Audio

TranscriptCould the universe have created itself or is a God necessary for that?It's common today to hear about the conflict between science and faith, generally when it comes to our origins — where we came from. A lot of people think that the Bible says that we were created in six literal days, and this flies in the face of modern science.Now in future weeks, we might talk about Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 — two conflicting creation accounts — and look at ways to possibly harmonize them or, at the least, understand them in their context. Today, I want to talk about the scientific evidence that actually greatly supports the Christian world view. The fact that we're here is one of the greatest evidences for God's existence. Our existence is a great evidence for God's existence.We're going to look at one of my favorite arguments for God's existence. By “argument” I just mean a well-reasoned case, not something where people are yelling at each other.Before we get too far in, I want to explain what this can and cannot do. This argument will demonstrate that there is a God. It will not demonstrate that the God of the Bible is that God. However, for many people, going from “no God” to “there is a God” is a huge step. We started out looking at truth and now we're going to look at God existing. We've already looked at some evidence for the reliability of the Bible. All of these pieces can come together, when you're making a case to someone that Christianity is the best explanation for reality.This argument for God's existence that we're going to look at today it's called the “Kalām cosmological argument”. Don't be turned off by the name that you probably haven't heard. “Kalām” is actually an Arabic word that just means speech and “cosmological” just refers to the cosmos, the universe, if you will.This is a very simple argument. It's just three sentences. Whatever begins to exist has a cause. The universe began to exist. Therefore, the universe has a cause.For the remainder of this episode we're going to look at ways to support that argument, but what's worth noting is you can teach this to a seven-year old, to a five-year old. In fact, it's easier for some five-year olds to believe this than it is for people in their 30s.Studies have shown that there's actually a natural instinct inside of us as humans that we're born with to see creation in things that are actually created. This sadly gets trained out of people due to our secular influences in society.You can go as deep into this argument or as shallow as you want. What it basically says is that everything that comes into existence has a cause. The universe came into existence, therefore the universe must have had a cause.Right off the bat, we can rule some potential causes out. The cause of the universe cannot have been something in the universe because before the universe existed there was nothing in it that could have created itself. It's like saying, “I'm my father.” In order for me to be my father, I would have had been around, before I was around. There's just a logical problem there.In fact, Stephen Hawking has actually said something similar. “Due to the law of gravity, the universe can and will create itself out of nothing.” You can be really smart like Stephen Hawking (he’s far smarter than I am) but you don't get to say stupid stuff like that without people analyzing your claim and just coming to realize that there are grave, logical problems with it.Continuing on, whatever begins to exist has a cause. This matches reality and experience and reason. It makes much more sense than the atheistic position which would say that th…