Podcasts about necessary being

Sari Nusseibeh's book Avicenna's Al-Shifā': Oriental Philosophy (Routledge, 2018) deals with the philosophy of Ibn Sina - Avicenna as he was known in the Latin West- a Persian Muslim who lived in the eleventh century, considered one of the most important figures in the history of philosophy. Although much has been written about Avicenna, and especially about his major philosophical work, Al-Shifa, this book presents the rationalist Avicenna in an entirely new light, showing him to have presented a theory where our claims of knowledge about the world are in effect just that, claims, and must therefore be underwritten by our faith in God. His project enlists arguments in psychology as well as in language and logic. In a sense, the ceiling he puts on the reach of reason can be compared with later rationalists in the Western tradition, from Descartes to Kant -though, unlike Descartes, he does not deem it necessary to reconstruct his theory of knowledge via a proof of the existence of God. Indeed, Avicenna's theory presents the concept of God as being necessarily presupposed by our theory of knowledge, and God as the Necessary Being who is presupposed by an existing world where nothing of itself is what it is by an intrinsic nature, and must therefore be as it is due to an external cause. The detailed and original analysis of Avicenna's work here is presented as what he considered to be his own, or 'oriental' philosophy. Presenting an innovative interpretation of Avicenna's thought, this book will appeal to scholars working on classical Islamic philosophy, kalām and the History of Logic. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Sari Nusseibeh's book Avicenna's Al-Shifā': Oriental Philosophy (Routledge, 2018) deals with the philosophy of Ibn Sina - Avicenna as he was known in the Latin West- a Persian Muslim who lived in the eleventh century, considered one of the most important figures in the history of philosophy. Although much has been written about Avicenna, and especially about his major philosophical work, Al-Shifa, this book presents the rationalist Avicenna in an entirely new light, showing him to have presented a theory where our claims of knowledge about the world are in effect just that, claims, and must therefore be underwritten by our faith in God. His project enlists arguments in psychology as well as in language and logic. In a sense, the ceiling he puts on the reach of reason can be compared with later rationalists in the Western tradition, from Descartes to Kant -though, unlike Descartes, he does not deem it necessary to reconstruct his theory of knowledge via a proof of the existence of God. Indeed, Avicenna's theory presents the concept of God as being necessarily presupposed by our theory of knowledge, and God as the Necessary Being who is presupposed by an existing world where nothing of itself is what it is by an intrinsic nature, and must therefore be as it is due to an external cause. The detailed and original analysis of Avicenna's work here is presented as what he considered to be his own, or 'oriental' philosophy. Presenting an innovative interpretation of Avicenna's thought, this book will appeal to scholars working on classical Islamic philosophy, kalām and the History of Logic. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/islamic-studies

Sari Nusseibeh's book Avicenna's Al-Shifā': Oriental Philosophy (Routledge, 2018) deals with the philosophy of Ibn Sina - Avicenna as he was known in the Latin West- a Persian Muslim who lived in the eleventh century, considered one of the most important figures in the history of philosophy. Although much has been written about Avicenna, and especially about his major philosophical work, Al-Shifa, this book presents the rationalist Avicenna in an entirely new light, showing him to have presented a theory where our claims of knowledge about the world are in effect just that, claims, and must therefore be underwritten by our faith in God. His project enlists arguments in psychology as well as in language and logic. In a sense, the ceiling he puts on the reach of reason can be compared with later rationalists in the Western tradition, from Descartes to Kant -though, unlike Descartes, he does not deem it necessary to reconstruct his theory of knowledge via a proof of the existence of God. Indeed, Avicenna's theory presents the concept of God as being necessarily presupposed by our theory of knowledge, and God as the Necessary Being who is presupposed by an existing world where nothing of itself is what it is by an intrinsic nature, and must therefore be as it is due to an external cause. The detailed and original analysis of Avicenna's work here is presented as what he considered to be his own, or 'oriental' philosophy. Presenting an innovative interpretation of Avicenna's thought, this book will appeal to scholars working on classical Islamic philosophy, kalām and the History of Logic. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/middle-eastern-studies

Sari Nusseibeh's book Avicenna's Al-Shifā': Oriental Philosophy (Routledge, 2018) deals with the philosophy of Ibn Sina - Avicenna as he was known in the Latin West- a Persian Muslim who lived in the eleventh century, considered one of the most important figures in the history of philosophy. Although much has been written about Avicenna, and especially about his major philosophical work, Al-Shifa, this book presents the rationalist Avicenna in an entirely new light, showing him to have presented a theory where our claims of knowledge about the world are in effect just that, claims, and must therefore be underwritten by our faith in God. His project enlists arguments in psychology as well as in language and logic. In a sense, the ceiling he puts on the reach of reason can be compared with later rationalists in the Western tradition, from Descartes to Kant -though, unlike Descartes, he does not deem it necessary to reconstruct his theory of knowledge via a proof of the existence of God. Indeed, Avicenna's theory presents the concept of God as being necessarily presupposed by our theory of knowledge, and God as the Necessary Being who is presupposed by an existing world where nothing of itself is what it is by an intrinsic nature, and must therefore be as it is due to an external cause. The detailed and original analysis of Avicenna's work here is presented as what he considered to be his own, or 'oriental' philosophy. Presenting an innovative interpretation of Avicenna's thought, this book will appeal to scholars working on classical Islamic philosophy, kalām and the History of Logic. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/intellectual-history

