By Tim Stratton 

One of the most well-known New Testament scholars to graduate from Moody Bible Institute is Bart Ehrman. He has a powerful influence on many young minds today as he is a professor at the University of North Carolina and has written many bestsellers about Jesus. What is surprising, however, is that Ehrman is not a Christian! In fact, he has made claims suggesting that he is a happy agnostic who leans toward atheism.

Although I think Ehrman is wrong to “lean toward atheism,” I do respect him. In fact, I would venture to say that he knows the Bible far better than the vast majority of professing Christians found behind the doors of the church today. Although I believe his “reasons” for becoming an agnostic/atheist are philosophically weak,[1] I do believe that Ehrman is fair and charitable most of the time.

In fact, although it is popular to see many internet atheists today claiming that Jesus never existed, Ehrman shows them the foolishness of their ways. This became apparent during a question and answer session when a “Jesus myther” claimed that he did not see any evidence for a historical Jesus. Here is Ehrman’s fantastic response:

“Well, I do. I mean, that’s why I wrote the book. I HAVE A WHOLE BOOK ON IT! There is a lot of evidence; there is so much evidence [for the existence of Jesus]!

I know in the crowds you all run around with it is commonly thought that Jesus did not exist. Let me tell you, once you get outside of your conclave; there is nobody, I mean, this is not even an issue for scholars of antiquity. IT IS NOT AN ISSUE FOR SCHOLARS OF ANTIQUITY!

There is no scholar at any college or university in the western world who teaches classics, ancient history, New Testament, early Christianity – any related field – who doubts that Jesus existed!

Now, that is not evidence, that is not evidence. Just because everybody thinks so doesn’t make it evidence. But, if you want to know about the theory of evolution versus the theory of creationism – and every scholar, at every reputable institution in the world, believes in evolution, it may not be evidence, but if you’ve got a different opinion, you had better have a pretty good piece of evidence yourself.

The reason for thinking that Jesus existed is because he is abundantly attested in early sources. That’s why, and I give the details in my book. Early and independent sources indicate that certainly, Jesus existed. One author that we know about KNEW JESUS’ BROTHER, and knew Jesus’ closest disciple, Peter. He’s an eyewitness to both Jesus’ closest disciple and his brother.

So, I’m sorry. I respect your disbelief, but if you want to go where the evidence goes? I think that atheists have done themselves a disservice by jumping on the bandwagon of mythicism because frankly, it makes you look foolish to the outside world. If that’s what you are going to believe, you just look foolish.”

I could not have stated it better!

The God revealed in the New Testament

Because Ehrman spends so much time in the New Testament (in an attempt to debunk it) he does seem to grasp what it teaches about God’s character. In fact, this past December (right before Christmas) Ehrman offered a lengthy post on his Facebook page that benefits both Christians and atheists. Consider his parting words:

“The God of Christmas is not a God of wrath, judgment, sin, punishment, or vengeance. He is a God of love, who wants the best for people and gives of himself to bring peace, joy, and redemption. That’s a great image of a divine being. This is not a God who is waiting for you to die so he can send you into eternal torment. It is a God who is concerned for you and your world, who wants to solve your problems, heal your wounds, remove your pain, bring you joy, peace, happiness, healing, and wholeness. Can’t we keep that image with us all the time? Can’t we affirm that view of ultimate reality 52 weeks of the year instead of just a few?

I myself do not believe in God. But if I did, that would be the God I would defend, promote, and proclaim. Enough of war! Enough of starvation! Enough of epidemics! Enough of pain! Enough of misery! Enough of abject loneliness! Enough of violence, hatred, narcissism, self-aggrandizement, and suffering of every kind! Give me the God of Christmas, the God of love, the God of an innocent child in a manager, who comes to bring salvation and wholeness to the world, the way it was always meant to be.”

I must admit when I first read these words emotion overcame me as I shouted “AMEN” to Ehrman! He is exactly right about God’s character. The God of Christmas loves all people — including Bart Ehrman and including YOU! God desires a true love relationship with all people and desires the best for all people for eternity (See The Omnibenevolence of God)!

The God revealed by Jesus is the same God who does not want anyone — including Bart Ehrman — to suffer in hell for all eternity. God desires a true love relationship with all people — a “marriage” with each individual (1 Timothy 2:4) — and does not desire anyone to perish (2 Peter 3:9) or be eternally divorced from Him.

However, since true love requires genuine free will, if God desires a true love relationship with all people, He must give all people this freedom to reject His “marriage proposal” or not. When humans use their freedom to love in a backward kind of way, we bring evil and suffering into God’s creation. This is easy to remember because LOVE backward is EVOL.

C.S. Lewis states it well:

God has made it a rule for Himself that He won’t alter people’s character by force. He can and will alter them—but only if the people will let Him. In that way, He has really and truly limited His power. Sometimes we wonder why He has done so, or even wish that He hadn’t. But apparently, He thinks it worth doing. He would rather have a world of free beings, with all its risks, than a world of people who did right like machines because they couldn’t do anything else. The more we succeed in imagining what a world of perfect automatic beings would be like, the more, I think, we shall see His wisdom. (“The Trouble with ‘X,’ God in the Dock)

God is not waiting for you to die so He can send you to hell! No, the opposite is true, God is pleading with you to stop rejecting His love so that you will not be divorced from Him for all eternity (See True Love, Free Will, & the Logic of Hell).

God loves all people, desires the best for all people, and desires all people to love all people all the time! In fact, this seems to be the objective purpose of the human existence — to love all persons and to be loved by all persons (from each person of the Trinity to each person created in the image of God). Jesus made it clear when He summed up the entire Law in two simple and easy to remember commands (Matthew 5:44; 22:37-39):

1- Love God first!

2- Everybody love everybody (from your neighbors to your enemies)!

Ehrman is right; can you imagine what this world would be like if all people actually listened to and followed the teachings of the God of Christmas (aka, Jesus Christ)? If we all followed Jesus’ commands 52 weeks a year, think about the “Peace on Earth and good will toward men” that would follow in the wake of this tsunami of love! It sounds pretty close to heaven to me!

Ultimate Reality

Bart Ehrman does not believe in God, but he says that if he did, he would defend this view of God offered in the New Testament. I encourage him to examine his reasons for his “lack of belief” in God (See Atheism: Lack of Belief or Blind Faith?). I also encourage Ehrman and any others who do not believe in God to consider a plethora of arguments that either deductively concludes the existence of God or point to the probable existence of God. Here are a few to consider as you start your journey:

The Kalam Cosmological Argument

The Argument from Contingency

The Moral Argument 

The Fine-Tuning Argument

The Ontological Argument 

Why God Allows Evil & Suffering (logical problem)

Why God Allows Evil & Suffering (probability version)

The Freethinking Argument 

With all of these arguments in mind, why not promote, proclaim, and defend the God of Christmas? After all, even if all of these powerful arguments for the existence of God turned out to be false, if all the world lived according to the teachings of Jesus Christ 52 weeks a year, then we would have a virtual end to war, starvation, epidemics, pain, misery, abject loneliness, violence, hatred, narcissism, self-aggrandizement, and so much suffering!

I think Jesus was on to something!

Stay reasonable (Isaiah 1:18),

Notes

[1] I could be wrong, but from what I have gathered it seems that Ehrman’s reasons for leaning towards atheism are related to his doubts regarding the inerrancy of the Bible and with the problem of evil. I contend that these are not problems at all for Christianity (See Inerrancy Debate and Lex Luthor’s Lousy Logic).

 


Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2EMa9O8

Por Evan Minton

Some atheists, in an attempt to avoid the conclusion that The Big Bang origin of our universe was caused by a spaceless, timeless, immaterial, uncaused, powerful, supernatural Being (i.e God), have posited that perhaps our universe and everything in it is just a computer simulation being run by aliens in a laboratory. The Big Bang was the launch of the program and the development of the universe by its finely tuned laws were all a part of the program-universe’s code.

If you think I’m making this up, check out this quote from Neil deGrasse Tyson in his award-winning book Astrophysics For People In A Hurry:

“Or what if everything we know and love were just a computer simulation rendered for entertainment by a superintelligent alien species?” [1][2]

I also saw this idea flushed out in a cartoon where a couple of aliens were at this massive particle accelerator. The aliens were your typical little green men, with no hair, giant black eyes, and silvery space suits. And the picture depicts our universe as being the result of an experiment the aliens were doing with the large particle accelerator/collider.

Are these atheists right? Was The Big Bang the result of aliens messing around with a particle accelerator in their universe?[3] Or are we just a simulation in a program by beings more advanced than we are? Refuting this proposal is the aim of this blog post.

ANY UNIVERSE OF ALIENS CREATING A COMPUTER SIMULATION MUST HAVE A BEGINNING

First of all, even if we conceded this idea (which even Tyson only throws out as a bare possibility), it wouldn’t get rid of God. It wouldn’t eradicate the conceptual analysis of The Kalam Cosmological Argument. Why? Because in the universe in which the computer simulating ours exists, that universe must be enduring through time. If this universe is enduring through time, then it must have a beginning and therefore a transcendent cause.

How did I reach this conclusion? From one of the same philosophical/mathematical arguments that lead me to conclude that our universe had a beginning. First of all, we know that these aliens would have to be enduring through time because the aliens are living in a world of cause and effect, of before-and-after relationships. There was a time before these alien scientists were born and a time after they were born. There was a time before they got their degrees in computer engineering and a time after they graduated. There was a time before they built the computer which caused our simulated universe and a time after they ran the simulation. Before-and-after relationships are impossible without time. According to the description of this theory, our alien creature creators are temporal beings. This leads me to my next point.

1: It is impossible to traverse an actually infinite number of temporal moments.

2: If it is impossible to traverse an actually infinite number of moments, then the present moment cannot be reached.

3: The present moment has been reached.

4: Therefore, we have not endured through an actually infinite number of temporal moments (i.e the universe had a beginning).

This is a logically valid syllogism. If the premises are true, so is the conclusion. So, are the premises true? I think they are.

