If the If the Universe is eternal then where does God fit in?
It isnât. The cosmos is. Good question. He fits in our desire given best form in Jesus.
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No itâs simply more absurd. Itâs a change. Nothing changes qualitatively in eternity. Unless there has been an infinity of uncaused first moments from eternity.
Plastering the label âloveâ on things doesnât make it love. The mafia godfather can murder and terrorize people and call it love. Calling it love doesnât transform the tyranny of a control freak into love. So it is very true that there is no coercion in love. The lack of coercion is part of what makes it love. Calling it love doesnât change the fact of coercion which is inherent in uniformity.
If you want to make a hell of your existence for eternity, refusing to let go of your sin then you are free to do so. God said, âI set before you life and death, therefore choose life.â God did not say âOnly life is acceptable to me therefore I will force you to accept life because I love you.â
The Bible speaks of eternal life and eternal torment but there is none of this mythical âeternityâ stuff which is not even coherent. It is an excuse word to explain nothing like the words âmagicâ and âmystery.â I do not believe in any such thing. There has been no need of such nonsense since science discarded the notion of absolute time. There can be many seperate temporal orderings in different sets of events and God can use time as He chooses without being subject to such an ordering outside Himself. So I do not buy into any of this nonsense about timeless thought, love, life, and action. Time is an inherent part of what these things are.
So whats your view on the Big Bang?
Is this book any good? Understanding Scientific Theories on Origins
Yes. Very good book
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Alot of people ask me to just put my faith in god or Christ. I canât believe in something if I donât have a good reason too. Didnât Collins in LoG say that the beginning of the universe was a good reason for God and wasnât a god of the gap? and I know reason isnât enough to make me a believer
But I do need at least a couple and God did not create at least the universe and the Resurrection didnât happen (Even though I thought the cosmos and universe was the same) then what is the point?
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I think that your problem is that you trying to mix apples with oranges. The people you cite argue the4 existence of God from a philosophical or scientific point of view. The existence of God is not a philosophical or scientific question. It is an existential theological question. There are 3 existential Theological proofs that God exists. God created the universe out of nothing, God so loved the world that He gave Hs only beloved Son so that whoever believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life. and Jesus died so my sins are forgiven and I can receive the Holy Spirit in my life.
Philosophy and science are good, but they cannot prove or disprove the existence of God and Godâs saving work.
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Make it simple Noah, you want a reason to believe, hereâs a million of them. How many times have you lusted after a woman or a man? How many times have you hated someone? How many times have you lied to someone or about someone, stole, said God in a flippant way, showed disrespect toward your parents? In other words, how many times have you sinned?
Youâre a sinner. You need not only forgiveness but a change of nature and the power of God to overcome sin.
Forget science, philosophers and whatever else that would distract you from this one issue. DELIVERANCE FROM SIN AND THE PUNISHMENT YOU DESERVE FOR YOUR WICKEDNESS.
Get alone and start remembering as many sins as you can. Let them fill your mind to where you are overwhelmed with your guilt. Then when you are desperate enough to be freed from them, call out to God. Cry out for Him to deliver you.
Your need is more than any normal man can help you with, you need God to save you. God sent His son to DIE for YOU. Jesus never sinned and yet He took your punishment. He rose from the dead, showing His power over death. God has promised that all who will acknowledge their sins to Him and turn to Jesus and SUBMITT TO HIM AS THEIR LORD, THEIR MASTER, will be forgiven and God will live in them. Then devote yourself to following Jesus, read His words and obey and you will know Him because the risen Lord will live in you.
Donât mess around with puny humans, go straight to the source. GOD!!!
That argument has been used ⊠and is I think remains a good one so long as one doesnât make the naive mistake of thinking that âbeginningâ must necessarily refer to a cosmological (or even a temporal) beginning such as the big bang. If we take it instead in its more robust sense: âwhy is there anything at all?â (as in ⊠why is there even empty space or why is there time ⊠why was there a âseedâ of dense energy/matter to give rise to the big bang at all (if indeed that was indeed a beginning as seems likely on current science)? One is forced into a choice of infinite regression of causes in an eternal universe (a logical possibility whatever you consider the plausibility of such a thing), or else youâve literally got something spontaneously popping into existence from nothing (which seems even less plausible). That the 3rd possibility, âGodâ, should be considered less implausible doesnât necessarily follow - this is nothing like a proof or even evidence. But among the alternatives, that an eternal God willed all this into being has always made sense to me. Much more is needed, of course, to develop religious faith toward any particularities. Others can fill in more. But here is a Bishop Barron video where he addresses some recent worship leader / musician (Jon Steingard) who apparently announced he is no longer a believer. The commentary Barron raises about it in this interview (not with Steingard, but about the questions he raises) is, I think, filled with good advice.