Sari Nusseibeh's book Avicenna's Al-Shifā': Oriental Philosophy (Routledge, 2018) deals with the philosophy of Ibn Sina - Avicenna as he was known in the Latin West- a Persian Muslim who lived in the eleventh century, considered one of the most important figures in the history of philosophy. Although much has been written about Avicenna, and especially about his major philosophical work, Al-Shifa, this book presents the rationalist Avicenna in an entirely new light, showing him to have presented a theory where our claims of knowledge about the world are in effect just that, claims, and must therefore be underwritten by our faith in God. His project enlists arguments in psychology as well as in language and logic. In a sense, the ceiling he puts on the reach of reason can be compared with later rationalists in the Western tradition, from Descartes to Kant -though, unlike Descartes, he does not deem it necessary to reconstruct his theory of knowledge via a proof of the existence of God. Indeed, Avicenna's theory presents the concept of God as being necessarily presupposed by our theory of knowledge, and God as the Necessary Being who is presupposed by an existing world where nothing of itself is what it is by an intrinsic nature, and must therefore be as it is due to an external cause. The detailed and original analysis of Avicenna's work here is presented as what he considered to be his own, or 'oriental' philosophy. Presenting an innovative interpretation of Avicenna's thought, this book will appeal to scholars working on classical Islamic philosophy, kalām and the History of Logic. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Explore the essence of monotheism in this episode as we dissect the concept of a Necessary Being (NB) with Ustaz Sameer. Unraveling a structured argument, we delve into why multiple gods would disrupt universal harmony, predictability, and design. Witness a philosophical journey, navigating through scenarios that reinforce the conviction that a singular Necessary Being prevails, shaping the very fabric of our existence.

Human rights lawyer Noura Erakat debunks the Biden Administration's claim that Israel is not engaging in genocide. Then Rabbi Yaakov Shapiro explains why Zionism is antisemitic. Noura Erakat is a human rights attorney, Associate Professor of Africana Studies and the Program of Criminal Justice at Rutgers University, New Brunswick. She recently completed a non-resident fellowship of the Religious Literacy Project at Harvard Divinity School and was a Mahmoud Darwish Visiting Professor in Palestinian Studies at Brown University. Noura is the author of Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine (Stanford University Press, 2019), which received the Palestine Book Award and the Bronze Medal for the Independent Publishers Book Award in Current Events/Foreign Affairs. She is co-founding editor of Jadaliyya and an editorial board member of the Journal of Palestine Studies as well as Human Geography. She is a co-founding board member of the DC Palestinian Film and Arts Festival. She has served as Legal Counsel for a Congressional Subcommittee in the U.S. House of Representatives, as Legal Advocate for the Badil Resource Center for Palestinian Refugee and Residency Rights, and as national organizer of the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation. Noura has also produced video documentaries, including "Gaza In Context" and "Black Palestinian Solidarity.” Her writings have appeared in The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Review of Books, The Nation, Al Jazeera, and The Boston Review. She is a frequent commentator on CBS News, CNN, MSNBC, CBS, Fox News, the BBC, and NPR, among others. Her awards include the NLG Law for the People Award (2021) and the Marguerite Casey Foundation Freedom Scholar award (2022). Yaakov Shapiro is an international speaker, author, and pulpit rabbi for over 30 years, now emeritus. He has attained an enviable place in the arena of anti-Zionist public intellectuals, having constructed a unique oeuvre on the ideology of Zionism and its relationship to Judaism. After graduating high school at age 16, Rabbi Shapiro dedicated himself to full-time study of religion, becoming the protégé of some of the most well-regarded rabbinic scholars in Orthodoxy. Among his areas of research are religious philosophy, analytic theology, Talmud, Halachah, and Biblical exegesis. At age 19 he published his first book, משפטי הבירורים, a collection of original expositions on rabbinic principles of tort adjudication. His other books include חלקת השדה, a commentary on Judaic laws governing land disputes (2000); צדה לדרך, a commentary on Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzato's exposition of God as the Necessary Being (2009); and שופריה דיעקב, a compendium of original Biblical exegeses (2017). His most recent work, The Empty Wagon: Zionism's Journey from Identity Crisis to Identity Theft (2018), a 1381-page treatise on the differences between Judaism and Zionism, is the most comprehensive work written on the subject and considered by many to be definitive. Rabbi Shapiro's videos on Zionism have been seen by millions of viewers worldwide and translated into several foreign languages. His 7-minute video on President Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel has been viewed over 1.8 million times. He has lectured for live audiences of thousands. Rabbi Shapiro is a recipient of the Community Leadership Award from Agudath Israel of America; the Keser Torah Award from Yeshiva Torah Vodaath; Harbotzas Torah award from Yeshiva Bais Yisroel; Parent of the Year Award from Bnos Yisroel; and a post-rabbinical scholarship award from the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture. ***Please support The Katie Halper Show *** For bonus content, exclusive interviews, to support independent media & to help make this program possible, please join us on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/thekatiehalpershow Get your Katie Halper Show Merch here! https://katiehalper.myspreadshop.com/all Follow Katie on Twitter: @kthalps

In this episode with Ustaz Sameer, we embark on a profound exploration of the Necessary Being. Having proven its existence, we delve deeper into the purpose behind our ability of deduction, emphasizing self-discovery. Unveiling the attributes of God, we scrutinize the possibilities of a volitional agent versus a non-volitional cause, ultimately revealing the divine as a volitional agent. Join us on this intellectual journey into Islamic philosophy and theology.