Let’s look at premise 1. If the universe of our alien creators were eternal and beginningless (unlike the universe they simulated), then that means their world endured through an actually infinite number of moments to reach the point in time in which they caused their simulation. Before the day of the simulation, the day before the simulation had to dawn. And before the day before the day of the simulation could dawn, the day before the day before the day before the simulation could dawn. Before that day could dawn, the day before it had to dawn. Before that day could dawn, the day before it had to dawn, and so on and so forth. As you can see, the day in which the alien scientists caused their universe simulation could never have arrived, because there would need to pass an infinite number of prior moments. In fact, no moment in their universe at all could dawn. Before each day in the infinite series of days, there would always have to be a day that had to dawn first.

Getting to the present moment while having to first cross an infinite number of past events is analogous to jumping out of a bottomless pit, or causing a bottomless coffee pot to overflow. No matter how much coffee you pour into the cup, it will never fill up to the brim.

But if an infinite past could not be crossed, then that means the day of the start of the simulation could not arrive. And that means our present day could not arrive. The start of our 14 billion year history could never have occurred (this is premise 2). But clearly, the present moment has arrived (premise 3). We’re here. You’re reading this blog post right now. It is self-evident that the present has arrived. This means that the universe of our alien creators could not have endured forever, but must have a beginning. And since everything that begins to exist must have a cause, it follows that the universe of our alien creators must have a cause.

BUT MAYBE WE’RE IN A SIMULATION THAT’S INSIDE A SIMULATION
At this point, the atheist might respond “Okay, but maybe the universe of our alien creators is a simulation as well. We’re in a simulation that’s inside a simulation. Just like how a nesting doll can be inside of another nesting doll”. This doesn’t solve the problem. It only pushes it back a notch. Are those aliens subject to time? It would seem so if they evolved, were born, grew up, went to universities to get degrees in computer programming, and then created a universe-simulation that would have a universe-simulation within it. In that case, you run into the same problem. That universe must also have a beginning.

But perhaps the atheist could say “Well, perhaps we’re a simulation within a simulation within a simulation?” Again, the same problems apply.

What happens is that in this alien-scientist-creating-a-universe-simulation scenario is that you get thrown into an infinite regress of aliens creating universe simulations which themselves contain aliens that create universe simulations which themselves contain universe simulations with themselves contain universe simulations ad infinitum.

As already explained above, traversing an actually infinite number of things is impossible. Our own simulation could never have arisen if a past infinite number of universe simulations had to come into being first. Before the aliens could simulate our universe, their universe had to be simulated, and before their universe could be simulated, their universe had to be a simulation, and so on ad infinitum. No simulation could ever come to past, and ergo the present simulation (and present moment within the simulation) could never come to be.

WHAT DOES THIS ALL MEAN?

It means that even in a scenario which posits super advanced aliens creating a computer program of a universe, you eventually get traced back to a universe that is not a computer simulation, but nevertheless contains super advanced alien creatures and (wait for it….) had a beginning. In this scenario, we must come to a first universe, the first beginning, and therefore, the first cause.

But what properties would this cause have? It wouldn’t be a team of super advanced aliens since this first-universe is not itself the result of a prior team of alien scientists. The cause would transcend all physical reality, all of space and time, and therefore be immaterial and uncaused. In other words, God rears His holy head again.

God is exempt from the problems the aliens creators would have. He had no beginning and is uncaused, and therefore needs no prior cause to explain Him. God being beginningless wouldn’t imply that He endured through an actually infinite number of moments because God, sans creation of time, existed outside of time. There was no time. Once God flicked the first domino, time began. This is a bit of a heavy subject, and Christian philosopher William Lane Craig has devoted an entire book the to the subject,[4] but I just wanted to point out that being timeless sans creation, God avoids the problems associated with being beginningless in a temporal manner.

CONCLUSION 
Unfortunately for the atheists, this alien computer simulation idea only forces God to go upstairs at most. It doesn’t get rid of Him. The conceptual analysis of The Kalam Cosmological Argument still stands.

Notes 

[1] deGrasse Tyson, Neil. Astrophysics for People in a Hurry (Kindle Locations 170-171). W. W. Norton & Company. Kindle Edition.

[2] Don’t let this wild idea deter you from getting Tyson’s book by the way. He only mentions the simulation idea in this one place. Astrophysics For People In A Hurry It is a fantastic introductory course in astrophysics. Tyson does not put forth wild theories like this throughout, and he only shows his atheistic sleeve a total of two times. The first in this part of the book, and the second, in the final chapter. It’s an overall religiously neutral work. I recommend anyone who loves science (and is especially not well read in science) to pick up the book.

[3] By the way, this happened in a Doctor Who episode (titled Extremis). I won’t describe what happened in the episode. Watch it yourself. Watch the whole series in fact. It’s an awesome show!

[4] The book is called “Time and Eternity: Exploring God’s Relationship To Time”.

 


Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2ErH4n3

By Al Serrato

God gave us free will so that we can freely choose Him, for freedom of choice is essential to love. But, the skeptic counters, many people do not believe God is real. Why doesn’t God reveal himself more clearly? This question has considerable surface appeal, as it plays on our intuitive sense of fairness. Despite the vast number of people who believe that the evidence for God’s existence, and for Christ’s deity, is more than sufficient to ground a solid faith, there are always others who say they might believe “if only….” And if God really does want all to be saved, why doesn’t He provide them with that extra level of proof?

Before attempting an answer, it’s worth taking a closer look at what the skeptic is really saying: “I’m not interested in what your evidence shows. It’s not enough to satisfy me. I want my personal standard to be met. Satan knew of God’s existence and still rejected Him. Why can’t I get that level of proof?”

This is an odd challenge, because it ignores the objective nature of “evidence” and instead focuses on the subjective nature of a person’s response to it. It moves from considering what conclusions the evidence might support to considering what more could be added to make the conclusion even stronger. In the criminal courts, it is not uncommon to present a compelling case which, after days of deliberations, results in a “hang” and the need for a retrial. Eleven jurors might be completely convinced as to the truth of the charge, but one juror can insist that he needs more evidence. Now, perhaps that one has found something that no one else could see, despite days of discussion; more likely, the lone juror is unwilling to convict – to follow where the truth leads – for other reasons. If he follows the skeptics’ lead here, that juror might say: “I’ve heard of cases in which there is a confession to the crime and still the jury did not convict, so I am justified in voting not guilty here until I get the kind of evidence that want.”

Like the skeptic in the present challenge, this juror is making a statement, and not an argument. The fact that greater evidence could be produced in support of a claim is a given; it is true for all possible claims at all possible times, because perfect proof is not possible. But this assertion is not an argument that the evidence that was produced is insufficient. In fact, it does not address the weight and convincing force of the evidence at all.

Returning to the original challenge, what is it that would convince the skeptic? The answer: total knowledge of God, the same kind of knowledge Satan may have had. That means the skeptic wants full knowledge of that Being which embodies the ultimate perfections, that Being from whom derives all things good and worthy of praise and apart from whom there is only deprivation and evil for time without end. Full knowledge of that Being would also entail full knowledge of the consequences of accepting or rejecting His offer of life with Him. Satan was some type of spiritual creature; we know little about him, other than that he used his will to oppose God. But we are all human beings, and as such, we have intimate knowledge of man and his nature. Could we really face that level of knowledge? Would it not be apparent to all that the choice to accept God would be coerced and no longer free? Free will would become a mere fiction.

God set the level of evidence of Him in a way that is fitting to our nature. He does not reveal more because what He has revealed is sufficient, which explains perhaps why the vast majority of all who have ever lived have sought in some way for the God they know is there. We are without excuse, the Bible says, for the knowledge of God is written on our very hearts. We may blur that knowledge with the frantic pace of our lives, or silence it with our insistence on having things our way. But what we have been given is enough to ground our faith, if we only use our minds and our ability to reason to assess what has been revealed to us. But for those who choose not to believe, there is freedom to pursue that course, a course marked by self-will and the quest for control.

Yes, the evidence could always be better. But imperfect human beings rely on imperfect knowledge all the time. The evidence we do have is worth considering, and it may well change the course of your life… if only you give it the chance.

 


Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2npnKQO

Play

By Steve Williams 

I can see the fingerprints of God when I look at you I can see the fingerprints of God and I know its true you’re a masterpiece that all creation quietly applauds and you’re covered with the fingerprints of God

~from Fingerprints of God, by Stephen Curtis Chapman

The common scientific view of the “hardware of life” (that is, the physical components of living systems) is, as Biologist Richard Dawkins puts it, “the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose.” (The Blind Watchmaker, 1986).

Unfortunately, Dawkins (like many others in his field) has succumbed to a logically fallacious assumption that a supernatural explanation is not within the “pool of live options” to explain this appearance of design. Why not? Well, to summarize the common opinions of materialists like Dawkins, it’s “not science”. But what is “Science”?

Louis Pasteur once said “Religions, philosophies, atheism, materialism, or its opposite–none of these is relevant to the matter…I might even add that, scientifically speaking, I am indifferent to them all. The question is purely one of fact”. In other words, science should be “the un-biased search for truth” without philosophical preconceptions. That definition was always the ancient understanding of the term.

Since the so-called “Enlightenment” that swept through Europe in the 1700’s, and especially since the proposal of Darwin’s Theory of Evolution in 1859, however, intellectual activists have been trying to add the qualifying concept of “within naturalistic explanations” to the definition. What that means, in effect, is the addition of a bias to the search for truth.

This bias first “got its legs” from the writings of an apparently bitter atheistic Scottish philosopher named David Hume in the 1700’s. Hume proposed a set of reasons why the supernatural should be ruled be ruled out of consideration as an explanatory mechanism. Not long afterwards, these reasons were shown to be fallacious (we’ll examine this in a later chapter), but at the time, it was as if Europe was eager to unfetter itself from religion, and atheism blossomed somewhat throughout the continent.

Most modern philosophers (even agnostic ones) find Hume’s arguments to be almost laughably illogical, but many atheists unknowingly cite him today as if he was “the Christ” of their belief system. For a full-length treatment of this subject, see John Earman’s book Hume’s Abject Failure, but suffice it to say for the moment that modern humankind has nowhere near a broad enough scope of reality to eliminate the possibility of the supernatural. To the contrary, there are many things in our experience that defy naturalistic explanations.

