Apologetics: The Basics
Session 4 – God Exists, Part 1

Review:
Four Points – making the case for the Christian faith

  1. Truth is knowable
  2. God exists
  3. The New Testament is trustworthy
  4. Jesus proved he is God

Relativism and pluralism are self-refuting and irrational.        
WORST WORLDVIEW EVER

All religions may be false, but all religions cannot be true

The goal of Pluralism is peace, the price is truth

Point Two – God Exists

You can’t prove God exists…why not??

Evidence so powerful, forced into a corner…
Skeptics are left with one bullet, which we will address end of session after next

Types of proof…

  • Scientific Proof
  • Legal / Historical Proof

“Probability is the sole ground on which finite human beings can make rational conclusions.” 

4 Classic Arguments for the existence of God

  1. Ontological Argument
  2. Moral Argument
  3. Cosmological Argument
  4. Design Argument
    – CS Lewis, Antony Flew, Lee Strobel, J Warner Wallace, etc…

Ontological Argument:   Because we think of God, God must exist.

Moral Argument (uses SUICIDE tactic, Take the roof off)

  • A moral law requires a moral Law Giver,
  • A moral law exists.
  • Therefore, there must be a Moral Law Giver.

If you think there is any one thing that is ‘absolutely wrong’… then God must exist…rape, slavery, racism, sex trafficking, genocide, child sacrifice…

If morality is defined by the individual, there can never be an immoral person…we can never criticize ANYONE’s moral beliefs or actions

A (Consistent) Personal Moral Relativist: there is no right or wrong other than those of my own personal belief…

“Then I learned that all moral judgments are ‘value judgments,’ that all value judgments are subjective, and that none can be proved to be either ‘right’ or ‘wrong.’…I discovered that to become truly free, truly unfettered, I had to become truly uninhibited. And I quickly discovered that the greatest obstacle to my freedom, the greatest block and limitation to it, consists in the insupportable ‘value judgment’ that I was bound to respect the rights of others…Surely, you would not, in this age of scientific enlightenment, declare that God or nature has marked some pleasures as ‘moral’ or ‘good’ and others as ‘immoral’ or ‘bad’?… That is the honest conclusion to which my education has led me–after the most conscientious examination of my spontaneous and uninhibited self.” – Ted Bundy

Consistently living as a personal moral relativist…this is a SOCIOPATH

If morality is defined by the Culture (or government), there can never be an immoral culture… the immoral are the ‘moral reformers’

  • nazis or Dietrich Bonhoeffer
  • slavery or William Wilberforce
  • apartheid or Nelson Mandela
  • racial discrimination or MLK

If morality is relative to ANYTHING, then there can never be a ‘moral’ reformer…

Morality MUST be defined by a person external to humanity or it will always be ‘relative’

Conclusion: If you think there is any one thing that is ‘absolutely wrong’… then God must exist

CS Lewis KNEW there were things that were absolutely wrong… and understood the implications… his commitment to intellectual honesty resulted in him becoming, not just a follower of Jesus Christ, but to being the foremost Apologist of his time…

MERE CHRISTIANITY

Cosmological Argument

  • A beginning requires a beginner.
  • The universe had a beginning.
  • Therefore, the universe must have had a Beginner.

Can also be defined as…If you believe in the law of cause and effect… then God must exist

The Cosmological Argument: Why is the universe here?

Possible Explanations:

  1. Has never existed
  2. Has always existed
  3. Began to exist at some point, created by someone
  4. Began to exist at some point, created by no one

#1 Never Existed

     SKIP

#2 Always Existed

From late 1700s to early 1900s, science largely assumed the universe
had always existed.

What changed this assumption? Hubble’s telescope

#3 Created by Some One

     Possible

#4 Created by No One

Does this seem reasonable?

“I never asserted so absurd a proposition as that something came from nothing.” – David Hume

The Big Bang Theory

What does the Big Bang theory tell us?

THE UNIVERSE HAD A BEGINNING

According to the universally accepted Law of Causality…

A BEGINNING REQUIRES A BEGINNER

  1. Has never existed
  2. Has always existed
  3. Created by some one
  4. Created by no one

Objection

  1. If God created the universe, who created God?

Is the Big Bang Theory Anti-Christian?

“The biggest problem with the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe is philosophical – perhaps even theological – what was there before the bang?”

     – John Gribbin, physicist

“Philosophically, the notion of a beginning of the present order of Nature is repugnant…I should like to find a genuine loophole.”

     – Sir Arthur Eddington

“Certainly there was something that set it all off. Certainly, if you are religious, I can’t think of a better theory of the origin of the universe to match with Genesis.”

     – Stanley Wilson, physicist

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

– George Smoot, Astrophysicist

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

– Agnostic Astronomer Robert Jastrow

“In the beginning there was no time, no matter, not even space. Then in some unfathomable way, a universe emerged from a dimensionless point of pure energy…This theory of an expanding universe emanating from a primordial big bang is the explanation of creation held by nearly all scientists, for it best fits what they can actually observe.”

– U.S. News and World Report

Principle: “The best interpretation is the one that best explains all the evidence.”

Remember:

  • The universe had a beginning.
  • According to the Law of Causality, a beginning requires a Beginner.

“If there is no God, why is there something rather than nothing at all?” – Norman Geisler

The Cosmological Argument: the universe had a beginning, therefore God must exist (unless you want to base your life on “creation by no one”)

Next session the Design Argument

Know what you believe
Know why you believe it