[Due to technical difficulties, today's podcast will be an audio one.] Explore the foundations of Islamic theology in this episode with Ustaz Sameer. We delve into the existence of God, dissecting various proofs and focusing on the Argument from Contingency (AFC), uncovering universally accepted evidence, formal arguments, and the AFC's premises leading to the conclusion that the universe demands a Necessary Being. Join us on a profound journey of understanding in the realm of Islamic philosophy.

Episode 238 – A Necessary God Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. In John 14:6, Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” The goal of Anchored by Truth is to encourage everyone to grow in the Christian faith by anchoring themselves to the secure truth found in the inspired, inerrant, and infallible word of God. Script Notes: The heavens proclaim the glory of God. The skies display his craftsmanship. Day after day they continue to speak; night after night they make him known. They speak without a sound or word; their voice is never heard. Yet their message has gone throughout the earth, and their words to all the world. Psalm 19, verses 1 through 4, New Living Translation ******** VK: Hi! I’m Victoria K. Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. I’m here today with RD Fierro, founder of Crystal Sea Books, and part-time poet. Today on Anchored by Truth, as we approach Thanksgiving and Christmas, we are going to begin a new series where we focus on the central figure of the entire Bible: Jesus. That seems appropriate as we come to the time of year when we celebrate the Lord’s birth, doesn’t it RD? RD: Well, Christmas is certainly a time of the year when people begin to more naturally think about Jesus because the reminders of him start to appear more and more around us every day. But, of course, it’s important to remember that we really should focus on Jesus every day of the year. For Christians, Jesus should be the focus of our daily lives. And actually throughout our lives we should be on a quest to get to know God better each day that is granted to us. VK: I agree with that. So, today we’re going to start listening to a new Crystal Sea story. This time it’s one of our rhymed pieces that you wrote as a Christmas epic poem. This is actually the second installment of a story that you began a long time ago. You said you originally wrote the first installment because you wanted to give it as a gift to some co-workers? RD: I did. Years ago when I worked in one of those big state agency buildings that are so common here I wanted to give Christmas presents to some of my co-workers but doing that in a state agency can sometimes be tricky. So, I decided that one present I could give was a little entertainment so I wrote a piece that was inspired by some of things that used to entertain the kids of my generation: Christmas poems and the short serial stories you used to see in the movie theaters before the main feature. Each of those film pieces would always leave you hanging so you had to come back every week to see what happened. So, I wrote a Christmas story in six parts and each part left you wondering what would come next. VK: And then a few years ago you decided that the story needed to continue so you wrote the next installment of what is going to be, when completed, a poetic trilogy. The story began in Crystal Seas’ Christmas epic poem: The Golden Tree, Komari’s Quest. The story continued in The Golden Tree, Eagle Enigma. Today, we are beginning the final part of the trilogy. Here is part one of The Golden Tree, The Frost Lion. ---- The Golden Tree: The Frost Lion – Part I VK: I really like some of the lines from that part. “Where the lights soared in the vault overhead and proclaimed indescribable glory as if the heavens could not but proclaim their omnipotent Creator's story.” Not only are the lines lyrical but they also evoke such clear imagery. I can imagine kids sitting around their mom and dad … RD: Or grandmother and grandfather... VK: Or grandparents and listening to this recording with them - just like families used to sit around and listen to someone read The Night Before Christmas. Of course, that’s one of the reasons we wanted to put this poem out there. To give families an entertaining story that also would allow parents to discuss their faith with their kids. RD: Exactly. There are so many questionable choices these days that are advertised as being “family friendly” but they are based on a secularist view of the world. We wanted to be sure that there was a story that was available for “fireside” listening that directed everyone’s attention to the real “reason for the season.” VK: Well, there are a total of seven parts to Golden Tree: The Frost Lion. So, for the next six weeks we’ll be letting the story unfold as we continue to unpack insights into how the Bible is such an integral part of being able to frame a coherent world view. I mean the two fundamental attributes that you believe would have to characterize any book that would constitute a genuine special revelation of God are that that revelation would have to be consistent with the created order as it is observable by creatures within it – essentially us. And that revelation would have to display supernatural origin. RD: Right. As hard – or as exciting – as it may be to comprehend empirical observations, combined with logic, tell us that the visible universe does not – indeed cannot – provide an explanation for its own existence. The universe, as grand and vast as it is, has all the fingerprints of having a beginning in space and time. Also, the second law of thermodynamics, the law of entropy, tells us that it will have an ending. Anything that has a limited life span, no matter how long some people might conceive that light span to be, cannot be self-existent. Only