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Is there any good reason to believe
by
Code 2 Life Team
Answer:
The three most common worldview positions that deal with the existence of God are atheism, agnosticism, and theism. Atheism holds the position that ‘God does not exist.’ One of the most serious philosophical problems with atheism is that it is logically impossible to prove atheism. The reason for this is that atheism makes a “universal negative” claim. (God does NOT exist) Now think about this for a moment. How can this claim possibly be proven?
Consider this example to help you understand the philosophical dilemma atheism faces. If someone were to say that “kawaka” was NOT a Chinese word, then how much Chinese would they have to know? They would have to know every word, every dialect, and every newly created word in the Chinese language to know for certain that “kawaka” is NOT a Chinese word.
In other words, to make a universal negative statement, one must have all knowledge within that domain to be certain. However, to say that ‘amigo’ is a Spanish word does not require absolute fluency in Spanish. How much Spanish does a person have to know to know that ‘amigo’ is a Spanish word? They just have to know ONE word. In other words, to make a positive claim about something, you only need partial knowledge.
So, take the question of whether God exists or not. In order to say that God does not exist would require absolute total knowledge which no one has. Ironically, if someone did have absolute total knowledge, that would make them God which would contradict their own claim that God does not exist. Therefore, atheism is logically impossible.
Someone may choose to live as if there is not good enough evidence for God, but this will never prove atheism since all knowledge is impossible.
Now agnosticism is the position that states that ‘God may or may not exist, there just is not enough evidence either way to persuade someone.’ In other words, God may exist or God may not exist. Ultimately I do not know. I cannot be sure either way. This is all that anyone can ultimately be who claims to not believe in God. They have to always leave the logical possibility that God in fact does exist since they do not have all knowledge to know for certain that He does not.
So it’s very important that people understand that at most, they can claim agnosticism, but they can never prove atheism since it is logically impossible to prove.
Finally, theism is the belief that God does exist. Remember, in order to prove that something is true or most likely true, one only needs to accumulate enough evidence to make the claim more reasonable than the claim that there is no good evidence to believe in God. Though there are dozens of reasons that could be given for the existence of God, we will focus on two.
The first is the argument that there must have been a first cause and the second is the argument that there must have been an intelligent designer who is the source of all the information and complexity in the world. Let’s begin with the first cause argument. Let me begin by using a math example to help us understand a very important concept about why a beginning to the universe is required. We will be operating under the premise that the following argument is sound and valid.
1) Whatever begins to exist has a cause;
2) The universe began to exist;
3) Therefore, the universe had a cause
If I were to ask you to begin with the number one and count to infinity, you could certainly begin the process and approach infinity, but you could never get there because of the nature of infinity.
However, if I were to ask you to begin at negative infinity and count to ten, you could not even begin the process. The reason is because in order to START counting, you have to have a beginning point. Negative infinity however is not a beginning point, it is without beginning, so the counting process could not even start. In order to start counting, you have to have a beginning point to start from.
Now think about our universe for just a moment. If the universe has been here forever (instead of God), then that would mean there have been an infinite number of past moments of time. That would seem to make sense if the universe has gone on in the past forever and ever right? Forever and ever equals an infinite number of past moments of time.
But we already said that it is impossible to start from negative infinity and move forward because there is no real beginning point. But we are here today at this very moment in time. So how did we get here? We got here only because there was a point where time began. The Bible amazingly agrees with this in the very first verse, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”
Not only do we have a wonderful mathematical example to prove that the universe and time began, but science has gotten on board and affirmed this fact as well. Astronomers and astrophysicists have demonstrated with overwhelming evidence that the universe has not always existed. The Law of Entropy essentially states that all energy moves from a state of order towards disorder and that over time things run out of heat and reach a heat death.
If the universe had been around forever, it would have clearly already run out of energy but it is far from that. Scientists have observed the galaxies all around rapidly expanding outwards along with a uniform amount of radiation throughout space showing that there was clearly some sort of explosion that burst the galaxies and ultimately the universe in an outward expansion.
All of these facts clearly show that the universe burst into existence out of nothing and into a powerful expanding force. Therefore, if the universe has not always been here, then it suddenly pops into existence through a powerful explosion of energy that continues to expand outwardly, the only explanation that seems to make good sense is that something outside the universe was the cause and the source of it. This cause we call God since this cause is not bound by time, it is powerful enough to create all the energy in the universe, and the cause must be eternal otherwise it would require a cause as well.
God cannot have a cause because we would then fall back into the infinite regression trap. At some point, the first cause must be uncaused (eternal).
The other powerful argument that supports the existence of God is the argument from design. Basically it states that the world/universe exhibits features that can only be explained in terms of intelligence. Think about it like this. Every event in this world can be explained by one of three functions. Things either happen through random functions, or things happen because of natural/physical laws, or things happen because of intelligent causes (ie. Human beings).
Think about a tree in the Fall with thousands of leaves on it that are falling to the ground. If you saw hundreds of leaves spread all over the ground below the tree, then which of those three functions would you say explains the scattered arrangement of those leaves? You would be correct if you said it was a RANDOM function. However, what if all of the leaves were blown to the West side of the tree and there happened to be a wind from the East blowing towards the West. Which function would you appeal to then? Again, you would be correct to appeal to the natural/physical law function since the arrangement of the leaves on the West side of the tree is best explained by a natural law (the wind blew them that direction.) Now, what if you looked below the tree and you saw that the leaves on the ground spelled the words “Have a nice day.” Which function would you then appeal to explain that arrangement? You would not think that they randomly fell in that arrangement. You would not even think that the wind or any natural law caused the leaves to be arranged that way.
You would immediately know that SOMEONE organized the leaves in that arrangement because the spelling of the leaves exhibits a feature that only a function of intelligence could explain.
All of this has been said to illustrate the argument from design. When one looks at the information content of DNA for instance, it is virtually impossible to think that some random function or some natural law produced the enormous complexity and information content of the genetic code. The only explanation for the genetic blueprint of all living things is INTELLIGENCE. But it cannot be human intelligence since humans are made up of this genetic code. It must be some super intelligence that exists outside the natural world since nothing in the natural world can explain it. Whatever caused the origin of information through the genetic blueprint must be a being of enormous intelligence and power.
Once again, this evidence speaks undeniably of the God of the Bible who created the ‘heavens and the earth and all the creatures that lie within.’
It is God alone who can explain the beginning of the universe, the beginning of time, the enormous amount of complexity and information that exists at the genetic level among all living things. These things did not occur randomly nor is there any natural law that is known that can account for these marvelous facts of our world. The only explanation that makes sense of all of it is the existence of an all-powerful, all-knowing, and good Creator that we call God.
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