Is the New Testament True?

Over the last few weeks, we’ve covered a lot of ground. As much as I’ve tried to present a solid case for Christianity, there is only so much information I can present each week. As such, I would strongly encourage those interested to read up on the topic of Christian Apologetics.

A few resources I’d strongly suggest include my own sources, prominently among them is I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist by Norman L. Geisler and Frank Turek. In addition, I’ve relied upon much research from Dr. William Lane Craig, Dr. Ravi Zacharias, and Dr. John Lennox. If you’d like more information, I’d suggest you visit their websites, CrossExamined.org, ReasonableFaith.org, or rzim.org.

Last week we looked at the question, “Are miracles possible?” We defined a miracle as a violation of the laws of nature. We determined that we have scientific evidence for the creation of the universe out of nothing. Creation from nothing clearly violates the laws of nature because at the time the laws of nature didn’t exist. As such, we have empirically verifiable evidence that the greatest miracle in the Bible has already taken place. If that miracle is true, then all others are at least possible.

Does the fact that miracles are possible mean that every miracle attributed to the prophet Muhammad is true? No. Does it mean that every miracle recorded in the New Testament is true? No. In order to determine which miraculous claims are valid, we must look at the evidence for them. Did the miracles recorded in the New Testament really occur to tell us that Jesus really was God incarnate? To determine this we must look at the New Testament documents.

I will give you six lines of evidence that each start with the letter E. There are many more lines of evidence available, but these are the big six. I don’t have time to go through each one in great detail, so I’ll run through each of them and dig a little deeper into a couple. If you’re interested in the details for the rest or if you’re looking for more information in general, I’d suggest you pick up Dr. Turek’s book mentioned earlier.

1. Early Testimony
2. Eyewitness Testimony
3. Embarrassing Testimony
4. Excruciating Testimony
5. Expected Testimony
6. Extra-biblical Testimony

In the book I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist, there’s a chapter called, “The Top Ten Reasons We Know the New Testament Writers Told the Truth.” These are just six of the reasons. We only have time to drill into a couple, so we’ll look in-depth at the embarrassing testimony and the excruciating testimony, but I want to at least touch on these other ones.

We have early testimony. Dating ancient texts is not an easy endeavour. There are many pieces that need to be taken into consideration when dating ancient texts. However, there is very good evidence that the entirety of the New Testament was written prior to A.D. 100, many scholars will even say they were written prior to A.D. 70. Paul obviously wrote all of his letters prior to his death in A.D. 64. The eyewitness testimony, even if it wasn’t written down until later, had to come early on from the people who had seen it. In fact, the earliest testimony of the resurrection is found in 1 Corinthians 15:3-8. It’s an ancient creed that even atheistic scholars agree is pre A.D. 40.

There is eyewitness testimony. Just between the gospel of John and the book of Acts, there are a hundred forty details that have been verified to be details only an eyewitness could know. That’s not to mention the “we” passages that start showing up in the middle of Acts where the author switches from saying, “they did this,” to “we did this.” All of these details and many more are listed in the book.

We have expected testimony. This deals with all of the Old Testament prophecy. There are many prophecies that we could look at, but if we only had one, I’d take Isaiah 53. If you’ve never read that passage, I’d challenge you to go home and read it and ask yourself, “Who is this passage talking about?” You’ll likely come to the conclusion that it was written about Jesus. The only problem is that it was written seven hundred years before Jesus. We know this to be true, because the entire book of Isaiah was contained within the Dead Sea Scrolls which have been dated back to at least 150 B.C., so we know this was written prior to Jesus’ life on earth.

Then there’s extra-biblical testimony. Ten ancient, non-Christian sources within 150 years of Jesus’ death that briefly mention Jesus, his disciples, and the events of the New Testament. Historians such as Josephus, Suetonius, Thallus, Phlegon, and many other names I’m sure you’ve never heard before. They don’t claim to believe that Jesus was the Messiah, but they do verify the historical claims of the New Testament, Jesus’ ministry, his trial, and his disciples’ claim to his resurrection. If you add up all of these brief references about Jesus, you get a story much like that told in the New Testament historical books.

 Jumping back, let’s take a closer look at the embarrassing testimony. What is embarrassing testimony? Embarrassing testimony is a type of testimony that most scholars will say is true. Any writing that makes the authors of the text look bad, the chances are they are telling the truth. You’re not going to make up things that are going to make you or your hero look bad. The human tendency is to lie in order to make ourselves look good. It is unlikely that a person will lie to make themselves look bad.

The New Testament documents (as well as the Old Testament documents) are full of embarrassing details about the authors and heroes depicted, including Jesus. For example, the disciples routinely depict themselves as dim-witted. On numerous occasions they failed to understand what Jesus was saying (Mark 9:32; Luke 18:34; John 12:16). Although Jesus routinely told them why he had come, they didn’t understand what he was saying until after he’d already returned to heaven.

The disciples are shown as uncaring. In the Garden of Gethsemane, in Jesus’ greatest time of need, they fall asleep on him not once but twice. He said, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.” (Matthew 26:38), but what he come back to find? The whole bunch of them sleeping.

Even after Jesus’ crucifixion, the disciples didn’t even attempt to give him a proper burial. While the disciples are hiding, Joseph of Arimathea, a member of the Sanhedrin, takes Jesus’ body and buries it. Why would the writers of the gospels paint a member of the Sanhedrin, the body that sentenced Jesus to die, as a good guy while they ran away and hid for fear of the Jews?

Also, why would they put Jesus in a Jewish tomb? When the Christians began claiming that Jesus had risen from the dead, the Jews could’ve simply taken his body from the tomb and shown it to the people. However, that’s not what they did. When the Christians began claiming that Jesus had risen, the Jews responded by saying that the disciples had come and stolen the body while the guards were asleep. There are a few problems with this story. First, any Roman guard that fell asleep on duty would be promptly executed. Second, if you’re a Roman guard on duty and you fall asleep on watch, how do you know what happened? Are we to expect that they woke up as the disciples were taking the body and they just let them go? Third, what motive would the disciples have had to take the body and claim a resurrection? To get excommunicated from the synagogue? To get themselves tortured and killed? Yeah, that was a great plan.

You might ask, how do we know this story is even true? Yeah, the gospels tell us this, but how do we know they’re telling the truth? We know because there was an ongoing debate in early history of Christianity. The Christians kept saying that Jesus had risen from the dead and the Jews kept saying that the Christians had stolen the body. What does this explanation admit? It admits that the body was gone and the tomb was empty. They wouldn’t have said that the disciples had stolen the body if the body was still in the tomb. You don’t need to come up with a story for why the tomb is empty if the tomb isn’t empty. By accusing the disciples of stealing the body, the Jews admitted that the tomb was empty.

Based upon this, you could potentially add a seventh E line of evidence, “Enemy Testimony.” Enemy testimony is very powerful. Why? Because if your enemy says something that helps your case, it’s probably true. Your mother may claim that you are exceptionally bright, but all mothers think that of their children. If your archenemy began telling people about your superior intellect, you better believe they aren’t just saying it to make you look good.

Also, the disciples were rebuked by Jesus. Peter is even called Satan (Mark 8:33). Do you think they made that up? It’s not only Jesus. Paul rebukes Peter for acting one way with the Jewish Christians and another with the Gentile Christians. Why would they say that if they were making all of this up? Wouldn’t it make more sense to show a unified front rather than highlighting their mistakes, especially if they were nothing more than lies? If they were making all of this up, they wouldn’t have this embarrassing type of exchange going on. The reason it’s in there is because it’s true.

Within the New Testament text, the disciples, to whom three of the four gospels are attributed, are depicted as cowards. Peter denies Christ three times. All of them run away after his arrest, and the women are the brave ones that go to his tomb. I’m sure the men that wrote this down surely wanted to lie about the women bravely going to the tomb while they hid for fear of the Jews.

Also, notice that despite being told repeatedly that Jesus would rise from the dead, even after hearing the news each of them doubts the claim (John 2:18; 3:14-18; Matt. 12:39-41; 17:9, 22-23). Thomas required physical evidence before he believed (John 20:24-25). Even after, as the crowds are gathered and Jesus is saying his farewells, there were still people who doubted his resurrection having seen him with their own eyes (Matt. 28:17). It’s a common misconception that the early church was a bunch of gullible people who wanted to believe in the resurrection. Even with proof in front of them, many people still couldn’t bring themselves to believe.

The embarrassing testimony extends beyond just the disciples. Jesus is considered to be out of his mind by his own family (Mk. 3:21, 31). He’s deserted by many of his followers after he tells them to drink his blood and eat his flesh (John 6:66). If you were making up stories about Jesus, wouldn’t you try to make him look as good as possible? This one makes him look like a cannibal. Jesus’ own brothers didn’t believe in him (John 7:5). It wasn’t until Jesus appeared to James, his brother, that he finally believed (1 Cor. 15:7).