a self-existent being or entity can account for its own existence or the existence of anything else. Some philosophers use the terms Necessary Being and Contingent Beings to describe the difference between the two. VK: And since the universe is not eternal it looks very much like it is contingent on something or someone outside itself to account for its existence – a Necessary Being upon which it is dependent. And we call that Necessary Being God. So just like the bears in our story when we see the northern lights or stars twinkling in a deep night sky we can know that that the starlight - and the night sky and especially our ability to see and understand all that grandeur - points to the need for a Creator. And we’ve seen that the bears we’ve just met aren’t the first bears who have lived in this land. It was actually their ancestors who left their home and shortly we’ll learn they were searching for the lair and throne of their Creator – who they thought of as the Great White Bear. RD: Yes. I think the symbolism for the story is already pretty plain but I would like to point out one thing - and that’s what I want to spend some time on today – is that the bears who set out on their quest wouldn’t ever have started out if they weren’t convinced that the Great White Bear existed. And that’s one of the problems that we see reflected so clearly in today’s very relativistic culture. Too many - far, far, far too many people today, both inside the church and out, are defeated in their own quests because they have been misled to believe that there is no Creator – no Great White Bear if you will. As a result, they see the world as fundamentally being either chaotic at best or outright meaningless at worst. VK: I think you need to expand on that thought a bit. You’re saying that God isn’t just a logical necessity to explain the existence of a contingent universe, but that an awareness of God is an essential component of us being able to comprehend our place in that universe? RD: To quote what I say in some of our humorous Life Lessons with a Laugh - exactamundo. VK: So you’re quoting yourself. Sounds like something only a writer would do… RD: Again, exactamundo. Anyway as the eminent theologian RC Sproul used to say, “Ideas have consequences.” The idea that the universe was framed by an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, and holy God carried with it the inextricable notion that the universe has been created intentionally and for a purpose. As such the universe would display design and order and the intelligent creatures within that universe – us – could perceive that design and order. VK: And that very concept formed the foundation for what we think of as science today. And that’s why many of the founders of modern science – like Sir Isaac Newton and Louis Pasteur were strong Christians. They were convinced that there was design, order, and logic in universe because the universe had been made by a being that was supremely purposeful and logical. As such, they were encouraged to go and discover that order and use the results of it to improve the lives of the people around them. Or said a little differently they were encouraged to go on their own quests to discover more about the creation and thereby appreciate even more the Creator. RD: So all that made perfect sense. If the universe had been created by a God of order, logic, and purpose then creation would be comprehensible. Those early giants of science took seriously the Biblical statement that man had been made in the image of God, so they felt sure that God would bless their efforts at applying themselves to understand what he had created. But one of the tragic effects of the success of their work and the amazing results they achieved is that over time – and now we’re talking about centuries not decades – the work of science became divorced from the original source of the inspiration for them to do the work. Scientists – not all, but a great many – became convinced that it was possible to understand creation while ignoring the Creator. VK: Or said slightly differently, they sought the blessing without regard to the Blesser. So, one of the points you’re making is that somewhere along the journey – the quest – for discovery, a lot of people forgot why the journey was begun in the first place. And that is reflected in our society and culture today. RD: Yes. And Christmas is a great example of that same phenomenon happening in our calendar and celebration of the common understanding that was the foundation of our communities. The word “Christmas” obviously derives from the words “Christ” and “mass.” And one of the big reasons that gift exchanges became a part of the celebration was in commemoration of the great gift that God had given the world in the birth of Jesus. And, of course, the whole reason that God gave us the gift of Jesus was because after the fall in the garden of Eden God had begun his great plan of redemption. So, in a very real way the history of all of mankind gives evidence of God’s plan unfolding in exactly the way God intended. VK: And you believe that even some of the more tragic of the things that we see around us provides evidence for the existence of God and the truth of scripture? RD: Yes. C.S. Lewis noted that one of the things that convinced him to become a Christian was that he couldn’t get over the idea that some things were right and some things were wrong. But then he realized for that idea to make sense – that there’s a difference between right and wrong – he had to have an explanation for where that idea came from. Why did he think that there was a real distinction? Of course, the only logical conclusion was because there was a Being – a God somewhere – who had established the whole moral and ethical scheme to begin with. That’s just as true today as it has ever