The philosophical name of the most common scientific form of atheism is “Materialism”, and it claims that not only is there no God, but that there is nothing even like God in the universe. Although it has taken root within the Biological sciences, it has done so to a much lesser extent within Astronomy, Philosophy, and Physics. Many Americans would probably be surprised to know that polls show that the percentage of PhD’ed scientists overall who identify themselves as Christians and who go to church is roughly the same as the percentage in the population at large. Unfortunately, the small minority who identify themselves as atheists is much louder and more aggressive though, so they exert a disproportionate influence on the media, academic standards committees and the like.

Luckily for all who respect unbiased inquiry, many Philosophers who are experts in logic by definition (logic being a subset of Philosophy), have objected vociferously, especially in the past 40 years, to this effort, and have recognized that the scientific method is at stake. As I wrote before, it seems that the key element that catalyzed this mindset since the late 1800’s is Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution. Biologists became so enamored with it over the years that they invested heavily in deepening and entrenching their paradigms based on that assumption, and are not willing to consider that major problems have developed within it. Pride in Biology, and a reluctance to admit being wrong might be a factor. One has to wonder if there are spiritual and carnal reasons that admitting the mere possibility of the existence of the metaphysical is so daunting to some. Since Darwinian Evolution seems to be the lynchpin of this type of thinking, let’s take a hard look at it.

The concept of life arising from non-life by random chance is called “abiogenesis”. This concept is the “creation story” of Darwinian Evolution. But what are the odds of the building blocks of life coming together by random chance in a way to provide even the possibility of life? Harold Morowitz, an agnostic Yale University physicist, created mathematical models by imagining broths of living bacteria that were superheated until all the complex chemicals were broken down into basic building blocks. After cooling the mixtures, Morowitz used physics calculations to conclude that the odds of a single bacterium reassembling by chance is one in 10100,000,000,000. (1) Wow! How can we grasp such a large statistic? Well, it’s more likely that one would win the state lottery every week for a million years by purchasing just one ticket each week!

In response to the probabilities calculated by Morowitz, Robert Shapiro, author of Origins – A Skeptic’s Guide to the Creation of Life on Earth, wrote:

The improbability involved in generating even one bacterium is so large that it reduces all considerations of time and space to nothingness. Given such odds, the time until the black holes evaporate and the space to the ends of the universe would make no difference at all. If we were to wait, we would truly be waiting for a miracle. (2)

Sir Frederick Hoyle compared the probability of life arising by chance to lining up 1050 (ten with fifty zeros after it) blind people, giving each one a scrambled Rubik’s Cube, and finding that they all solve the cube at the same moment!

Biological “Hardware” (Complex Structure) Argument

  1. According to a leading Darwinist, the odds of component parts in close proximity assembling into a single-celled creature are 1 in 10100,000,000,000.
  2. According to probability theorists, anything with lower odds than 1 in 1050is mathematically impossible.
  3. Therefore, the spontaneous generation of life is mathematically impossible.

Regarding the origin of life, Francis Crick, winner of the Nobel Prize in biology for his work with the DNA molecule, stated in 1982:

An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going. (3)

Crick’s assessment of the hopelessness of the spontaneous generation of life on earth led him to subsequently postulate a theory called “Directed Panspermia”, which held that space aliens “seeded” life on earth. As Philip Johnson observed, “When a scientist of Crick’s caliber feels he has to invoke undetectable spaceman, it is time to consider whether the field of prebiological evolution has come to a dead end.” (4)

Ever since the discovery of DNA in 1953, the Darwinian Theory of Evolution has faced increasing challenges yearly as more and more evidence for the complexity of the cell has been discovered. In 1996, Dr. Michael Behe (professor of Biochemistry at Lehigh University) released a book entitled “Darwins’ Black Box”, which detailed an argument against Darwinian Evolution known as the “irreducible complexity” of biological structures and systems. In the 11 years since the publication of the book, it has been attacked from every angle by atheistic scientists, yet its central thesis has only gained strength, as the debate has exposed the weakness of Darwinian counter-arguments, and the naturalistic (atheistic) philosophical biases that lurk behind them.

Have you ever wondered if Charles Darwin himself would still believe in Darwinian Evolution (or macro-evolution) if he knew all of the evidence that has accumulated for and against it up to this time? Well, there is an interesting quote in which Darwin stated his own minimum standard for assessing whether or not his theory would withstand the tests of time:

If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down. (5)

In Darwin’s day, it was assumed that cells were very simple. In the last half of the 20th century, however, it has come to light that inside each living cell are vastly complex molecular machines made up of various protein parts. Organs, which are made up of these complex cells, have also been shown to be much more complex than previously believed.

The blueprints for assembling the protein parts for cells and organs in correct timing and order are encoded into our DNA, which is similar to binary computer code, although it is quaternary (having 4 letters instead of 2). The density of the information encoded into DNA staggers the imagination; there is enough information-storing space in a half-teaspoon of DNA to store all of the assembly instructions for every creature ever made, and room left over to include every book ever written!

In addition to the incredible information-storing capacity in DNA, there are machines and systems in biology which vastly exceed mankind’s creative capacity in terms of their complexity. For example, the blood-clotting mechanism requires a sequence of 20 different proteins (each of which has an average chance of 1 in 8.03 x 10 to the 59th power of forming by random chance!) triggering one another like dominoes falling in order, until a fibrin mesh scaffolding is formed for the clot itself.

If you subtract any one single protein (regardless of where in the sequence of 20), this scaffolding fails to form, and no blood clot is possible. Without clotting, any creature with a circulatory system would bleed to death from a tiny wound, similarly to what happens to hemophiliacs.

Now think about how this compares to Darwin’s criterion for his own theory. Macro-evolution requires a mutation for every step, each of which needs to confer an advantage in surviving or creating offspring to be retained by natural selection. Even if we grant the creation of proteins by random chance (which is extremely unlikely), at steps 1, 2 ,3, 4, etc. on up to and through step 19, there is no advantage conferred toward the production of a blood clot until step 20 is completed! If you reduce the complexity by any single component (regardless of where in the sequence the single component is), the system doesn’t work, and has no reason to be retained by natural selection. This is Irreducible Complexity.

Let’s look at another example. The Bacterial Flagellum is a tail-like protein propeller attached to one end of a bacterium that propels the organism through its environment via rapid rotations (like a miniature outboard motor driving a whip in circular motion). It has components that are remarkably similar to a man-made outboard motor, such as a rotor, a U-joint, a stator, a driveshaft, a propeller, bushings, and O-rings.

There are at least 40 different protein parts required for the assembly of a flagellum. Many of the flagellar proteins control the construction process, switching the building phases on and off with chemical triggers at just the right times, and setting up construction in the proper sequence. It is an engineering marvel. If you deduct 1% of the parts, you don’t have a 99% functional bacterial flagellum; it becomes completely dysfunctional, and you have nothing but a hindrance (probably fatal) to any organism attached to it. The following picture hints at its complexity…

http://freethinkingministries.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/

Consider the fact that it is conservatively calculated that the odds of this incredible structure forming by random chance is 1 in 10 to the 1170th power. (6)  According to probability theorists, anything with a chance lower than 1 in 10 to the 50th power is mathematically impossible, so it doesn’t matter how much time you give it—it simply won’t occur by chance alone.

Just recently, a vastly more complex gear-driven, seven-engine, magnetic-guided flagellar bundle was discovered. Here is an piece on it from www.evolutionnews.org:

Souped-Up Hyperdrive Flagellum Discovered

Evolution News & Views December 3, 2012 5:05 AM

Get a load of this — a bacterium that packs a gear-driven, seven-engine, magnetic-guided flagellar bundle that gets 0 to 300 micrometers in one second, ten times faster than E. coli.

If you thought the standard bacterial flagellum made the case for intelligent design, wait till you hear the specs on MO-1, a marine bacterium described by Japanese researchers in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Edited by Howard Berg, Harvard’s mastermind of flagellum reverse engineering, this paper describes the Ferrari of flagella.

Instead of being a simple helically wound propeller driven by a rotary motor, it is a complex organelle consisting of 7 flagella and 24 fibrils that form a tight bundle enveloped by a glycoprotein sheath…. the flagella of MO-1 must rotate individually, and yet the entire bundle functions as a unit to comprise a motility organelle.

To feel the Wow! factor, jump ahead to Figure 6 in the paper. It shows seven engines in one, arranged in a hexagonal array, stylized by the authors in a cross-sectional model that shows them all as gears interacting with 24 smaller gears between them. The flagella rotate one way, and the smaller gears rotate the opposite way to maximize torque while minimizing friction. Download the movie from the Supplemental Information page to see the gears in action.

Electron micrographs included in the paper show that the model is not unrealistic. These flagella really are tightly packed in a sheath, suggesting that the bundle acts like a gear-driven hyperdrive.

Here we have used electron cryotomography to visualize the 3D architecture of the sheathed flagella. The seven filaments are enveloped with 24 fibrils in the sheath, and their basal bodies are arranged in an intertwined hexagonal array similar to the thick and thin filaments of vertebrate skeletal muscles. This complex and exquisite architecture strongly suggests that the fibrils counter-rotate between flagella in direct contact to minimize the friction of high-speed rotation of individual flagella in the tight bundle within the sheath to enable MO-1 cells to swim at about 300 µm/s. (Emphasis added.)

At microbial level, that’s more than 10 body lengths per second. The authors were clearly excited by this engine, sounding like young men checking out high-performance cars, talking thrust, gear ratios and torque.

MO-1 is a magnetotactic bacterium capable of orienting its cell body along the geomagnetic field lines by using magnetosomes. The MO-1 cell has a flagellar apparatus with two lophotrichous [containing numerous flagella in] bundles. In contrast to peritrichously [flagella all over the cell] flagellated bacteria, MO-1 cells swim constantly in a helical trajectory toward magnetic north, and the trajectory changes from right-handed to left-handed without changes in velocity or direction. The cells are able to swim as fast as 300 μm/s, which is nearly 10-fold faster than E. coli and Salmonella. Although the flagella of the other types of bacteria usually work individually or by forming a loose bundle to produce thrust, the flagellar apparatus of MO-1 is a tight bundle of seven flagella enveloped in a sheath made of glycoproteins. This unique architecture appears to be essential for the smooth and high-speed swimming of MO-1.