Jesus is thought to be a deceiver (John 7:12). He turns off Jewish believers to the point that they want to stone him (John 8:30-59). He’s called a madman (John 10:20) and a drunkard (Matt. 11:19). On more than one occasion he was called demon-possessed (Mk. 3:22; John 7:20; 8:48). Do you think they just added that in there for laughs? I’m sure it doesn’t help your case if your messiah is accused of being demon-possessed.

You don’t find this in other ancient writings. You don’t find embarrassing details about the Pharaohs. If anybody ever wrote anything embarrassing about him, he’d surely have them executed. Yet we have piles of embarrassing details about not only the disciples but also their messiah, the hero of the story. And these are the writings that these men approved.

Let’s move on to excruciating testimony. This argument says that these people who were in the know about whether Jesus rose from the dead or not died excruciating deaths and brutal lives when they could have easily spared themselves by recanting the resurrection. Before we take a look at this, let’s look at the apostles’ beliefs and practices before and after the resurrection. All of the New Testament writers, except maybe a couple, were Jews. They believed they were God’s chosen people.

Before	After
Animal Sacrifice	Christ’s Sacrifice
Binding Law of Moses	Christ’s Life Fulfilled the Law
Strict Monotheism	Trinity
The Sabbath	Sunday Worship
Conquering Messiah	Sacrificial Messiah
Circumcision	Baptism & Communion

What would have caused these pious Jews who thought they were God’s chosen people to abandon everything on the left for everything on the right virtually overnight? There’s only one thing I can think of that would cause something like this and it’s what psychologists call an impact event. An impact event is an event that occurs to you that impacts you so greatly, emotionally and intellectually, that it can transform your belief system overnight. Some impact events are so impactful that you will remember what happened that day even though it happened decades ago.

Do you remember where you were September 11, 2001? For those that maybe don’t remember living through that, that was the day when terrorists crashed planes into the towers of the World Trade Center. I don’t remember all the times exactly, but I was at school that day at the local community college. We pulled up the news coverage on the classroom projector and all stood there amazed. I remember a flood of thoughts going through my head. I can still see the room and the desks in my mind as if it were only yesterday.

That event was fifteen years ago, and if I were to ask you where you were you’d be able to tell me. However, if I were to ask you where you were on October 11th of this year, only about a month ago, you’d likely have to look at your calendar to tell me what you were doing. Why is that? Because there wasn’t an impact event.

Do you think a resurrection would’ve been an impact event? Do you think that if Jesus really rose from the dead that they’d remember everything that he said and everything they were doing until the day they died? Of course! That’s the only way I can figure out how they would have abandoned everything they knew and believed virtually overnight.

Some people will say that they invented all of this. Let’s think about that for a moment. What did the disciples have to gain from fabricating this story? They didn’t get rich off of it. They didn’t gain power or influence from it.

Remember, these men were Jews. What did they get by saying that Jesus had risen from the dead? They were thrown out of the synagogues and the temple, the one place where the sacrifices for their sins could be offered. They were beaten, tortured, and killed for this claim. Last time I checked, these weren’t a list of perks. These men had every motive to say the resurrection didn’t happen and not every motive to say that it did.  

Why would these men die for a known lie? Many people will die for a lie they believe is true. The Muslims that flew planes into the two towers were willing to die for a lie they believed was true. However, nobody will die for a lie that they know is a lie, and these disciples were in a position to know whether Jesus had risen from the dead. Their claims to having seen, touched, and spoken with the resurrected Jesus is what lead to their death.

In conclusion, the accounts given in the New Testament are fact, not fiction. If it says Jesus really said it, then Jesus really said it. If it says Jesus did it, then Jesus really did it. I’m not saying it’s inerrant at this point. There’s other evidence out there for that, but you don’t need inerrancy to show that Christianity is true. If the major events of the New Testament are historical, Christianity follows.

So, does truth exist? Yes, it’s self defeating to say otherwise. Does God exist? Yes, we saw that through the cosmological, teleological, and moral arguments. Are miracles possible? Yes, because God exists and the greatest miracle has already happened. We have empirically verifiable evidence to support it. When people say they don’t believe in miracles just say, “Look around. You’re living in one.” This universe is a miracle. If the first verse in the Bible is true, every other verse is at least possible. Is the New Testament reliable? We just went through the evidence for that.

There’s a lot more evidence and information out there. I would encourage you educate yourselves so that you have answers when the questions inevitably arise. Check out the book I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist, check out their website, CrossExamined.org, check them out on YouTube, Twitter, or Facebook, or download their app on either Android or iOS. It has much of this same information as well as videos and a quick answer guide. Also, if you have DirecTV, they have a show every Wednesday night on channel 378.

Are Miracles Possible?

As we begin, I’ll start with my typical disclaimer. I’d like to give credit where credit is due. Much of the research that I’ve done has come from a variety of different sources, prominently among them is I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist by Norman L. Geisler and Frank Turek. In addition, I’ve relied upon much research from Dr. William Lane Craig, Dr. Ravi Zacharias, and Dr. John Lennox. If you’d like more information, I’d suggest you visit their websites, CrossExamined.org, ReasonableFaith.org, or rzim.org.

As we’ve journeyed through our Prove It series, we’ve taken a look at the scientific and philosophical evidence in support of Christianity. We first looked at the question, “Does truth Exist?” Using the law of noncontradiction and the Roadrunner Tactic, we showed that it was self-defeating to say that there was no such thing as absolute truth.

For the last two weeks we’ve tackled the question, “Does God exist?” In so doing, we looked at the evidence for a theistic God. Among world religions we find three main categories, theism, pantheism, and atheism. Through the cosmological, teleological, and moral arguments we determined that a theistic god matching the qualities of the God of Biblical Christianity must exist. Given this evidence, we determined that the theistic worldview was correct and that, via the law of noncontradiction, the pantheistic and atheistic worldviews must be false.

That means that theistic worldviews such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam may be true and non-theistic worldviews such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Wicca, Confucianism, and Mormonism are wrong. It seems harsh to say, but if we have absolute, objective truth, somebody is right and somebody is wrong. We can’t all be right if we’re saying contradictory things.

Some may look at this list and wonder why Mormonism made the list. They’re an offshoot of Christianity, right? Sort of. They claim to be Christian, but they’ve warped it so much that honestly it’s not Christianity anymore. Mormonism isn’t a theistic religion. Instead, it is a polytheistic religion. In Christianity we believe in one infinite God. In Mormonism it is believed that the God of the Bible is but one god among many. Logically, there can’t be more than one infinite being. If there were more than one, they would have to be distinct or different in some way. If they were different, one must be lacking something that the other one has. Therefore, if one is lacking something, it cannot be infinite. There can only be one infinite being.

Plus, Mormons believe that their god was once a mortal being that achieved godhood. They believe that each person is capable of achieving this same level. However, if a finite being becomes a god, that being is still finite. We’ve seen that anything that has come to be must have a cause, so the god of Mormonism is still in need of a timeless, spaceless, and immaterial being to set everything in motion.

Having determined that the theistic worldview is the correct worldview, based upon our evidence and reasoning, we now must determine what kind of theistic god is out there. Is the Jewish concept of God true? Maybe the Islamic concept of god is true. If this theistic god wanted to tell us which one of these were true, what could he do? He could do something that only he could do, and that would be a miracle.

We’ve seen that this theistic god has already communicated to us through creation and conscience. This is called natural or general revelation. This is what the Bible speaks of when it says, “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.” (Psalm 19:1) or “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.” (Romans 1:20). Just as we’ve demonstrated, you don’t need the Bible to know that God exists. He has revealed himself in all of creation. We can learn much about the creator by his creation. However, we can learn so much more by what he has revealed to us through his prophets. The question then arises, which people are his prophets?

Many people are averse to the idea of miracles. They think you’re crazy if you believe in stories such as Noah or Jonah. They’re likely to laugh at you if you tell them you believe people can be raised from the dead. We’ve all known people who have died and none of them have been raised from the dead, so why should we believe that anyone can be raised from the dead? We need to address these questions if we hope to assert that a theistic god has used miracles to confirm the truth of Judaism, Christianity, or Islam.

Many people have objections to miracles because, as they claim, the laws of nature are immutable. Benedict Spinoza, a Jewish pantheist, popularized this objection. His argument went like this:

1. Miracles are violations of natural laws
2. Natural laws are immutable
3. It is impossible to violate immutable laws
4. Therefore, miracles are impossible

His logic seems sound. If Spinoza is right and there is no way around the natural laws, then logic tells us that miracles are impossible. However, his argument begs the question. If you define natural laws as being immutable, then of course you’ll come to the logical conclusion that miracles are impossible. But who said natural laws are immutable? By definition, he has ruled out the possibility of miracles before we even look at the evidence.

