Chapter 1. 5
The Case for God
Logic & Reason for an un-moved Mover
Christianity,
if false, is on no importance
and
if true, of infinite importance
The
Only thing it cannot be is moderately important. C.S. Lewis
First
Word
What
if I told you that you were born an ATHEIST; an unbeliever in
God? Well you were. In fact we were all
born DEAD
to spiritual things [1]. We do not possess on our own, the ability to
seek such things. Things of God are
spiritually discerned and to understand them, our dead spirit has to be made
alive. (Born again) The Spiritual attributes of God are clearly
perceived in nature IF we choose to see them; so if no one had ever
told us about God, we would still be without excuse.[2]
We are destroyed because we choose to reject His knowledge that is right
before our very eyes [3].
There is No
God
If there is no God, our
life is fundamentally no different from that of a dog. We both have breath and are made from dust
and both of us will return to dust. If
Life ends in the grave and there is no goal or purpose, then it is all
pointless. Man has no advantage over a
dog or any other creature on earth. If
God is dead; so is man; there is no immortality.
There are no moral standards of
right and wrong, there are no principals that govern our behavior, no one that
can tell us that what we are doing is right or wrong; good or evil.
All things are permitted,
extermination of the Jews; cutting the heads off Christians. Rape, Abortions, Homosexuality, Rioting,
Looting, Killing and Destroying property; all are permitted; there is no right
or wrong, no good nor evil.
There are no restraints;
no rewards for goodness, no punishment for evil, you can do just as you
wish. Values just do not exist without God. There is no goal nor purpose; at the end of
life’s trail is a grave with outstretched arms; then nothing. There is no hereafter.
a) Man is a freak of nature, a lump of slime
that evolved in a silent mindless universe
b) A blind product of matter plus time plus
pure chance.
c) A victim of genetic and environmental
roulette.
d) The result of combinations of hereditary
osmosis,
What
seems like turmoil to a fly caught in a web is just normal for a spider. Cancer kills people, doctors kill
Cancer. It’s all just a matter of
perspective. I’M
GOOD; YOU’RE GOOD -
We are an electro-chemical
DNA propagating machine
that is controlled by MINDLESS genes. (Richard Dawkins
Atheist)
Human beings Have NO better advantage than any other animal;[4]
all of which have no obligations to each other; we all have the “Herd”
Mentality that is just struggling to survive.
The
Universe is a gigantic Closed Time Machine with gears, pulleys and
springs and there is nothing outside of it. The Big Bang wound
it up like a big clock and set it running with the laws of nature never to be
touched again.
Nothing can happen contrary to the laws of
Nature; at the bottom there is no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing
but pointless indifference. (Richard Dawkins Atheist)
Our life is the result of a chain of
accidents which when fully carried out will eventually result in man becoming
extinct either by Freezing to death or Burning up. There is nothing to keep the earth in
balance. Life is just a CRAP SHOOT.
Since
God does not exist; there is no reward for good, nor is there punishment
for evil, there is no immortality, life will just ceases to exist; so EAT, DRINK and
be MERRY while you are
here;
BECAUSE
THIS IS ALL THERE IS.
The
Human Predicament - an enigma
We now have
two things going on with THE HUMAN PREDICAMENT.
1) The misery of man without God is knowing that
he is limited to a small space in a vast universe for a brief period of time, a
mere passing shadow; a spark of light in the darkness, that reduces to a
flicker and then goes out. He does not know why he is here and has no purpose and
the only “absolute” is a destination of death, the certainty of becoming a
non-being forever. Higher education,
hard work, friendships and acts of compassion make NO difference, it is all
utterly meaningless. Without “absolutes” of something other than death and
the grave, man’s efforts degenerate into absurdity; the force that coughed him
up will swallow him. Man is adrift in a boat without a rudder on an
endless sea. It makes no difference if
he ever existed or not; IT’S ALL JUST
VANITY.[5]
2) The happiness of man with God is knowing that
God created him with purpose and there is life after death for eternity living
with God. Man is capable of knowing God, but has an
element of corruption that makes him unworthy to know God. Man is blessed with REASONING, so that he is
capable of KNOWING OF HIS PREDICAMENT and has hope.
