The Case for a Creator (5)
Scott Bayles, pastor
Blooming Grove Christian Church: 5/5/2013
In his book Growing Strong in the Seasons of Life, Charles Swindoll tells a story about the 19th century agnostic Thomas Huxley, who was sometimes called “Darwin’s Bulldog” because of the ferocious way he promoted Darwinism and attacked Christianity.
One day Huxley was in Dublin and was rushing to catch a train. He climbed aboard one of Dublin’s famous horse drawn taxis and shouted to the driver, “Hurry, I’m late. Drive fast.” Off they went at a furious pace as Huxley sat back in his seat and riffled through some of his papers. After a while Huxley glanced out the carriage notice that they were going in the wrong direction. Realizing that he hadn’t told the driver where to take him he called out “Do you know where you’re going?” The driver replied, “No, your honor, but I am driving very fast.”
That’s just where a life without God will take you—the wrong direction very fast. And yet, as I’ve mentioned several times over the last few weeks, studies show that atheism and agnosticism are on the rise here in America and all around the world. This culture-shift is due in no small part to outspoken atheists like Richard Dawkins and his book The God Delusion and Christopher Hitchens and his best-seller God is Not Good: How Religion Poisons Everything.
In a world where best-selling books peddle atheism, where many university professors seem bent on destroying the beliefs of young Christians, and where the media often portrays believers as ignorant, bigoted, villainous hypocrites, it’s increasingly important for all of us to be able to able to articulate the reasons why our faith makes sense! In fact, God expects nothing less of us. The Bible says, “Always be ready to give a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you. However, do this with gentleness and respect” (1 Peter 3:15-16 HCSB).
Maybe you have a friend or family member that thinks science has proven there is no God. Or maybe there’s a co-worker who is always challenging or making fun or your faith. Or maybe you’re skeptical about God’s existence yourself. Maybe you’ve got some doubts of your own that creep in from time to time and you’ve been afraid to admit it. That’s why I’ve spent the last five week laying out the case for a Creator and equipping you with five good reasons to believe in God. I’ve asked you to think of these as a series of lights. And if you or someone you know is skeptical about God’s existence, then these five lights should light the path to personal faith in God.
1. The Light of Cosmology
Cosmology, as you may know, is the study of the cosmos or universe. And modern cosmology can now say with certainty that our universe had a beginning. In 2003, three leading cosmologists, Arvin Borde, Alan Guth, and Alexander Vilenkin, were able to prove that any universe which has, on average, been expanding throughout its history cannot be infinite in the past but must have a past space-time boundary. Vilenkin has been blunt about the implications: “It is said that an argument is what convinces reasonable men and a proof is what it takes to convince even an unreasonable man. With the proof now in place, cosmologists can no longer hide behind the possibility of a past-eternal universe. There is no escape, they have to face the problem of a cosmic beginning.” We also know that if the universe had a beginning, it must have a Cause. Like the Bible says, “Every house is built by someone, but the builder of everything is God himself” (Hebrews 3:4 NCV). Houses don’t just pop into being by nothing and from nothing; likewise, the universe itself must have a builder.
Since space and time literally came into being at the beginning of the universe—commonly called the Big Bang—then whatever caused the universe to come into existence must transcend space and time. It must be unimaginably powerful since it created all matter and energy in the universe. Finally, it must be a Personal being possessing free will because it chose to create the universe at a specific time in the finite past. Therefore, the light of cosmology reveals a timeless, spaceless, immeasurably powerful, personal Creator.
2. The Light of Creation
The light of Creation demonstrates that there is evidence of design in the natural world. The Bible makes this remarkable claim: “Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made” (Romans 1:20 RSV). From the earliest times, philosophers like Plato and Aristotle, wholly apart from the Bible, have concluded that God must exist, based on what they perceive in the created world.
In other words, when we perceived design in the universe, it demands a Designer. The most powerful and overwhelming evidence of intelligent design is found in the fine-tuning of the universe for the existence of life. The physical constants and quantities that make life possible in the universe are carefully and precisely balanced like a house of cards with a complexity and delicacy that literally defies human comprehension. The probability that the constants and quantities that make life possible in our universe could have been set in place by mere chance is so remote that one physicist compared it to throwing a dart at the other side of the observable universe, twenty billion light-years away, and hitting bull’s-eye on a one-inch target blindfolded and dizzy.
And the fine-tuning of the universe is just one example of design. There are examples all around us and even within us—like the biological information encoded into every cell of your body. Sir Fredrick Hoyle, the English astronomer and mathematician at the Institute of Astronomy at Cambridge who actually coined the term “Big Bang” Theory, once said, “The odds of even the simplest cell forming by chance are like believing that a tornado sweeping through a junkyard could assemble a Boeing 747 from the materials therein.” Therefore, creation itself is evidence of a Creator.
