The atheist declares, “There is no God!” With just as much passion, the theist
affirms, “God is!” The agnostic says, “I don’t know if God is real, but
probably not.” Two of these would consider the atheist overly confident, two
would claim the theist is delusional, and two would say the agnostic is
noncommittal. Either God is, or he is not. There is no middle ground.
The problem is, we cannot see, hear, smell, taste,
or touch God. Sensory perception is limited to the physical world, and God, who
is outside the material realm, is beyond the reach of our physical senses. How,
then, can we know anything about God and whether or not he even exists?
How do we know anything about anything?
There are basically three ways of attaining knowledge: (a) personal observation
and experience; (b) inferences drawn from observation and experience (inductive
reasoning); and (c) the testimony of others. For example, how do I know it’s raining? (a) I observe or experience
the rain with sensory perception; (b) I infer it’s raining when a soaking wet
person enters my office building from outside; and/or (c) someone tells me it’s
raining.
Now it’s possible that (a) I’m
dreaming, and the rain isn’t real; or (b) I misinterpret how the person outside
my office building got drenched; or (c) someone lies to me about the rain.
Nevertheless, under normal circumstances, most of us are sensible enough to (a)
distinguish between dreams and reality; (b) figure out how a person outside an
office building gets wet, especially when multiple persons consistently enter
the building in the same condition; and (c) discern whether or not someone is
telling the truth, particularly when he/she proves to be a reliable source and
numerous others give the same report.
It’s not faith versus science …
The physical universe is something we can all observe, so how is it to be
explained? There are four possibilities: (1) it is just an illusion and doesn’t
really exist; (2) it spontaneously arose out of nothing; (3) it has always
existed; or (4) it was created by a force beyond and superior to itself.
Atheistic naturalism, as opposed to
theistic supernaturalism, begins with impersonal, mindless matter that either
came into existence from nothing or is eternal. Life is believed to be a freak
accident of nature, governed by nothing and going nowhere. The adamant claim is
that outside the natural world, nothing exists. When astronomer Carl Sagan boldly announced,
“the Cosmos is all there is or was or ever will be,”1 did anyone
notice he was making a faith claim? All
of these assertions are based on unprovable presuppositions. None can be verified
by scientific
experimentation or observation. Each must
be taken on faith. If the issue were merely faith versus science, there should
be no scientists who believe in God (yet there are!), and there should be no
atheists who stake their claims on faith (yet they do!). Atheistic naturalism (or
materialism) requires a great deal of faith, beginning with the faith claim
that nature is all there is.
Here’s what we know from observation and experience …
Thermodynamics is the study of matter and energy. The First Law of Thermodynamics affirms that the total amount of energy in the universe is constant. While usable energy is regularly converted into unusable energy, the sum total of all energy remains the same. The Second Law affirms that the universe is running out of usable energy and is heading toward disorder. This implies that the universe has not always existed; it had a beginning. Like a mechanical clock running down, there must have been a time in the distant past when everything was new, when all energy was available for use, when the clock was fully wound up.
In the late 1920s modern cosmology was born at Mount Wilson Observatory when astronomer Edwin Hubble, using the newly constructed 2.5 meter (100-inch) Hooker Telescope, confirmed Albert Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity and proved the universe is expanding as distant galaxies are moving outward. If the universe is expanding, it can be traced in reverse to a single point in time when the expansion began. Atheists call it “the Big Bang,” while theists call it “Creation.”
Within the natural world as we know it,
something does not come from nothing. The physical universe is something. It
exists. It’s real. Physical matter does not create itself or simply appear out
of nothingness. If we start with impersonal, mindless matter, perhaps a cloud of interstellar gas,
or a subatomic particle, or a sea of primordial slime – wait a minute – where
did that come from? Rather than offering a reasonable explanation, our
anti-theistic friends usually retort, “Okay, so where did God come from?”2
Excursus:
Who or what caused God? If one argues that God is the ultimate cause of the
universe, where did God come from? The bottom line is, the evidence points to a
source of the natural world beyond nature itself. It was at the beginning of
the cosmos that time, space, matter, and finite energy all came into being. The
ultimate cause of the physical world is thus outside of time (eternal), outside
of space (omnipresent), outside of matter (immaterial), and outside of finite
energy (omnipotent). The God of the Bible is beyond
time, space, matter, and finite energy, without
beginning or end (Eccl. 3:11; Psa. 93:2; Prov. 8:23; Rev. 1:8). The God
of the Bible is the infinite, independent, supernatural primal cause of the
finite, dependent, natural world (Gen. 1:1).
Conclusion
We all have access to
the same evidence, yet we are reaching different conclusions. How should the
evidence be interpreted? Both theists and atheists make faith claims, so which
is more reasonable? Science is limited to
what can be seen, observed, and tested, and a one-time event that occurred in
the distant past is beyond the reach of observational and experimental
scientific investigation. In our next post, we will take the next step in our
investigative journey and consider what we can know through inductive
reasoning as we try to make sense of what we observe.
--Kevin L. Moore
Endnotes:
1 Carl Sagan, Cosmos
(New York: Random House, 1980): 4. In the opening pages of the book, the Associated Press describes
the author as “the most brilliant scientist of our times.” Sagan, who co-wrote the PBS television series “Cosmos”
with his wife Ann Duryan in 1981, stated: “I am not an atheist. An atheist is
someone who has compelling evidence that there is no Judeo-Christian-Islamic
God.” Sagan died 20th December 1996 at the age of 62.
2 Carl Sagan
compared the question of the universe’s origin to the question of God’s origin,
reasoning that if God is said to be eternal, why couldn’t the cosmos be
eternal? <Link>. For an excellent
response to this question, see Dr. Kent
Hovind’s reply to Reinhold Schlieter, <Link>.
Works Consulted:
Geisler, Norman L. and Frank Turek. I
Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2004.
Parr, Richard. “Big Questions of Life: Is
there a God?,” HubPages (23 Oct. 2015), <Link>.
---. “Big Questions of Life: Relating with God,” HubPages (8 April
2014),
<Link>.
Stokes,
Mitch. How to Be an Atheist: Why Many Skeptics Aren’t Skeptical Enough.
Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2016.
Image credit: http://i.huffpost.com/gen/2146764/thumbs/o-OLD-MAN-CONFUSED-570.jpg?6
No comments:
Post a Comment