Episode 146 – Truth and Proof – Part 6 – A Creation Needs A Creator Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. In John 14:6, Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” The goal of Anchored by Truth is to encourage everyone to grow in the Christian faith by anchoring themselves to the secure truth found in the inspired, inerrant, and infallible word of God. Script: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Genesis, Chapter 1, verse 1, New Living Translation ******** Hello! I’m Victoria K. Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. We’re excited to be with you as we continue our series we’ve called “Truth and Proof.” This series is all about the truth that there is a God and that God is the God of the Bible. Then we’re going on to offer proof that supports that truth. Today we have Dr. Gregg Alexander back on the show with us. This is a real blessing for us because this series that we are doing was inspired by a series that Gregg presented to his Sunday School class several years ago. GREGG would you like to take a couple of minutes and tell us a little about your background and perhaps just a little bit about your own testimony? GREGG: - Introductory comments - VK: So, I’d like to remind everyone of the purpose of this series. We are learning how to defend the Christian faith. This defense is often termed “apologetics.” Now sometimes people will get the mistaken impression that apologetics is an arcane or esoteric area of study beyond the reach of ordinary Christians. Nothing could be further from the truth. Apologetics is simply the way we work out the command given to us in 1 Peter, chapter 3, verse 15 where we are told: “… if someone asks about your hope as a believer, always be ready to explain it. But do this in a gentle and respectful way.” That’s the New Living Translation. The truth is that any sincere, mature Christian can become an effective apologist – at least effective enough to demonstrate the two main points that are the concern of classical apologetics. The first point is the existence of God and the second point is that God is the God of the Bible. What do you think, GREGG? GREGG: I agree. It does take some time and effort to develop a well-grounded understanding of the principles and concepts that are usually included under the umbrella of apologetics – but when you consider the payoff it’s an investment well worth making. VK: What are you thinking? GREGG: Simply that there is nothing more important than our faith in God and not just any God but the God of the Bible. A correct understanding of God is the difference between an eternity in heaven or an eternity in hell. Those are pretty high stakes. And unfortunately, right now in our country and in our time none, or at least very few, of the cultural, academic, or societal forces are aligned to help preserve our faith. So, unlike times past, when you might have thought that some degree of common sense apologetics would have helped us become grounded in the basis for our faith – none of that is present today. But that doesn’t mean we can’t succeed in developing the strengths and skills we need. We can. With just a bit of concentration and thought people can not only know that there is a “god,” but also they can know a lot about the nature of that “god” including that logic and reason tell us that god is the God of the Bible. VK: So, where do you want to start today? Last time we covered the fact that even pagan philosophers have reached the realization that somehow, somewhere there must be a cause for everything that we see around us. We spent quite a bit of time on Aristotle’s thinking on the subject of ultimate causes and the kinds of changes we see from empirical observations of the universe.

GREGG: And that was a great foundation for what I’d like to talk about today. I’d like to start by talking about what I call the “Metaphysical Proof of God’s Existence:” VK: Sounds intriguing. Where do you begin? GREGG: I begin with the most obvious statement of all – one that cannot be denied. Something exists and I’ll extend that a bit further to say I actually do exist. VK: Well, I can vouch for that. If you didn’t exist who would I be speaking with? GREGG: Precisely. Someone trying to deny my existence would be making a denial to a non-existent entity and that would be pretty silly. But something else I know, we all know for sure, is that I am a contingent being. I came into being and I change. Therefore, something must have caused my existence. I could exist or not exist. At one time I didn’t exist. Since there was a time I didn’t exist something must have caused me to come into being. The result of this line of reasoning is that we can be absolutely positive that I have a cause. Now nothing cannot cause something. Everything that has had a beginning has had a cause. VK: Again, all that seems perfectly obvious. So obvious, that is almost seems unnecessary to state it. GREGG: It is obvious but it is an essential step along our line of reasoning and I don’t want to skip any steps. I want everyone to be absolutely sure of the foundation that we’re building. So, once we’re sure that we know that I, and all human beings and other creatures for that matter, are contingent beings we can easily see they cannot account for their own existence. So, the next point in this metaphysical proof of God’s existence is that only a Necessary Being can cause a contingent being. Therefore, I am caused to exist by a Necessary Being. This follows undeniably from the points that we have already discussed. VK: Well, just to be sure that everyone is following along let’s define our terms. By contingent being you simply mean a being that might exist