This series of posts “Reasons to Believe” is looking at some compelling arguments to consider that not only an intelligent agent caused the universe to come into existence, but that agent was the God of the bible. As the series evolves, you can click on the links below to view the subject[s] your interested in. This post will look at the universe.
- Introduction
- The Universe
- Biology
- Historicity of Jesus of Nazareth
This is by no means an exhaustive treatise of the subject, but hopefully it is enough for you see that there is good reason to infer that an intelligent agent and not blind faith and chance is the reason there is a universe.
Origin of the Universe
There are currently only two possibilities to explain how the universe came into existence.
- Brute Chance
- Design
Aristotle: Universe Past Eternal
In the 4th century BC, the Greek philosopher Aristotle believed that the universe was without beginning and without end, eternal.
Chapter I. proves that motion in the universe is eternal: there can never have been a time before any motion existed, and there never will be a time when all motion will have ceased [Aristotle; Physics, Book VIII. Introduction, p 264]
This was the prevailing thought until the mid 1900s when scientists discovered what the bible alone has been saying for millennia, the universe had a beginning.
Bible: Universe Had Finite Past
Genesis 1:1; In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth
Hebrews 11:3; By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.
Atheist Cosmologist Alex Vilenkin’s conclusion after cowriting The Borde-Guth-Vilenkin singularity theorem (BGV theorem)
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 [Alex Vilenkin, Many Worlds In One: The Search for Other Universes (Hill and Wang 2006), pg. 176]
Big Bang Theory
“If we extrapolate this prediction to its extreme, we reach a point when all distances in the universe have shrunk to zero… We cannot continue physical reasoning, or even the concept of spacetime, through such an extremity. For this reason most cosmologists think of the initial singularity as the beginning of the universe. 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 space-time itself.² [Physicist Paul Davies]
There are still a few who refuse to accept that the universe had a beginning even though it is now universally accepted and the prevailing theory.³
Our universe began with a hot big bang 13.7 billion years ago [Scientific American 301, 36 – 43 (2009), Nature.com ]
If anything could throw the Big Bang into crisis, it would be if a truly pristine sample of gas disagreed with the predictions of how the elements should turn out. But everything lines up so incredibly well, between the theory of what we should observe just three-to-four minutes after the Big Bang and the observations we make billions of years later, that it can only be considered a remarkable confirmation of the most successful theory of the Universe ever. [Astrophysicist Ethan Siegel, “Big Bang Confirmed Again, This Time By The Universe’s First Atoms, Stars With A Bang, July 11, 2017]
Cosmological Argument
Fine Tuning For Life
The universe has extremely fine tuned parameters permitting life, planets and starts to exist. If any one of dozens of parameters were different by even fractions of degrees, life would not exist.
Is this just a religious view? No.
Tweak the laws of physics in just about any way and—in this universe, anyway—life as we know it would not exist. [Tim Folger; Discovermagazine.com]
We have a lot of really, really strange coincidences, and all of these coincidences are such that they make life possible, [Professor of Physics, Stanford University Andrei Linde, Discoverymagazine.com]
A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question. [Sir Fred Hoyle, Atheist, British astrophysicist; Hoyle, F. 1982. The Universe: Past and Present Reflections]
This fine tuning isn’t something that happened over time like an evolutionist may suggest, these parameters were present from the very beginning along with the laws that govern the universe. Where did the laws come from?
John 1:1 says, In the beginning was the Word [Greek; Logos]. This word logos means speech, expression of thought. In the beginning was information, intelligence and design.
Ontological Argument for God
Multiverse Explains Fine Tuning
The fine tuning is a strong case for design, but some scientists are at work to explain the tuning by material means. A few popular atheist scientists are promoting an idea called Multiverse, in hopes of opposing any need for a design hypothesis.
The idea of the multiverse — or the theoretical possibility of infinite parallel universes–straddles a strange world between science fiction and a plausible hypothesis. Though scientists have no direct evidence for the multiverse’s existence, some theoretical models suggest the multiverse could solve some key riddles in physics, such as why the parameters of our universe, including the strength of the the electromagnetic force between particles and the value of the cosmological constant, have values that are exactly in the small range required for life to exist. [Astronomy.com; by Stephanie Margaret Bucklin, January 18, 2017]
The Multiverse idea is touted often as a credible and more reasonable explanation of the initial fine tuning of the universe. If an infinite number of universes are a reality, then the odds are at least one would have the right constants and values to support intelligent life.
Problem one, is there is no evidence of a multiverse, and never will be according to some eminent atheist physicists.
Problem two, even the multiverse needs fine tuning to exist, as well as must have a beginning. The Multiverse does not explain away the design inference for fine tuning.
Brute Chance Explains Fine Tuning
Well what about brute chance?
Sir Roger Penrose who was a colleague of the late Stephen Hawking calculated the odds that the universe may have happened by chance.
Material Explanation for Origin
The current idea is that the universe popped into existence out of nothing. Well known scientist Stephen Hawking in his book “The Grand Design”, stated that because there are laws such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself out of nothing. Below is mathematician John Lennox explaining the contradictions of this thinking.
Conclusion
You can find all sorts of bloggers and YouTubers claiming to debunk design, or the possibility of God, but no one knows what lies beyond the beginning of the universe. Ocam’s Razer and inferences from other data like the fine tuning of the cosmological constants for intelligent life make a compelling case for a designer.
There will always be those who reject a designer out of hand, then go to extravagant means to explain alternative ideas, Simply because a designer offends their world view, not because the data is inconsistent with one.
The internet and the public at large are largely ignorant of current scholarship on design theory, cosmology and biology. Read, investigate and research before you allow someone to persuade you that your belief in God is blind ignorance.
The believer is on as solid if not more solid ground than the laughing atheist, so don’t be discouraged or intimidated.
Logical Argument for a Designer
Evolution Study Shocks Scientists
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Thank you,
Robert J.
References:
- G.W. Leibniz, “The Principles of Nature and of Grace, Based on Reason,” in Leibniz Selections, ed. Philip P. Wiener, The Modern Student’s Library (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1951), p. 527.
- Paul Davies, “Spacetime Singularities in Cosmology and Black Hole Evaporations,” in The study of Time III, 1978, pp 78-79
- Kragh, Helge (1996). Cosmology and Controversy. Princeton University Press. pp. 318, 319.
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