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Can we know anything about God outside of the Bible or the historical record? That\u2019s what we\u2019re looking into with this mini-series<\/a>. What does the information we know about the Universe tell us? Where does the evidence lead?<\/p>\n In this first of three classical arguments for the existence of God we want to suggest that there are good reasons to believe in the existence of God, and that these arguments begin to get some way to describing what that God is like.<\/p>\n Not so long ago it was popular to believe that the universe simply always existed. Carl Sagan famously stated that,<\/p>\n \u201cThe Cosmos is all that is, or ever was, or ever will be.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n But then along came a chap by the name of Georges Lema\u00eetre – working with ideas from one Albert Einstein – who said that actually, it looks like the scientific evidence points towards a starting point. We now commonly refer to this point in history as \u2018The Big Bang\u2019.<\/p>\n Science\u00a0 – and our experience – points to the fact that the Universe began to exist, and this is where we jump into our argument for the existence of God with one version of the cosmological argument, \u2018The Kalam Cosmological Argument\u2019.<\/p>\n Think of something, anything. Anything at all. Now think about how that \u2018thing\u2019 got there. In your mind or in reality, we instinctively know that things do not just pop into existence out of nothing.<\/p>\n My credit card bill is proof of this. It didn\u2019t just get appear out of nowhere, it is very the result of a cause (rightly or wrongly, but that\u2019s a different argument). Likewise, the means to pay my bill won\u2019t just spontaneously appear out of thin air, no matter how hard I wish. Things that begin to exist have a cause.<\/p>\n Cue Einstein and friends with their scientific research. Science, as the exploration of what is, is of great help to us with this point. Established scientific theories today, such as the redshifts found by Hubble (the man, not the telescope), point towards a beginning for the universe. This is very much in agreement – not opposition – with faith.<\/p>\n (By the way, if you\u2019re interested, we\u2019ve looked at Science vs. Faith in two previous articles: \u2018Hasn\u2019t Science Disproved God?<\/a>\u2019 and \u2018Religion vs. Science<\/a>\u2019)<\/p>\n Additionally, we can take this second point to be true outside of science by employing a bit of logic.<\/p>\n If the Universe has always existed and did not have a beginning then the history of the universe would be infinite. Sounds good, but as none of us possess the talents of Mr Buzz Lightyear, it\u2019s impossible for us to traverse an actual infinite.<\/p>\n Let my try to explain. Mr Chris Evans, of current BBC Radio 2 radio fame, is known for his large collection of Ferraris, all painted that classic Ferrari colour, white. Imagine that one morning Chris wakes up and finds that his collection has expanded and now he possesses an infinite number of Ferraris (for some of us, believing in owning one Ferrari as akin to believing in owning an infinite number of those beautiful machines).<\/p>\n Chris is happy and as he muses over this increase in his collection he decides to break his own rules and paint every other car in his (infinitely long) garage, oh, I don\u2019t know, red. Chris now has one red Ferrari sitting next to a white Ferrari and on and on \u2026<\/p>\n Some time (in the not-too-distant future, perhaps), the BBC is faced with budget cuts, Chris has to take a pay-cut and decides to self off half of his beloved collection. The red cars must go. So Chris sells all of his red Ferraris and is left with just the white. But how many cars is Chris left with? He had an infinite amount of cars and removed half of them. What is half of infinity? It\u2019s not a number, like 6, because that could be doubled to produce another number, which would not be infinity. Chris still has an infinite amount of white cars. So what happened with those red ones? What exactly did Chris lose?<\/p>\n The reality is, actual infinite series of anything just don\u2019t exist. In this way, logically, the universe cannot have existed for ever and had an infinite series of past events leading to the present moment.<\/p>\n So we have shown the universe to have a beginning, and in point one we showed that all things that have a beginning have a cause. Great. Let\u2019s think about the nature of this cause \u2026<\/p>\n The cause of the existence of the Universe must have been very powerful (to create the Universe from nothing), outside of time (the cause created time as well), as well as existing infinitely. We\u2019re not quite yet at Jesus of Nazareth but you can definitely see a strong shape of a higher power coming into focus.<\/p>\n What\u2019s more, this first cause, as well as having amazing attributes, must also be in some way personal because it chose<\/i> to create the universe. An eternal, extremely-powerful thing doesn\u2019t have<\/i> to do anything. Nothing can compel something that large to do anything, in much the same say that I can\u2019t force Martin Johnson to smile – or do anything for that matter – unless he wants to do it himself (ps – thank you for 10 years ago, today<\/a>).<\/p>\n As we\u2019ve noted before, Blaise Pascal said that, \u2018there is enough light for those who only desire to see \u2026\u2019 The Kalam Cosmological Argument doesn\u2019t reveal a specific deity nor point to only one religion, but what it does do is turn on a light.<\/p>\n Over the next two weeks we\u2019ll add a couple of further arguments to this one, building a cumulative case for the existence of God, outside of Scripture and the historical record. As these lights turn on, take a look, see what they reveal. Perhaps they will lend themselves as starting points on a journey. We hope that you will discover that there are good signs within this universe that point to the existence of the divine, outside of space and time, incredibly large, complex, and powerful, who we call, God.<\/p>\n The Christian philosopher William Lane Craig has done much work on the Kalam Cosmological Argument. He has written about it in several places and his team at\u00a0Reasonable Faith<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>have put together this great little video on the argument:<\/p>\nIn the beginning \u2026\u00a0<\/b><\/h2>\n
1st Point: Whatever begins to exist has a cause<\/b><\/h3>\n
2nd Point:<\/b> The Universe has a beginning<\/b><\/h3>\n
3rd Point: The Universe therefore has a cause<\/b><\/h3>\n
Let there be light<\/b><\/h2>\n
The Kalam Cosmological Argument from Reasonable Faith<\/a><\/h2>\n