Natural law tells us that something doesn’t come into existence out of nothing, yet that’s exactly what the evidence is showing us. The Big Bang demonstrates that natural laws are not immutable. Also, we know that it can’t be true that natural laws are immutable because natural laws are not prescriptions of what must happen but rather descriptions of what does happen.

We weren’t given an instruction manual for the universe that explains how everything works. Instead, as we’ve observed the universe at work, we’ve noticed that things happen in certain, predictable ways. Scientists wrote down these observations. Over the centuries they’ve repeatedly been proven true, so they are held as a natural law. Based on our observations, natural law tells us how the universe will function under normal circumstances. Miracles, by definition, are not normal circumstances.

Another popular argument against miracles was made popular by David Hume. His view on miracles has become one of the pillars of the Enlightenment (where we’re supposed to become enlightened enough to abandon our superstitious beliefs in miracles and put our faith in reason and the scientific method). Hume’s argument goes something like this:

1. Natural law is by definition a description of a regular occurrence
2. A miracle is by definition a rare occurrence
3. The evidence for the regular is always greater than that for the rare
4. A wise man always bases his belief on the greater evidence
5. Therefore, a wise man should never believe in miracles

His logic seems solid. If the premises stated in 1-4 are solid, then we naturally come to the same conclusion as Hume. However, one of these premises is a false premise. In our modern society, we see regular occurrences all the time. We throw a ball in the air and it comes back down. We mix two chemicals together and they always achieve the same result. However, to prove premise 3 to be false, we need only show one counterexample.

Fortunately for us, we have multiple examples at our fingertips. We all know that things don’t appear out of nothing. It is a regular occurrence that all things must have a physical cause. However, the origin of the universe is a rare occurrence that runs counter to regular occurrences. This event is clearly rare and unrepeatable, but the evidence for this rare event has convinced many brilliant scientists that conclude that it must have happened. Therefore, in this instance, the evidence for the rare event is clearly greater than that of the regular.

Likewise, the origin of life is a rare occurrence that happened only once. It is an unrepeatable event, yet every naturalist believes that all life arose spontaneously from non-life in some rare event. Regular occurrence would tell us that life doesn’t come from non-life, but there are many “wise men” out there that believe in this rare occurrence. More evidence could be presented, but it seems, based upon these two counterexamples, that premise 3 is false and therefore Hume’s conclusion must be false as well.

The major flaw within Hume’s argument is that it confuses believability with possibility. Just because something does or doesn’t happen regularly doesn’t indicate that it’s impossible. You may be justified in being skeptical or not believing it, but the possibility of it remains the same. We regularly see a person play the lottery and lose. Based upon this regular occurrence, we may not believe that they will ever win, but the regular occurrence of their losing doesn’t mean that it is impossible for them to win. A wise man may conclude that they will never win the lottery, but that belief doesn’t make winning the lottery impossible.

In addition, Hume confuses probability with evidence. He adds all the evidence for the regular events but fails to weigh that against the evidence for each rare event. If a friend claims to have won the lottery and is holding the winning ticket, while the probability of them winning is still extremely low, the evidence of the winning ticket in their hand must be taken into consideration.

Finally, looking over Hume’s argument, we see that he is actually arguing in a circle. Much like with Spinoza, instead of evaluating the evidence for each miracle, Hume rules out all based on lack of evidence. He disregards all evidence in support of miracles in order to systematically prove that miracles are impossible.

One thing that Hume did get right is the fact that miracles, by definition, are a rare occurrence. Many people don’t believe in miracles for this simple fact. They haven’t seen one, so they must not be possible. However, if miracles were common, there wouldn’t be anything special about them. If people rose from the dead all the time, Jesus’ resurrection wouldn’t be anything special. Miracles have to be rare to get our attention.

That’s why God chose to perform signs and miracles through the prophets and apostles. Throughout history kings and rulers have had a need to send messengers throughout the land with an authoritative message. However, what was to stop any peasant or rival leader from writing a message and claiming it has the authority of the king? The king’s seal. The king would have a special ring or stamp which was used to place his seal on the message. Nobody else could duplicate the seal. It was something only the king could provide. If the message had the seal of the king, everyone knew it was authoritative.

Likewise, miracles are God’s seal for his prophets and apostles. Nobody else can perform such miracles. When these chosen people came proclaiming the word of God, these miracles served as an authoritative seal from God himself. Why should we follow what Moses said? Because God chose to do miracles through him in order to verify his message. Why should we follow what Paul or Peter said? Because God chose to do miracles through them and subsequently verify their message.

Some scholars will say that we can’t trust the New Testament writings as being historically accurate because they contain miracles. It’s true that if miracles are not possible, then all miracles cited in the Bible or any other text must be false. Much like Hume and Spinoza, they haven’t seen miracles, so they deny the possibility and discredit any claim to the contrary. Our friends over at Lutheran Satire help us to put this argument into the proper perspective. However, instead of conversing with St. Patrick, this time Donall and Conall are speaking to world-renowned atheist, Richard Dawkins.

What is the greatest miracle of the Bible? Some will claim walking on water. Many will claim the resurrection of Jesus. That was a pretty good miracle, but it pales in comparison to the greatest miracle of the Bible. The greatest miracle of the Bible can be found in Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” If that verse is true, then every other miracle has to at least be possible.

We have good scientific and philosophical evidence that Genesis 1:1 is indeed true. A spaceless, timeless, and immaterial being created the heavens and the earth out of nothing. If God can create the heavens and the earth out of nothing, can he do whatever he wants that’s not logically impossible inside the heavens and the earth? Of course he can! If he can create the universe out of nothing and create all life, can he raise Jesus from the dead? Of course!

C.S. Lewis said it brilliantly when he wrote, “If we admit God, must we admit miracles? Indeed, you have no security against it. That is the bargain.” If there is a supernatural being out there that created all of nature, a spaceless, timeless, immaterial, powerful, intelligent, moral, and personal being, then it stands to reason that such a being, having the power to create everything, would also have the power to manipulate said creation.

If our logic is sound to this point and, seeing as we have evidence for a miracle, we can determine that miracles are indeed possible, we must look at each miraculous claim based upon it own merits. If we want to determine if the resurrection really happened, we can’t rule out the possibility from the beginning. Instead, we must look at the evidence, particularly the eyewitness evidence, in order to determine, “Is the New Testament true?” Next week we will seek to answer this question and conclude our apologetic series.

Does God Exist? – Part 2

As a pastor, I tend to run in more than one religious circle. I have pastor friends that I went to school with. I have mentors that have been pastors for decades. I’m even a part of online groups of pastors. Being in so many groups of pastors, the topic of “the good ol’ days” resurfaces every so often.

It used to be that everybody went to church. People naturally migrated toward church, and much of what the pastor did was to ensure that all the programs ran smoothly. In those days the phrase “the Bible says so” carried much weight. However, the good ol’ days are gone.

I was reading an article the other day that addressed this topic. It explained how “the Bible says so” doesn’t hold the same sway that it used to. Our modern society doesn’t hold the Bible in the same regard as they did in the good ol’ days. As such, we as Christians, if we’re going to convince our society to follow Christ, must do so on their level. We can’t point to the Bible as the word of God until we’ve convinced them that it is the word of God.

Our current apologetic series is looking to do just that. Through the tools of this world, science, logic, and rationalism, we are seeking to demonstrate that God is who he says he is whether you choose to believe it or not. Up to this point we’ve discussed whether truth exists and have begun to present evidence in support of a theistic god. As we continue with part two, we are looking to answer the question, “Does God Exist?”

Once again, I’d like to give credit where credit is due. Much of the research that I’ve done has come from a variety of different sources, prominently among them is I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist by Norman L. Geisler and Frank Turek. In addition, I’ve relied upon much research from Dr. William Lane Craig, Dr. Ravi Zacharias, and Dr. John Lennox. If you’d like more information, I’d suggest you visit their websites, CrossExamined.org, ReasonableFaith.org, or rzim.org.

As we begin to look at the teleological argument, the argument from design, we begin by taking a walk. Say you’re taking a hike through the woods, maybe you’re going to your tree stand on the opening day of deer season. As you’re walking along you a diamond studded Rolex on the ground. Question, if you found this watch on the ground, would you think it was made by natural law? Would you think that the elements came together just right to produce this watch? No. Every watch implies a watchmaker.  It turns out that the universe and life are both a lot more designed than a watch. We just finished talking about how the universe came into existence out of nothing, so we’ll pick up from there.

As we showed last week, even atheistic scientists agree that everything in the universe (space, time, and matter) came into existence out of nothing in an event known as the Big Bang (for this discussion we’ll assume the Big Bang is true, but we’ll discuss possible origins further in a future series). As we will see, not only did everything explode into being out of nothing, it did so with extreme precision. This is called the anthropic principle, coming from the Greek word anthropos, meaning “human.” It observes that the universe appears to be highly fine-tuned for human life to exist here on earth or even at all.

