Is belief in God’s existence something that you just accept on faith?

 

 

Actually, you can find evidence for the existence of a Creator in peer-reviewed science journals.

Consider this peer-reviewed article. It appears in a scientific journal focused on astrophysics.

Here’s the abstract:

Both cosmology and philosophy trace their roots to the wonder felt by the ancient Greeks as they contemplated the universe. The ultimate question remains why the universe exists rather than nothing. This question led Leibniz to postulate the existence of a metaphysically necessary being, which he identified as God. Leibniz’s critics, however, disputed this identification, claiming that the space-time universe itself may be the metaphysically necessary being. The discovery during this century that the universe began to exist, however, calls into question the universe’s status as metaphysically necessary, since any necessary being must be eternal in its existence. Although various cosmogonic models claiming to avert the beginning of the universe predicted by the standard model have been and continue to be offered, no model involving an eternal universe has proved as plausible as the standard model. Unless we are to assert that the universe simply sprang into being uncaused out of nothing, we are thus led to Leibniz’s conclusion. Several objections to inferring a supernatural cause of the origin of the universe are considered and found to be unsound.

The whole article is posted online here.

Here’s an excerpt in which Craig explains the Big Bang cosmology:

The monumental significance of the Friedman-Lemaitre model lay in its historization of the universe. As one commentator has remarked, up to this time the idea of the expansion of the universe “was absolutely beyond comprehension. Throughout all of human history the universe was regarded as fixed and immutable and the idea that it might actually be changing was inconceivable.”{8} But if the Friedman-Lemaitre model were correct, the universe could no longer be adequately treated as a static entity existing, in effect, timelessly. Rather the universe has a history, and time will not be matter of indifference for our investigation of the cosmos. In 1929 Edwin Hubble’s measurements of the red-shift in the optical spectra of light from distant galaxies,{9} which was taken to indicate a universal recessional motion of the light sources in the line of sight, provided a dramatic verification of the Friedman-Lemaitre model. Incredibly, what Hubble had discovered was the isotropic expansion of the universe predicted by Friedman and Lemaitre. It marked a veritable turning point in the history of science. “Of all the great predictions that science has ever made over the centuries,” exclaims John Wheeler, “was there ever one greater than this, to predict, and predict correctly, and predict against all expectation a phenomenon so fantastic as the expansion of the universe?”{10}

As a GTR-based theory, the Friedman-Lemaitre model does not describe the expansion of the material content of the universe into a pre-existing, empty, Newtonian space, but rather the expansion of space itself. This has the astonishing implication that as one reverses the expansion and extrapolates back in time, space-time curvature becomes progressively greater until one finally arrives at a singular state at which space-time curvature becomes infinite. This state therefore constitutes an edge or boundary to space-time itself. P. C. W. Davies comments,

An initial cosmological singularity . . . forms a past temporal extremity to the universe. We cannot continue physical reasoning, or even the concept of spacetime, through such an extremity. . . . On this view the big bang represents the creation event; the creation not only of all the matter and energy in the universe, but also of spacetime itself.{11}

The popular expression “Big Bang,” originally a derisive term coined by Fred Hoyle to characterize the beginning of the universe predicted by the Friedman-Lemaitre model, is thus potentially misleading, since the expansion cannot be visualized from the outside (there being no “outside,” just as there is no “before” with respect to the Big Bang).{12}

The standard Big Bang model thus describes a universe which is not eternal in the past, but which came into being a finite time ago. Moreover,–and this deserves underscoring–the origin it posits is an absolute origin ex nihilo. For not only all matter and energy, but space and time themselves come into being at the initial cosmological singularity. As Barrow and Tipler emphasize, “At this singularity, space and time came into existence; literally nothing existed before the singularity, so, if the Universe originated at such a singularity, we would truly have a creation ex nihilo.{13}

[…]On such a model the universe originates ex nihilo in the sense that at the initial singularity it is true that There is no earlier space-time point or it is false that Something existed prior to the singularity.

Now such a conclusion is profoundly disturbing for anyone who ponders it. For the question cannot be suppressed: Why does the universe exist rather than nothing? In light of the universe’s origin ex nihilo, one can no longer dismiss this question with a shrug and a slogan, “The universe is just there and that’s all.” For the universe is not “just there;” rather it came into being. The beginning of the universe discloses that the universe is not, as Hume thought, a necessarily existing being but is contingent in its existence. Philosophers analyzing the concept of necessary existence agree that the essential properties of any necessarily existing entity include its being eternal, uncaused, incorruptible, and indestructible{14}–for otherwise it would be capable of non-existence, which is self-contradictory. Thus, if the universe began to exist, its lacks at least one of the essential properties of necessary existence-eternality. Therefore, the reason for its existence cannot be immanent, but must in some mysterious way be ultra-mundane, or transcendent. Otherwise, one must say that the universe simply sprang into being uncaused out of absolutely nothing, which seems absurd. Sir Arthur Eddington, contemplating the beginning of the universe, opined that the expansion of the universe was so preposterous and incredible that “I feel almost an indignation that anyone should believe in it–except myself.”{15} He finally felt forced to conclude, “The beginning seems to present insuperable difficulties unless we agree to look on it as frankly supernatural.”{16}

I find that most scientists do not reflect philosophically upon the metaphysical implications of their theories. But, in the words of one astrophysical team, “The problem of the origin [of the universe] involves a certain metaphysical aspect which may be either appealing or revolting.”{17}

Every theist should able to understand and defend this argument. It is a scientific refutation of materialism, and it is supported by six lines of scientific evidence – all of which emerged as science has progressed.