or might not exist. Such a being is dependent on something or someone else beyond itself for its existence. GREGG: Yes. And a Necessary Being is a being that does not depend on anyone or anything else to account for its existence. This Being accounts for its own existence or said slightly differently this Being is self-existent. It possesses the power of existence unto and by itself. VK: And since a contingent being cannot account for its own existence it would be dependent on a Necessary Being. Aristotle called this Being the “Unmoved Mover.” And some people refer to it as the Prime Mover. Everything in motion has to have been set in motion but somewhere there as to be a first cause for motion or change. GREGG: Exactly right. So, these points establish the fact that somewhere there is a Necessary Being that began the entire change of existence for everything else – for all contingent beings, structures, or artifacts. But let’s continue our line of reason. I know more about me than just that I exist. I know that I am a personal, rational, and moral kind of being since I engage in personal, rational, and moral actions and activities. I don’t just exist. I exist in a particular way with particular abilities and attributes. Therefore, it is reasonable for me to look for a cause for my abilities and attributes. VK: Again, that follows undeniably. When Dr. Jonathan Sarfati was helping us with our Truth in Genesis series he would often remind us that being able to explain the operation of something is quite different from being able to explain the origin of the thing. It’s one thing to know that a car needs gas, or batteries, to move down a road but that’s very different from explaining how the car was built in the first place. GREGG: But when we see a car we know that somewhere at sometime there was a car builder that had to create the car. And we know that that car builder must have had the requisite knowledge and abilities to create the car to function the way it does. The car didn’t just magically create its own ability to move and carry passengers and cargo. Well, since I know that I possess the ability to engage in personal, rational, and moral actions and activities I can know that this Necessary Being must be a personal, rational, and moral kind of being. The Being couldn’t give me something he didn’t already possess. So, by the Principle of Analogy I can know that I am similar to him. VK: I think I know where you are going with this particular thought. Since you are a personal, rational, and moral kind of being we can know that this Necessary Being is personal, rational, and moral. He must possess these attributes because we owe our origin to him. So, he must have imparted these attributes to us. If he had not how could we explain our possession of them? GREGG: That is exactly right but now we have to qualify that observation. The Necessary Being does possess personal, rational, and moral attributes but he possesses them in a necessary way, not in a contingent way. In other words, these attributes must exist within the essence of the Necessary Being. No one gave these attributes to the Necessary Being. The Necessary Being has always existed so there was no way for another entity to pass anything to him at a point of origin. Any attributes the Necessary Being possesses are part of his very essence. VK: The Necessary Being is eternal and uncaused. I don’t want to be tedious but this being is Necessary. He’s necessary because if he didn’t exist no contingent being would ever have existed. The Necessary Being is necessary for anything else to exist – including us. So, if there weren’t a Necessary Being out there, or in here for that matter, we contingent beings wouldn’t be around at all to be talking about him. Our existence is contingent on his existence. This isn’t the kind of thing must of us spend our days discussing. GREGG: Well, as a wise man once said, “Given the state of our nation and world maybe it would have been a good idea for us to spend our days discussing these kind of ideas.” More damage may have been done to the world from the idea that the universe has no creator and that human beings are just a random collection of undirected molecules than from any other idea in history. As we’ve been talking about, nothing that is dependent or contingent can come into being without being created by a Necessary Being. And that Necessary Being must be personal, rational, and moral or he could not have created personal, rational, or moral creatures. Furthermore, that Necessary Being must be unchanging, unlimited and singular. VK: How can we be sure about that? GREGG: Because a Necessary Being does not and in fact cannot come to be. A Necessary Being has no possibility to be other than it is. And that Necessary Being cannot be caused by another, undergo change, or be limited by any possibility of what it could be. And there cannot be more than one Necessary Being because there cannot be two infinite beings. If there were two Beings then each would be limited by the presence of the other. That would mean that neither Being would be unlimited. VK: Well, the logic behind that chain of thought seems to be impeccable. We know that we are contingent, dependent creatures. That’s easily proven. Cut off oxygen for ten minutes, water for a couple of weeks, or food for a month or so and we will all find out that we are dependent on forces and substances outside ourselves to maintain our existence. So, someone or something must be there to supply what we need. And that someone or something must have always existed otherwise there would have been no beginning to the chain of dependency. And we know can see that that Ultimate Beginning