I particularly liked what Barron referred to as people of childhood faith jettisoning (and necessarily so) their first naivette, ⊠and entering their second one. Some may not particularly care for referring to any stage of faith being referred to as naive, but it is an illuminating way to point out that those who fancy they are emerging out from any form of naivette by leaving their childhood faith behind, are really doing no more than entering âthe next oneâ. (At least that is my take on that phrasing). Anyway, I would encourage any who feel their faith wavering to give a listen.
[For those of less patient dispositions, in the video linked above you can skip past the initial banter to 3:40 in where they start discussing loss of faith.]
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Do you know it when you see it? When you feel it? When you do it? When itâs done to you?
And you plaster love on damnation. Whatâs that?
Not sure if this is totally on topic or helpful to your question, but I canât find a better argument against atheism than Richard Wurmbrandâs autobiography âTortured for Christâ. Just finished reading it, and if that doesnât destroy atheism for you, and make you want to preach the gospel every chance you get, I donât know what will. No, it doesnât debate science really, but it is incredibly convicting.
An infinite cosmos, but yes, of course one is. Thatâs what weâve got. Each Planck tock is preceded by a Planck tick. A logical certainty whether God grounds it or not.
As for the questions downstream of Leibnizâ, they donât feed back into it. Spacetime exists wherever matter does. It isnât ever empty. The seed was a quantum perturbation in the zero-point energy field (how prescient the Greeks were: chaos yawns). Which explains everything. And nothing. No, no not nothing. Nothing. Ah well. God is less plausible because Heâs infinitely more complex than the already infinitely complex cosmos.
There can be no explanation.
A quantum perturbation in the infinite eternal zero-point energy field - nature REALLY abhors not even a vacuum - like for all the infinity of universes. Chaos yawns.
Hi Noah,
Iâm glad you donât want to commit yourself to something nonsensical. God certainly commands us to trust Him, sometimes beyond what we understand, but that doesnât mean that Christian faith is senseless (indeed, I believe that God is the very source of rationality in the first place; to even express a desire to speak rationally about God is to already demonstrate evidence of His existence. I wonât pursue this point further here, but it is in some of the texts I reference below).
There are plenty of good reasons for belief in God, and particularly for the Christian worldview. I will outline a few here, but they canât be fully developed on this forum (that would take volumes!). Books such as John Frameâs âApologeticsâ and Tim Kellerâs âReason for Godâ can give longer discussions on some of these points, and you can certainly find others online, whether books, blogs, etc., but thereâs probably no such thing as a âcompleteâ development. That said, some common reasons for Christian belief are:
- An objective foundation for morality. Only belief in God, a personal being who is external to the universe, gives an objective reason to call some acts moral and others immoral. Without God, itâs up to the whimsy of an individual or a society, which certainly is not an objective standard (morality could change from person to person, from society to society, from age to age). As Ravi Zacharias was known to quip in making this point, âsome people love their neighbors; some people eat them.â It canât be acceptable to leave morality up to the shifting sands of cultural feelings. They must be from a personal, divine lawgiver: God. Certainly people who claim no belief in God will still label acts as moral or immoral, but my point here is that they have no objective basis for doing so â only the subjective basis of their own or their communityâs feelings.
- An explanation for the origin of the universe, and mankind in particular. Atheism tries to explain these by saying that they follow from the laws of physics (usually something like âquantum mechanical principles dictate that a stable universe will eventually pop into existenceâ), but that misses the point; where then did the laws of physics come from? And if they came from eternity past, or always existed, or came from nowhere, then that âexplanationâ has descended into irrationalism to the point that the claim effectively says that physical laws have no origin at all. They just âare.â But then the whole question of what we mean by âoriginâ has become nonsensical and thus not worth talking about. Or the ultimate origin of the universe is an impersonal monolith. John Frameâs book âApologeticsâ discusses the problems with this view which are too lengthy to recreate here, but I recommend you check it out. Iâve also heard Frank Turek speak on this topic of origins, which you could look up online.