They can’t see actual gears, of course, but physics demands that the mechanism of rotation must have something like it:

We hypothesize that, whereas each of the seven flagella has its torque-generating motor, the 24 fibrils counter rotate between the flagellar filaments to minimize the friction that would be generated if the flagella were directly packed together in a tight bundle. A schematic diagram representing our hypothesis is presented in Fig. 6. The flagella are represented as large brown gears and the fibrils are represented as small blue-green gears. The flagella and fibrils rotate counterclockwise and clockwise, respectively, as indicated by the arrows, to minimize friction (Movie S1). Although there is no direct evidence that the fibrils can rotate freely in the opposite direction as the flagellar filaments with which they are in direct contact, we think this is the simplest interpretation to explain the superior function afforded by the complex architecture of the MO-1 flagellar apparatus.

Considering the very tight packing of the 7 flagella and 24 fibrils that are in direct physical contact within the sheath, there appears to be no other way for the flagella to rotate at high speed without the counter rotation of the intervening fibrils. Although the fibrils and the surrounding sheath are in direct contact, the friction between them would be small because of the stocking-like flexibility of the sheath. This design must be playing an essential role in the fast, smooth rotation of the flagellar apparatus that allows the rapid swimming of MO-1.

With powerful evidence of design like this, did the researchers become converts to intelligent design? We can’t know, but would PNAS have printed such a paper without an obligatory tribute to unguided materialistic evolution? Evolution is not mentioned until the last paragraph:

Taken together, these features of the MO-1 flagellar apparatus represent an advanced level of evolution of a motility apparatus. It is also intriguing that the same pattern of an intertwined hexagonal array in two evolutionary distant systems: the basal bodies of flagella and fibrils of the MO-1 flagellar apparatus, and the thick and thin filaments in vertebrate skeletal muscle. Similar architectures of filamentous structures presumably evolved independently in prokaryotes and eukaryotes to fulfill the requirements for two very distinct mechanisms to generate motion: counter rotation and axial sliding.

OK, so the Darwinists got their offering, but it leaves a bad aftertaste: now, they have to believe that advanced mechanisms for generating motion evolved not just once, but twice — completely independent of each other. Thanks a lot, guys. Wait till the intelligent-design movement hears about this.

Oops, too late.

(http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/12/souped-up_flage066921.html).

Going back to our previous subject, what if we just ignored the previously mentioned problems of forming the first cell, and assume that we’re starting the Darwinian process from the bacterial level and advancing to the human level? On page 153 of the book Who Was Adam?, Fazale Rana and Hugh Ross cite one of the world’s most prominent evolutionists, Dr. Francisco Ayala of UC Irvine, as calculating the minimal odds of human beings evolving from the bacterial level  to be 1 in 10 to the 1 millionth power. Three physicists, John Barrow, Brandon Carter and Frank Tipler, did roughly the same calculation but included some important factors that Ayala overlooked, and came up with the number 1 in 10 to the 24 millionth power. Again, according to probability theorists, any event with lower odds than 1 in 10 to the 50th power is mathematically impossible. Therefore unguided Darwinian evolution is mathematically impossible!

Reduced to a propositional argument, it might go like this:

Biological “Hardware” (Complex Structure) Argument

  1. According to leading Darwinists, odds of humans evolving from a single-celled creature are 1 in 1024,000,000.
  2. According to probability theorists, anything with lower odds than 1 in 1050is mathematically impossible.
  3. Therefore, Darwinian evolution of human beings is mathematically impossible.

Now, these two sets of odds (totaling to 1 in 10100,024,000,000) seem overwhelming to say the least; why would scientists insist that creations like these could have come about by evolution? To re-iterate, it seems that biological science has become dominated by atheistic philosophers. Science is “a search for truth”, but the oligarchy in control in this day and age is trying to change that to “a search for truth by naturalistic (atheistic) means”. To them, the idea of God is unacceptable, so science cannot consider even the possibility that God created this universe and all that is in it.

Take a look at the following quote by prominent Darwinist Richard Lewontin, and consider whether his viewpoint is logically sound. Unfortunately, this quote seems to be representative of how many Darwinists think, and how they want everyone else to think:

Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door. (7)

One wonders why such a concerted effort is made to deny the metaphysical into the pool of live options. Perhaps the following quote by another prominent Darwinist named Aldous Huxley provides some insight:

I had motives for not wanting the world to have meaning; consequently assumed that it had none, and was able without any difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption … For myself, as no doubt, for most of my contemporaries, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation.  The liberation we desired was simultaneous liberation from a certain political and economic system, and liberation from a certain system of morality.  We objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom. (8)

Now, just for fun, look at the following Bible passage, and think about how it relates to the quotes above:

For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.

For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools. –Romans 1:20-22.

Perhaps this is a good place to ponder a quote from Nobel-Prize winning organic chemist Christian de Duve:

If you equate the probability of the birth of a bacteria cell to chance assembly of its atoms, eternity will not suffice to produce one… Faced with the enormous sum of lucky draws behind the success of the evolutionary game, one may legitimately wonder to what extent this success is actually written into the fabric of the universe. (9)

God has indeed left His signature in nature in its irreducible complexity and fine-tuning. Darwinism has failed repeatedly when tested as an explanation for the existence of life. Hundreds of scientists have recognized this and have signed a document called the “Dissent from Darwinism” (http://www.dissentfromdarwin.org/) to express their disagreement with philosophical naturalism dominating science through Darwinism. We simply need to “have eyes to see, and ears to hear”, and stop listening to atheistic philosophers disguised as scientists, who try to insist that the supernatural or metaphysical is off-limits for science. “Reasonable faith” is going in the same direction to which the evidence is pointing. The teachings of the Bible, understood properly, merge perfectly with science.

 


This article is chapter 3 From What Your Atheist Professor Doesn’t know (But Should), by Steve Williams

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2Ch6MsY

By Al Serrato

The fool has said in his heart, “There is no God.” If this passage from Psalms is correct, then many people today are fools, for they insist that God does not exist. But the ranks of non-believers include many scientifically minded and highly intelligent people, not the sort we would normally consider as foolish. So, what makes such a person a “fool,” and not merely someone with whom we disagree?

Well, let’s begin with a look at the definition of “fool,” which includes “a person who has been tricked or deceived into appearing or acting silly or stupid.” Now, sometimes we trick ourselves, and thereby make fools of ourselves. And other times we are misled. But either way most would agree that someone who holds contradictory views has deceived himself. Imagine a person proudly proclaiming that the prime rib he is about to eat is an important part of his vegetarian diet. Or the person who says that the only medicine that can save him is the one with no ingredients.

But sometimes contradictions aren’t as obvious. Why, then, is it a contradiction to insist there is no God? It doesn’t appear to be contradictory – at first glance anyway. For the answer to that question, we are indebted to St. Anselm of Canterbury, who lived and pondered these questions some ten centuries ago. I can’t do justice to Anselm’s argument in this brief piece, but perhaps some concepts borrowed from Anselm may help make the point.

The first requires consideration of just what the mind does. Anyone who has seen a baby develop realizes that the human mind comes preprogrammed with an “operating system” of sorts. This allows us to acquire language, to reason, to recognize concepts such as fairness and truth and beauty, and other intangible things, and to make use of imagination. This ability for abstract thought lends itself to “got it” moments when a problem that has been puzzling us all of a sudden makes sense. We all use these systems intuitively; of course, there is no other way, since we could never use reason, for instance, to prove the validity or usefulness of reason.

One aspect of this ability for abstract thought is the ability to conceptualize. Food, for instance, can encompass a million different things, but to qualify it must be edible and serve to nourish, and not poison, us. We can call an ashtray “food”, but the underlying thing is not a matter of what we call it, but of what it consists.

So, with this observation in view, consider for a moment not what a definition of God might be, but what the conception of God is. What is it that we are struggling to grasp when we use that term? Anselm’s definition was simply this – God is that being a greater than which cannot be conceived. Whatever attributes God would have – omnipotence, omnipresence, perfect goodness, etc. – if you can conceive of a being with all those attributes plus an additional one, then the latter would be God. So, imagine two beings then – each with exhaustive, infinite powers. One of the two has the attribute of necessary existence, while the other may or may not exist. Clearly, the former – the one with necessary existence – would be the greater. Consequently, to fully conceive of God, we must be conceiving of a Being who can’t not exist, whose existence must always have been and will always continue to be. Anything else simply cannot fit the conception of God.

So, what does that prove? Maybe this conception of God is imaginary. Not so, Anselm would contend. And here’s why: the mind is not capable of conceptualizing something that does not correspond to something real. Now, this premise is a bit harder to get one’s mind around. The normal response to this part of the argument is that we create imaginary things all the time, from unicorns to tooth fairies to Jedi Knights. But each of these things, while imaginary, is the combining of things that are real: a horse and a horn; a person with wings and unusual powers; a warrior with special abilities and unusual weapons. And, moreover, neither a unicorn nor a tooth fairy nor a Jedi Knight would possess the attribute of necessary existence. If a unicorn did exist, it would have to consist of a horse with a single horn in its head; but its existence could have occurred briefly in the distant past, or could arise in the distant future or could not occur at all. We can fully conceptualize such a creature without the need that the creature itself actually exist because the conceptualization does not require necessary existence.

This concept of “necessary” existence is not easily grasped at first. Many skeptics will contend that “existence” is not an attribute at all. Imaginary things don’t actually exist, they will say, so they consist of nothing. This line of argument can quickly devolve into an argument over definitions, with the skeptic insisting that it is nonsensical to consider a thing which does not exist. This assumption allows them to defeat Anselm’s argument – they write “necessary existence” out of the set of characteristics of God – but a moment’s reflection should reveal that this comes at too high a price. I can conceive in my mind of many past historical figures whose attributes I can describe in detail but who do not presently exist, for they have passed away. More importantly, every scientific discovery or invention must first begin in the mind of a person who sees the attributes of the thing before it actually takes form. The automobile, for instance, did not create itself; it first appeared in the mind of an inventor who could see what it would consist of if it did exist and then set about adding “existence” to its attributes.

Letting our minds approach the concept of what “God” must be, the only way to conceptualize Him, is as a necessarily existent being. If we are not seeing Him that way – if we are insisting that there may be a God, but then again maybe not, then we are not yet thinking about God, but about something else, something less than God.