been. VK: That’s a pretty remarkable idea when you think about it. The very notion that we have ethical sensibilities to begin with is dependent on there being a real difference between right and wrong. And not just a matter of personal convenience like preferring squash to broccoli. When people begin to assert that something is wrong they don’t just mean that they find it inconvenient. They mean that there is a determinable ethical distinction that compels – or should compel – our behavior. And we all know that. Anyone who doesn’t know that there is a difference between right and wrong we would describe as a sociopath. RD: And we would have good reason for doing so. Now in saying this we’re not saying that there is universal agreement on the precise details of what’s right or wrong and different societies at different times have arrived at varying conclusions about the specifics. But there’s never been a society that didn’t make some kind of a distinction regardless of what they did with the specifics. In some cultures the distinctions might have been ones that we would consider trivial – like acceptable dress for women and men. In other they would have been more profound or serious – like the relationship between a government and its people or whether private ownership of property is permitted or prohibited. The rules have varied but every culture, tribe, and nation has had rules of some sort. VK: And pretty much all people everywhere know that they have – at one point or another – violated those rules. Written or unwritten. Government or cultural. Religious or secular. We have an inherent awareness that as moral and ethical agents we have certain obligations that we are subject to. So we see that not only is there a physical order to the physical universe there is also an ethical order that applies to us as people. But without there being a God, a holy and purposive God, we would have no reasonable explanation for the existence either of the obligation or the sense that we need to be accountable the obligation. And that same sense that tells us that we are subject to the obligation tells us that we have all fallen short. RD: Right. We all know that we’re not perfect, but to know that means we know that somewhere there is a standard against which that determination can meaningfully be made. That’s why Jesus had to come and why the Christian claim that Jesus was perfect, was sinless, is so essential. Again, to refer to Sproul again, RC used to say that if he was in a discussion with someone who just refused to acknowledge the existence of God, one of the final questions he would ask such people is what they did with their guilt. VK: And we all have guilt. And some of us feel it far more keenly than others. If we don’t have Jesus, if we don’t know Jesus, then we’re the only ones who can shoulder that guilt. But the moment we understand that the Perfect Man, Jesus, has willingly taken our guilt onto his own shoulders, we can start to become free of that guilt. And that’s one of the keys to beginning and completing our own quests through life. As we talked about a long time ago on Anchored by Truth, understanding the Bible provides context and meaning to our lives. Knowing that God himself made a provision for our imperfection removes the need for us to continue to feel guilty forever. Knowing that Jesus is our savior is the truth that sets us free. RD: And that’s one of the things we really want to focus on as the days unwind toward Christmas. We want to take a close look at how we can be sure that Jesus isn’t a mythological figure, but instead is a real person who was born, walked and lived at a specific place and time, and died. But then he demonstrated that he was God’s atoning gift by walking out of the grave and appearing to a group of women first and then to his disciples. If Jesus wasn’t a real person who did those things we would have absolutely no hope for being justified before a perfectly holy God. A mythological figure, no matter how charming, couldn’t save anyone. But Jesus did and does. So, as we conduct our own quests through life, if we’re pursuing worthwhile ends we can be confident that they aren’t futile. There is a meaning to our individual lives even when those lives are set against the backdrop of an unimaginably grand cosmos. The Bible and Jesus give us that meaning. As Augustine famously said, “Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee.” VK: Sounds like it’s a great time to have a prayer. Since we’re approaching Thanksgiving how about if today we listen to a prayer for that special day when we turn our attention to the goodness that God has shown to us. ---- Prayer for Thanksgiving – VK: We’d like to remind our audience that a lot of our radio episodes are linked together in series of topics so if they missed any episodes or if they just want to hear one again, all of these episodes are available on your favorite podcast app. To find them just search on “Anchored by Truth by Crystal Sea Books.” We hope you’ll be with us next time as we continue our discussion of the reality of Jesus’ life. We hope you’ll take some time to encourage some friends to tune in too, or listen to the podcast version of this show. Also, we’d to remind listeners that copies of The Golden Tree: Komari’s Quest and The Golden Tree: Eagle Enigma are available from our website. If you’d like to hear more, try out crystalseabooks.com where “We’re not perfect but our Boss is!” (Bible Quotes from the New Living Translation) Psalm 19, verses 1 through 4, New Living Translation (Sources used for this episode or other in this series) “Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee.” Augustine, Confessions https://www.crossroadsinitiative.com/media/articles/ourheartisrestlessuntilitrestsinyou/ https://www.proginosko.com/2019/07/reforming-apologetics-common-notions/

