Apologetics Part 4: Proof for the Existence of God!

(continued from apologetics: Part 3)

Ok, so after we have set out some of the foundations of knowing WHY we believe, we can start answering some of the hard questions. Here are some of the questions we'll (I say "WE" because I am basically typing straight from my pastor's notes... so its pretty much like him talking with me typing :)) talk about today:

Can you prove that God exists?
Is Science the enemy of Faith and Christianity?
How can we know a God exists that we cannot see?

We'll start with these two questions- why do you, or anyone, or anything exist? And why is there something instead of nothing?

Well, we know what the Bible says about this: Col 1:16, Gen 1:1, John 1:1. But, an Atheist doesn't care what the Bible says, so these are things you can share with people who don't believe. And remember, the point of defending our faith isn't to make us "right", its to lead people to believe that God exists. And once they believe that God exists, we can point them to Jesus, the Savior of our souls. Its all about Jesus and salvation.

FAITH AND SCIENCE
It seems that in the mind set of the world today, faith and science are at odds with each other. Stereotypically (but not in actual truth), Science is for the intellectual and faith is for the hopeful dreamer. But if scientists really want truth, and the church really wants truth, they are not really against each other- they want the same thing. The problem is when someone brings their own agenda and tries to make either science or religion fit.

But what if we set all that aside and just look at the evidence- a pure pursuit of Truth... the very definition of science= a search for a cause. And what we will see is that the science actually proves the existence of God.

A few quotes:

Galileo: "Science tells you how the heavens go, and the Bible tells you how to go to heaven."
Albert Einstein: "Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind."
Allan Sandago: (A one time atheist and called the greatest observational cosmologist in the world): "It was science that drove me to the conclusion that the world is much more complicated than can be explained by science... It was only through the supernatural that I can understand the mystery of existence."

If we exist.. then WHY and HOW? If there were no God, then why is there something instead of nothing?

There are only two possibilities for anything that exists:
1. Either it has always existed and therefore has no cause.
2. Or, it had a beginning and was caused by something or someone else. It cannot be self-caused.

The Bible says, "It is He who made the earth by His power, who established the world by His wisdom, and by His understanding He has stretched out the heavens" (Her 10:12). But what does Science say?

FIRST PROOF: COSMOLOGICAL ARGUMENT
Cosmological comes from the Greek word 'cosmos' which means 'world' or 'universe'.

The Cosmological Argument proves that the Universe had a beginning. It goes like this, everything that had a beginning had a cause. The Universe had a beginning. Therefore, the universe HAD to have a cause (i.e. a Creator). If the Universe had a beginning, it had to have a beginner (someone who caused it). This is called the LAW OF CASUALITY. Without it, science itself is impossible because science is a search for causes.

Until around 1916 the time of Albert Einstein, atheists could comfort themselves with the belief that the universe was eternal (meaning that it had always existed) and so it did not need a cause. But since then, the scientific evidence has overwhelmingly proved that the universe had a beginning. Einstein was bummed when he began to realize where his calculations were going of his Theory of General Relativity. Until then, Einstein believed that the universe was eternal, but now the evidence pointed to a definite beginning to all time, space and matter.

General Relativity predicted an expanding universe- moving outward from a single point. Meaning it STARTED at some point.

In 1927, Astronomer Edwin Hubble looking through a 100 inch telescope confirmed that the universe was expanding. He discovered what we call the "red shift" in light from every galaxy- meaning it is moving away from us. In other words, the universe is expanding from a single point in the distant point.

BUT GOD HAD ALREADY SAID THIS IN THE BOOK OF ISAIAH: "It is He who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers, who stretches out the heavens like a curtain and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in" (Isaiah 40:22). By the way, in case you missed it, God says here that the earth is ROUND... long before explorers "discovered" the world is round, God already told us that. How did God know? Because He created it.


Another proof for the beginning of the universe...
The Second Law of Thermodynamic (a scientific law) proves that the earth had a set beginning. To simplify this law, it says, the universe is running out of usable energy (like a running car, it will ultimately run out of gas).

(The 1st Law shows that the universe only has finite [set amount] of usable energy,… the 2nd Law shows its running out).

So, if there is only so much energy and it will eventually run out, then the universe had to have a beginning (with that original amount of energy). If it had always existed, that limited amount of energy would have run out by now.

Also, within the Second Law of Thermodynamics is the Law of Entropy= which simply means nature brings things from ORDER TO DISORDER... that is, with time, things fall apart. So, if the universe is becoming less ordered, then where did the original order come from? If natural causes couldn't have caused it-… who caused it? It HAD to have a Creator.

OTHER SCIENTIFIC PROOFS
The Radiation Echo: In 1965, two scientists, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson discovered radiation waves that confirm the earth burst suddenly into existence. Penzias' Quote: "The best data we have is exactly what I would have predicted had I nothing to go on but the first 5 books of Moses, the Psalms, and the Bible as a whole."

PHILOSOPHICAL LINE OF EVIDENCE FOR THE BEGINNING
1. An infinite number of days has no end
2. But today is the end of history
3. Therefore, there were not an infinite number of days before today

*THE KEY= if there was a beginning there must be a beginning (an outsider cause-… God). This will always be the fundamental problem for anyone who denies the existence of God. If there is no God, then why is there something instead of nothing?

Atheists have tried to explain it away by saying things like, "Rocks crashed together...or gases did this..… or dust partials did that...". BUT, they can never explain WHO made the first rocks, gases, or dust.

To sum up this loooooonnnngggg post:

The Cosmological Argument: The Universe had a beginning, and someone greater than the universe HAD to cause all of this. This is scientific... this helps to support the existence of God. In the next post... I'll continue the scientific proofs for the existence of God.