Posted on 06/11/2013 3:34:14 PM PDT by NYer
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A good place to start is with an argument by Thomas Aquinas, the great 13th century philosopher and theologian. The argument starts with the not-very-startling observation that things move. But nothing moves for no reason. Something must cause that movement, and whatever caused that must be caused by something else, and so on. But this causal chain cannot go backwards forever. It must have a beginning. There must be an unmoved mover to begin all the motion in the universe, a first domino to start the whole chain moving, since mere matter never moves itself.
A modern objection to this argument is that some movements in quantum mechanics — radioactive decay, for example — have no discernible cause. But hang on a second. Just because scientists don't see a cause doesn't mean there isn't one. It just means science hasn't found it yet. Maybe someday they will. But then there will have to be a new cause to explain that one. And so on and so on. But science will never find the first cause. That's no knock on science. It simply means that a first cause lies outside the realm of science.
Another way to explain this argument is that everything that begins must have a cause. Nothing can come from nothing. So if there's no first cause, there can't be second causes — or anything at all. In other words, if there's no creator, there can't be a universe.
But what if the universe were infinitely old, you might ask. Well, all scientists today agree that the universe is not infinitely old — that it had a beginning, in the big bang. If the universe had a beginning, then it didn't have to exist. And things which don't have to exist must have a cause.
There's confirmation of this argument from big-bang cosmology. We now know that all matter, that is, the whole universe, came into existence some 13.7 billion years ago, and it's been expanding and cooling ever since. No scientist doubts that anymore, even though before it was scientifically proved, atheists called it "creationism in disguise". Now, add to this premise a very logical second premise, the principle of causality, that nothing begins without an adequate cause, and you get the conclusion that since there was a big bang, there must be a "big banger".
 It takes faith to believe in everything coming from nothing. It takes only reason to believe in everything coming from God. |
But is this "big banger" God? Why couldn't it be just another universe? Because Einstein's general theory of relativity says that all time is relative to matter, and since all matter began 13.7 billion years ago, so did all time. So there's no time before the big bang. And even if there is time before the big bang, even if there is a multiverse, that is, many universes with many big bangs, as string theory says is mathematically possible, that too must have a beginning.
An absolute beginning is what most people mean by 'God'. Yet some atheists find the existence of an infinite number of other universes more rational than the existence of a creator. Never mind that there is no empirical evidence at all that any of these unknown universes exists, let alone a thousand or a gazillion.
How far will scientists go to avoid having to conclude that God created the universe? Here's what Stanford physicist Leonard Susskind said: "Real scientists resist the temptation to explain creation by divine intervention. We resist to the death all explanations of the world based on anything but the laws of physics." Yet the father of modern physics, Sir Isaac Newton, believed fervently in God. Was he not a real scientist? Can you believe in God and be a scientist, and not be a fraud? According to Susskind, apparently not. So who exactly are the closed-minded ones in this debate?
The conclusion that God exists doesn't require faith. Atheism requires faith. It takes faith to believe in everything coming from nothing. It takes only reason to believe in everything coming from God.
I'm Peter Kreeft, professor of philosophy at Boston College, for Prager University.
I try....but someone is saying that martians were not green and were grey...lol
You just can’t win for losing around here..
Existence doesn’t need to be explained or justified, in my opinion. It just is. As far as we know it has always existed and always will. After all the big bang doesn’t say anything about the universe popping into existence from nothing.