Stephen Hawking, British theoretical physicist, states, “If the expansion rate of the universe was different by one part in a thousand, million, million a second after the big bang, the universe would have collapsed back on itself or never developed galaxies.” If you change the expansion rate, even by that miniscule amount, we wouldn’t be here.  

It’s not only the expansion rate, but also the gravitational force. If the gravitational force in the universe was altered by 1 part in 10⁴⁰, the sun would not exist and the moon would crash into earth or sheer off into space. That is extreme precision. However, 1 part in 10⁴⁰ can be hard to imagine. I don’t have room to write it here, but 10⁴⁰ is a one followed by forty zeros.  

To give you an idea of the magnitude of 10⁴⁰, the total land area of the Midwest totals 821,732mi². If you were to take dimes and stack them all across the Midwest up to the height of the moon, you would need 1.8 * 10²⁶ dimes. That’s quite a ways from 10⁴⁰. If you were to keep adding dimes until each pile across the entire area of the Midwest reached the sun, you’d still only have 7.06 * 10²⁸. Maybe we’re going too small here. If we stacked dimes across the entire area of the United States (3.797 million mi²) up to the height of the nearest star (Alpha Centauri) approximately 4.37 light years away, we would still only have 2.48 * 10³⁴ dimes.

 Imagine, if you will, that we stretched a tape measurer across the entire known universe, past all the stars and past all the galaxies (by the way, that’s a long way). Now, imagine that the force of gravity is set at a particular inch mark on that tape measurer (Yes, I know that gravity isn’t measured in inches. This is just to give you an idea of scale.). If you were to move that mark one inch in either direction, we wouldn’t be here today.

There are only three possibilities for the force of gravity being exactly where it is. First is physical necessity; it needed to be there. Truth is, it doesn’t need to be there. The force of gravity could be any number of places long that tape measurer. The second possibility is chance. This isn’t really a reason. Scientists typically use the word chance when they don’t have an explanation. I find it hard to believe that we were so lucky that we beat the odds of 1 in 10⁴⁰. Finally, the third possibility is design; somebody put it there. Once again, science doesn’t say anything, scientists do. You need to look at the evidence and come up with the most reasonable explanation.

There’s even a habitability argument in regards to our planet. We live on earth, the third rock from the sun. We live in what is called the Goldilocks Zone, it’s not too hot and it’s not too cold. Any closer and we’d burn up and farther away and we’d freeze. The axial tilt, 23.5°. Change that slightly and we wouldn’t exist. Earth’s rotation, 24 hours. Change that slightly and we wouldn’t exist. The size and distance of the moon from us. Change that slightly and we wouldn’t exist.

If Jupiter was not in its current orbit we wouldn’t be here. Why? Jupiter serves as a cosmic vacuum cleaner. Its gravitational pull is so strong that it pulls most of the asteroids and space debris towards it rather than us. Saturn does the same thing. In fact, if you were to take a close up look at Jupiter you can see impacts from comets that were larger than the earth. Thank God for Jupiter!

 We tend to think that we’re all big and impressive cruising around the sun on this planet, but when you take a look at the size of earth compared to the planets in our solar system, we’re tiny. Take it one step further and compare us to our sun and we’re but a speck. However, as large and impressive as our sun may be, it’s nothing compared to the star Betelgeuse which isn’t even the largest star we’ve discovered. The heavens are awesome!

Another anthropic principle states that the average distance between stars in our galaxy is 30 trillion miles. That distance is needed for the earth to exist in its present life supporting position. 30 trillion miles, how far is that? Far. As the space shuttle orbits the earth, it travels around 18,000 mph. That’s five miles per second. If you were to travel at five miles per second from our sun to another star an average of 30 trillion miles away, it would take 201,450 years. If you hopped in that space shuttle at the time of Christ and began that journey, you’d barely be one hundredth of the way there. The heavens are awesome! According to scientists, the number of stars out there is equivalent to the number of grains of sand on all the beaches on all the earth. To go from one star to another star travelling at five miles per second would take over 200,000 years.

“To whom will you compare me? Or who is my equal?” says the Holy One. “Lift your eyes and look at the heavens; Who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one, and calls them each by name. Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing.” – Isaiah 40:25-26

Do you want to know who God is? Many Christians have the wrong idea of God. We think he’s just some big angel. God is not a big angel. If you want to know who God is, remove all limits from your mind. That’s God. If he’s an ounce of any attribute he’s infinite in it. If he’s an ounce of love, he’s infinite love. If he’s an ounce of justice, he’s infinite justice. He is the unchangeable standard by which everything is measured.

Psalm 103:11 says, “For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him.” How high are the heavens above the earth? Stars as numerous as the grains of sand on all the beaches on all the earth, 200,000 years at five miles per second between those stars? From our perspective, infinite. And that’s the point.

Not only can you get a sense of the design by looking through a telescope, you can see the same thing looking through a microscope. To see elements of design, we need look no further than the single-celled amoeba, something Darwinists say we all evolved from (or at least something like it). Have you heard of “from the goo to you via the zoo?” This is the goo.

An amoeba doesn’t have written on it “Made By God” or “Made By Natural Forces,” so we need to look at the evidence to see where it came from. In Darwin’s day, before unlocking the cell, an amoeba didn’t seem to be any big deal. It was thought that maybe non-living chemicals could come together via natural means and create one. From that point natural selection could take over and a few billion years later you have humans. Today, however, we know that a cell is not quite so simple.

In order to show what we mean by that, we need look no further than your breakfast table. Suppose you come down to breakfast one morning to find the box of Alpha Bits cereal knocked over on the table and in the mess you find the words, “TAKE OUT THE GARBAGE – MOM.” Would you think that this message had occurred by accident? No. You understand that the message needs to have a mind behind it.

Suppose you’re out walking on the beach and find written in the sand, “Tom Loves Shelly.” Do you think that the crabs came out of the water and wrote that? Do you think the waves spelled it out? No. You’re going to say that Tom or Shelly or some other intelligent being was involved.

If simple messages like that require an intelligence, then what about the message found in our DNA? DNA is the four letter genetic alphabet that all living things have. I have DNA. You have DNA. Heck, a banana has DNA. The human genome is 3 billion letters long, and all of it is in the right order. How did it get that way? Microsoft founder Bill Gates, who is not a Christian, says, “DNA is like a computer program but far, far more advanced than any software ever created.”

People say that mutations can explain the complexity of DNA. First of all, you need functional code to begin with before it can even begin to mutate. Second, what do you think would happen if we started randomly adding or changing the code in Microsoft Office? I doubt it would even be functional.

If a message like, “TAKE OUT THE GARBAGE – MOM,” requires intelligence behind it, what about DNA? It’s the same kind of thing. In fact, how much DNA is in an amoeba, the simple life form (or something similar) from which Darwinists think we evolved? According to renowned atheist Richard Dawkins, the amount of information contained within a single amoeba is equivalent to 1,000 volumes of an encyclopedia. It seems that the first life requires an intelligent cause.

Surely, some will look at this claim and call it a God of the Gaps argument. They’ll insist that we will find a natural cause for this one day. That’s fine. We can keep looking, but this is not a God of the Gaps argument. We’re not arguing from what we don’t know. We’re arguing from what we do know.

When you see “TAKE OUT THE GARBAGE – MOM,” it’s not just that you lack a natural explanation for it. It’s that “TAKE OUT THE GARBAGE – MOM,” is positively, empirically verifiable evidence for an intelligent being. When you see the message in DNA, it should tell you that there is an intelligent being behind it. To believe that the DNA information contained with a simple amoeba came together by chance is like saying that the library of congress come together as a result of an explosion in a printing shop.

We’ve looked at the cosmological argument and the teleological argument, now we’ll turn to the moral argument. It says that if there is one thing objectively morally wrong in the world, there must be a God. Why? Because for there to be an objective moral law, there must be a lawgiver.

I love my wife, and when you love someone and are married to them, you tend to put up with their weird quirks. She puts up with my technophilia and the strange philosophical discussions I like to have. On the other hand, I endure her love for World War II era stories, particularly those of the holocaust.

We’ve all heard the stories of the atrocities that happened to the Jews. In April of 1945, the Allies liberated the Buchenwald Concentration camp near Weimar, Germany. They went through the front gate, looked to the right and saw the crematorium. They looked into the courtyard of the crematorium and this is what they saw.

If there is no God, the atrocities that took place are all just a matter of opinion. We all understand that these events were objectively, morally wrong. It’s not just a matter of opinion, yours against Hitler’s. If that’s the case, there must be a source, an authoritative, moral standard that establishes this as being wrong. That’s what we mean by God’s nature.

