In earlier blogs, I am discussing the question of God's existence and that it is possible to know that God does exist and even to know God. I also asked such questions as:
If such a being exists, can we know? (Yes)
How can we know? (Logic demands it– Necessary Being)
Has this God communicated to us in any way?
Did this Being leave any signs or hints that it exists, like a painter signing his art? (Yes)
Has this Being interacted with us-- or anyone at all ---in any way?
We may also ask questions such as, “If such a being exists, is it good?
Is it benevolent towards lesser creatures or pay any attention at all?
Does this God set things in motion and then move onto something else, leaving us to our own decisions? Can we get its attention and perhaps win awards or favors? Or the opposite? That is, incur God's disfavor or wrath?
I suggest that you read the series in order and that you should start here:
In the last blog, we came to the conclusion that “God” must exist based on the need for a first cause that is a self-existent, eternal Necessary Being. This is a logical necessity.
You can read that here:
What if God really exists- Part 4 - Necessary Being
Some may challenge the concept and say things such as:
What about the Big Bang theory or other theories of origin?
Could not matter and/or energy be eternal instead of assuming “God”?
First, let me say, I am not a scientist. However, a rudimentary understanding of science and logic are all that is needed to proceed. Lets look at the Big Bang theory. According to the theory, all matter and energy was compressed into a point of singularity that exploded billions of years ago. The latest adjustment to this theory now says that it must be “inflation” instead of a “bang,” but still millions of years ago and still the same basic concept.1 What both of these distinctions of the theory are not able to answer is: What caused it to explode (or change) 13.8 million years ago (or whenever is the latest guess)? How did it and everything else come to exist originally? Something must be eternal and self-existent (able to exist in and of itself) that caused all to happen and come into being. Any other origins theory would have the same dilemma. Stephen Hawking claims nothing existed before. He then goes onto state this “nothing” was actually “something” that moves in a time that can be imaged as more circular rather than linear and is basically eternal.2 Hawking believes this without any evidence whatsoever, yet Christians are criticized for what we believe with much reason and evidence.
What about the foundation of all material - matter and energy? Could matter/energy possibly be eternal? One of the problems with this is that matter is constantly changing. The laws of motion says an object at rest will remain at rest and an object in motion will remain in motion unless acted upon by an outside force.3 So the question is, how did it get started? Where and when will it stop? Did it have a beginning and will it end or will it forever move? The law of thermodynamics tells else that us that matter and energy cannot be destroyed but move towards equilibrium and that the entire universe is moving towards entropy.4 This implies it will not go on forever in a sustaining way. The universe is governed by laws of physics which give limits to its changes and actions. If something is always in a state of change, especially if these changes are caused forces outside of its own entity, then it cannot be existent of itself (self-existent). To overcome these problems, other ideas like multi-verses are theorized, but they have the same dilemmas. You will not find the answers to the universe by only looking in the 'box'. You need to look outside of the universe to find the Author.
Another problem with such theories that try to get rid of God through theories of origin is they cannot adequately answer the origins of other facets of the universe such as: the laws of logic, the existence of life, and concepts of such things as love, good, and evil (universal morality). Can a material universe explain these concepts? I know that scientists claim that all these things came from the material universe. That is, life was sparked from the matter and energy and evolved in more and more complexity. Living being then invented such things as love, morality, logic. However, these things seem to part of the created order and not something that man invented. The idea of life is still a mystery to most. Scientists cannot replicate it or truly explain it. Morality seems to be universal and beyond the material existence. Same with the laws of logic, which laws we have been assuming as I write these blogs. Logic is a law of the universe that goes beyond the earth, and is not man made. 5
These concepts imply an intelligent, eternal creator and not a materialistic origin of all things. The Necessary First Cause could not have been a big bang or an big inflation or just the eternal changing of matter and energy. God alone is the only possible eternal, self-existent, necessary being. So the next discussion will be what we can know of God.
“For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For His invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.”
-Romans 8:19-20 (ESV)
1Surprise: the Big Bang isn’t the beginning of the universe anymore, Big Think; October 2021 It is interesting that the article admits to being ignorant of origins, yet still says it must have happened based solely on 'faith'. “Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, we can no longer speak with any sort of knowledge or confidence as to how — or even whether — the universe itself began. By the very nature of inflation, it wipes out any information that came before the final few moments: where it ended and gave rise to our hot Big Bang. Inflation could have gone on for an eternity, it could have been preceded by some other nonsingular phase, or it could have been preceded by a phase that did emerge from a singularity. Until the day comes where we discover how to extract more information from the universe than presently seems possible, we have no choice but to face our ignorance.”
2Before The Big Bang: Stephen Hawking Says Nothing Existed At Singularity; International Business Times; 3/4/2018 Hawking has only pure speculation. “...he says anything that existed before the beginning of the universe as we know it has no role at all to play in everything that came after, and can therefore be completely left out of any theories we formulate to explain our observations. This is because he believes the universe at the moment of Big Bang was a singularity, a time when “all the laws of physics would have broken down. This means that the state of the universe, after the Big Bang, will not depend on anything that may have happened before, because the deterministic laws that govern the universe will break down in the Big Bang. The universe will evolve from the Big Bang, completely independently of what it was like before.”
4Khan Academy, The Laws of Thermodynamics; Khan Academy
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