This lecture discusses key ideas from the Medieval philosopher, theologian, and Dominican friar, Thomas Aquinas, and focuses on his Summa Theologiae, Prima Pars, q. 2. It focuses upon his discussion in article 2, bearing on whether God's existence can be proven or demonstrated by rational means at all. Thomas offers us five ways to argue for God's existence. The third way focuses on possibility and necessity, and argues that God is Necessary Being. To support my ongoing work, go to my Patreon site - www.patreon.com/sadler If you'd like to make a direct contribution, you can do so here - www.paypal.me/ReasonIO - or at BuyMeACoffee - www.buymeacoffee.com/A4quYdWoM You can find over 2000 philosophy videos in my main YouTube channel - www.youtube.com/user/gbisadler You can find Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologiae online here - www.newadvent.org/summa/

Monday, 12 June 2023   Then Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, “Men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are very religious; Acts 17:22   A more literal translation would say, “And Paul, having stood in the midst of the Areopagus said, ‘Men, Athenians, I recognize that in all things you are super-spiritual'” (CG).   In the previous verse, Luke explained that Athenians and the foreigners who came to Athens spent all their time telling or hearing something new. With that thought being understood by Paul, it now says, “And Paul, having stood in the midst of the Areopagus.”   Of this, Ellicott says, “The Court sat in the open air on benches forming three sides of a quadrangle. A short flight of sixteen steps, cut in the rock, led from the agora to the plateau where the Court held its sittings.”   Paul was standing in the midst of this court where all of those professing to be wise would be gathered to hear whatever presentation was brought forward. In this case, it is the apostle Paul bringing the message of the incarnation and life of Jesus Christ to their ears. To begin, he “said, ‘Men, Athenians.”   As in Hebrew, when men are present, the masculine is used. However, later in the chapter, it will be seen that the court was not only attended by men. Having made this formal address, he next continued with, “I recognize that in all things you are super-spiritual.”   The word translated as super-spiritual is deisidaimonesteros. It is found only here in Scripture. HELPS Word Studies says – “(from deidō, ‘to dread' and daimōn, ‘a deity') – properly, religious (superstitious) fear, driven by a confused concept of God – producing ‘sincere' but very misdirected religion. Indeed, this is the mark of heathenism.”   The word is variously translated as over-religious, very religious, remarkably religious, too superstitious, etc. Rendering it super-spiritual eliminates the often-negative connotation of superstition and it more correctly addresses the state of mind of what he will say in the coming verse.   The Athenians, like the supposedly super-spiritual people of today, obviously thought that there were many gods or that all paths led back to God. Such thinking is confused concerning God, what He is like, and what He expects. Paul, being an apostle of Jesus, was there to present to them the truth of God. His words will take from their own writings and he will present them in a manner that clearly expresses concepts that the Hebrew Scriptures had presented since the first verses of Genesis.   Life application: One of the most common things you will encounter when witnessing to others about God is a state of mental confusion concerning who He is and what He must be like. By following the pages of the Bible, one can develop a clear understanding of these things.   For example, it says in Genesis 1:1 that God created the heavens and the earth. Just a momentary stop before proceeding to the next verse to think about that statement and the reader can deduce that God is therefore before creation. Because time defines the progression of the aging of the creation (meaning that time started when the material universe came into existence), then God must be outside of (before, above, not limited to, etc.) time.   Further, and because of what that conveys to us, if God created matter, then He is not associated with matter. Thus, He is Spirit (John 4:24) and He exists in an eternal state where time does not exist. When the Lord said to Moses, “I AM THAT I AM” in Exodus 3:14, He was proclaiming His eternality. But more, He is a Necessary Being who cannot not exist.   Thinking on this, and then considering the rest of Scripture in light of this, including the things said about Jesus, we can more fully appreciate innumerable things about God. However, we must be careful to never apply incorrect ideas about Him to our theology. If our thoughts do not align with Scripture, then we must put them aside.   If you are saved, you are saved. Your incorrect ideas about God will not change that. However, what you set forth for others in your words or in what you write may affect their chance of ever being saved. Be careful to always consider God from how He has revealed Himself. Don't try to be smarter than God. That which is considered orthodox has been carefully contemplated for millennia.   The chances of you or someone you follow suddenly having a correctly aligned epiphany about God that nobody else has had are very unlikely. But this is how cults get started. So, be careful to not get drawn down strange paths of theology.   Lord God, Your word is so very wonderful. It is a revelation of Yourself to us and we can know so much about You if we think about You in relation to it. And, for sure, we can know that anything that is said about You that is not in line with the pages of Scripture cannot be correct. So, Lord, help us to stay on the right path as we seek out who You are. Amen.  