- Ultimate, objective meaning for existence. Atheism and belief in an impersonal âgodâ will say that meaning derives from whatever we declare ourselves to have. But that certainly isnât ultimate, nor is it objective. It simply isnât the kind of meaning we are asking about when we long to say âmy life has meaning.â Such meaning can only come if someone (a personal being) external to humanity gives it to us â that must be from a personal God. And if, as some are wont to do when faced with this dilemma, we wish to claim to the contrary that life has no ultimate, objective meaning, then there is by definition no compelling reason to do or think anything at all. But no one lives that way, so to claim such would be to live inconsistent with oneâs stated beliefs (not to mention that having no ultimate, objective meaning is deeply troubling to the core of oneâs soul). If you want this kind of meaning, or live as if your life already has it (and I suspect that you do!), then belief in a personal God is a necessity.
- Fulfilled prophecy. The Bible (particularly the earthly life of Jesus) has so much fulfilled prophecy that it becomes difficult to think that the book was written without divine inspiration. Try searching for examples of this online. And if the Bible is divinely inspired, isnât it worth believing?
- The Bibleâs ability to expose the true nature of the human condition. Our core problem as a human race isnât our governmental systems, our lack of knowledge, or whatever else may be claimed. Our core problem is our sinful hearts. Hearts that long to commit selfish and evil things are the cause of all of the other ills in the human condition. The Bibleâs ability to describe the condition of our hearts, even though it was written so long ago in such different cultures and times, is uncanny â unless it is inspired by God, that is.
- Salvation by grace (a doctrine unique to Christianity). The doctrine of salvation by grace rather than by good deeds gives a solution to this core problem of humanity, sin. Grace is necessary for assurance of salvation; otherwise we would always wonder if there were more good deeds we need to do. Or we would be in danger of doing something bad enough in the future to revoke our salvation. Grace is the only way for God to be both just (since no human is perfect, saving some based on their works would mean that He has compromised on His standard of perfection) and merciful (He still finds a fair way to save those who will accept it). Salvation by works, which every other belief system boils down to, is powerless by comparison.
- The resurrection. Jesusâ physical resurrection is a well-attested historical event which gives strong reason to believe that He was divine. As you alluded to in your comment, this is foundational to the Christian worldview; indeed, âif Christ has not been raised, your faith is futileâ (1 Corinthians 15:17). You can search online for many evidences that the resurrection is more than just a fable.
I hope that examining these ideas will help you, but let me also try to put them in context for you. While seeking reasons for belief comes with many Biblical examples, there will come a point in each individualâs journey at which more evidence would make little or no change in the personâs heart. At some point, âenough is enough.â God graciously provides enough reason to believe, but He also allows people to reject Him even with that evidence. Testing God or demanding that He give more, more, more evidence is dangerous territory (compare Deuteronomy 6:16, Matthew 16:1-4, and Luke 4:12). I am by no means accusing you of doing any of these things, but simply want to warn you up front that you will eventually be faced with the temptation to do so. Everyone is faced with this temptation, myself included. I want you to avoid that pitfall. He has revealed much to us, certainly enough to warrant belief. In the end, if God exists, we are not in the position of authority to tell Him what constitutes sufficient evidence. We are accountable to Him, not the other way around. This is not to say that it is evil to look for reasons to believe in Christ. Just be aware of the temptations to self-sufficient, self-aggrandizing unfaithfulness.
Finally, one of the points I tried to make in my previous comment is relevant here, too. Your understanding of what even constitutes evidence or facts in the first place will partly determine how you digest the above (and other) reasons. Your epistemology, your theory of knowledge, plays a fundamental role. But if God exists, then âhonoring God with your mindâ would include honoring Him with your epistemology as well. Thatâs a deep topic, and this post has already gone on long enough; if you are interested further, you could read some modern thinkers like Frameâs âApologeticsâ or Alvin Plantingaâs âFaith and Rationality: Reason and Belief in God.â (I have not read the latter book myself, but it comes well-recommended.)
