January 11, 2009 am
A
STUDY OF GOD
Today we begin an ongoing study
throughout this year on God.
I believe that this is an important subject that perhaps we don’t think
about enough. When asked if
God exists, we just admit that He does by faith.
But can you prove it?
Beyond that, having proven that God does exist – who is He?
With the multitudes of religions in the world today there is NOT
unity on that subject. So,
WHO is God? And having
established that the God of the Bible is THE Supreme Being, what do we
know about Him? Do we know
Him? Do we know what He
expects of us? How can we
please Him?
In this ongoing
study, we are going to answer these questions and many more as we strive
to learn about our creator? Thus far, I intend to address the following
topics:
1.
Does God Exist?
2.
Is the God of the Bible the ONE True God?
3.
The Bible IS the word of God
4.
Characteristics of God in the Bible: His person -
He is
eternal, omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient, Spirit, etc.
His
character – loving, merciful, gracious, jealous, just, compassionate,
longsuffering, faithful, righteous, severe, good, etc.
5.
The glory of God
6.
The names of God
7.
The influence of God in the Bible & our lives (miracles, providence,
etc.)
8.
What is our response to God? We are to love Him, show Him reverence,
obey Him, worship Him, tell others about Him, put Him first, etc.
9.
Questions about God – why does He allow suffering? Will He really
condemn some to hell? Why does evil exist?
10.
The Godhead – Jesus and the Holy Spirit as God
In our lesson today
we want to answer the question,
Does God exist?
If you were to hear someone say, “There is no God” how would you
answer them? In our lesson
today we are going to notice some ways that we can argue to prove that
God does exist. This lesson
is by no means exhaustive.
This is just a sampling of arguments that can be made.
In this lesson, when
appropriate we WILL appeal to scriptures, however our goal is to be able
to prove to one who does not believe the Bible that God does exist.
Until we can do this, opening a Bible is useless, and indeed,
“casting your pearl before swine.”
So let us notice some arguments that can be made to prove that
God does exist.
I.
Scientific
Arguments
a.
When did
the world begin? Is matter eternal?
i.
Most
atheists believe that there is no beginning to matter.
They argue that matter is eternal.
ii.
Genesis
1:1 is the answer of the Christian.
This verse shows that there was a BEGINNING to the natural
universe. Hebrews 11:3 shows
that this is a statement of faith.
This of course hinges upon the belief that there is a divine
being behind the creation.
iii.
Laws of
science also verify that the material universe had a beginning.
1) Science has proven that the
universe is expanding each and every day. There are many
different galaxies in the universe and each day they are growing further
apart. Because this has been
shown to happen consistently (in fact it has been discovered that these
galaxies are actually accelerating in their expansion), if we were to
move backward in time, we would eventually reach a point where all these
galaxies were united together.
Science calls this a singularity.
But what happened before that?
If matter is eternal, something had to be there.
And science cannot compensate for that time.
2)
Laws of energy also call for the
need for a beginning.
There are three known laws of thermodynamics (Thermodynamics actually
means heat power and deals with absolute laws about energy).
The 1st law of
thermodynamics states that matter/energy cannot be created or
destroyed. It can change
form, but it is still there.
The 2nd law of
thermodynamics is also known as the law of increased entropy.
What it notes is that while energy is never destroyed, the
quality of that energy/matter gradually deteriorates over time.
That is, usable energy is converted into unusable energy. The
challenge of these laws lies in the question:
If matter & energy are eternal, why has not ALL usable energy/matter
already been converted into unusable energy?
For example, it is proven that the sun is continually loosing energy.
The sun is a star that, like all other stars, generates its
energy through thermonuclear fusion.
Every second, “the sun compresses 564 million tons of hydrogen into 560 million tons of
helium with 4 million tons of matter released as energy” (that is 4
million tons converted into unusable energy – TT).
This process is ever so slowly consuming energy (hydrogen – and
converting it into helium).
The same process is true of every one of the innumerable stars in the
cosmos. The question is:
If that much
hydrogen is being consumed
and this has been going on
eternally, then why have we not run out of hydrogen?
There has to have been a FINITE amount of hydrogen, (if matter is
eternal) but why has it not all been consumed?
What happens when you keep driving your car without putting gas
in it?
http://www.doesgodexist.org/Pamphlets/Mansproof.html
iv.
The fact
that there is a beginning is sometimes called,
“The first cause argument”
which basically says that because of these and other scientific facts,
someone had to create and start the universe.
Science DEMANDS it!
And if there is a beginning, then matter is NOT eternal and
therefore CREATED by a divine being!
v.
In dealing with the 2nd
law of Thermodynamics on the website,
www.allaboutscience.org
, a website devoted to the proof that God does exist we find the
following quote from a book entitled, God and the Astronomers,
1978, p. 16, “The theological implications are obvious. NASA Astronomer
Robert Jastrow commented on these implications when he said,
"Theologians generally are delighted with the proof that the universe
had a beginning, but astronomers are curiously upset. It turns out that
the scientist behaves the way the rest of us do when our beliefs are in
conflict with the evidence."