Monday, 13 February 2023   And Barnabas they called Zeus, and Paul, Hermes, because he was the chief speaker. Acts 14:12   In the previous verse, those in Lystra who had seen the miraculous healing of the crippled man had raised their voices and exclaimed that the gods had come down to them in the likeness of men. With that remembered, it now says, “And Barnabas they called Zeus.”   The verb is imperfect and more rightly says, “And they were calling Barnabas Zeus.” They proclaimed him Zeus and kept telling everyone that came around that he was Zeus. The name translated as Zeus is found only here and in the next verse, Dzis (vs. 12) and Dzios (vs. 13). Strong's defines the name as, “Zeus, the Greek god of the sky in all its manifestations, corresponding to the Roman Jupiter and to the leading god of the native Lycaonians.”   Along with this name for Barnabas, it next says, “and Paul, Hermes.” This name, Hermés, is found only here and in Romans 16:14 when referring to one of the congregants by that name.  Strong's defines the name as, “Hermes, the messenger and herald of the Greek gods, or rather the corresponding Lycaonian deity.” The name may come from the verb ereó, to speak or say. He would correspond to the Roman god Mercury. This name is applied to Paul “because he was the chief speaker.”   It is clear that Paul was the main orator. As this is so, these people probably thought that he spoke on behalf of Zeus as a herald might call out a proclamation while the royal figure who issued the proclamation stood by.   Those in Lystra were set in their minds that the gods had truly come among them. Giving them names only helped establish this supposed truth in their minds.    Life application: Simple logic can nail down that there is only one God. It can also tell us that this one God has a plurality within Himself. A monadic “god” would have no ability to reach out beyond himself. These things can be deduced by simply thinking through what are known as the First Principles. Take time to consider them.   They are not intended to be a tool for evangelism. The gospel is that tool. God has made the gospel extremely simple, and we will only taint the message by adding superfluities. However, it is good to be able to explain complicated matters to those who ask. And so, make yourself aware of these First Principles, consider them, and be ready to defend what is logical and orderly because God is the author of logic and everything He does is purposeful and with order.   The First Principles as outlined by Dr. Norman Geisler are as follows:   ‎1. Being Is (B is) = The Principle of Existence 2. Being Is Being (B is B) = The Principle of Identity 3. Being Is Not Nonbeing (B is Not Non-B) = The Principle of Noncontradiction 4. Either Being or Nonbeing (Either B or Non-B) = The Principle of the Excluded Middle 5. Nonbeing Cannot Cause Being (Non-B>B) = The Principle of Causality 6. Contingent Being Cannot Cause Contingent Being (Bc>Bc) = The Principle of Contingency (or Dependency) 7. Only Necessary Being Can Cause a Contingent Being (Bn --->Bc) = The Positive Principle of Modality 8. Necessary Being Cannot Cause A Necessary Being (Bn>Bn) = The Negative Principle of Modality 9. Every Contingent Being Is Caused by a Necessary Being (Bn--->Bc) = The Principle of Existential Causality 10. Necessary Being Exists (Bn Exists) = Principle of Existential Necessity 11. Contingent Being Exists (Bc Exists) = Principle of Existential Contingency 12. Necessary Being Is Similar to Contingent Being(s) It Causes (Bn ---similar --->Bc) = Principle of Analogy Doctor Geisler's First Principles are either undeniable or they are reducible to the undeniable. Hence, any attempt to deny them will validate them. This is evident from an analysis of them –   ‎1. Being Is (B is) = The Principle of Existence To say “There is no being” is self-refuting. One must exist in order to make the claim. Being Is Being (B is B) = The Principle of Identity To say “Being isn't being” is self-refuting. One must be a being in order to make a claim about not being a being. Being Is Not Nonbeing (B is Not Non-B) = The Principle of Noncontradiction If being exists (see Principle #1), then it cannot be non-being. The principle is self-evident and undeniable. Either Being or Nonbeing (Either B or Non-B) = The Principle of the Excluded Middle Either I exist (asking the question means I do) and thus I am being, or I do not exist. If I am being, then I am not non-being. The principle is self-evident and undeniable; there is no wiggle room.   Nonbeing Cannot Cause Being (Non-B>B) = The Principle of Causality Something cannot come from nothing (and we cannot have an infinite regress in matter or being). This is proven by Einstein in his Theory of General Relativity). The principle is undeniable. Contingent Being Cannot Cause Contingent Being (Bc>Bc) = The Principle of Contingency (or Dependency) This would lead to an infinite regress of causes which is disproved by Relativity – Time, Space, and Matter came into existence simultaneously and are dependent upon each other. The principle is undeniable. Only Necessary Being Can Cause a Contingent Being (Bn --->Bc) = The Positive Principle of Modality A being that cannot Not exist must, therefore, exist if contingent beings exist. The principle is reducible to the undeniable. Necessary Being Cannot Cause A Necessary Being (Bn>Bn) = The Negative Principle of Modality The principle is undeniable. Only one Necessary Being can exist. Any being which exists apart from a Necessary Being is contingent and could Not exist. It is self-evident.   Every Contingent Being Is Caused by a Necessary Being (Bn--->Bc) = The Principle of Existential Causality The fact that there are contingent beings (I think, therefore I am, and I am not necessary) necessitates a Necessary Being. We exist, therefore a Being that cannot Not exist must exist. The principle is undeniable in and of itself. Necessary Being Exists (Bn Exists) = Principle of Existential Necessity Contingent beings exist (see next principle); therefore, a Necessary Being must exist. The principle is reducible to the undeniable. Contingent Being Exists (Bc Exists) = Principle of Existential Contingency The principle is undeniable. To say “I (a contingent being) don't exist” is self-refuting. I do exist (Principle 1), which is self-evident. Necessary Being Is Similar to Contingent Being(s) It Causes (Bn ---similar --->Bc) = Principle of Analogy Nothing can exist which doesn't reflect the nature of the Necessary Being. To state something doesn't is self-refuting. The principle is undeniable.   