How do you know who’s right and who’s wrong, Mother Teresa or Hitler? How do you know who’s better? How do you know anything is better than anything else? If I were to show you two maps of Scotland and ask you which is better, how are you going to know? In order to discover which map is better, you’d need to see a reference, a real, unchanging place called Scotland. If Scotland doesn’t exist, the two maps are meaningless. Since Scotland does exist, we can see that map A, while it’s not perfect, is a better representation of Scotland than map B.

In order to determine which is better, you must have a standard by which to measure the two options. That’s exactly what we do when we compare Mother Teresa and Hitler. Mother Teresa wasn’t the standard. Hitler wasn’t the standard. There is a standard beyond them by which we measure both of them. When we say that Mother Teresa was a better person than Hitler, we’re saying that she measured up to the standard better than did Hitler. If the standard didn’t exist, there’s no way to say which one was better. It’s reduced to nothing more than just a matter of opinion.

If there is no God then what the Nazis did wasn’t really wrong. Atheists will disagree and say that morality is determined by the majority. Whatever the majority decides is morally right. If that’s the case, then what the Nazis did was morally right. In fact, in atheism, there is no morality. Everything is just a matter of opinion. Who says the majority gets to decide? It’s whoever’s in power imposing their relativistic will on everybody else. There’s no standard beyond humanity. We’re just molecules in motion.

If there is no God then there are no human rights. The Declaration of Independence states that all men are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.” If there is no creator, where did these rights come from? Martin Luther King Jr. didn’t do anything good because there is no standard of best. In fact, he was going against the cultural consensus which, if the majority makes the rules, could be considered wrong. It’s just all a matter of opinion.

If there is no God, tolerance is no better than intolerance. If there’s one constant in our culture today it’s this idea of tolerance. However, you’ll find that many that are screaming for tolerance are some of the most intolerant people around. By the way, are Christians commanded to be tolerant? No. We’re commanded to be loving. Tolerance says I’ll hold my nose and put up with it, love says reach out and help them. In order to love somebody, quite frequently you can’t tolerate the evil they’re doing. In fact, if you tolerate evil, you’re unloving, not loving. In order to show love you must have courage to stand for the truth even if people won’t like you for it.

If there is no God, religious crusades aren’t wrong. Christopher Hitchens wrote a book titled God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. In his book he talks about the atrocities of the religious crusades. He’s right, the religious crusades were terrible. However, as stated earlier, in atheism, there is no right or wrong. It’s all just a matter of opinion. What’s wrong with religious crusades if there is no God?

Finally, you can’t complain about the problem of evil if there is no God. It’s commonly thought that evil disproves God. Most philosophers know that can’t be the case. C.S. Lewis, a former atheist, believed that evil disproved God until one day he had an epiphany. He believed that there was too much injustice in the world for God to exist. In his book Mere Christianity he wrote, “(As an atheist) my argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust?” You can’t know injustice without first knowing justice. You can’t know evil unless there is good. There would be no such thing as evil unless good existed, and good does not exist without an unchanging, objective moral standard. An unchanging, objective moral law does not exist without a lawgiver.

I am not saying that atheists can’t be moral. They most certainly can. I’m not saying that atheists can’t know morality. There’s a difference between knowing what’s right and knowing why it’s right. Atheists can’t justify morality. They can theorize how they know that murder is wrong, be it through evolution, society, etc., but atheism provides no immaterial objective standard that establishes why murder is wrong. This is the difference between epistemology (how you know something) and ontology (that something exists).

In this discussion of atheism and morality, people tend to confuse those two things. Just because you know right from wrong doesn’t mean that a standard exists beyond you unless a standard giver is there. I learned my times tables in third grade from Ms. Velazquez. That’s epistemology. However, the times tables existed long before I or Ms. Velazquez ever existed. That’s ontology. Just because I came to know the times tables by my third grade teacher doesn’t explain why the times tables are true. Likewise, we can learn about morality in many different ways, but how do you explain that certain things are really right and other things are really wrong unless something grounds you (a moral agent)?

In summary, from the cosmological argument we can see that the cause behind the universe must be spaceless, timeless, and immaterial. It created material, time, and space, so it can’t be made of material, time, and space. He’s also extremely powerful because he created out of nothing and imbued the universe with every ounce of usable energy we have.

From the teleological argument we can see that he is extremely intelligent. He put this universe together with extreme precision. From the moral argument we see that he is absolutely morally perfect, and he’s also personal. How did we determine that he’s personal from the moral argument? Because you only have a moral obligation to a person. You don’t have a moral obligation to impersonal forces. You don’t sin against gravity every time you fly in an airplane. We also know he’s personal from the cosmological argument, because impersonal forces don’t choose to do anything. To go from a state of nothing to creation, someone had to make a choice, and only persons make choices.

Notice, we have a need for a spaceless, timeless, immaterial, powerful, intelligent, moral, and personal creator. This is the God of Biblical Christianity identified without reference to the Bible. We have the God of the Bible, but we haven’t opened the Bible other than to say that this is congruent with the Bible.

Does this mean Christianity is true? No. We have a lot more that we have to look at. All we can say now, if our reasoning is good up to this point, is that if theism is true, it appears that atheism and pantheism are not true based upon the law of noncontradiction. If that’s the case, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam could be true, or some other theism we don’t know about.

If there’s a theistic god out there, how could he communicate to us which one of these, if any, are true? By doing something that only he can do, and that would be a miracle. We’ll dig into this question, “Are Miracles Possible?” next week.

Does God Exist? – The Cosmological Argument

Last week we tackled the idea of truth. Using the Roadrunner Tactic and the Law of Noncontradiction, we showed that absolute truth exists and any attempt to say otherwise is self-defeating. In determining that truth exists, we have not proven that Christianity is true. Instead, we’ve determined that truth exists and can be known. At this point Christianity, atheism, or any other set of non-contradictory worldviews could be true. We now look at whether or not it’s true that God exists.

Once again, I’d like to give credit where credit is due. Much of the research that I’ve done has come from a variety of different sources, prominently among them is I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist by Norman L. Geisler and Frank Turek. In addition, I’ve relied upon much research from Dr. William Lane Craig, Dr. Ravi Zacharias, and Dr. John Lennox. If you’d like more information, I’d suggest you visit their websites, CrossExamined.org, ReasonableFaith.org, or rzim.org.

As we begin this quest for truth, we must first define what we mean. There are many concepts of god floating around society. You can categorize most world religions into three categories, theism, pantheism, and atheism.

Within theism we find religious worldviews such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. This worldview looks to a god that is beyond the world that created the world and sustains the world. A theistic god is like a painter to a painting. The painter paints the painting, his attributes are expressed in the painting, but the painter is not the painting. Michelangelo may have painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, but Michelangelo is not the painting. He does not exist within his work.

The worldview that believes the creator is the creation is called pantheism. Hinduism, Buddhism, and New Age all fall into this worldview. God is me, god is you, god is the grass, god is the air, and god is all. We’re all familiar with it. Star Wars is a good example of pantheism, at least before the prequels introduced the idea of midichlorians. There’s a good force and a bad force. It flows through and exists in all things, but it is not personal. It’s not a theistic god, everything’s god.

We then come to the atheistic worldview which states that there is no god. Naturalism and the New Atheists would fall into this category. This worldview states that all things have a natural cause and there are no supernatural forces at work.

As we begin to answer the question, “Does God exist?” what we’re looking at is the evidence for theism. As we do that, we have three arguments in support of a theistic god. There are certainly more arguments than this, but we’ll limit ourselves to these three. There are two scientific arguments and one philosophical argument.

The first argument is from the beginning of the universe. It’s called the cosmological argument. Cosmological comes from the Greek word kosmos which means world or universe. It says that the universe had a beginning, so it must have a beginner. This is the argument that many say points to the big bang. I know, many people out there are saying, “Pastor, we’re Christians. We don’t believe in the big bang.” Well, I believe in the big bang. I just know who banged it.

While many Christians are strongly opposed to the idea of the big bang, as I intend to show, it very much points toward God. Many Christians hold to the idea of a young earth creation story because “that’s what the bible teaches.” The truth is, that’s just what many people think it teaches. There are many bright Christians that lovingly disagree and believe there are other ways to interpret the first chapter of Genesis without undermining the authority of Scripture. We will take a deeper look at this topic in another sermon series after the first of the year.

The evidence for the big bang is quite solid. Even staunchly atheistic scientists agree that the time, space, and matter all came into existence at the same time from nothing. The famed Stephen Hawking is even quoted as saying, “Almost everyone now believes that the universe, and time itself, had a beginning at the Big Bang.”

Alexander Vilenkin, an agnostic astronomer from Tufts University, wrote a book in 2006 titled Many Worlds in One. In that book he wrote, “With proof now in place, cosmologists can no longer hide behind the possibility of a past-eternal universe. There is now no escape, they have to face the problem of a cosmic beginning.”

