So I am there reading away, and this fellow stands over my table as he is passing by and says you don't really believe that stuff do you? I love this question by the way, I understand it offends many Christians. But I love that people take a stance one way or another. The hardest thing that I encounter is people who could care less about issues such as the Bible or God. So I say, "Yes I do, I'm surprised that you don't, why don't you sit down and tell me why you don't believe the Bible? So he gladly sat down and said to me, "The Bible says that God created everything, but that's a circular argument because who created God?!" he giggled and waited for my answer. I had seen this many times before, many people expect that this is the first time we have heard this question and that it is a knock down argument and there is no answer to it. Well actually I have been hearing this question since long before I was a Christian, in fact I remember hearing it on the playground of my elementary school. I don't mean to be dismissive but really its a playground type question. So, first off Christians dont believe in a "created God" and the question assumes that God is created and created Gods dont exist. It is impossible for a timeless and spaceless being to come into existence, no thesit believes in a "created" God. I showed him from John chapter 1 that people who believe the Bible believe in an uncreated God. Then I went ahead and asked the man "if we were to find machinery on the dark side of the moon, would we be reasonable to assume that it came from intelligence? or would we have to first assume that that said machinery formed itself by natural causes?" He said that It would obviously be from an alien race. I then asked if we would first need to know who that alien race was and know about them before we would pause at the answer that that machinery was produced by them?" He said no. "So why then do we need to know who made God before we can pause at the answer that God created the universe?" "In order to recognize that an explanation is best, you don't have to have an explanation of the explanation." Also now because of the Big Bang, we can understand that the universe, all matter, energy time and space came into existence. Something must have caused this because everything that comes into being has a cause. This cause must be timeless, space less, and supernatural, since acted outside of time space and nature. That sounds like what we usually call God. We chatted for another 20 minutes and exchanged numbers. I'm expecting to meet up next week.
I will expand further in another blog but for now, the main ideas are, that for in order to recognize that an explanation is best, you don't have to have an explanation of the explanation. You can used examples like machinery on the moon or finding artifacts here through archaeology. Also talk about what could have caused the universe to come into existence at the big bang.Karl Sagan is famous for saying "In many cultures it is customary to answer that God created the universe out of nothing. But this is mere temporizing. If we wish courageously to pursue the question, we must, of course ask next where God comes from? And if we decide this to be unanswerable, why not save a step and conclude that the universe has always existed?" [Carl Sagan, Cosmos, page 257]
In our age of astrophysical cosmology we just cant stop at the idea that the universe has always existed. Because of the Big Bang we understand that the universe came into being, so that points to a transcendent cause of the universe. I still meet people who believe that the universe is eternal, but really they just haven't caught up with contemporary cosmology.
Its my goal to keep these blogs short and just talk about my experiences, so I know there is tons of more information but Ill share it in another entry.