You are missing some information. In 1916 Einstein postulated the General Theory of Relativity which propounded an expanding universe. In 1921 Eddington proved this theory, Some time later Hubble proved the universe was expanding by his discovery of the red shift. Now, all 3 of these men were atheist, (Einstein later became a pantheist), but they proved that as they regressed time the expanding universe came to become small, and smaller...until there was singularity,...then nothing. In 1965 Penzias and Wilson (nobel Prize winners) for their discovery of the cosmic bacground radiation which had been postulated had there been a huge explosion of the universe into existence. Hawking referred to this finding as the greatest scientific finding over the past 100 years , if not for all time. In 1989 NASA put up COBE (cosmic background explorer) and photographed the 'thermal ripples' of the origin of the universe. G eorge Smoot, project manager, said these findings were like looking at the fingrprints of God (you can go the NASA's website and look at these photos). A few years later, WMAP was put up and more specifically photographed the findings of COBE. All of these findings were experiments of atheists and all proved a beginning of the universe. Fred Hoyle, atheist, derisively coined the term ' big bang'. Hoyle had popularized the ;steady state theory, but later, in a moment of honest, affirmed the uiverse came to be from a huge explosion.....a 'big bang ".
So contrary to your remark, all of science affirms a moment of creation. Science affirms a moment at which time nothing existed. Remember the moment of creation is marked by the creation of time, matter, energy, and space. Prior to that there was no universe. So the question is asked , "What brought the universe into existence?" It seems science tells us that whatever that was was incredible powerful to have brought the entire universe into existence, timeless (time did not yet exist), non spatial (space did not exist prior to the moment of creation), immaterial (since that First Cause had not yet created matter), In other words, outside of time, space, and matter. and personal, in order to choose to convert nothing into the universe ( create ex nihilo). Those are the characteristics of First Cause...as determined by induction from science.
So, as Leibnez said in the 18 century, "If there is no God, why is there anything at all?"
I won't address the other comments as the Spurs are beating hell out of Miami.
Keep looking under the rocks...you will find truth if you are honest with yourself. Good Luck.
>> but someone is saying that martians were not green and were grey.
A Viking Kitty may have hijacked MHGinTN’s account...
What the hell is a viking kitty?
Forum moderators.
Hmm, missed the question mark didya? ... Don’t lose your sense of humor.
I still have a sense of humor, but a sarcasm tag or something would have helped.
Since the “O” was elected again, my sense of humor has degraded a bit....It might be terminal....[sarc]
Don’t let the bastard’s regime take away your coping mechanisms.
And felines supposedly see in shades of gray...
A good study in the difference between 'grieving the Holy Spirit' and 'quenching the Holy Spirit' discerns how a person separated from God first grieves, then degenerates into attacking His Plan or 'quenching' the Holy Spirit.
Another indicator of falling out of fellowship with God is when we react, rather than respond to events.
Let's just remember that using "God" in the sense of "that undefined entity that jumpstarted the Big Bang" is not equivalent to "God" as "that 3-in-1 personage as defined in the Nicene Creed", and to prove the first is not to prove the second.
You've ignored a third option: that evil is a collateral possibility which God tolerates a consequence of allowing entities to make choices.
Since the only other alternative is "allowing no choices," --- a full-scale totalitarian dictatorship, or a Matrix-world where every other entity is just a CGI living an illusion --- His choice of "Let there be freedom" isn't evil after all.
Especially since He has provided a way out of sin and death.
But since you're not a CGI, He won't "force" you to use your freedom to do good and not evil.
Great exposition.
No discernible cause, perhaps, but this very observation is evidence for some "driving force" (whatever name you choose to give it.)
What is being talked about here is quantum nonlocality. Quantum theory tells us that all there is in the Universe is energy and information, and that things as energy are everywhere until we focus on them (provide, accept, transmit the information about them -- really about our perception of them), at which time they become localized, concertized, locked into a certain definitive form. Isn't that just exactly what God, the Creator, the Universal Creative Mind, does?
So the fact that we do this (as quantum physics shows us) shows our status as "the image and likeness of God."
But it can come from No-Thing, AKA The Thing Itself, AKA God.
No, only the Eternal Now (God Time.)
As T.S. Eliot tells us:
Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
OK, where did those come from?
Every Atheist can give you a detailed description of the God in which he or she does not believe. (Some will even insist that the particular God in which he or she does not believe is the only possible definition or description of God — for if you came up with another, they might find themselves believing in that — and that is unacceptable.)
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