There are a couple of things to note from his statement. First, is that he uses the word “proof.” It’s very unusual for scientists to use the word proof. They normally say, “The evidence points to,” or “The evidence suggests.” Remember, science doesn’t say anything, scientists do. Being an expert in the field of astronomy, Vilenkin has looked at the evidence and, in his opinion, deemed the evidence to be so strong that he considers it to be proof.

The other interesting note is his use of the word “problem.” Why is it a problem if there’s a cosmic beginning? It’s because a cosmic beginning brings us a little too close to the G word, God. Scientists don’t want to touch that topic with a ten foot pole. For quite some time scientists refused to admit that the universe had a beginning for this very reason. They believed that the universe was static and eternal. This saved them from even having to speculate about the origins of the universe, because something that is eternal doesn’t need to have an origin.

Let me mention something here about Vilenkin. Vilenkin is a believer in the multiverse. In case you’re unfamiliar with that theory, it states that there are many different universes out there and we just happen to be in the one that looks designed. While that theory may be true, Vilenkin says, along with other cosmologists, that even if there’s a multiverse out there, the whole thing still needs an absolute beginning. All the evidence points to space, time, and matter coming into existence out of nothing.

This is what atheist and agnostic scientists are saying the evidence indicates. What evidence am I talking about? In his book and many lectures, Dr. Frank Turek uses the acronym S.U.R.G.E. to help explain the point.

• Second Law of Thermodynamics
• Universe is Expanding
• Radiation Afterglow
• Great Galaxy Seeds
• Einstein’s General Relativity

The second law of thermodynamics, also known as the law of entropy, basically states that we’re running out of usable energy. Evidence shows that as time goes on the amount of energy in the universe is running down. Scientists all agree that someday our sun will use up all of its energy and burn out. That won’t be until billions of years from now, so don’t worry. If you just moved here to North Dakota, you may think that’s what’s happening this winter.

How does this show that the universe had a beginning? Suppose I were to take a flashlight, place it on a table, and turn it on. It starts shining bright, but what would it look like if we came back tomorrow morning? It’d be dim if it was even still shining at all. Why? Because there is only so much energy in the batteries. The longer the flashlight is on, the less energy remains in the batteries.

Suppose I turned that flashlight on an infinite amount of time ago. Would there be any energy left in the batteries? No. Think of the universe as a dying flashlight. If we still have energy left and someday that energy will be gone, the universe must have had a beginning. If the universe has existed forever, we’d be out of energy by now, but we still have energy, the sun is still shining, so the universe must have had a beginning.

The U in S.U.R.G.E. stands for the universe is expanding. Edwin Hubble, you may know of him because of a telescope which was named after him, discovered in 1929 that there was a red shift in the galaxies as he observed them. He deduced that this red shift indicated that these galaxies were expanding away from us. If they were coming toward us, there would be a blue shift.

With this information, Hubble deduced that the galaxies were closer yesterday and even closer the day before. If we could rewind that all the way back to the beginning, the entire universe would collapse, mathematically, back to nothing. Once there was nothing and then the entire universe leapt into existence.

In 1948 scientists were thinking, that the universe had a beginning, and it had a beginning in a big heat explosion. Sir Fred Hoyle, an atheist and a steady state, eternal universe proponent, didn’t like the implications of a beginning. As this idea of a universal beginning and everything coming into existence in a big explosion began to take root, Hoyle mockingly said, “What are you going to call it, the Big Bang?” And the name stuck.

As this idea of the Big Bang began to gain traction, scientists began thinking that if everything had come into existence in a big explosion, there should be some remnant heat out there as evidence. In 1965, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson, two scientists working in Bell Labs in Holmdel, NJ, completely by accident detected a strange radiation on their antenna. What they discovered ended up being an incredible discovery that resulted in them being awarded a Nobel Prize in 1978.

The radiation they’d discovered is referred to as the cosmic background radiation or the radiation afterglow. It’s the remnant heat left over from the Big Bang which is still out there only a couple degrees above absolute zero. This discovery officially laid to rest any lingering suggestion that the universe was in an eternal steady state. It was the smoking gun, the nail in the coffin of the Big Bang.

After the discovery of the radiation afterglow, scientists theorized that there must be very slight temperature variations within the radiation afterglow that allowed the galaxies to form in the early universe. This is the G in S.U.R.G.E. However, they had no way of measuring these variations from earth. They were going to have to put a satellite in orbit in order to test the theory. In 1989 NASA launched a $200 million satellite named COBE (Cosmic Background Explorer) into orbit around the earth.

The satellite orbited the earth for years taking measurements until 1992 when project leader and astronomer George Smoot announced their findings. His statement on the matter was quoted in newspapers around the world. He said, “If you’re religious, it’s like looking at God.” Stephen Hawking called the findings “the most important discovery of the century, if not of all time.”

Not only did COBE detect the slight temperature variations. Scientists were even more fascinated by their extreme precision, down to one part in one hundred thousand. The discovery shows that the Big Bang explosion was precisely tweaked to cause just enough matter to form together but not so much that the universe would collapse back on itself. Any slight variation either way would result in no galaxies forming or the entire show cut short in an instant. These variations are so exact that Smoot called them the “machining marks from the creation of the universe” and the “fingerprints of the maker.”

Now what does this say about Darwinism? Absolutely nothing. However, many who hold to Darwinian Evolution will cite that if evolution is true that there is no need for a creator. That’s nonsense. The fine tuning of the galaxy seeds happened long before the first life even took place. The Big Bang was not a chaotic explosion but a highly fine-tuned event that remains fine-tuned to this day.

The E in S.U.R.G.E. stands for Einstein’s General Relativity. Einstein knew in 1916 that his General Relativity equations showed without a doubt that the universe had a beginning. Einstein discovered that time, space, and matter were all co-relative. You can’t have one without the others.

Einstein was a steady state, eternal universe proponent. When his General Relativity equations showed that the universe had a beginning, Einstein called the discovery “irritating.” In fact, in order to deal with this irritating dilemma, Einstein added a fudge factor known as the Cosmological Constant to his equations.

In 1922 Russian mathematician Alexander Friedmann officially exposed Einstein’s fudge factor as an algebraic error. Essentially what Einstein did in order to avoid a beginning to the universe was to divide by zero. He later went on refer to the Cosmological Constant as the “biggest blunder of [his] career.”

In 1929 when Hubble discovered the red shift in the galaxies, he called Einstein and essentially told him, “What you predicted back in 1916 by General Relativity, I’m witnessing through my telescope.” He invited Einstein to come see for himself, so in 1931 Einstein went out to Mt. Wilson in Pasadena, CA and looked through Hubble’s Telescope.

Sometime after looking through the telescope, Einstein said, “I now see the necessity of a beginning. The universe did have a beginning. All I’m interested in now is to find the mind of God. The rest are details.” To our knowledge, Einstein was not a Christian. He denied being an atheist and a Pantheist. Maybe he was some sort of deist that believes God set everything in motion and then left it alone. Regardless, his theory, which has been proven accurate to five decimal places, shows that space, time, and matter had a beginning out of nothing.

This evidence led agnostic astronomer Robert Jastrow, the man who eventually superseded Hubble, to write a book called God and the Astronomers. In this book he goes through much of the same evidence we’ve covered here. On page one of the book he states, “I’m an agnostic on religious matters,” meaning he doesn’t know whether God exists or not. However, he goes on to write, “astrological evidence leads to a biblical view of the origin of the world […] the essential element in the astronomical and biblical accounts of Genesis are the same.”

Later in an interview Jastrow is quoted as saying, “Astronomers now find they have painted themselves into a corner because they have proven, by their own methods, that the world began abruptly in an act of creation which you can trace the seeds of every star, every planet, every living thing in this cosmos and on the earth. And they have found that all this happened as a product of forces they cannot hope to discover… That there are what I or anyone would call supernatural forces at work is now, I think, a scientifically proven fact.”

Supernatural forces? Why do they need to be supernatural forces? Why can’t natural forces explain the origin of the Big Bang? Why couldn’t nature have created the universe? Because there was no nature. Nature was the result and therefore can’t be the cause. Some might argue that this is a God of the Gaps argument, that if we give science enough time we’ll find a natural cause. First, that sounds an awful lot like faith. Second, we will never find a natural cause for all of nature. It’d be like saying that given enough time I could prove that I gave birth to my own mother. You can’t in principle. If all nature had a beginning, the cause has to be outside of nature. Jastrow wasn’t the only one to come to this conclusion.

The best data we have (concerning the Big Bang) are exactly what I would have predicted had I had nothing to go on but the five books of Moses, the Psalms and the Bible as a whole. – Arno Penzias

Certainly there was something that set it all of. […] I can’t think of a better theory of the origin of the universe to match Genesis. – Robert Wilson

There is no doubt that a parallel exists between the Big Bang as an event and the Christian notion of creation from nothing. – George Smoot

In light of all of this evidence, it seems that we have a solid case for the universe having a beginning. If the universe had a beginning, then it must have had a cause, a beginner. The evidence leads us to one of the following two options. Either no one created something out of nothing (atheistic worldview), or someone created something out of nothing (theistic worldview). The question then becomes, which is more reasonable?

