstein
Irreducible Complexity
 Mike Behe introduced the concept of irreducible
complexity in his book, Darwin’s Black Box.
 Something is irreducibly complex if it is
composed of two or more necessary parts.
– Remove one part and function is not just impaired but
destroyed.
 A mousetrap is irreducibly complex.
Darwin’s Black Box
 Behe showed that the cell,
Darwin’s Black Box, is
filled with irreducibly
complex molecular
machines that could not be
built by natural selection.
 Over 100 molecular
motors are now known to
exist inside the cell with
very specific analogies to
human designed motors.
Cellular High-Tech Factory
 Artificial languages and decoding
 Central memory banks
 Precision control of automatic assembly
 Proofreading and quality control
 Prefabrication and modular construction
 Complete replication system
 10-3 times smaller than our best computers
“It seems to me that Richard Dawkins constantly
overlooks the fact that Darwin himself, in the
fourteenth chapter of The Origin of Species, pointed
out that his whole argument began with a being
which already possessed reproductive powers. This
is the creature the evolution of which a truly
comprehensive theory of evolution must give some
account. Darwin himself was well aware that he had
not produced such an account. It now seems to me
that the findings of more than fifty years of DNA
research have provided materials for a new and
enormously powerful argument to design.”
Anthony Flew
The Moral Argument: Is There a
Law Written on Our Hearts?
 Moral laws imply a Moral Law Giver.
 There is an objective moral law.
 Therefore, there is a Moral Law Giver
Moral Laws Imply a Moral
Lawgiver
 Moral Laws are different from natural laws.
 Moral laws describe what ought to be not
what is.
“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.”
C. S. Lewis –Mere Christianity
There Is an Objective Moral Law
“If no set of moral ideas were truer or better than any other,
there would be no sense in preferring civilized morality to
savage morality, or Christian morality to Nazi morality. In
fact, of course, we all do believe that some moralities are
better than others. . . . The moment you say that one set of
moral ideas can be better than another, you are, in fact,
measuring them both by a standard . . . comparing them both
with some Real Morality, admitting that there is such a thing
as a real right, independent of what people think, and that
some people’s ideas get nearer to that real Right than
others.”
C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
There is an Objective Moral Law
 Was September 11th wrong? For all people
and all time?
 But if there is such a universal, objective
moral law, then there must be a Moral Law
Giver.
Summary
 Life without God is absurd.
 The universe requires a sufficient Cause.
 The design of the universe and living things
implies a designer.
 Our universal sense of right and wrong
implies a Law Giver.
 Therefore belief in God is reasonable.
A God Who Has Made Himself
Known
“I am very much impressed with physicist
Gerald
Schroeder’s comments on Genesis. That this
biblical
account might be scientifically accurate raises
the
possibility that it is revelation.”
Anthony Flew
A God Who Has Made Himself
Known in Creation
“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. For even
though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but
they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was
darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged
the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible
man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures.
Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so
that their bodies would be dishonored among them. For they exchanged
the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather
than the Creator, who is blessed forever. ”
Romans 1:20-25
A God Who Has Made Himself
Known through Scripture
“Therefore many other signs Jesus also performed
in the presence of the disciples, which are not
written in this book; but these have been written so
that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son
of God; and that believing you may have life in His
name.”
John 20:31-32
A God Who Has Made Himself
Known in the Person of Jesus
“In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the
prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last
days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir
of all things, and through whom he made the universe. The
Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact
representation of his being, sustaining all things by his
powerful word.”
Hebrews 1:1-3
A God Who Has Made Himself
Known
“There is a God shaped vacuum in the heart of every man
which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God,
the Creator, made known through Jesus.”
Blaise Pascal
“Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My
voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine
with him, and he with Me.”
Revelation 3:20
“Say What?” Series:
Is there a God?
Further questions…contact:
Bill Akright
Email: [email protected]
Website: http://www.bethanycentral.org/resources/
For a copy of this presentation, click on “Apologetics
Resources” folder and select “Evidence for God”.