This foray into philosophy can be difficult. Fortunately, there are many other proofs for God’s existence, ones much easier with which to grapple, but this one stands out for its elegance. For if it has merit, then God has embedded within us the means to find Him in the one place we have exclusive and special access to our very minds.

If Anselm is right, then the fool who denies God is saying something like “I believe that the Being who must necessarily exist does not exist.” A rather foolish thing to say, when you see it clearly.

The Bible says that God has written his law on our heart. Perhaps if we probe a bit deeper still, we can also begin to see in its depths the first faint scratching of His signature.

 


Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2klEgzC

By Tim Stratton

Atheists often appeal to evolution in an attempt to explain the primate complexity we observe today without a need for an Intelligent Designer — God! Indeed, many say the reason they affirm atheism is because they believe evolution is true. Since their hypothesis does not include God as a designer, atheists feel justified in affirming that God does not exist and that Christianity is false. With that said, however, if evolution is true, it does nothing to prove that God does not exist or do anything to disprove the historical resurrection of Jesus (the two essential ingredients of “mere Christianity”). Moreover, what atheists fail to comprehend is that by appealing to evolution in an attempt to “prove” atheism, they ultimately prove too much!

Evolution simply means change over time. Most evolutionists and young earth creationists will agree that some things do genuinely change over time (even if they disagree on how much some things change over time). What is important to note is that Darwinian evolution requires a genuine change over dynamic time — at least if one is hoping to explain primate complexity. With that in mind, I contend that if evolution is true, then atheism is false!

Consider this: I believe that some things do genuinely evolve and change over time. In fact, we currently exist in a world in which things are constantly changing right in front of our eyes! That is to say, we exist in an evolving state of affairs (change happens)!

The problem, however, is this: it is logically impossible for a changing state of affairs to be extrapolated into past infinity! In “English” that means that if we currently exist in a changing state of affairs and things are really happening one event after another, then it is impossible for things to happen chronologically in this manner without a first change. If we exist — right now — in a changing state of affairs, then it is impossible to go on and on forever in the past. Logically, there must have been a beginning or a first change.

If there never was a first change, then the present moment — “right now” — would not exist. To help illustrate why the concept of past infinity is incoherent, consider two thought experiments.

Infinite Jumpers & Steppers

First, is it possible for someone, say a superhero with infinite jumping powers, to jump out of an infinitely tall bottomless-pit? Of course not. There is no launching pad or foundation from which to jump. When it comes to things changing over time (evolution), if the hole at ground level represents the present moment and the idea of past infinity means there is no foundation to jump from (a first change over time), then the present moment of change could never be reached. The jumper could never get out of the hole because there is no starting point for him to progress upward. Because the present moment does exist and things do change over time (evolution) it logically follows that a foundation exists for the first change to occur leading to the evolution (change over time) we notice today.

Second, suppose a man walks up the steps to your front porch and rings the doorbell. You answer the door and ask if you can help him. He states, “I have just walked an infinite number of steps and finally completed them right here on your front porch.” Of course, you do not believe him, yet he insists that he has accomplished this feat. You ask for proof and he invites you to join him on a journey to retrace his infinite number of steps. He tells you that once the two of you reach this infinite point, you will then follow those same footsteps all the way back to your front door. You adamantly reject his offer because you realize that if you were to retrace an infinite amount of steps you will never get back home! In fact, you will never turn around to begin your journey home!

Consider the steps involved . . . you would take one step, then a second step, then a third step. Eventually, you would take a millionth step, and eventually a billionth step, and then a trillionth step. Whatever step you were currently taking you could always take one more and count it — never reaching actual infinity. Whenever you decide to turn around to come back home you will be on a countable step. So, if you do ever make it back home, your steps would not be infinite.

Just as it would be logically impossible for you to retrace all the steps this pedestrian claims to have made, it is just as impossible for this pedestrian to traverse an actual infinite amount of steps ending on your front porch. A rational person will know that one who makes such a claim is either delusional or deceptive. The “stepper” must have taken a first step.

Change over time (evolution) has the same problem. If a first change occurred, then it logically follows that a first change resulted from an unchanging, eternal, and beginningless state of affairs. Think of this as a frozen/static state where nothing happens and nothing has ever happened logically prior to the first change (I know this is hard to imagine). This might not seem like a “big deal” but the implications are enormous! This is the case because if things are not changing in a frozen/static state, then nothing would ever happen. This is because if things are not evolving, emerging, decaying, growing, or becoming unstable (which are words implying change over time), then these things would never be able to cause the first change. Change over time cannot account for things starting to change over time. That is to say, if nothing is happening, then nothing can describe or account for the first change that resulted from a static, frozen, and unchanging state! UNLESS…

… a volitional agent existed in this static state who had the power to act.

Other than a volitional agent, what else could cause a change from an unchanging state of affairs? At the least, a volitional agent with the power to act could exist in a static state and then cause something to happen. That is to say, if nothing is happening, but a volitional agent with free will exists in this static state, then this volitional agent can freely choose to act and cause the first change. This is what Aristotle meant by the “Unmoved Mover.”

Volitional agents are personal types of “things” or rather, “beings.” If a being is personal in nature, then this being is the kind of “thing” in which you can have a personal relationship — that is, at least if you are a person! Thus, if you are a person, then it is at least possible that you can have a personal relationship with this unmoved mover!

An Argument from Change Over Time

We can summarize this entire argument in a step-by-step syllogism:

1- Things change over time (evolution).

2- A changing state of affairs cannot be past infinite.

3- Therefore, a first change resulted from an unchanging state of affairs.

4- Only a volitional agent can cause a change from an unchanging state of affairs.

5- Volitional agents are personal.

6- Therefore, this personal agent existed in an unchanging state of affairs.

7- Anything existing in an unchanging state of affairs never began to exist and is eternal with no beginning.

8- Therefore, the cause of the first change (and ultimately the change of affairs in which we find ourselves) is a personal agent who is eternal with no beginning and was in a changeless state of affairs logically prior to causing the first change.

This final deductive conclusion should be eye-opening! Why should this get one’s attention? Because this personal agent who caused things to start evolving and changing over time is God! The Bible does not just note the possibility of having a personal relationship with the Unmoved Mover — God — it explains exactly how you and I can know God personally through Jesus Christ!

Bottom line: If you believe that things actually do evolve and change over time, then you should reject atheism!

Stay reasonable (Isaiah 1:18),

Tim Stratton

 


Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2j7eSMT

 

By Al Serrato

Most atheists feel confident that they have “reason” on their side. As a result, many are surprised when a Christian apologist takes an evidentialist, or reason-based, approach to matters of “faith.” Not long ago, the issue arose in a conversation I was having with a skeptic. I had been laying out the basic philosophical arguments for the existence of a supreme, uncaused being.

Accepting the logic of these arguments, she shifted her challenge, saying: “You want me to use reason to get me to agree that God exists, but then stop using it as soon as I get to that point.” In other words, despite hearing rational arguments about the existence of God in general, she could not fathom that a belief in God in particular – the God of the Bible, for instance – could be based on anything other than wishful thinking. Faith, after all, was simply not rational.

My response went something like this: “Hopefully by now, you see that I am not asking you to abandon reason. The types of argument may vary, and the level of certainty about particular conclusions might also differ, but for everything that historic Christianity affirms, there are good reasons to believe what we believe.” She shook her head in, well, disbelief.

“As it applies to Christianity,” I persisted, “some of what we know about God can be inferred from observations. This is referred to as ‘general revelation.’ Consider what we see of the universe: it is spatially and temporally immense, beyond our ability to understand and grasp; it is well-ordered and predictable, with set laws such as logic and math, physics and chemistry, all operating flawlessly, consistently and seamlessly. It contains examples of breath-taking beauty, such as the inherent beauty of music and nature, and heart-pounding emotion, such as the joy of first love or the miracle of birth. But it is also quite deadly, or at the very least quite inhospitable to humans. Despite its immense size, it appears that we can live only in a sliver of air on a remote planet, and even there, most of the planet is exceedingly dangerous to us. You see, my ability to reason can lead me to some generalities: God must be immensely powerful and intelligent; he must be artistic and love order. He must be capable of great love. But is he … harsh? Uncaring? Why is this creation so dangerous? And, most importantly, what comes next? Reason cannot lead us to any answers here. We see a glimpse of God, but not the full picture.”

She wasn’t sure where I was going, and in a way, neither was I. The next step, to a rational reliance on the words of the Bible, is a big step; in fact, for many, it has been, and remains, too big a step for them to take.

I resumed. “To move to a personal relationship with God – in the specific, not general sense – requires more; it cannot be based completely and exclusively on reason. It does, in fact, depend also on faith, but it is a faith that stems from, and finds support in, reason.”

“You want it both ways,” she countered. “You want to call it reason when it is simply wishful thinking.”

I knew what she meant, and I acknowledged that I was struggling with putting these thoughts into words. “No, there is a difference that you’re not seeing. Believing in unicorns is a function of faith; there is no evidence for them, and no good reason to believe they exist. But if you had actual evidence – from trusted sources – that such animals existed, your “faith” in them might eventually become reasonable. The problem isn’t that believing in exotic animals is irrational; the problem is that believing in such animals when there is no evidence – no reason – to support that belief is irrational.”

I shifted gears a bit, wanting to get on to the point while there was time.

“Now, put yourself for a moment in the position of the creator-God. You want to give people true free will so that they are not mere automatons, and you want them to choose a relationship with you without forcing them to do so. Your problem is twofold: if you make your presence too intrusive, they will believe because they have no real choice, but if you reveal nothing of yourself, they will have no basis to know you. So, what you do is reveal enough of yourself so that they will see your presence. Then you choose a messenger who will convey your intentions. It must be fined tuned this way so that those who respond do so freely and not under coercion. Those who do respond freely will eventually be made perfect; he will work on them to free them from their fallen nature and to remove some of what separates them from him. Those who reject him get what they are seeking – separation from him.”