“Jastrow went on to say, "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." (God and the
Astronomers, p. 116.) It seems the Cosmic Egg that was the birth of
our universe logically requires a Cosmic Chicken...”
http://www.allaboutscience.org/second-law-of-thermodynamics.htm
b.
Design
demands a designer
i.
Have you
ever ridden in a car? Do you watch a television or listen to a radio? Do
you own a Bible? Have you ever turned on a switch as you entered a room
and it lit up? Do you own a
watch so that you can tell time?
Do you have a computer? We could go on with multitudes of
questions like this. What do
they all have in common? They would not exist if someone did not design
them. We KNOW that for a
fact.
ii.
The story
is told that Sir Isaac Newton who was an adamant believer in God once
had a series of discussions with an atheist about the existence of God.
After several failed attempts to change his friend’s mind, he
went to a carpentry shop and had the owner build him a to scale model of
the universe with great detail.
The next time his friend came to his house, he saw the model on
the center of a table.
Admiring it, the friend asked, WHO made it.
Newton’s answered that no one made it.
It just appeared. The
friend refused to believe it so Newton finally explained why he did what
he did. Design DEMANDED a
designer (via, apologetics press).
iii.
Our
universe is no different.
The universe is very orderly in so many different ways.
In fact, science relies on order
and consistency of natural law to learn and formulate factual
conclusions.
iv.
When we
consider the complexity of the various elements of this earth, we see
order. When we look at the
human body we see order.
When we look at the universe, we see order.
In every other area of study
order means there is design behind it, e.g. archaeology, forensics,
copyright & patent laws, etc.
Why is the universe any different?
v.
Psalm
139:14 says, “I will praise You,
for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Marvelous are your works, and that my soul knows very well.”
Have you ever considered how complex the various systems of the human
body are? The nervous
system, respiratory system, circulatory system, reproductive system,
etc, all work together to make the human body.
That many details would be impossible without a designer.
vi.
Consider
the placement and complexity of our earth.
The size of the earth is just
right. If it were larger or
smaller, it could not support our atmosphere which is necessary for
life. If it were any closer
to or further away from the sun, the earth would be too cold or hot.
The earth is tilted at the right angle, rotating at the right
speed, circulating around the sun at the right speed, etc.
And the moon is in just the
right to circulate our water and restrain their boundaries.
http://www.everystudent.com/features/isthere.html
All of these things make life possible and show a Creator/designer
behind our existence.
c.
Life does
NOT come from inorganic matter
i.
Science
has made tremendous advancements in the last 100 years or so.
They have developed microscopes
and telescopes that can magnify the smallest and farthest away objects.
They have determined the makeup of cells and determined how most
processes work. But with
all science can do, one thing it has NEVER been able to do - create life
from inorganic matter.
Further it cannot find nor prove that it ever happened.
Like everything else, they have their theories.
I read in an article entitled, “How did life begin” from the science
section of the New York times (online).
The article begins, “The origin of life is biology’s most
daunting problem.” “Some
progress is being made at reconstructing the process that led to the
first living cells. But it
consists of conjectures of varying plausibility, not proof.”
The article proceeds to describe that it was probably the result
of “a natural chemical reaction that repeated itself.”
But in the end, there is no conclusive answer.
In fact the article concludes by saying, “Researchers are a long
way from reconstructing any plausible path to the origin of life.
But they have not given up.
And they always conclude, no matter how fragmentary their
evidence, that life is possible.”
(www.nytimes.com/2003/11/11/science...)
There are serious problems even with this theory.
1.
Where did the chemicals and
inorganic matter come from?
2.
How did that simple life form
develop into more complex forms?
3.
The
extremely high improbability of all the various processes happening that
would be necessary to create even the simplest of life forms.
Mathematics disproves the possibility of life as we know it on
earth.
To create even a simple life form by chance (the simplest of life forms
have at least 400 amino acids, each with at least 4 chemical elements)
ranges in the area of 1 in 10167636 power, or 10 with 167,636
zeros behind it.
http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/rtg/rtg-evid/rtgevd01.txt
That is like a tornado going through a junkyard and when it leaves; it
has created a working car.
And even then, you still have to explain where the materials in
the junk yard came from in the first place.
ii.
Here’s a
“theory”. Life was created
by a divine being that is greater than all natural matter.
He is all powerful and eternal. The fact that there is life on
this planet (even intelligent life in man) shows that there had to be
some supernatural force at work to create us.
As the Bible says, “Then
God said, ‘Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb, …” (Gen. 1:11,
20, 24, etc)
iii.
Because of
the inability of science to even remotely create the smallest matter of
life, it calls for its origin from some other source.
That argues greatly in favor of the existence of God.
d.
Many other
thoughts and arguments could be added to these. When you honestly look
at the processes of this world, the unexplained things point toward the
necessity of a creator – God.
As Paul said in Romans 1:20, “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.”
Psalm 33:6-9, “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made…”