has to be unlimited, unchanging, personal, rational, and moral. If it were not we couldn’t be here and possess the attributes that we do. Right? GREGG: Right. Therefore, beginning with our own existence we have built a line of reasoning that one necessary, eternal, uncaused, unlimited (= infinite), rational, personal, and moral being exists. So, now let’s move to assigning a better, or at least more user friendly label, for that Being. Such a Being is appropriately called “God” in the theistic sense, because He possesses all the essential characteristics of a theistic God. This is a powerful, I might say irrefutable, argument that the theistic God exists – the One God Who is prior to all that had a beginning. “over and above,” i.e., transcendent over all that had a beginning – the One Being Who cannot not be, cannot not know, cannot be limited in power or presence or perfection, cannot be other than Reality – cannot be other than Truth. Simply stated, God is not a “logical principle,” but the Giver of logical principles. VK: Wow. When you think about it – and sadly not many of us do – this line of reasoning that demonstrates a Theistic God is something any thinking person can grasp. We’ve only been talking about this metaphysical proof for God for about 15 minutes. So, in 15 minutes or less we’ve been able to follow a chain of thought tht moves from simply being aware of our existence to being aware that a Theistic God must exist. This seems almost deceptively simple. GREGG: I don’t know that I would say that it is “simple” but I would say that it is understandable by any person who will take – as you said – to think about it. And one of the magnificent parts of this line of argumentation is that no one needs any special preparation to grasp it. No one needs a special college course, seminary class, or even enormous library to absorb it. It just takes pulling ourselves away from our phones, TVs, and social media accounts long enough to focus on a little deep thinking. Surely, our God deserves that much of our time and attention. VK: So, that’s what you call the metaphysical proof for God’s existence. And I think anyone who was paying close attention would see that it is very persuasive. In fact, it’s hard to see how someone could reasonably disagree with its line of reasoning. We exist. We exist as contingent, dependent creatures. Dependent creatures must depend on someone or something outside themselves, but that chain of dependency cannot go on forever. Somewhere there must be a Being that caused the origin of contingent beings and provides that upon which they are dependent. We call that Being a Necessary Being. The Necessary Being must be uncaused and independent and therefore must be infinite because He existed before anything else. As such, there was nothing and no one who could place limits on him. And, when we look more closely we see that we possess the attributes of personality, rationality, and morality. The only possible reason we can possess such attribute is if the Necessary Being possessed them first. So, the Necessary Being satisfies all the qualities of a theistic God. He is self-existent, infinite, uncaused, personal, rational, and moral. Does that just about sum it up? GREGG: Yes, but let me hasten to add that the metaphysical argument for God’s existence is not the only way of demonstrating that the God of the Bible must exist. I know we don’t have a lot of time remaining today but let’s at least take a quick look one or two others. Now, the three best known arguments for the existence of God are the Cosmological Argument, the Teleological Argument, and the Moral Argument. I say that these are the best known because there are other arguments for God existence but I want to keep this discussion as practical as we can. We just don’t have the time to be exhaustive. The first of these three is the Cosmological Argument which is an argument from consideration of the beginning of the universe (Gk, cosmos = “universe, world”). The second is the Teleological Argument from design (Gk., telos = “end, purpose”) and the third is Moral Argument. VK: And let me note that for anyone who would like to pursue a more exhaustive study Crystal Sea Books founder, RD Fierro, and you highly recommend Norman Geisler’s Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics. Much of the information Dr. Alexander is presenting now can be found on pages 276 through 283 of that book. GREGG: The Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics is a particular favorite of mine and I had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Geisler and I have enormous respect for the work he did. He is now home with Jesus but the value of his work remains. So, let’s move on. The Cosmological Argument begins with the fact that there is a universe rather than none at all, which must have been caused by something beyond itself. The law of causality says that every finite thing is caused by something other than itself. There are two basic forms of this argument. The first form of the Cosmological Argument says that the cosmos or universe needed a cause at its beginning. The second form argues that it needs a cause to continue existing. The argument that the universe had a beginning caused by something beyond the universe can be stated this way: 1. The universe had a beginning. 