Man reasons; how can a
loving God exist when the world is filled with so much evil and suffering.
a)
The NEGATIVE reaction is
that this shows that there is NO God.
b)
The POSITIVE reaction is
that innocent suffering perfects one’s character and brings one closer to God.
Where did
God come from?
IF there is a cosmic
designer, who designed the designer?
The Designer of the Universe is an UN-MOVED MOVER that is un-caused, beginning-less, space-less,
timeless, changeless, all-powerful, all-knowing, omnipresent and PURPOSEFUL.
He is an eternal being therefore He CANNOT exist from a cause.
Astronauts
visiting another planet finding some machinery, would conclude that their
find was a product of design even though they did not know who designed it or
how it got there. Through REASON they would NOT need to be able to explain the designer
in order to reach their conclusion. We can observe creation today and reason
its design without explaining how the Creator that designed and made it come to
exist.
Why does anything exist? What caused the first un-caused cause? Matter, time, space, and energy all came into
being at the BIG
BANG, nothing existed before that. If you embrace this concept, then you must
embrace the “LOGICAL
CONCLUSION” also, that
nothing happens without a cause, so an UN-MOVED
MOVER designed it to
happen for a purpose. It is
possible that an Eternal Cosmic Force; an UN-MOVED
MOVER exists and with that possibility, it would
exist in some possible world. If this Force could exist in some possible
world, then it could exist in an actual world. If the UN-MOVED MOVER can exist in an actual world then THE UN-MOVED MOVER MUST EXIST.
Most
philosophers agree that IF IT IS
POSSIBLE for God to exist,
THEN HE DOES EXIST.
Circular
reference
As
a Christian, I want to prove that there is a God by using the Bible, but to
the Atheist the Bible is not proof, it’s only a religious book of what someone
else believes to be true. Belief in a
God must come from rational REASONING that results in absolutes. We cannot say that God wrote the Bible and the Bible says
that there is a God;
that’s just circular reasoning. That is
as meaningless as a square circle or a married bachelor.
There
are three reasons something exist; it was of a physical necessity or it happened by chance or it was the result of design.
A
GOOD ARGUMENT for design is to note the fact that the Universe
is very fine-tuned and is kept meticulously in balance. I have noticed when Scientist and thinkers of
physics come up with an equation on how things work, they are always “fine tuning”
the equations with something they call the “G” factor to take care of the “variations” we have in life. Without it, life would be rendered
impossible. I call their “G” factor; GOD.
Evidence Vacuum
Faith; in order to be Faith
must exist in an “Evidential Vacuum”, it must be believed wholly
apart from evidence. WOW; that’s a hard statement; God made man in His
own image and gave him a mind to REASON therefore believing without evidence would
be “irrational”.
It’s
not enough to KNOW
that there is a God by the self-authenticating witness of the Holy Spirit, but
we must be able to SHOW that there is a God by presenting valid
reasonable arguments. A valid honest
question must not be shut down with the words to “Just have faith and Believe”.
We
are designed to REASON; so we are able to believe in the
existence of a God if the circumstances present themselves to us as such.
Let’s REASON together
If
you do not believe that there CAN be a God, then you will not be able to
understand spiritual things. Faith
prepares a man to REASON[6] which in turn prepares him for understanding
which leads to knowledge.
You will reject knowledge unless its
foundation is supported by faith. Truths
of Faith cannot be demonstrated by REASON alone, but
must be supported by conclusions of absolute.
Circular
Reasoning must be avoided; we can’t only point to the PAST
writers of the
Bible, but we must also REASON by what is of the PRESENT to make our case. How
do we know that the miracles and fulfilled prophecies in the Bible actually
took place? Revealed Truths cannot
contradict REASON; therefore REASON should be given priority even over
matters of Faith. What is revealed in
scripture should not contradict REASON.
The God Idea is
something that transcends all human thought, reasoning and logic; He is wholly
something else. We have no natural
knowledge of God except that which was revealed in the person of Jesus Christ.
This personal encounter was INITIATED by God Himself and without it, man cannot
take the “Leap
of Faith” to believe that there is a God[7].