3. The Light of Conscience
The light of conscience argues that if God does not exist, then there is no real difference between right and wrong. In an atheistic worldview, human beings are nothing more than highly evolved primates—the by-product of natural selection acting on random mutations. And our morals are simply a sort of “herd mentality” that evolved from sociobiological conditioning as a means of propagating the species. As Craig Hazen, director of Christian Apologetics at Biola University, asks, “What does it mean to do good in a world that’s really just a gigantic accident of matter and energy? Morality does not apply to random bags of molecules.”
However, our own consciences—our personal moral experience—confirms that some things are objectively good or evil, right or wrong. The Bible puts it this way, “Even Gentiles, who do not have God’s written law, show that they know his law when they instinctively obey it, even without having heard it. They demonstrate that God’s law is written in their hearts, for their own conscience and thoughts either accuse them or tell them they are doing right” (Romans 2:14-15 NLT).
If a moral law exists (if there is a difference between right and wrong), then there must be a moral law-giver, and therefore God exists.
4. The Light of Christ
Jesus Christ is easily the most dominant figure in all history. He came on the scene with an unprecedented sense of divine authority, claiming to be God in human flesh. The supreme confirmation of his claims was his resurrection from the dead. If Jesus really did rise from the dead, then obviously God must exist. This question is central to the Christian faith. Like Paul says, “If Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith” (1 Corinthians 15:4 NIV).
Now most people probably think that the resurrection of Jesus is just something that Christians take on faith, but there are actually four facts recognized by the majority of historians today that are best explained by the resurrection of Jesus. They are: (1) The Execution on the Cross, (2) The Empty Tomb, (3) The Eyewitness Reports, and (4) The Transformative Effects in the lives of disciples and the surrounding culture.
Alternative explanations for these four facts—like Jesus wasn’t really dead or the disciples stole the body—have been universally rejected by contemporary scholarship. The best explanation remains the one given by the original disciples—namely, that God raised Jesus from the dead. This, of course, necessitates that God exists and that Jesus is everything he claimed to be.
5. The Light of Conversion
This isn’t an argument, per say. Rather, it is the claim that you can know that God exists wholly apart from arguments or evidence simply by immediately experiencing him. I think this is the way most people come to be believers.
I’m reminded of Jesus’ words to Thomas, who refused to believe in the resurrection of Jesus until he saw the proof—the nail scarred hands and feet. After appearing to Thomas and providing the proof, Jesus said, “You believe because you have seen me. Blessed are those who believe without seeing me” (John 20:29 NLT). The word translated blessed has the meaning of happy or content. In other words, people who are obsessed with seeking evidence may never feel satisfied. It’s possible that arguments for God’s existence can distract us from God himself. We mustn't so focus on the external proofs that we fail to hear the inner voice of God speaking to our own hearts.
If you are sincerely seeking God, then God will make his existence known to you. He promises that over and over in Scripture. He promised the Israelites, “There you will look for the Lord your God, and if you search for him with all your heart, you will find him” (Deuteronomy 4:29 GNT). Paul preached from Mars Hill, “God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us” (Acts 17:29 NIV). Jesus’ younger brother adds, “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you” (James 4:8 ESV).
Do you see a common thread through these verses? In each one of them, God expects us to search for him—to seek him with all our heart, to reach out for him, to draw near to him—and when we do that he will draw near to us, we will find him we’ll realize that he was right there all along.
I’m convinced that there are far, far better reasons to believe in God than there are not to believe in God—philosophically, scientifically, historically, ethically, experientially, and so on. In light of all the evidence it takes greater faith to be an atheist than it does to be a Christian. But no matter how much evidence you have, no matter how good the arguments are, it still takes a step of faith.
As a sort of last word on the subject, the Bible says, “It is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that God exists and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him” (Hebrews 11:6 NLT).
Conclusion:
Anthony Flew, who was one of the most accomplished atheists of the last half-century, wrote over 30 books and countless essays arguing against the existence of God. However, because of his commitment to “follow the evidence wherever it leads,” the last book he wrote, shortly before his death in 2010, was titled There Is A God: How The World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind.
In the last chapter, he compares our discovery of the laws of nature, the teleological organization of life, and the existence of the universe to a satellite phone washing ashore on a remote island and being discovered by a primitive tribe. The natives play with the numbers on the dial pad and hear different voices upon hitting certain sequences. Upon further study, they realize that the phone is connected to an invisible network that transmits the voices of real people from other parts of the world. Their entire world changes. They know they aren’t alone. They know intelligent beings exist out there. In his closing paragraph he writes:
“The analogy is easy to apply. The discovery of phenomena like the laws of nature—the communications network of the parable—has led scientists, philosophers, and others to accept the existence of an infinitely intelligent Mind. Some claim to have made contact with this Mind. I have not—yet. But who knows what could happen?
“Someday I might hear a Voice that says, ‘Can you hear me now?’”
Invitation:
Maybe you’re in the same place today that Anthony Flew was when he wrote those final words. Maybe you realize that God must exist, that He is “out there,” but you’re still waiting to make contact. I want to encourage you to do what God created you to do—to reach out to him and touch him. He’s not far from any of us. If I can help you to make contact today, please come forward while stand and sing.