“Christianity affirms that God chose a particular people to convey this message. He used prophets to speak for him, then sent his son. Much of what I trust in about God comes from the words of that son, Jesus. If Jesus is a reliable source (i.e. that he has a basis to know what he claims to know and that he is honest), then I am justified in trusting what he says. If so, then he is a good source of information about God. If he says that God has offered us salvation and prepared a place for us to spend eternity, I can trust that information if I can trust Jesus. I acknowledge that my confidence that there is a heaven is pure faith – I believe it because Jesus says it. But my trust in Jesus is not based on faith. That would be mere wishful thinking. I believe that Jesus rose from the dead not because the Bible says it, but because the evidence of it is very strong, and the evidence against it is not. I don’t believe Jesus rose from the dead because I have faith, or because the Bible said it; I have faith that what Jesus said was true and that the Bible is trustworthy because I first had proof that Jesus did what he claimed he would do. He fulfilled the prophecies of centuries before, died for us and then rose from the dead.”

“But,” she began, again shaking her head ….

Enough for one day, I concluded. The next step would be to show why what we know about Jesus is reliable. But I had places to go, and she needed more time to think about what we had covered so far.

 


Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2z0YOHc

By Evan Minton

“If you were talked into your belief, you can be talked out of it”. This is what I read from one theologian in a book a while back. I cannot remember who said it, but that was a direct quote from the book. I think it came from one of the volumes of A.W Tozer’s The Attributes Of God, but I’m not entirely sure. I only remember what was said, not who said itAnyway, the point this preacher was making is that if one rests on arguments and evidence to justify their belief in Christianity, then their faith stands on shaky grounds, for “If you were talked into your belief, you can be talked out of it”. If you were argued into believing the truth of Christianity by an apologist, then some atheistic philosopher or Muslim theologian or cultist could come along, give some arguments for their worldview, and you may find those arguments persuasive and abandon the faith. The preacher wrote that we should instead rely on the word of God (The Bible) and the inner witness of The Holy Spirit. We should spurn an evidential approach to knowing that Christianity is true and instead rely on faith and religious experiences.

I think that this argument is deeply flawed for a variety of reasons.

I Don’t Hang My Hat On One Argument

I cannot speak for everyone, but I personally don’t hang my hat on a single argument for Christianity’s truth. There is a wide range of arguments for God’s existence, The Bible’s historical reliability, and for Jesus’ resurrection. There’s The Kalam Cosmological ArgumentThe Cosmic Fine-Tuning Argument, The Local Fine-Tuning ArgumentThe Moral ArgumentThe Ontological ArgumentThe Contingency Argument, The Argument From Desire, The Argument From Science’s DoabilityThe Transcendental Argument, and there’s plenty of historical evidence indicating that Jesus of Nazareth died on the cross and rose from the dead (see herehere, and here). I defend all of these in great detail in my book  Inference To The One True God

What would happen if one of these arguments were ever shown to be unsound? Would my belief in God collapse? Let’s say that The Big Bang was overturned some day, the second law of thermodynamics was somehow shown to not imply a universe of finite age, and the arguments against actual infinities were also refuted, so that we could not evidentially demonstrate The Kalam Cosmological Argument’s second premise (i.e “The Universe Began To Exist”), thus rendering the argument unsound? Well, we’ve still got The Ontological Argument, which argues that if God’s existence is even possible, then it follows that God exists. I would still believe in God in this hypothetical scenario because although the Kalam was shown to be garbage, no one undermined any of the premises of The Ontological Argument. Moreover, The Contingency Argument doesn’t even need the universe to have had a beginning in order for it to be sound. All the Contingency Argument needs with respect to the universe is that it needs the universe to not exist by a necessity of its own nature, which, as you’ll know if you read the article I linked to on that argument, can be demonstrated apart from arguing that the universe had a beginning to its existence. I could still say “The best explanation for the existence of the universe is God” on the basis of The Argument From Contingency despite there being no way to argue that the universe hasn’t existed forever.

Or what if the Kalam always stands strong, but it’s The Local Fine-Tuning Argument that suffers a fatal blow. Well, I’d still have The Kalam, the cosmic Fine-Tuning Argument, The Moral Argument, and all of the others I mentioned above. Even if it could be argued that, maybe on the basis of the universe’s size or whatever, that the 400+ characteristics could come together by chance, that wouldn’t do anything to the Kalam or Cosmic Fine-Tuning Arguments. And it, again, wouldn’t do anything to The Ontological Argument.

https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-RyhTm8GO-cI/Wcr48Nbu-mI/AAAAAAAAFbk/vvvp9C8rGWo82LJtljVniukeR6OOTCkogCLcBGAs/s1600/

A meme I saw on the Facebook Page “Philosophy Memes and Theology Dreams”

You see, if one basis their belief on a variety of arguments that all point to the same conclusion, then even if one or two of them were shown to be fallacious, it wouldn’t remove the epistemological justification for belief. The meme on the left-hand side gets this point across magnificently. In this meme, a person is about to be thrown into skepticism about the existence of the external world. Clearly, if the external world isn’t real, then The Cosmological Arguments (both The Kalam and The Contingency) will fail. You can’t say the best explanation for the origin of the world is a transcendent Creator if there is no world of which to have an origin. You can’t say God is the best explanation for the existence of the universe is there is no universe. However, the Ontological Argument doesn’t hinge on the universe at all, beginningless or eternal, existent or non-existent. The Ontological Argument, as even its detractors will tell you, all hinges on whether that first premise is true (i.e “It is possible that a Maximally Great Being Exists”). So, despite jettisoning the Cosmological Arguments on the basis of external-world skepticism, he still has a fallback argument to run to.

If The Sword Cuts At All, It Cuts Both Ways 

“If you were argued into Christianity, you can be argued out of it.” — If we were to take this statement’s logic and apply it consistently, it would undercut even belief in God on an experiential or emotional basis. For example, one could say “If you came to know God through an experience of Him, you could come to know a false god through an equally powerful experience.” Suppose a person feels God’s presence in a mighty and inexplicable way during a church service as the pastor was preaching. As a result of this powerful experience, he comes to believe that Jesus is the one true God, that The Bible is true, that he is a sinner whom Jesus died for, and that God wants Him to follow Him. But 10 years down the road, he enters a mosque and hears the Quran being read. He now has the same type of experience he had before, only this time, he believes it’s Allah who is trying to get his attention. He abandons Christianity and converts to Islam.

“That could never happen” you might say. Why not? “Because Allah isn’t the one true God. You can’t have an experience of a god who isn’t there.” Well, isn’t it possible that demonic forces could cause an effect in a person like the above in an attempt to deceive him and lead him to apostatize? Remember, I’m arguing against a preacher here who believes The Bible in its entirety. He has to admit that the devil might play with someone’s mind to get them to commit idolatry. After all, he’s “the father of lies” (John 8:44), who “seeks to kill and destroy” (John 10:10) and “prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8), and can even make himself come off as an angel of light (2 Corinthians 11:14). This preacher has to keep open the possibility that demons could give people false religious experiences to get them to worship a false god. Why can’t we say “If you were experienced into the faith, you can be experienced out of it?”

If The Evidence Truly Did Point Away From Christianity, We Should Follow It

Thirdly, if the evidence truly did point to some other worldview, then we ought to hold to that worldview. It would literally be irrational to hold to a belief in light of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. If it could be proven beyond a reasonable doubt that God does not exist, I would become an atheist. If it could be proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the book of Mormon is divinely inspired, I would become a Mormon. Or if it could be shown that the Quran is inspired, I would become a Muslim. Of course, the evidence would have to actually be beyond a reasonable doubt. After all, this isn’t like deciding what kind of job to get. Eternity is on the line here! Being wrong can have devastating consequences. I’d have to be pretty darn sure that Christianity was false before I’d be willing to abandon it.

For any atheist reading this, you would have to (1) demolish all of the arguments for God’s existence and you would have to discredit The Minimal Facts Case for Christ’s resurrection, and then (2) you would have to provide a positive argument in favor of atheism. If you just do 1, I’ll just be left with agnosticism. For the Muslim, you would have to likewise discredit the historical case for Jesus’ resurrection, and you would have to either refute The Moral and Ontological Arguments or show that Allah is compatible with those arguments conclusion. As in chapters 4 and 5 of my book Inference To The One True God: Why I Believe In Jesus Instead Of Other Gods, I don’t think Allah is the one true God because He cannot be perfectly loving and He cannot be perfectly loving, because He isn’t a Trinity. God has to be a Trinity in order to be a God of perfect love because He wouldn’t be able to express love prior to the creation of any creatures to love. Love requires 3 things; (1) A lover, (2) A Beloved, and (3) a relationship between them. A Unitarian God doesn’t have all the requirements for love to exist until He creates other persons, which means He was lacking in the love department prior to making people. Since God must be morally perfect to be the standard of morality (The Moral Argument), and since a Maximally Great Being must have all great-making properties and have them to the greatest extent possible (The Ontological Argument), since love is a virtue and a great-making property then the God of The Moral and Ontological Arguments must have perfect love. Allah, a non-trinitarian god, doesn’t fit the bill. No polytheistic god fits the bill. No God consists of more than one person than Christianity’s God. Therefore, it is my inference that The Moral and Ontological arguments point to the God of orthodox Christianity. Pick up my book for other explanations for why Allah is not God. 

What If A Christian Isn’t Relying SOLEY On Evidence?

For me, the reason my belief that Christianity is true is so strong is that I have both a plethora of arguments evidence as well as The Holy Spirit’s witness to my heart. I think my faith would be a lot shakier if I relied solely on arguments or solely on the inner witness. I believe in God because I’ve experienced Him….multiple times. I also believe in God because He is the best explanation for the origin of the universe, the fine-tuning of the universe, the fine-tuning of our local habitable region, the moral law, the possibility of doing science, the reliability of our reasoning faculties, and no explanation has been given over the past 2,000 years to explain the 5 minimal facts than “He is risen”.

Christianity is the inference to the best explanation, and moreover, God has been a living reality in my life. It seems to me that my belief has less of a chance of being destroyed if I lean on both of these epistemological pillars. If I relied on only one, either one, I think it would be a lot more fragile than it is.

