FAITH ON TRIAL – Part 2: Does God exist? Take a look around us …

II. SOME COMPELLING EVIDENCE

A. TAKE A LOOK AROUND US.

1. Causation

Everything that had a beginning has a cause.
The universe had a beginning.
Therefore the universe had a cause.

a. The universe had a beginning.

1) The universe is expanding.

2) The Second Law of Thermodynamics

The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that usable energy in the universe is running down. So, it demonstrates that the universe must have had a beginning (i.e., energy is not constant as in an eternal system).

“Once hydrogen has burned within a star and converted to heavier elements, it can never be restored to its original state. Minute by minute and year by year, as hydrogen is used up in stars, the supply of this element in the universe grows smaller.” Agnostic NASA Astronomer Robert Jastrow, God and the Astronomers

So, if the universe had a beginning it had to have a cause. The cause was either random chance or a supernatural cause.

b. The scientific evidence leads to a supernatural cause.

“According to the Big Bang Theory, the whole matter of the universe began to exist at a particular time in the remote past. A proponent of such a theory, at least if he is an atheist, must believe that the matter of the universe came from nothing by nothing.” Anthony Kenny, an English philosopher, Five Ways

“Astronomers now find they have painted themselves into a corner because they have proven, by their own methods, that the world began abruptly in an act of creation to which you can trace the seeds of every star, every planet, every living thing in this cosmos and on the earth. They have found that all this happened as a product of forces they cannot hope to discover … That there are what I or anyone would call supernatural forces at work is now, I think, a scientifically proven fact.” Robert Jastrow

“In the beginning, there was no time, no matter, not even space. Then in some unfathomable way, a universe emerged from a dimensionless point of pure energy.” U.S. News and World Report, March 26, 1990.

“This theory of an expanding universe emanating from a primordial big bang is the explanation of creation held by nearly all scientists, for it best fits what they can actually observe.” U.S. News and World Report, March 26, 1990

“Now we see how the astronomical evidence leads to a biblical view of the origin of the world. The details differ, but the essential elements in the astronomical and biblical accounts of Genesis are the same: the chain of events leading to man commenced suddenly and sharply at a definite moment in time, in a flash of light and energy.” Robert Jastrow

“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.” Robert Jastrow

“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

2. Design

The existence of God provides the best reason for the complexity in the universe and also in biology. The idea of random chance, the opposite theory, means that everything that came into existence happened by chance. For example, when you see a watch or a computer — did it just pop into existence by random chance or did someone with great intellect design it? It’s the same with the universe and all of life: the design demands a Designer.

a. The complexity of the universe and life demands a Designer.

There are two choices when it comes to the origin of first life: there was either spontaneous generation (no intelligent intervention) or special creation (intelligent intervention). Which one does the scientific evidence support?

Science doesn’t just exist in a naturalistic view of the world. True science means that we observe the evidence, then form a hypothesis from our observations and test the hypothesis to see whether it corresponds to reality. Opinions or presuppositions should not sway our conclusions. If science verifies things beyond the physical laws of the universe, then science could also become a contributor to the discipline of metaphysical thought.

“Life on earth at its most fundamental level, in its most critical components, is the product of intelligent activity.” Michael Behe, Ph.D., Professor of Biochemistry, Darwin’s Black Box

“The conclusion of intelligent design flows naturally from the data itself – not from sacred books or sectarian beliefs. Inferring that biochemical systems were designed by an intelligent agent is a humdrum process that requires no new principles of logic or science.” Michael Behe

“Considering the way the prebiotic soup is referred to in so many discussions of the origin of life as an already established reality, it comes as something of a shock to realize that there is absolutely no positive evidence for its existence.” Michael Denton, a non-religious molecular biologist, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis

“The likelihood of the formation of life from inanimate matter is one to a number with 40,000 zeroes after it …. It is big enough to bury Darwin and the whole theory of Evolution.” Fred Hoyle, scientist, agnostic, Evolution From Space

“The probability of one cell spontaneously forming from a pre-biotic soup as Darwin said would be like a tornado sweeping through a junkyard and a 747 jet would be formed.” Fred Hoyle

b. The fossil record shows no missing link.

“Despite the bright promise that paleontology provides a means of ’seeing’ evolution, it has presented some nasty difficulties for evolutionists, the most notorious of which is the presence of ‘gaps’ in the fossil record. Evolution requires intermediate forms between species and paleontology does not provide them.” David B. Kitts. PhD (Zoology) is Head Curator of the Department of Geology at the Stoval Museum – in an evolutionary trade journal

“All paleontologists know that the fossil record contains precious little in the way of intermediate forms; transitions between major groups [or species] are characteristically abrupt … The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persist as the trade secret of paleontology. The evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of their branches; the rest is inference, however reasonable, not the evidence of fossils.” The late Stephen Jay Gould, Professor of Biology, Geology, and the History of Science, at Harvard University

Even the popular press was catching on. This is from an article in Newsweek magazine:

“The missing link between man and apes, whose absence has comforted religious fundamentalists since the days of Darwin, is merely the most glamorous of a whole hierarchy of phantom creatures … The more scientists have searched for the transitional forms that lie between species, the more they have been frustrated.” Newsweek 11/3/80