2. Anything that had a beginning must have been caused by something else. 3. Therefore the universe was caused by something else (a Creator). VK: That seems pretty straightforward. That’s the basic line of argumentation. So, what evidence can be cited in support of the validity of the argument? GREGG: A wide range of both scientific and philosophical evidence can be used to support this argument. For instance, time cannot go back into the past forever, for it is impossible to pass through an actual infinite number of moments. You can never finish an infinite series of real things. If this is so, then time must have had a beginning. If the world never had a beginning, then we could not have reached now. But we have reached now, so time must have begun at a particular point and proceeded to today. Therefore the world is a finite event after all and needs a cause for its beginning. This part of the argument can be summarized like this: 1. An infinite number of moments cannot be traversed. 2. If an infinite number of moments had to elapse before today, then today would never have come. 3. But today has come. 4. Therefore, an infinite number of moments have not elapsed before today (i.e., the universe had a beginning) 5. But whatever has a beginning is caused by something else. 6. Hence, there must be a Cause (Creator) of the universe. VK: So, the Cosmological Argument begins with the simple point that there is undeniably a cosmos. Something exists. We can all discuss the various elements and parameters of the nature of the cosmos but it is undeniable that we live within a cosmos. And once we begin looking carefully at that cosmos we can start to see that the individual elements of the cosmos always direct us back to the same basic point. The universe had a beginning and anything that has a beginning cannot explain its own existence. But I think we have to be careful. Sometimes when we talk about these things it can be very challenging. As we’ve said. These are not the kinds of things we normally talk about in everyday conversation. GREGG: I agree. There are great arguments for the existence of God that are a lot more fun than the rather laborious points we’ve been going through. But we have to remember that these metaphysical first principles are the bedrock of reality, and they are the spring board from which comes the other arguments, for most of the commonly used arguments are in some manner related to cause and effect. The principles and the metaphysical proof for God’s existence that I have just laid out are probably a bit cumbersome for casual conversation. So, in our next episode of Anchored by Truth I hope you’ll let me come back and give the audience some arguments that are handy, easy to remember, easy to understand, and very difficult to refute. VK: Can we get a sneak peek at what some of those might be? GREGG: The scientific evidence for the Cosmological Argument always goes back to the first premise in the argument, i.e., “The universe had a beginning.” So, I like to use five categories of evidence from secular science that prove there was a beginning – usually called the “Big Bang” by the secular scientists. VK: But we would like to add that in this context the term “Big Bang” is just a label – a shorthand way of saying the universe had a beginning. So, while secular scientists may call the beginning of the universe a “Big Bang” the scientific evidence of the universe’s beginning fits equally well, or better, with an instantaneous act of creation by an almighty God. GREGG: Agreed. So very quickly, the word SURGE, makes these categories of evidence easier to remember. The “S” is Newton’s Second Law of Thermodynamics. The “U” is for the universe which is expanding. The “R” is for the radiation echo from space, more technically known as “microwave background radiation.” The “G” is for Great Galaxy Seeds. The “E” is for Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity. This was the beginning of the end for the idea that the universe is eternal. The theory has been verified to five decimal places, and it demands an absolute beginning for time, space, and matter. From General Relativity came the discoveries of the expanding universe, the radiation echo, and the great galaxy seeds. VK: And the fact that the universe’s beginning points to the need for God was recognized by well-known Astronomer Robert Jastrow. Jastrow said this in an interview with Christianity Today: “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 to 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 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.” GREGG: Jastrow started out as an agnostic but he came around to the fact that the nature of the universe persuaded him that the universe needed a creator. Interestingly, not all astrophysicists are so secular, and some have postulated theories based on sound science that sound very biblical, using terms like “the deep” (Genesis 1:2), “the expanse” (1:6), and the six days of Creation. Two books I would direct listeners to are Starlight and Time by D. Russell Humphreys (Master Books, 1994), and the follow-up by the same author entitled Thousands, not Billions. VK: Well, we hope everyone will join us next time as we continue this fascinating discussion with Dr. Alexander. This sounds like a time to go to God I prayer. Since our children are back in school and busily working their way through the academic year, today let’s listen to a prayer for all of them who could benefit from a little divine help with upcoming tests. ---- PRAYER FOR TAKING A TEST VK: We’d like to remind our audience that a lot of our radio episodes are linked together in series of topics so if they missed any episodes or if they just want to hear one again, all of these episodes are available on your favorite podcast app. To find them just search on “Anchored by Truth by Crystal Sea Books.” If you’d like to hear more, try out crystalseabooks.com where “We’re not famous but our Boss is!” (Bible Quote from the New Living Translation) Genesis, Chapter 1, verse 1, New Living Translation