A Cosmological Argument...

Ok, this is something I learned many years ago while listening to a Dr. Walter Martin tape in my father's Land Cruiser. I think it has stayed with me throughout all my subsequent learning because, though it is not the ultimate proof for God's existence, it is simple, to the point, and vastly intriguing.

The Statement is as follows:

"If anything now exists, then either something is eternal, or something must have come from nothing."

If you break down this statement, you come up with four possibilities for the origin of the universe:

1. The universe is illusory. This induction assumes the premise of the above statement is negative. This philosophy (known as Solipsism), instantly falls into trouble when a person suffering from the hallucinations has conversation with another person, demonstrating the fact that we share the reality we live in.
   
2. The universe is eternal and is the product of chance. This looks fine on paper - in fact thousands of people believe this is the fact - but is has one key fault: the second law of thermodynamics. "It is impossible by any continuous self-sustaining process for heat to be transferred from a colder to a hotter body" (Handbook of Chemistry and Physics). In laymen terms, things are getting colder. In fact, the whole universe is cooling. It is expanding and cooling off. Our own sun is not quite as hot as it was—even in our own planet, we are running out of fossil fuels. Modern scientists do not debate the fact. But what does this mean? One day, many trillions of years from now, the universe will reach absolute zero and cease to exist. We do not live in an eternal universe, but a finite one.
3. The Universe spontaneously arose from nothing. One variation of the Big Bang theory, it concludes that the universe popped into existence out of sheer probability (or lack thereof). However, the 1st Principal of Physics simply states: From nothing, nothing comes (Handbook of Chemistry and Physics). So how could the entirety of space and time suddenly come from a complete lack of anything? It couldn't! But, the secularist says, surely it could all have come from just two eternal, non-caused hydrogen atoms that happened to collide. I tell you the truth, it would take more faith to believe two atoms hug in the absence of anything for an immeasurable amount of time until they just popped out the universe than it would to believe an intelligent being created it with design.
4. The universe was created by design and is therefore finite. Keeping our original statement in mind, we must acknowledge that the universe is not an illusion, it is not infinite, and it could not have created itself. Therefore, we are forced to the position that something trancsending it in all scopes and power, caused it. Due to the laws and reason we witness in our universe dayly, we see that the initial cause must be rational. We will call this initial cause God.

And so, cosmology brings us to God. In subsequent blogs, I bring us closer to the Biblical revelation and why it is true. Many consider Christianity and all other religions as of like substance. After studying many religious docrine, teaching, and sources, I cannot hold this view.

Thanks, as always, for reading. I look forward to your comments,

Cheers

Mountains of Ignorance

“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, astronomer

I found this quote while reading What's so great about Christianity By Dinese D'Souza and I have to say it struck me. Yes it is mildly humerous, but the depth and meaning behind the statement is what I want to talk about. It says a few things about modern science and societies view of it.

First off, I love the phrase "...his faith in the power of reason..." because it sums up my point of view on modern secularism. In the news, we are bombarded with statements like the war between faith and reason or Science versus Faith, but none of these truly embody the conflict. It is a war between ideologies. One faith opposed to another. The secular faith in reason and chance; the religious faith in reason and revelation.

The point is that it takes faith to believe that the world will be here tomorrow — that we live within an ordered system of laws keeping this lump of rock from falling into a 27,000,000 *F furnace only 93,000,000 miles away! Scientists believe that they can study and measure nature because they have faith that it is understandable. And yet, modern secular theories state that all has happened by chance — by a chaotic roll of the dice. Studying our universe has told us quite the opposite.

The crux or "punch-line" of the quote is when the scientist pulls himself over the last rock to find a bunch of theologians who had been there for centuries. Jastrow, being an astronomer, is likely referring to recent discoveries about the origin of the universe. For the large part of the 20th century, scientists have believed in some form of the steady state theory. The basic premis was that the universe is in flux. It has neither a beginning nor an end. The theory presented secularists with an option that did not include God. Its problem? In 1965, scientists discovered "background radiation" pointing, inextricably, to a beginning to the universe.

Now, the Big Bang theory and its variants have become the standard cosmological theory. But what does it mean that the universe had a beginning? We know from the laws of phisics from nothing, nothing comes. So what about the beginning of time and space? It had to have come from something transending itself and it could not have created itself as nothing can be the cause of itself. What, then?

Back to the the scientist and the theologians. What Robert Jastrow is rather deftly saying is that modern secularist, defying "crude religious beliefs" in favor of rationality, has proven what Christians have believed for centuries. A bow to science for bringing us one step closer to the true revelation of God.

Cheers

My New Blog

Well here I am, doing what I thought was impossible. I used to chuckle candidly while listening to national public radio as people on Fresh Air talked about "this new blog craze sweeping America". Everyone seemed to be doing it. Sure, I've read my fair share of other peoples blogs and I would not be honest if I didn't admit that half those people had nothing to say whatsoever. And maybe that is precisely the driving force for me not starting a blog... until now that is.

Was it the fear of finally sitting down and writing my thoughts only to discover that no one actually gave a damn? No, that's not me. I've never really cared what people think. Even if I was the last man alive, I would find a way to pick an argument with a rock and get it to agree with me. So why am I starting one now? No clue, but it seems like a good idea so what the heck.

Alright, where was I? Oh yeah, my new blog. I am a writer (yeah, I know like everyone in America is too). No I am not published yet, but that certainly is the ultimate goal. If you read my blog enough, you will undoubtedly discover that I am a Christian (AHH!). It has been my passion since high school to learn everything there is to know about philosophy, theology and history. Not there yet, but this journey has been fascinating from the start.

Last summer, I went to school in Strasbourg, France at the International Academy of Apologetics, Evangelism, and Human Rights under Dr. John Warwick Montgomery. It was here, that my vocation in life became clear. But this is a story for another time. However since then, I have been working on my first novel which, like C.S. Lewis' Narnian Chronicles and J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, attempts to portray Biblical truths through metaphor, allegory, and myth. Now wait, you are probably thinking "What?! Did he just compare himself to Tolkien?" The short answer is no. I am not extraordinarily brilliant nor have I invented my own language. It is my only hope that my works could somehow pay homage to his.

And so you have it. My first blog post. And one could even argue that I have become that which I so earnestly poked fun at: another American spilling his heart out... and not saying a single, damn thing.

Cheers