A PRACTICAL MAN'S PROOF OF GOD
The existence of God is a subject that has occupied schools of
philosophy and theology for thousands of years. Most of the time,
these debates have revolved around all kinds of assumptions and
definitions. Philosophers will spend a lifetime arguing about the
meaning of a word and never really get there. One is reminded of the
college student who was asked how his philosophy class was going. He
replied that they had not done much because when the teacher tried to
call roll, the kids kept arguing about whether they existed or not.
Most of us who live and work in the real world do not concern
ourselves with such activities. We realize that such discussions may
have value and interest in the academic world, but the stress and
pressure of day-to-day life forces us to deal with a very pragmatic
way of making decisions. If I ask you to prove to me that you have
$2.00, you would show it to me. Even in more abstract things we use
common sense and practical reasoning. If I ask you whether a certain
person is honest or not, you do not flood the air with dissertations
on the relative nature of honesty; you would give me evidence one way
or the other. The techniques of much of the philosophical arguments
that go on would eliminate most of engineering and technology if they
were applied in those fields.
The purpose of this brief study is to offer a logical, practical,
pragmatic proof of the existence of God from a purely scientific
perspective. To do this, we are assuming that we exist, that there is
reality, and that the matter of which we are made is real. If you do
not believe that you exist, you have bigger problems than this study
will entail and you will have to look elsewhere.
THE BEGINNING
If we do exist, there are only two possible explanations as to how our
existence came to be. Either we had a beginning or we did not have a
beginning. The Bible says, "In the beginning God created the heaven
and the earth" (Genesis 1 :1). The atheist has always maintained that
there was no beginning. The idea is that matter has always existed in
the form of either matter or energy; and all that has happened is that
matter has been changed from form to
form, but it has always been. The Humanist Manifesto says, "Matter is
self-existing and not created," and that is a concise statement of the
atheist's belief.
The way we decide whether the atheist is correct or not is to see what
science has discovered about this question. The picture below on the
left represents our part of the cosmos. Each of the disk shaped
objects is a galaxy like our Milky Way. All of these galaxies are
moving relative to each other. Their movement has a very distinct
pattern which causes the distance between the galaxies to get greater
with every passing day. If we had three galaxies located at positions
A, B. and C in the second diagram below, and if they are located as
shown, tomorrow they will be further apart. The triangle they form
will be bigger. The day after tomorrow the triangle will be bigger
yet. We live in an expanding universe that gets bigger and bigger and
bigger with every passing day.
Now let us suppose that we made time run backwards! If we are located
at a certain distance today, then yesterday we were closer together.
The day before that, we were still closer. Ultimately, where must all
the galaxies have been? At a point! At the beginning! At what
scientists call a singularity!
A second proof is seen in the energy sources that fuel the cosmos. The
picture to the right is a picture of the sun. Like all stars, the sun
generates its energy by a nuclear process known as thermonuclear
fusion. Every second that passes, the sun compresses 564 million tons
of hydrogen into 560 million tons of helium with 4 million tons of
matter released as energy. In spite of that tremendous consumption of
fuel, the sun has only used up 2% of the hydrogen it had the day it
came into existence. This incredible furnace is not a process confined
to the sun. Every star in the sky generates its energy in the same
way. Throughout the cosmos there are 25 quintillion stars, each
converting hydrogen into helium, thereby reducing the total amount of
hydrogen in the cosmos. Just think about it! If everywhere in the
cosmos hydrogen is being consumed and if the process has been going on
forever, how much hydrogen should be left?
Suppose I attempt to drive my automobile without putting any more gas
(fuel) into it. As I drive and drive, what is eventually going to
happen? I am going to run out of gas I If the cosmos has been here
forever, we would have run out of hydrogen long ago! The fact is,
however, that the sun still has 98% of its original hydrogen. The fact
is that hydrogen is the most abundant material in the universe!
Everywhere we look in space we can see the hydrogen 21 cm line in the
spectrum_a piece of light only given off by hydrogen. This could not
be unless we had a beginning!