Once Saved, Always Saved 

Not everyone will agree with me here, but I do affirm that someone who truly got saved will always be saved. He will never lose His salvation. First, we have Jesus’ statement in John 10:27-29. In this passage, Jesus says “My sheep hear my voice. I know them and they follow me. I give them eternal life and they shall never perish. No one can pluck them from my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.” In this passage, Jesus says that no one is able to pluck us out of His hand. This seems to suggest that once you’re saved, that’s it. Nothing can cause you to be removed from Jesus’ hand. Now, people who believe salvation can be lost have responded to this passage by saying that this passage only means that no outside forces will cause us to lose our salvation against our will (e.g demons, the temptations of the world), but it doesn’t follow that we can’t freely choose to jump out of Christ’s hand. Point taken, but there’s more to take away from the passage than merely the “no one can pluck them from my hand” part. Notice that in the earlier part of the passage, Jesus says “I give them eternal life and they shall never perish.” Jesus’ words here are a blunt, de facto statement. He doesn’t say “they shall never perish as long as they don’t hop out of my hand.”. He just says “they shall never perish” period. If we freely chose to jump out of Christ’s hand, what would happen to us? We would perish, in contradiction to Christ’s words. There’s no conditional statement in this passage. Jesus just says point blank “I give them eternal life and they shall never perish”.

Moreover, 1 John 2:19 says “They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us.” This sounds almost exactly like what eternal security advocates say. “They were never saved. If they were, they wouldn’t have become unsaved.” The apostle John says “They went out from us, but they weren’t of us. If they were of us, they wouldn’t have left.” When eternal security advocates say to a former Christian “you were never saved. If you were, you wouldn’t have lost it”, they are merely echoing the apostle’s words in 1 John 2:19.

Now, I hold to a more nuanced version of eternal security than most Christians do, but I won’t get into that here. Just check out my 3 part series on what I’ve dubbed “The Can/Won’t Model Of Eternal Security”, herehere, and here.

Given this, if a person truly has been born again (John 3:3) and become a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17), then regardless of how he came to believe that Christianity is true, he won’t stop believing it. He will be a Bible-believing Christ-Follower until the day he dies. So, the fact that some were “argued into the faith” doesn’t mean that they can be argued out of it, at least if they were truly born again.

Conclusion

This attempt by Tozer (or whoever it was) to undermine the legitimacy of an evidential faith fails. For one, most evidentialists don’t put all of their eggs in one basket. Secondly, this logic could be applied to believing in God on the basis of religious experience (what the preacher was arguing in favor of). Thirdly, it’s a false dichotomy to say that one’s belief is based on either evidence or religious experience (why not both?). And finally, given the doctrine of Eternal Security, even if a Christian did lean solely on evidence, if he were truly born again, he would never fall away. God would find a way to keep him from doing so.

 


Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2yEK2Wc

By Adam Tucker

As anyone who attends the Southern Evangelical Seminary National Conference on Christian Apologetics knows, SES does its best to offer well-rounded apologetics training that meets the needs of the novice while also challenging those who are more advanced. Our goal is to challenge the status quo of popular Christian thinking about apologetics and theological issues while at the same time being true to what makes SES unique in the evangelical world.

One of those unique aspects was on display at this year’s NCCA in the Friday night debate between Dr. Richard Howe, SES Emeritus Professor of Philosophy and Apologetics, and Dan Barker, Co-President of the Freedom from Religion Foundation. SES unashamedly builds its apologetics and theology proper (i.e., the nature of God) largely on the philosophical underpinnings laid forth by 13th century theologian Thomas Aquinas (who basically used portions of Aristotle’s thinking to provide a systematic approach to Christian apologetics and theology). This “classical” way of thinking about God’s existence has, until the last 200-300 years, been the standard way to do apologetics and to think about God. Sadly, for various reasons, it was largely abandoned, though it was never actually shown to be false. SES is convinced that this abandonment has led to confused thinking about how to actually do apologetics, which leads to shallow (if not false) thinking about who God is. This can lead to dangerous consequences for evangelism. These are all very important issues about which SES is quite passionate. In fact, it was none other than SES co-founder Dr. Norman Geisler who concluded his NCCA session by stating that evangelicals need an inoculation of Thomism (the thinking of Aquinas).

This is exactly the approach Dr. Howe took in the debate. There are plenty of resources from which one can pull in order to learn about popular arguments for God’s existence. Those are numerous and readily available. Instead, Dr. Howe offered a classical argument for God (a la Aquinas) upon which all the traditional attributes of God necessarily follow (an argument included in the SES ebook most conference attendees should have received via email).

We understand that at least a portion of the debate attendees were rather upset with the debate’s outcome. Honestly, we share your frustration. The debate was designed to be about the existence of God, a topic Dr. Howe admirably argued for but one essentially ignored by Mr. Barker. Instead of engaging with the topic at hand, Mr. Barker attempted to derail the discussion with worn out fallacious appeals about how “nasty” God is (a topic we directly addressed in a Saturday breakout session). Dr. Howe didn’t take the bait because that was not the topic of discussion, and with limited time one can only discuss so many things. Rather, he took the approach of showing Mr. Barker’s ignorance of such classical thinking. In other words, Mr. Barker is writing books promoting his atheism and doing “anti-apologetics” while completely ignoring the classical thinking that formed the intellectual foundation of Christianity. It should have been apparent in the debate that Dr. Howe was extremely successful in showing Mr. Barker’s lack of understanding in the subject, and Mr. Barker failed to address in any substantial way Dr. Howe’s arguments. Therefore, it should have been clear that Dr. Howe easily won the debate. He’s the only one who addressed the debate’s topic.

Mr. Barker’s basic response to Dr. Howe was to claim he shouldn’t have to take a class in order to understand the arguments for God’s existence. In Barker’s estimation, if God exists it wouldn’t be that difficult to know. This is simply a species of the argument from divine hiddenness (i.e., if God exists, then His existence should be obvious to everyone). Ironically, we’ve received the same response from some Christians who seem to agree with Barker in this respect. I believe such a response is very problematic. Allow me to illustrate.

My seven-year-old is a pretty smart guy. He makes good grades, is a math wiz and can recite numerous sports statistics. He even understands that when his allergies are acting up he needs some allergy medicine, or if he has a fever, he knows he needs some Tylenol. But exactly how much medicine should he take? How will those medicines interact with other medicines he may be taking or medical conditions he may have? How did that Tylenol come about in just the right combination of chemicals so as to help rather than harm him? He doesn’t know the answer to any of these questions.

I know more than my son and can answer some of those questions. My wife, on the other hand, is a clinical pharmacist. She knows the detailed answers to all of those questions and more. I recall helping her study for her pharmacy boards many years ago. The chemistry she had to study, the names she had to pronounce and recall, and the drug interactions she had to memorize were mind-boggling. We appreciate, and utilize often, the expertise of pharmacists like my wife. In fact, I’ve never heard anyone say, “I reject the study of pharmacology because God wouldn’t make chemistry and the human body so difficult to understand that someone must take a class to be trained. Those pharmacists should just stay in their ivory towers and quit confusing us with their terminology and study.”

Similarly, my seven-year-old can know that nothing comes from nothing, and right now he’s content with knowing that God is the cause of everything. But can he answer challenges from atheists like Dan Barker, Richard Dawkins, Bertrand Russell, or J.L. Mackie? Can he rightly refute the claims of the cults and their misunderstanding of God? Can he adequately respond to popular aberrant doctrines taught by some influential evangelicals? Many questions about God raised by both atheists and Christians require a good deal of background knowledge and, dare I say, philosophy in order to appropriately answer. The fact the someone is a Christian or has read one (or several) popular apologetics books does not necessarily make them an expert on the deeper issues that often need to be addressed when such questions are asked or challenges are raised. And it is simply a fact of reality that many of these deeper issues are difficult to understand (due in part to the abandonment of the classical Christian thinking mentioned above). As Edward Feser observes,

“Due to intellectual error and the complexity of the philosophical issues, [as mere humans we] sometimes fail properly to understand the main arguments for God’s existence, or mix all sorts of errors into whatever knowledge of God we do have. Due to the weaknesses of our wills, we also fall into moral error.  And when moral and intellectual errors multiply throughout a culture, the resulting general social environment may make it difficult for a given individual living within it to avoid more numerous and more serious moral and intellectual errors than he otherwise would have been prone to.”[1]

If we understand the need for intense and difficult study in order to comprehend the inner workings of the human body, why would we expect less intense study when learning about the infinite Creator of the human body? To paraphrase Dr. Feser, it’s actually not terribly difficult to demonstrate the existence of God, but it is often very difficult to clear away from someone’s thinking the mounds of bad philosophy that more than likely they simply have absorbed from the culture in order for them to be able to understand the arguments. This was on full display in the debate as Mr. Barker demonstrated his ignorance of the relevant subject matter.

Yes, God’s existence is obvious enough that my seven year old can understand the basics, but we’re not all seven years old. In order to understand the details, we need to put aside childish thinking (1 Cor. 13:11) and devote time to thinking deeply about reality and the conclusions that follow. We should also appreciate those who have devoted their lives to studying these things in order to help equip the rest of us and not be surprised if we don’t instantly understand every detail they communicate. As a seminary hosting a conference, our goal is to challenge our audience to go deeper. I don’t immediately understand half the things my wife talks about from her day at work, but I sure am grateful that she knows what she’s talking about and that she is willing to teach me if I’m interested in learning.

I want to challenge my brothers and sisters in Christ to not think like an atheist. Do not be content with what is often incomplete and unreflective thought. Our faith (and our knowledge of God’s existence) must be built upon deeper foundations that are not so easily disturbed by the tired old fallacious comments made by someone like Mr. Barker. We can’t believe something about God simply because it makes us feel good or it’s easier to think about that reality. The fact is, as was mentioned above, answering Mr. Barker with simple or pithy slogans from pop-Christianity or pop-apologetics will not get to the heart of the matter. In fact, it may even make the situation worse by not first properly defining and understanding terms and concepts relevant to the discussion. Such a failure in thinking can often lead to misunderstanding, a false sense of security, or even outright heresy. We must be careful to build our understanding of God upon reality rather than with our emotions and oft-times misdirected thinking.

