Is there a God? Yes there is. Our opening song is Amazing Grace performed by Phil Wickman (video 4.5 min)
Amen. I always feel better after that song.
Let’s Pray
Summary of where we are on our quest
DESIGN OBJECT LESSON – GLASS PAPER WEIGHT & wooden box (see video)
How long would it take for a piece glass to become a match for our wedding gift crystal paper weight, Which has are images, names and wedding date on it. Are there any random processes that could give rise to this highly designed item.??
Naturalist concept vs. creator….random accident vs. design
In Engineering we have a term for this. We say it is “impossible”.
Looking at our puzzle, today we will talk about the definitive evidence for God.
I want to highlight a couple of books The Kalam Cosmological Argument written by Willam Lane Craig, and God: A Philosophical Argument from Being by Norman Geisler. Great books.
Is there a God? I did not hear you. Why do you say that. Well, we have evidence, but we need to be prepared to answer this question definitively and clearly. Now, Proof of a god, does not necessarily prove the Christian God. That’s okay. We can prove Christianity is true with other evidence. But right now, we want to provide an overabundance of evidence for a theistic God.
I hope you remember the cumulative case approach. Cumulative case approach simply weighs the evidence to determine what is more plausible or more probable.
I’m a scientist and engineer professionally, so I do believe that when we look at evidence and data without bias or presuppositions. When science is done properly, we let the data and evidence show us what the most plausible explanation is. Bad science starts with the conclusion and working backwards. Real science, good science follows the evidence wherever it leads.
What I mean by this for our discussion. I will concede that there is no argument for the existence of God that cannot be challenged by another worldview. We talked about several worldviews that would challenge these evidence a couple of sessions ago when we discussed worldviews.
But what I am arguing is there is a lot of evidence God exists. There is far more evidence that points to God than evidence there is not God. I actually want to show you that the more you try to prove there is not God, you will end up back at the feet of God. For reasonable, rational, logical people all roads end up back at Jesus as the only way. You can choose to deny it, but you cannot claim you have more evidence against God than for God.
The reason I can say this is people have been trying to disprove God longer than we have had written words. Yet we are still talking about it. The evidence we will discuss has yet to be refuted. Ignored maybe but never honestly challenged intellectually.
As we talked about last time. We have a lot of evidence for God. And not just any god but the God of Christianity. We discussed several last time. Beginnings or Cosmological Argument. And the Moral Argument. There are two other fundamental arguments also the Being or Ontological Argument and standard for Truth, which we spoke about in some detail a couple sessions ago.
the Cosmological argument is how did everything become everything. Despite all the proposed theories we know that everything has a beginning, so there is a necessity for a 1st cause, cause.
Simply put. A Big Bang, needs a big Banger.
and what is the standard for judging right and wrong.
Now the Design Evidence. Everything appears to be designed. This is the Teleological argument. Teleo means design. Design infers designer.
Design means a designer.
I’m going to use one of J. Warner Wallace approaches. We are going to address the design issue from a magnitude perspective.
- The Cosmos or universe level. the shear vastness of the universe That is everything level.
- The Galactic level is our galaxy the Milky Way
- The more regional level would be our solar system.
- The local level, our planet earth
- Personal level, life itself both macro things like different animals and micro things like cell or even the components of the cells themselves
- Last the smallest known components of the universe or subatomical level with subatomic particles and energy.
At every level in every way, our universe is highly designed and finely tuned far beyond any conceivable probabilities.
This image is from the James Webb telescope. This is one of the deepest highest magnification images ever released by NASA. More galaxies than you can count, in one tiny slice of the sky. James-Webb has discovered more galaxies and bigger galaxies than Astronomers imagined. This is just amazing. What is more reasonable to believe the vast orderly diverse complexity is created by randomness or created by a personal, powerful, intelligent God. Chance or reason.
Watch this video from William Lane Craig’s organization reasonable faith 6min Video.
This is the end of How to Defend your Faith Session 5: Evidence for God Teleological Argument (Part 1 of 4)