In an attempt to preserve their worldview, an atheist might claim that the first option is more reasonable, that no one created something out of nothing. Let’s first look at the second option. If someone creates something out of nothing, that’s certainly a miracle, but at least you have a miracle worker. You can then question where the someone came from, but at least you have a place to start.

A miracle happening without a miracle worker seems completely absurd. If you want to say that something can pop into existence without a cause, like the universe, then why doesn’t everything pop into existence without a cause? Why don’t cell phones or laptops pop into existence without a cause? That could’ve saved me a few hundred bucks.

In fact, the law of causality doesn’t say that everything must have a cause, it says that everything that comes to be has a cause. There has to be something that is the uncaused first cause, but everything after that, if it comes to be, must have a cause. Why can’t the universe be the uncaused first cause? We already have evidence that says that it wasn’t, therefore the uncaused first cause must be beyond the universe.

To show how seriously we take the law of causality, that everything that comes to be must have a cause, as you read this, you have no worries that a monkey has suddenly appeared in your car and is defecating on your stereo. You do not worry that a lion will appear out of nowhere and maul you as you read this. You don’t worry about those kinds of things because you know that things don’t pop into existence out of nothing. If we want to doubt the law of causality, we have to do away with all of science, because science is a search for causes. If there is no God, why is there something rather than nothing at all?

How do atheists respond to this question? The prevailing theory is the multiverse theory, which doesn’t really solve the problem but simply removes us one extra step from the problem. As Vilenkin said, even if the multiverse is true, it all still needs a cause. National Geographic wrote an article a few years back trying to explain how the multiverse theory worked. In the article it’s quoted, “multiple universes grow like branches from a tree trunk in a model that allows the universe to create itself.” What?!? Can you create yourself? One scientist in the article admitted, “It’s sort of like we’re brushing our ignorance under the rug of the very early universe.”

Some atheists have attempted to explain this away, but they always seem to fall short. Lawrence Krauss, a professor at Arizona State University, wrote a book titled A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather than Nothing. In the book he tries to explain how something could have come from nothing. In an interview promoting his book he states, “Physics has changed what we mean by nothing […] Empty space is a boiling, bubbling brew of virtual particles popping in and out of existence […] if you wait long enough, that kind of nothing will always produce particles.”

Likewise, Stephen Hawking, in his book The Grand Design, tries to answer the question by saying, “Because there’s a law like gravity, the universe can and will create itself out of nothing.” If we take a moment to think on these two statements, a glaring error becomes clear. Because there’s a law like gravity? Gravity is not nothing. Gravity is something. Gravity, as Einstein pointed out, only exists when there’s matter, and space, time, and matter are all co-relative and came into existence out of nothing.

What do we mean by nothing? Greek philosopher Aristotle put it this way, “Nothing is what rocks dream about.” That’s what we mean by nothing. No matter if Krauss wants to redefine his definition of nothing, the truth remains that virtual particles are not nothing, they are something. In fact, after Krauss wrote his book, scientists began coming out of the woodwork saying, “You know that’s not what we mean by nothing.”

So, as most scientists agree, the universe, space, time, and matter, came into existence out of nothing at the Big Bang. Whatever caused it must be spaceless, timeless, and immaterial because it created space, time, and matter. It also must be powerful to create out of nothing and imbue our universe with so much energy. It must be intelligent to have orchestrated the extreme precision to which everything is fine-tuned (we’ll get more into that next week). And it must be personal. Why? Because it chose to create. Impersonal laws don’t choose to do anything. Gravity doesn’t decide whether or not to act on an object. It just does. It does the same thing all the time and never changes.

When we think of a spaceless, timeless, immaterial, powerful, intelligent, personal being, what’s the first thing that comes to mind? Notice, I haven’t said anything about God. Honestly, I don’t know why all of this S.U.R.G.E. evidence isn’t taught in our public schools. If we want to create kids that can think for themselves, give them all the evidence and let them decide for themselves.

Agnostic astronomer, Dr. Robert Jastrow, at the end of his book, after going through all of this evidence to show that the universe had a beginning, concludes by saying, “For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; He is about to conquer the highest peak; As he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.”

If we follow the evidence, it points towards the universe having a beginning. The cause must be supernatural because it created all of nature. If we keep an open worldview and don’t limit our thinking, the evidence seems to strongly point towards a theistic god.

Does Truth Exist?

As Christians, society proposes to us many questions. Many years ago secularists and atheists sought to prove that there was no God. However, in recent years the narrative has flipped. No longer are they seeking to prove the nonexistence of God. Instead God’s nonexistence has been assumed and the burden of proof falls on us as Christians to demonstrate that God truly does exist.

In this series, I hope to give you evidence upon which you can stand and upon which you can fall back on when these questions inevitably arise. I would be amiss to not give credit where it is due. Much of the research that I’ve done has come from a variety of sources, prominently among them is I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist by Norman L. Geisler and Frank Turek. In addition, I’ve relied upon much research from Dr. William Lane Craig, Dr. Ravi Zacharias, and Dr. John Lennox. If you’d like more information, I’d suggest you visit their websites, CrossExamined.org, ReasonableFaith.org, or rzim.org.

As we journey into this land of evidence and proof, we will be looking to answer four questions (Does truth exist? Does God exist? Are Miracles Possible? Is the New Testament true?). I believe that if we can answer these four questions in the affirmative that we will have reasonable proof that the God of the Bible is the one true God.

Why are these the four questions? Obviously, the Bible can’t be true if truth doesn’t exist. Likewise, if truth doesn’t exist no book written by an atheist can be true either. If there is no truth, the bible may not be right, but neither is anyone else. This way of thinking is called relativism or postmodernism. You can see that there is a problem with this line of thinking.

Does God exist? You can’t have a word from God if there is no God. If God doesn’t exist, we need to throw out the bible and any other book that talks about God. As we tackle this question over the next couple of weeks, I hope to show that there is a spaceless, timeless, immaterial, intelligent, powerful, moral, and personal being that both created and sustains the universe.  

Are miracles possible? Even if God exists, the bible can’t be true if miracles aren’t possible. You can hardly turn a page in the bible without finding some miracle being referenced. If miracles aren’t possible, the bible is simply a book of lies. As we tackle this question, I hope to show you that not only are miracles possible, but the greatest miracle of the bible has already occurred and we have scientific evidence for it.

Finally, we will answer the question, “Is the New Testament True?” The New Testament doesn’t have a chance if truth doesn’t exist, God doesn’t exist, or miracles aren’t possible. However, if truth exists, God exists, and miracles are possible, the New Testament has a fighting chance of being true. If these questions are true, we can look to see if we have a historically accurate and reliable account of miracles occurring in the first century to a man named Jesus and his disciples which are contained within the twenty-seven handwritten, greek manuscripts which we’ve placed under one binding called the New Testament. Do these accounts accurately document the events that happened two thousand years ago or were they written much later by religious people who made it up and embellished it with fantastical miracle stories?

You may look at this claim and think to yourself, “What about the Old Testament? Do you believe the Old Testament is true?” If the New Testament is true you get the Old Testament thrown in for free. Why? Who is in the New Testament that can attest to the validity of the Old Testament? Jesus. If Jesus is God, as the New Testament claims, than whatever Jesus teaches is true. Jesus taught that the entire Old Testament is the word of God, so if the New Testament is reliable, you get the Old Testament as well. This doesn’t mean we still don’t have to interpret it in order to understand it correctly, but if Jesus is God and God says it’s true, it’s true whether we understand it or not.

French mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal is quoted as saying, “People almost invariable arrive at their beliefs not on the basis of proof but on the basis of what they find attractive.” We see this evidenced in our own lives. Dr. Frank Turek, as he visits college campuses and interacts with the students, when a student in the Q&A session seems adamantly opposed to the idea of God, will ask one question. If Christianity were true, would you become a Christian? In many cases the student yells back at him, “NO!” This student is an atheist, a beacon of reason and thought. How can he blatantly dismiss something after it’s been proven to be true? It’s because he doesn’t want it to be true. For him, it’s not a matter of knowing it in his head, it’s a matter of knowing it in his heart.

Author and speaker James Sire travels across the country visiting college campuses and gives an eye-opening seminar titled Why Should Anyone Believe Anything At All? In this seminar he asks the students to classify why people believe what they believe. Each answer fits within one of four categories, sociological, psychological, religious, and philosophical. He then walks them through each category to determine if that is a good reason to believe something.

In the sociological category we find sources such as your parents, friends, society, or culture. Are these a good enough reason to believe something? Why not? Often our parents, friends, or culture can be wrong. The Nazis had a culture that accepted the murder of Jews.