God’s Plumbing
As
a small child, I asked my dad about volcanos and what caused them. Learning about the fire deep within the
earth, I asked why somebody didn’t just put the fire out. Dad said we needed the fire to be able to
exist. He said all our sewerage was
carried off by streams down to the sea; and from the sea the water filtered
down into the earth where it was drawn in by the fire and turned to steam;
purified, it forced its way back up to the mountain tops where it flowed back
down in streams for us to use again as pure, clean, cool water. He called it GOD’S
PLUMBING…
It’s possible that this all came about by
chance in a mindless universe and there is no design or creator at all,
although as far as we know this plumbing does not exist anywhere else in the
universe.
Noah’s Ark was sealed inside and out with reeds and “bitumen”,
a TAR substance like pitch[8];
a readily available natural crude petroleum product which BUBBLED UP out
of the earth. It happened for Moses to
seal his basket too. Did this Petroleum PIPELINE deep
within the earth happen just by chance or is it there by intelligent design?
A Little LOGIC
Anything that comes to exist must have had a cause. Anything that is in motion is being moved by
something else. If nothing existed in
the beginning and out of nothing came something, there must have been a cause. There must be a “first cause” for anything that comes
to exist. With that said; there must be
a MOVER that is UN-MOVED by anything else; THE UN-MOVED MOVER. God
is an Un-Caused Devine, intelligent, eternal, living being who ordered the
primordial chaos into a rational cosmos in order to fulfill HIS PURPOSE.
If
you found a watch on the ground, you would not think it came there by
chance of molecular fusions, but would believe it was created. As the second hand moves around in the watch,
you would conclude that something is making it move. If you opened it up and saw all the gears you
would conclude it had Design and Purpose; you would also conclude
that the absence of any one of the components in it would cause the watch to
cease to have a purpose. Why would you
reason this?
The
Law of Human Nature thinks that UNFAIR behavior is just plain wrong. Why is that? Meaningful moral behavior requires PURPOSE and WILL; where does this Standard of decent behavior and Right and Wrong come
from? There must be some sort of an
agreement of what right and wrong is that is beyond ordinary facts.[9]
If
someone stuffs a T-bone steak down his shirt in Walmart and doesn’t pay for
it; for some reason we think that it is wrong.
Why is
that? If God does NOT
exist, then moral values do not exist, but moral values do exist, THEREFORE GOD MUST EXIST.
The
Book says the laws are written upon our hearts; accusing us or excusing us[10]. If there is no God, then the universe has NO
explanation of its existence. If there IS an
explanation THEN THERE MUST
BE A GOD. Whatever begins to exist has a cause; the
universe began to exist, so it had a cause. Nothing can suddenly exist, uncaused out of
nothing. So, it is plausible and reasonable to assume
as a TRUTH, the principal that EVERYTHING THAT EXIST HAS A CAUSE.
The Domino
Effect
The Law or CAUSE and EFFECT is a constant; it does not change.
Have
you ever stacked a bunch of dominoes in such a way that when you topple the
first one over, it hits the next one and the rest “one by one” topple
over? They all have stored energy, but
they will STAND MOTIONLESS FOREVER unless the first one is flipped. We can see the effects of one domino causing
another to fall; we get that… But what caused the first one to fall? It MUST be something on the outside or
something external that caused it to fall. NOTHING HAPPENS
WITHOUT A CAUSE.
We can say that all the things that make up our universe have always
been present, but
WHAT flipped the
first domino to make our world re-configure?
What caused the matter that is in YOU to re-configure and make you? For every effect, there is a first cause. At
some point there must be something that does not move; there must be an UN-MOVED MOVER that starts it all; I CALL IT GOD.
If there was nothing and out of nothing
came something WITHOUT CAUSE, how could that logically be? If that can be; then why doesn’t ANYTHING and just EVERYTHING come from nothing?
The Universe
began to exist;
THEREFORE THE UNIVERSE HAD A CAUSE.
Drink the Cool Aid
Do
you remember Jim Jones and his cult that drank the COOL AID that killed them
all? If there were TWO Cool Aids, one RED and the other BLUE and you were
forced to drink one or the other of them; which one would you choose?
The BLUE Cool Aid will let you LIVE
FOREVER in a meaningless NON-PURPOSEFUL UNENDING
LIFE, believing whatever
you want to believe; not knowing any truth, your mind blinded to reasoning,
your senses numb giving you the world view that you desire.
The RED Cool Aid will KILL YOU and TAKE YOU OUT of the
meaningless NON-PURPOSEFUL LIFE and you will CEASE TO EXIST FOREVER.