Some of us are closer to my seven years old than we should be regarding our knowledge of apologetics, while others are closer to my pharmacist wife. But all of us are capable of learning from each other and going just a bit deeper each year. That doesn’t mean we will or even have to, understand the deeper philosophical arguments and the like (I certainly don’t plan on studying pharmacology any time soon!). But it should at least mean we recognize their existence and appreciate that we can learn from those who do understand them (and point unbelievers to them when needed). We are all on this journey together, and we’re at varying places along that journey. That’s great as long as we all remain teachable and willing to learn. As Mortimer Adler notes,

“Not only must we honestly announce that pain and work are the irremovable and irreducible accompaniments of genuine learning, not only must we leave entertainment to the entertainers and make education a task and not a game, but we must have no fears about what is “over the public’s head.” Whoever passes by what is over his head condemns his head to its present low altitude; for nothing can elevate a mind except what is over its head; and that elevation is not accomplished by capillary attraction, but only by the hard work of climbing up the ropes, with sore hands and aching muscles. The school system which caters to the median child, or worse, to the lower half of the class; the lecturer before adults-and they are legion-who talks down to his audience; the radio or television program which tries to hit the lowest common denominator of popular receptivity-all these defeat the prime purpose of education by taking people as they are and leaving them just there.”[2]

SES will never diminish or ignore our responsibility to become better communicators and seek constantly ways to clearly and effectively break down and explain complex topics. And there will be times when we don’t do that as well as we’d like. In the process, however, may we all show grace to one another and work together to help raise up the church as a whole in loving God with all their minds. In a desperately lost and confused world, the truth and clarity of the Gospel must be communicated and defended now more than ever. We are honored to partner with each of you in that endeavor.

Interested In Going Deeper?

For more on a brief introduction to the importance of Thomism, read Dr. Doug Potter’s article.

For more on classical apologetics, read Dr. Richard Howe’s article.

Be sure to watch my NCCA debrief with Dr. Howe HERE.

Consider the SES Lay Institute Apologetics and Biblical Studies courses.

SES also offers several certificates (for credit) or the ability to audit classes (not for credit).

Notes

[1] Edward Feser, “Modern Biology and Original Sin, Part II,” accessed October 27, 2017, http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2011/09/modern-biology-and-original-sin-part-ii.html. (Since all truth is God’s truth, it should be irrelevant to the reader that Dr. Feser is a Catholic. We can agree philosophically even if we disagree on other theological matters.)

[2] Mortimer Adler, “Invitation to the Pain of Learning,” accessed October 27, 2017, https://www.monticellocollege.org/sites/default/files/liberal-arts/invitation_to_the_pain_of_learning.pdf

 


Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2h3YqMr

By Luke Nix

Introduction

For nearly all my life, I’ve had a fascination with the physical sciences. Meteorology and astronomy were two of them that always caught and kept my attention as a kid. In my teens was when I started to focus more on information technology, and in my twenties, I was drawn to defending the truth of the Christian worldview through science, philosophy, and other knowledge disciplines. Living in Oklahoma, the weather is always in the news, and being that I frequent philosophical and scientific sites, popular astronomer Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson comes across my screen once in a while as well. In the last year, a few different articles have shown up from the meteorological, astronomical, and philosophical worlds, which the combination is what caught my attention. Today, I want to take some time to show how technology, being used to simulate natural phenomena, can be used to show that God exists, and I will address a popular naturalistic alternative explanation that was proposed by Tyson (and others). Let’s start with the weather and super-computers.

Tornadoes And Technology

One of my earliest memories was that of a weather event in Lubbock, TX in the mid-to-late 80s. I was about five years old, and my brother was only two. We were with our parents at the local mall on a spring afternoon. This was pretty typical and nothing exciting, but what happened that afternoon seared this memory into my brain for life. As we were wrapping up our trip and on our way out, nearly everyone in the mall started running frantically, screaming and crying. My parents grabbed my brother and me, and we ran outside to see what was going on. All I remember once we were outside was seeing traffic stopped on an overpass not far from the parking lot and an odd funnel-shaped cloud connecting the sky to the ground. As a five-year-old, I had no idea what was going on, but I knew that that funnel was the cause, and it terrified me. Later, it was explained to me that what I saw was a tornado. Since then, I have had a great fascination with tornadoes, and living in Oklahoma has definitely provided a great opportunity to feed that fascination. Over the years, like most mid-westerners, I have had a few close calls with tornadoes, including one that inspired a blog post a few years ago about God’s potential purposes for allowing natural evil.

While I never went to school for meteorology, I did get to take one meteorology course at the local college one spring semester. That same semester I had the opportunity to watch a supercell develop overhead. While that also is nothing odd for a mid-westerner, this was the first time that I purposely went outside to watch it and was actually paying close attention. Seeing the rapid circulation of the dark clouds around me and the scuds develop and get sucked into the circulation was astonishing. Luckily, no tornado developed, but we did get some nice-sized hail. This particular experience in my mid-20s was one of my turning points for realizing the incredible beauty and power of one of nature’s most destructive forces (at least for my area). If you’ve never experienced a storm this way, take a look at this time-lapse video of a supercell and imagine yourself watching it develop from directly below it:


Nebraska Supercells – 4k StormLapse from Chad Cowan on Vimeo.

Historically, weather has been quite challenging to predict despite the continued increase in power of today’s super-computers and the amount of data that they process in the latest models. In early 2017 atmospheric scientist Dr. Leigh Orf at the University of Madison released a video produced by the most extensive and precise simulation of a real supercell that became tornadic. The EF-5 tornado struck Oklahoma in 2011, and Dr. Orf’s team reproduced the entire supercell for the life of the tornado. Here is the simulation video he released:

The enormity and beauty of the storm astound me which creates a sense of wonder and worship of the Creator (not the creator of the simulation, but the Creator of nature which produced the storm). But something else does as well. The amount of time required, on our fastest computers to simulate the visuals of such a small portion of our universe for such a short period of time with precision orders of magnitude less than what this universe exhibits, created that same sense of wonder and worship in me. Some naturalists have posited that perhaps this universe is a simulation, much like what was explored in the movie trilogy, “The Matrix.”

What If We Live In A Simulation?

Popular astronomer Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson moderated a scientific debate a couple years ago where he suggested that science lends credit to the idea that we live in a simulation. Being that he is an agnostic (if not an atheist) he proposes this idea as a possible naturalistic explanation for the evidence coming from the sciences. The idea that this universe may be a simulation presses the bounds of the word “ludicrous” for a naturalist to make for three reasons.

First, the fact that a naturalist would even suggest such a thing is a philosophical concession to intelligent design on two levels. We know that simulations can only be the product of intelligent designers: the designers of the hardware and the designers of the software. To suggest this universe is a simulation is to suggest the universe was intelligently designed. Let us also not forget what a simulation is: an imprecise representation of something else. So, not only has the naturalist conceded intelligent design but they have merely pushed back the explanation, for they must then assume a universe of greater complexity and precision is what is being imprecisely simulated in the designed hardware by designed software. If this universe is, indeed, a simulation then it has a Designer.

Second, just as the 2011 Oklahoma City tornado was more complex than Dr. Leigh Orf’s simulation, the universe that this universe is imprecisely simulating would be more complex as well, so the naturalist has inadvertently increased the difficulty level of the problem of design because they now need to explain the complexity and design in the universe that our universe is simulating.

Third, all simulations (once the hardware is designed, programmed, and put together, and the software is designed and loaded) must begin. Someone must be there to start the simulation. If the universe is a simulation, all simulations begin, and anything that begins has a cause outside itself, then the simulation (universe) has a beginning outside itself. The universe, if a simulation, indeed must have a Beginner.

If the naturalist wishes to posit that our universe is a simulation, then they have conceded that our universe is designed (thus has a designer), that there exists another universe of greater complexity and design, and that the universe has a beginning (thus a beginner). If a naturalist proposes the option of a simulation, these three issues can be used to show how they have actually granted God’s existence.

Do We Live In A Simulation?

The but the question remains: “Do we live in a computer simulation?” The latest research published in the journal Scientific Advances addresses this possibility. According to one summary of this paper,

“The researchers calculated that just storing information about a couple of hundred electrons would require a computer memory that would physically require more atoms than exist in the universe.”

In other words, not a chance! Lucky for the naturalist the problem is not actually more difficult due to our universe being some big simulation. But they are still stuck with the universe’s beginning and the universe’s design and fine-tuning. The naturalist simply cannot escape these two realities. The possibility of the universe being a simulation appeared to explain these realities (the agent could have been an alien race in the multiverse, or intelligent machines like in “The Matrix,” after all), but when working out the logical implications, it did not, and recent research shows that the whole discussion is moot anyway. So, the naturalist, even if they were right, is still stuck. Evidence for design in the universe is so strong that the naturalist cannot reasonably appeal to an “appearance of design;” they know that they must come up with a way to affirm that the design is real, and they almost (not really) had a way to affirm actual design via the simulation hypothesis, but now they must deny it yet again.

Conclusion

If we conclude from the design in the universe that it is a simulation (based on what we know about the origins of computer simulations), but we discover that the universe is real (not a simulation), shall we then deny the design of the universe again just to avoid the notion of a cosmic Designer and Creator? Shall we further deny the design of the computer simulation by the scientists and say that the simulation was nothing special and just a “chance” occurrence? I do not believe that Dr. Orf would appreciate such a conclusion. Let’s now apply this to the universe.

Rather than denying the evidence, there is an option that has been established, not only through the process of elimination (a negative argument) but also through argument by analogy (positive argument): God. Just as we know that purposeful designs created by human designers exhibit lesser levels of complexity and specificity that we see in the universe and we know that those levels are the product of designers, so too we can know that the greater levels of complexity and specificity that we see in the universe are the products of a Designer. We can either follow the scientific evidence where it leads, or we can continue to deny it, even though we know deep down that to do so is a denial of all that is rational. Given the numerous other positive arguments for the God of the Bible, when the whole of reality is considered (quoting homicide detective J. Warner Wallace from his book Forensic Faith– “Everything counts as evidence”), only the God of the Bible stands as the logical explanation. We can either follow the evidence and logic and surrender our lives to Jesus Christ, or we can deny reason and the evidence and live our lives in opposition to our Creator and Savior. It is our free choice, and no one is morally responsible for making the wrong decision but us.

For more on God’s existence from the Sciences, I recommend:

Improbable Planet: How Earth Became Humanity’s Home by Dr. Hugh Ross

Where The Conflict Realy Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism by Dr. Alvin Plantinga

Origins of Life: Biblical and Evolutionary Models Face Off by Dr. Fazale Rana and Dr. Hugh Ross

Origin Science: A Proposal for the Creation-Evolution Controversy by Dr. Norman Geisler

 


Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2gNtq3R