What about the psychological reasons, comfort, meaning, hope, or identity? Are each of those a good enough reason to believe something? Just because it feels good, does that mean that it’s right? A junkie might find comfort in his latest drug, but that drug might kill him. Truth is important because there can be major consequences if we’re wrong.

What about religious reasons? If your pastor says it or if you read it in the Bible or Qur’an, does that make it true? The question arises, which of these two books or religions is true? Clearly they contradict each other, so they can’t both be true. One says that Jesus was crucified and raised to life while the other says he was never crucified. To determine which of these two books is true, we must look at outside evidence.

The only category which remains is that of philosophy. This is more than just somebody’s opinion. Philosophy is the foundation to all science and knowledge. The Ph in Ph.D. stands for philosophy. While you may get Ph.D. in Aerospace Physics, it’s a doctorate in the philosophy of aerospace physics. This idea of philosophy means to find the truth through logic, evidence, and science.

I propose to you, in light of this evidence, that there is no relative truth. All truths are absolute. Something that is true is true for all persons at all times in all places. Many will say that this is absurd. While I may be cold here in North Dakota, people down in Hawaii are warm, therefore truth is relative. That’s not relative. It’s absolutely true for all people at all times and in all places that right now I feel cold. Truth is what corresponds to its reference. Referring to myself, it is true that I feel cold right now despite how the people in Hawaii feel. It is absolutely true for all people at all times and in all places that the people in Hawaii feel warm. Truth is truth.

However, when you make claims like this people will invariable object. Here are some of the common objections to this idea of absolute truth:

1. There is no truth
2. All truth is relative
3. You can’t know truth
4. It’s true for you but not for me
5. No one has the truth

If we can’t refute these particular objections, we can’t say the bible is true. Fortunately, we have a tool in our arsenal called the law of noncontradiction. This is a scientific and philosophical law that simply states that contradictory statements cannot be both be true in the same sense at the same time. “A is B” and “A is not B” cannot both be true at the same time and in the same sense.

In order to refute these claims we’ll apply what Dr. Turek refers to in his book as the Roadrunner Tactic. We’ve all seen the cartoons where Wile E. Coyote is chasing the Roadrunner. They come to the edge of a cliff, the Roadrunner stops short and Wile E. Coyote keeps running. He runs for a little ways until he realizes he has no ground to stand on and then plummets to the ground. In the Roadrunner Tactic, we will seek to apply the claim to itself to show that it has no ground to stand on.

We turn the claim on itself in the first example, “There is no truth,” and ask, “Is that true?” If it’s true that there is no truth, then the claim that there is no truth can’t be true. It’s a self-defeating statement, such as “I can’t speak a word in english.” Obviously that statement can’t be true because I just said it in english. How about, “Everything I say is a lie.” That statement is self-defeating. If we use the Roadrunner Tactic and apply the claim to itself we see that if that statement is a lie then I was telling the truth and therefore the statement can’t be a lie.

What about these other statements. “All truth is relative.” How do you respond to a statement like that? By saying, “Is that a relative truth?” No, it’s supposed to be an absolute truth. If it’s a relative truth that all truth is relative, it’s only true for the person uttering the statement. However, it’s being posed as an absolute truth which applies to all people.

What about, “It’s true for you but not for me”? This one is a big one in our culture. How do we use the Roadrunner tactic on this claim? We say, “Is that true for everybody?” If true for you but not for me is true for everybody, then true for you but not for me can’t be true because it’s true for everybody.

There’s actually a more fun way to deal with this statement. If somebody says to you, “It’s true for you but not for me,” simply tell them, “Sure, go try that with your bank teller.” Go to your bank teller and tell them, “The economy’s down, and I need some money. Give me $100,000 out of my account.” The bank teller pulls up your account and says, “I’m sorry, you only have $48.16 in your account.” Tell them, “That’s true for you but not for me. Give me my $100,000.” That’s never going to work. If it’s true that you have $48.16 in your account, it’s true for all people at all times and in all places.

If it’s true for you then it’s true for everybody if it’s a truth that refers to a referent. That’s true for religious claims as well. If it’s true that God exists, it’s true for all people at all times and in all places, whether you believe it or not. If it’s true that Jesus died for the sins of the world and rose again, that’s true for everybody whether you believe it or not. Will your faith change whether Jesus died and rose again? No. He either did or he didn’t. Do you have to believe something to make it true?

Do you have to believe in gravity to stay on the ground? Do people who stop believing in gravity start floating away? No. Your faith doesn’t change whether or not the bible is true. The only thing your faith does is to appropriate the salvific content of it to you. It does not change whether God exists, whether or not Jesus rose from the dead, or whether or not the bible is true.

How about this one, “There is no truth in anything but science”? You hear this a lot of college campuses. They say all that religion is just a matter of faith and all real truth comes from science. What’s the problem with that? To apply the Roadrunner Tactic we can say, “Is that a scientific truth?” Did that truth come from science? No! You can’t go into a laboratory to prove that. It’s a philosophical claim. It defeats itself.

While our society puts a lot of faith in science, and rightly so, the truth is that science can’t tell you everything. In fact, I’ll let you in on a little secret. Science doesn’t say anything. All science does is present the data. It takes a mind to then interpret the data and determine what it means.

It’s hard to believe, but it has been over twenty years since O.J. Simpson was put on trial for the murder of Nicole Brown-Simpson and Ron Goldman. Did you know that some of the evidence that you can look up regarding the trial shows that O.J.’s blood, Ron Goldman’s blood, and Nicole Brown-Simpson’s blood was found everywhere mixed together. It was found at the crime scene, in O.J.’s Bronco, in O.J.’s house, and on O.J.’s clothes. In examining the case, it has been determined that there is only a 1 in 21 billion chance that the blood on O.J. Simpson’s socks was not Nicole Brown-Simpson’s. Given that revelation, does science show that O.J. was guilty?

Surprisingly, the answer is no. Science doesn’t say anything. Scientists have to look at the data and interpret it. In this case, jurors have to look at this evidence and first determine if it’s good evidence and second determine if 1 in 21 billion is enough to determine guilt. Science doesn’t say anything. It’s the scientists that have to figure out the most reasonable explanation for the data.

Interestingly, ten years after the murders, NBC conducted a survey to try to determine the attitudes about the trial ten years later. The survey found that 77% of people thought that O.J. was guilty. However, there was a sharp ethnic divide. 87% of whites thought he was guilty versus only 29% of blacks. They had the same evidence but came to different conclusions. Why? They had different world views. The blacks, having experienced racism and racial tensions, were more sensitive to it. They thought it possible that the whole thing could have been a setup. They’re much more apt to think that than whites who haven’t experienced racism. Their worldview helped to determine how they interpreted the evidence.

I’m not getting into whether I think he’s guilty or not, but this is goes to show how our differing worldviews can change how we interpret the evidence. That’s the case when it comes to Darwinism and Intelligent Design. The Darwinists have already ruled out any intelligent causes and interpret the data from that worldview while Intelligent Design proponents are willing to consider the possibility of a designer. To say that we get all our truth from science is self-defeating.

So, does truth exist? As I believe we’ve established, there are no relative truths only absolute truths. While contrary beliefs are possible, contrary truths are not possible. Just because you believe something doesn’t make it true, and just because you don’t believe something doesn’t make it false. Truth is always absolute in terms of its reference. You can believe everything is true, but everything cannot be true. The law of noncontradiction states that “A is B” and “A is not B” cannot be true at the same time and in the same sense. And finally, objective truths can’t be denied without being affirmed. You can’t say that all truth is subjective (just being within them, the subject) without making a claim to an objective truth.

If you run into someone who makes this claim, what should you say to them? “Is that an objective truth?” If they say yes, their statement is self-defeating. If they say no, then say, “If it’s just your opinion, then why should I believe it?”

It’s quite obvious that there is truth out there. It’s self defeating to say that there isn’t. There’s just one problem with truth, or more accurately with us. As Pascal stated earlier, most people are not on a truth quest. They’re on a happiness quest. Most people are only believing what they want to believe and find attractive. They aren’t looking into the evidence to discover the truth but arrive and their conclusions based upon what makes them feel comfortable.

However, this is a double-edged sword that not only cuts atheists but Christians as well. Many Christians believe in Christianity, not because of the evidence but because they find it attractive. It makes us feel better that we’re not alone in this world. It makes us feel better that we were placed here for a purpose. It makes us feel better that there is paradise waiting for us after we die. Fortunately for us, you can be right about something without knowing why, but we ought to know why we believe what we believe. 1 Peter 3:15 says, “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.”

So, it is true to say that truth exists. To say otherwise is self-defeating. If our reasoning is good up to this point we’ve successfully shown relativism and postmodernism to be false. Knowing that truth does exist, next week we will begin to look at whether or not it is true that God exists.