Again, Noah, I continue to pray for you in this matter. May your faith in Christ, supported by rationality, continue to grow.
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I consider myself agnostic rather than atheist. This isnât because I have âgood reasonsâ to allow the possibility God exists, itâs because it feels like the right way to be. I try to leave a little room for faith because logic and reason donât cover all situations.
You are struggling with this question, and that is OK. You obviously care a great deal about it or you wouldnât be struggling. Think about the reasons this is so important to you. Donât rush, this will take a long time to resolve.
Or not. 
Recall Maggie. We donât all have all the time in the world, but Godâs timing is perfect.
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I like the way Tim Keller ended his book, The Reason for God:
During a dark time in her life, a woman in my congregation complained that she had prayed over and over, âGod, help me find you,â but had gotten nowhere. A Christian friend suggested to her that she might change her prayer to, âGod, come and find me. After all, you are the Good Shepherd who goes looking for the lost sheep.â She concluded when she was recounting this to me, âThe only reason I can tell you this story isâhe did.â [p.240]
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000XPNUZE/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
Hi Noah,
I sense you feel the pressure on you that is seen to be coming from the communities around you. Those communities might be subtly implied by the authors of the books you have read; but psychologically speaking, they are real.
For that reason I want to begin my reply to you by referring to the work of the psychologist, Solomon Asch. He conducted an experiment in which a subject was asked to say whether or not two lines on the screen were of equal length. The subject was part of a group asked to make this judgement, but unbeknown to the single subject, everyone else in the group was a stooge organised by the conductor of the experiment. After a while of accurate judgements by the group, the group of stooges began to make inaccurate judgements. Such was the social pressure on the subject that he or she began to agree with the inaccurate judgements.
The point of the experiment is to show how much power is exercised over your self-confidence by the community of people you perceive yourself to be part of. Of course, that can equally apply whether you see yourself to be making judgements amidst a community of atheists or a community of Christian fundamentalists, or any other community.
I have never read God the Failed Hypothesis , but I think I can guess the plot of the argument. Tell me if it goes like this: Primitive people believed that everything in Nature was caused by gods, but as science developed people were delivered from these superstitions. Religion today consists of the dying embers of a failed hypothesis. Am I right?
John C. Lennox is a former professor and head of the department of Mathematics at Oxford University. In his book, Godâs Undertaker. Has Science Buried God? he introduces an illustration about a Ford motor car being seen by people in a remote place for the first time. They imagine that there is a god (Mr Ford) inside the car which makes it go. They imagine that when the car runs it is because Mr Ford likes them, and when it breaks down it is because Mr Ford is angry with them. However, over the next few years they study engineering and find the impersonal principles by which the car runs or break down. Now they know that Mr Ford is not a god inside the car. But does that mean Mr Ford does not exist, or that he was not the cause of the existence of the motor car? Now this is not an endorsement of either Ford motor cars or Mr Ford, but I think you can see the point.
While some of the so-called New Atheists are just as fundamentalist in their atheism as are Christian fundamentalists in their fundamentalism, you might be surprised to find out that Richard Dawkins is not an atheist. By his own admission, he is an agnostic.
In the end, the atheist argument comes down to a reduction-ism; that is, it reduces everything down to its component parts. Biology breaks down into chemistry and chemistry breaks down into physics, including sub-atomic particles. Did life as we know it simply come about through a serial concurrence of random chance? After all, the universe is so large and there must have been so many âthrows of the diceâ that, as chance would have it, hey presto, life? But in fact, chance is constrained and it would appear that certain directions in the development of life on Earth have fail-safe mechanisms such that, if one line of evolution does not produce it, another will. In the light of this, the atheist feels relieved that the odds against a chance development of life are not so high. The Christian says, this universe has been designed by God in such an intricate way that life will adapt and persevere. So in the end, neither side can win this debate on these grounds.
I am retired now, so there is nothing making me get out of bed in the morning. But it seems to me that the totality of my life is more than a reductionist view of science can explain. Furthermore, especially through the Gospel of John, I have entered into an experience of life that I am not willing to let go of. It is the experience of knowing God-in-Christ; and the same Spirit which raised Jesus from the dead lifts me out of bed when I wake up. Science cannot explain this. Did we ever think that it would?
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