A third scientific proof that the atheist is wrong is seen in the
second law of thermodynamics. In any closed system, things tend to
become disordered. If an automobile is driven for years and years
without repair, for example, it will become so disordered that it
would not run any more. Getting old is simple conformity to the second
law of thermodynamics. In space, things also get old. Astronomers
refer to the aging process as heat death. If the cosmos is "everything
that ever was or is or ever will be," as Dr. Carl Sagan is so fond of
saying, nothing could be added to it to improve its order or repair
it. Even a universe that expands and collapses and expands again
forever would die because it would lose light and heat each time it
expanded and rebounded.
The atheist's assertion that matter/energy is eternal is
scientifically wrong. The biblical assertion that there was a
beginning is scientifically correct.
THE CAUSE
If we know the creation has a beginning, we are faced with another
logical question_was the creation caused or was it not caused? The
Bible states, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."
Not only does the Bible maintain that there was a cause_a creation_but
it also tells us what the cause was. It was God. The atheist tells us
that "matter is self-existing and not created." If matter had a
beginning and yet was uncaused, one must logically maintain that
something would have had to come into existence out of nothing. From
empty space with no force, no matter, no energy, and no intelligence,
matter would have to become existent. Even if this could happen by
some strange new process unknown to science today, there is a logical
problem.
In order for matter to come out of nothing, all of our scientific laws
dealing with the conservation of matter/energy would have to be wrong,
invalidating all of chemistry. All of our laws of conservation of
angular momentum would have to be wrong, invalidating all of physics.
All of our laws of conservation of electric charge would have to be
wrong, invalidating all of electronics and demanding that your TV set
not work!! Your television set may not work, but that is not the
reason! In order to believe matter is uncaused, one has to discard
known laws and principles of science. No reasonable person is going to
do this simply to maintain a personal atheistic position.
The atheist's assertion that matter is eternal is wrong. The atheist's
assertion that the universe is uncaused and selfexisting is also
incorrect The Bible's assertion that there was a beginning which was
caused is supported strongly by the available scientific evidence.
THE DESIGN
If we know that the creation had a beginning and we know that the
beginning was caused, there is one last question for us to
answer--what was the cause? The Bible tells us that God was the cause.
We are further told that the God who did the causing did so with
planning and reason and logic. Romans 1:20 tells us that we can know
God is
"through the things he has made." The atheist, on the other hand, will
try to convince us that we are the product of chance. Julian Huxley
once said:
We are as much a product of blind forces as is the falling of a stone
to earth or the ebb and flow of the tides. We have just happened, and
man was made flesh by a long series of singularly beneficial
accidents.
The subject of design has been one that has been explored in many
different ways. For most of us, simply looking at our newborn child is
enough to rule out chance. Modern-day scientists like Paul Davies and
Frederick Hoyle and others are raising elaborate objections to the use
of chance in explaining natural phenomena. A principle of modern
science has emerged in the 1980s called "the anthropic principle." The
basic thrust of the anthropic principle is that chance is simply not a
valid mechanism to explain the atom or life. If chance is not valid,
we are constrained to reject Huxley's claim and to realize that we are
the product of an intelligent God.
THE NEXT STEP
We have seen a practical proof of God's existence in this brief study.
A flood of questions arise at this point. Which God are we talking
about? Where did God come from? Why did God create us? How did God
create us?
All of these and many more are answered in the same way_by looking at
the evidence in a practical, common sense way. If you are interested
in pursuing these things in more detail, we invite you to contact us.
We have books, audio tapes, video tapes, correspondence courses, and
booklets available and all can be obtained on loan without cost. Just
request our catalog from:
DOES GOD EXIST?
718 E. Donmoyer Ave.
South Bend IN 46614-1999
REFERENCES:
Hoyle, Frederick, The Intelligent Universe, Holt, Rinehart & Winston,
1983.
Humanist Manifesto I and 11, Prometheus Books, 700 East Amherst St.,
Buffalo, NY 14215, 1985.
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