Scientific evidence:

  1. Einstein’s theory of general relativity (GTR)
  2. the red-shifting of light from distant galaxies
  3. the cosmic background radiation (which also disproves the oscillating model of the universe)
  4. the second law of thermodynamics applied to star formation theory
  5. hydrogen-helium abundance predictions
  6. radioactive element abundance predictions

Several naturalistic/materialistic cosmologies are refuted in Craig’s peer-reviewed paper, including the steady-state model, oscillating model, the vacuum fluctuation model, the chaotic inflationary model, and the quantum gravity model. These naturalistic (no God) alternatives all have theoretical or observational difficulties. Atheism is at odds with modern cosmology – and the progress of science itself.

This is the kind of evidence I expect all my readers to be using when discussing whether God exists. Scientific evidence. Please do not talk about your testimony, or the Bible, or what your pastor said on Sunday. We need to show that we understand science, because science is a reliable and respected way of getting knowledge about the universe. Science (experimental, testable, repeatable science) should set limits on what we can believe. Leave the wishing and hoping and praying and dreaming to the atheists.

You should definitely print this article out and read it, then send it to your atheistic friends. I have tried this out on atheists, and the response I get is that scientific discoveries will soon emerge that falsifies all of these six scientific discoveries, and the kalam cosmological argument, and will prove that the universe is eternal. When I ask them for reasons to believe that these discoveries will be forthcoming, they appeal to science fiction novels, television shows and movies. I will take a peer-reviewed research paper over Star Trek any day of the week.

Atheism hates science

Theism loves science

8 thoughts on “Is belief in God’s existence something that you just accept on faith?”

  1. This article is brilliant in that it gets to the point of creation ex nihilo. The fact that without time and space that is what you must call it. It cannot be ex-materia as there is no proof of eternal mater, but rather a finite beginning. In fact it almost makes the causation argument irrelevant because it takes you to the time before nature. Thus you can refute the causation argument say with the Word being the cause, yet still have an ex-nihilo creation with no nature being in existence until the point at which creation begins.

    I think as humans we have mental blocks to understanding eternity, we want to acknowledge it, but we want it to fit our world. In our world we are forced to always think in Today, Yesterday and Tomorrow, which only exists in this little bubble we call the universe .

    Eternity therefore exists outside of this universe and IS. This is precisely why God called himself I AM, because it is the most correct discription. Outside of the limits of the Universe there is no Today, Yesterday, no Tomorrow. There is I AM.

    WK is right in that if we use the science, that the atheist is willing to accept, it will give credibility to the ideas we have biblically that they are unwilling to accept. Our faith in theThe Word is founded on a Rock. We can’t be Christians that have a problem with the Incarnation. We must take truth seriously and that includes the sciences.

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  2. WK,

    Forgive my ignorance. I’ve read the paper (if you call follow with your eyes, a huge amount of words which you can make no sense of, reading) and there’s something I still can’t get. I’m willing to accept space coming into existence and expanding but how can time expand?

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      1. That makes some sense. If there was nothing before the big bang, then there was no time, either. I’ll have a hard time explaining that to anyone, though. I think it’s because I don’t have a definition of ‘time’. So, what exactly is ‘time’?

        Also, is the explanations of the evidence – Einstein’s theory of general relativity, the red-shifting of light from distant galaxies, etc – in the article? I don’t recall seeing them there.

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        1. Stephen Hawking on the beginning of time:
          “Almost everyone now believes that the universe, and time itself, had a beginning at the Big Bang.”

          Source:
          Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose, The Nature of Space and Time, The Isaac Newton Institute Series of Lectures (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1996)

          Here’s more about SOME of the evidences for the Big Bang:
          http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~yukimoon/BigBang/BigBang.htm

          There are five of them, that article only lists a few. You can find the rest in agnostic astronomer Robert Jastrow’s book “God and the Astronomers”, 2nd edition.

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          1. Thanks for the link.

            About the quote from Stephen Hawking, if I wanted to believe something simply because almost everyone says so, I could, but I don’t. I actually need to understand it, first. I can’t understand it till I get a definition of the word ‘time’ and so far I’ve been unable to do so. Can you point me in the right direction?

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