Jan 12, 2009
Is There Really A God? |
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Excerpts compiled and taken from 1."The New Answers Book" by Ken Ham; 2. "Seeing Christ In The Tabernacle" by Ervin H. Hershberger. Please see corresponding videos on this site of Archeology and the Bible as well as The Solar System series also placed here on this site
See ref.1. for corresponding references to factual data placed here.
God- an Eternal, Uncreated Being?
In our everyday experience, just about everything seems to have a beginning. In fact, the laws of science show that even things which look the same through our lifetime, such as the sun and other stars, are, in reality running down. The sun is using up its fuel at millions of tons per second- since the sun cannot last forever, it had to have a beginning. The same can be shown to be true for the entire universe.
So when Christians claim that the God of the Bible created all the basic entities of life and the universe, some will ask what seems to be a logical question: "Who created God?"
The very first verse of the Bible declares: "In the beginning God......."
There is no attempt in these words to prove the existence of God or to imply in any way that God had a beginning. In fact, the Bible makes it clear in many places that God is outside time. He is eternal, with no beginning or end. He also knows all things, being infinitely intelligent.
Is it logical, though, to accept the existence of such an eternal being? Can modern science, which has produced our technology of computers, space shuttles, and medical advances, even allow for such a notion?
What Would We Look For?
What evidence would we expect to find if there really is an infinite God who created all things as the Bible claims? How would we even recognize the hand of such an omnipotent (all powerful) Creator?
The Bible claims that God knows all things- He is omniscient! Therefore, He is infinitely intelligent. To recognize His handiwork, one would have to know how to recognize the evidence of the works of His intelligence.
How Do We Recognize The Evidence Of Intelligence?
Why do scientists become so excited when they discover stone tools togethor with bones in a cave? The stone tools show signs of intelligence. The scientist recognizes that these tools could not have designed themselves but that they are a product of intelligent input. Thus, the researchers rightly concluded that an intelligent creature was responsible for making these tools.
In a similar way, one would never look at the Great Wall of China , the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C. or the Sydney Opera House in Austrailia and conclude that such structures were formed after and explosion in a brick factory.
Neither would anyone believe that the presidents' heads on Mt. Rushmore were the products of millions of years of erosion. We can recognize design, the evidence of the outworkings of intelligence. We see man-made obkects all around us-cars,airplanes,computers,stereos, appliances, and so on. And yet, at no time would anyone ever suggest that such objects were just the products of time and chance. Design is everywhere. It would never enter our minds that metal, left to itself, would eventually form into engines, transmissions, wheels and all the other intricate parts needed to produce an automobile.
This "design argument" is often associated with the name of William Paley, an Anglican clergyman who wrote on this topic in the late eighteenth century. He is particularly remembered for his example of the watch and the watchmaker. In discussing a comparison between a stone and a watch, he concluded the "the watch must have had a maker; that there must have existed, at some time and at some place or other, an artificer or artificers, who formed it for the purpose which we find it actually to answer; who comprehended its construction, and designed its use.
Paley thus believed that, just as the watch implied a watchmaker, so toodoes design in living things imply a Designer. Although he believed in a God who created all things, his God was a Master Designer who is now remote from His Creation, not the personal God of the Bible.
Today, however a larger proportion of the population, including many leading scientists, believe that all plants and creatures, including the intelligent engineers who make watches, cars, etc., were the product of an evolutionary process- NOT a Creator God. But this is not a defensible position, as we will see.
Living Things Show Evidence Of Design!
The late Isaac Asimov, an ardent anti-creationist, declared, "In man is a three-pound brain which, as far as we know, is the most complex and orderly arrangement of matter in the universe." It is much more complex than the most complicated computer ever built. Wouldn't it be logical to assume that if man's highly intelligent brain designed the computer, then the human brain was also the product of design?!
Scientists who reject the concept of a Creator God agree that all living things exhibit evidence of design. In essence, they accept the design argument of Paley, but not Paley's Designer. For example, Dr.Michael Denton, a nonChristian medical doctor and scientist with a doctorate in molecular biology concludes:
" It is sheer universality of perfection, the fact that everywhere we look, to whatever depth we look, we find an elegance and ingenuity of an absolutely transcending quality, which so mitigates against the idea of chance. Alongside the level of ingenuity and complexity exhibited by the molecular machinery of life, even our most advanced artifacts appear clumsy. We feel humbled, as neolithic man would in the presence of twentieth century technology. It would be an illusion to think that what we are aware of at present is any more that a fraction of the full extent of biological design. In practically every field of fundamental biological research ever-increasing levels of design and complexity are being revealed at an ever-accelerating rate."
Dr. Richard Dawkins, holder of the Charles Simonyl Chair of Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University, has become one of the world's leading evolutionist spokespersons. His fame has come as the result of the publication of books, including 'The Blind Watchmaker', which defend modern evolutionary theories and claim to refute once and for all the notion of a Creator God. He said, "We have seen that living things are too improbable and to beautifully "designed" to have come into existence by chance. There is no doubt that even the most ardent atheist concedes that design is evident in the animals and plants that inhabit our planet." If Dawkins rejected "chance" in design, what does he put in place of "chance" if he Does Not accept a Creator God?
Who-or What-Is the Designer Then
Design obviously implies a designer. To a Christian, the design we see all around us is totally consistent with the Bible's explanation. "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" (Genesis 1:1), and "For by him {Jesus Christ}all things were created that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through him and for him"- Colossians 1:16
However, evolutionists like Richard Dawkins, who admits the design in living things, rejects the idea of any kind of a Designer/God. In reference to Paley, Dawkins states:
"Paley's argument is made with passionate sincerity and is informed by the best biological scholarship of his day, but it is wrong, gloriously and utterly wrong. The analogy between telescope and eye, between watch and living organism, is false."
Why? It is because Dawkins attributes the design to what he calls "blind forces of physics" and the processes of natural selection. Dawkins writes:
"All appearances to the contrary, the only watchmaker in nature is the blind forces of physics, albeit deployed in a very special way. A true watchmaker has foresight: he designs his cogs and springs, the plans their interconnections, automatic process which Darwin discovered, and which we now know is the explanation for the existence and apparently purposeful form of all life, has no purpose in mind. It has no mind and no mind's eye. It does not plan for the future. It has no vision, no foresight, no sight at all. If it can be said to play a role of watchmaker in nature, it is a blind watchmaker [emphasis added]." TO BE CONTINUED
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