Which
one would you chose? You cannot
change your mind. LIVE forever a
non-purposeful life which makes no difference to anyone including yourself, or DIE and cease to
exist avoiding all the calamity and problems that life brings for eternity.
Both are a curse. LIFE WITHOUT GOD
HAS NO PURPOSE.
History is written by
whoever wins the war
Today
in Politics, e-mails are deleted in order TO
BRING ABOUT A DIFFERENT PAST. History becomes a series of lies that
everyone has agreed upon. Historical
events are no longer available for direct access inspection, so the past cannot
be objectively directly established. After
the event is gone, historical facts become no more than memories of the mind.
We cannot reconstruct the past because we
are NOT neutral observers; we tend to color it.
Ad hoc in science and philosophy
means the
addition of extraneous hypotheses to
a theory to save it from being falsified.
Ad hoc can also mean makeshift solutions, shifting contexts to create new meanings. Wikipedia
So, in your face; POLITICS AND RELIGION
CAN BOTH BE AD HOC. Selah
No Evidence
There has to be a beginning
and a first cause; this is the Un-moved Mover; GOD. If you know something, you need to know that
you know it by justifying the evidence at hand. As with a Jury, an indictment is NOT
handed down based beyond ALL doubt, but beyond REASONABLE doubt.
IS IT REASONABLE THAT GOD COULD EXIST?
·
There
is GENERAL Knowledge of God that is obtained by observing
nature and the heavens, these facts speak for themselves.
·
There
is SPECIFIC Knowledge of God that is given to an
individual through the in-filling of the Holy Spirit.
·
Truths
of Faith are above reason and cannot be directly proven, but are proven
indirectly by indisputable historical facts of prophecies and miracles found in
the Bible. Christians believe in God
without having any evidence of His existence and this just drives the Atheist crazy;
for them there must be REASONING. Through
the work of the Holy Spirit[11]
we are convicted of our sins and this allows His word to become written on our
hearts.[12]
When
we receive the Word of God,
we are not an abstract disinterested observer, we can only CHOOSE
to obey or not obey.
God says blessed are those
who have NOT seen and yet have believed.[13]
The
Take Away
If
there is NO
God, then the universe
has no explanation of its existence. If
there IS
an explanation then THERE MUST BE A
GOD.
We
can observe creation today and REASON THAT
IT WAS DESIGNED without
explaining how the Creator who designed and made it to come to exist.
Meaningful moral behavior requires PURPOSE
and WILL;
where does this Standard of decent behavior and Right and Wrong come from? If God
does NOT
exist, then moral values do not exist, but moral values do exist, THEREFORE GOD MUST EXIST.
We are designed to REASON; so that we are able to
believe in God’s existence as the circumstances present themselves as such to
us. Most philosophers today agree that IF it is
possible for God to exist, THEN GOD DOES
EXIST.
At some point there must be something that
does not move; there must be an UNMOVED
MOVER that starts it all; I
CALL THIS UN-MOVED MOVER; GOD.
I encourage you to obtain for your
reference library a copy of
“REASONABLE FAITH” by William Lane Craig.
[1] Ephesians 2:1-2 – You are dead in your sins -- Colossians 2:13 – God made
us who were dead; alive
[2] Romans 1:20 – We are without excuse
[3] Romans 5:17 – Because of Adam’s sin, we are doomed to die -- Hosea 4:6 - We
are destroyed because we rejected the knowledge of God that could save us.
[4] Ecclesiastes 3:19-20 – Man dies; so does a dog – No advantage
[5] Ecclesiastes 1:2 – Without God All is just vanity
[6] Isaiah 1:18 - Come now, let us reason together
[7] Isaiah 7:9 – If you do not believe, then you will not understand
[8] Genesis 6:14 – Noah’s ark was sealed with Pitch; Tar -- Exodus 2:3 –
Moses’ basket was sealed with Pitch; Tar
[9] Romans 2:14 – Atheist do by nature what the law requires; WHY
[10] Romans 2:15 – God’s Laws
are written in our hearts – accusing or excusing
[11] John 16:12-13 – The Holy
Spirit guides us into all basic truths
[12] 2 Corinthians 3:2 – God is written on our hearts
[13] John 20:29 – Blessed are those who believe but have not seen
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