Based on these 12 First Principles “belief in God” is “rationally justifiable.” Further, “belief in God is rationally required.” To not believe in God, then, is both irrational and illogical. Unless these principles, which are undeniable, can be logically denied (please do so if you can!), then there are no “reasons to think that belief in God is not rational.”   Further, there are no “reasons to think [that] belief in God is not required.” In other words, belief in God is both rational and required. The reciprocal must then be true. To deny God is both irrational and illogical. It is a form of arrogance that is revealed in one who cannot face the logical, orderly, and harmonious universe in which we live, and which is clearly guided by an unseen hand. After all, ex nihlo nihil fit – out of nothing, nothing. There must have been a Being (who is God) who has brought all things into existence. However, to bring this to the simplest and most basic of human levels for those who simply want to argue against what is self-evident, all we need to do is look at the reaction of anyone – be it a fully developed believer in “God,” or a self-purported atheist – who faces a major disaster in his life. Let us go with the death of a child. When the child is run over in front of the parent, whether in a Hollywood movie or in real life, the very first reaction from any of them is inevitably and invariably to cry out “O GOD!”    The Necessary Being of these great thinkers of the past has infused even the most depraved soul with a purposed knowledge of Himself deep in the recesses of their minds. Though we can actively shut Him out most of the time, when we face our most primal moments, we turn back to Him for an answer to the horror which we have faced, thus demonstrating that we do, in fact, find Him both rational and required in a world of confusion and chaos.   Lord God, help us to think rationally about You and what You have done. Our emotions should not be a basis for our faith in You, but a result of it. They should also not drive our theology, but they should result from it, exclaiming, “How great You are, O God, for what You have done for us. Thank You, O God, for Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Episode 196 – Eternal Information – Part 4 –Information and Apologetics Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. In John 14:6, Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” The goal of Anchored by Truth is to encourage everyone to grow in the Christian faith by anchoring themselves to the secure truth found in the inspired, inerrant, and infallible word of God. Script: That which you worship, then, even though you do not know it, is what I now proclaim to you. God, who made the world and everything in it …” Acts, Chapter 17, verses 23 and 24, Good News Translation ******** VK: Hello! I’m Victoria K. Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. We’re very grateful that you are joining us on Anchored by Truth as we continue the series which we are calling “Eternal Information.” Like several of the other series that we have done on Anchored by Truth this “Eternal Information” series pertains to a subject that has special importance in our day and time – demonstrating that the Christian faith has a firm basis in reason and evidence. Today in the studio we have RD who is an author and the founder of Crystal Sea Books. RD, we spend a lot of time on Anchored by Truth discussing topics that don’t seem to be as relevant to the Christian faith as, say, family relationships, struggles with addiction, or even the wise use of money. Why do you feel led to go into what some may regard as side issues that don’t affect people’s daily lives? RD: Well, that’s a very good question. But before I answer it I’d also like to thank everyone joining us on Anchored by Truth. The biggest reason I think we need to do series like “Eternal Information” is very simple. We need to return to the reality that the Christian faith isn’t just appealing or helpful – but it is true. We live in what many term a “post-modern” culture. The post-modern culture not only doesn’t believe that the Christian faith is true. The post-modern culture denies the existence of truth altogether. Post-modernism tells us things like “that may be true for you but that’s not true for me.” VK: You might say that the primary slogan for our post-modern world is that “there is no such thing as absolute truth.” But as we have pointed out in previous episodes the statement “there is no such thing as absolute truth” is self-contradictory. The proponent of the statement wants us accept his proclamation as if it were absolutely true. So, anyone who bases their worldview on that proposition has a house built on intellectual quicksand. It’s not only not stable it’s deadly. RD: Exactly right. But that mantra, that there is no such thing as absolute truth, surrounds us today and if we don’t begin to reverse the widespread acceptance of that silliness there is little to no chance we can reverse the decline in our culture. The only way we can begin to reclaim virtue for our society is to reclaim the historic reliance that western civilization placed on a Christian worldview and value set. We must start with the truth if we are going to repel the lies we are being told. And the truth is that the Bible is demonstrably the inspired, inerrant, and infallible Word of God. VK: That word “demonstrable” is important. In our day and time it’s not enough for Christians to just believe the Bible is the Word of God. That’s necessary but it’s not sufficient to impact our culture. The question “how can we be sure God exists” is a reasonable question. And so is the question “how can you be sure the Bible is God’s word.” And 1 Peter 3:15 commands us to be able to give reasonable answers to those questions. RD: Yes. 1 Peter 3:15 is probably the most commonly cited Bible verse for why Christians need to obtain a least a basic understanding of what is usually termed “apologetics.” VK: Apologetics is a broad umbrella term for the reason we thought this series about information is important. Apologetics can broadly be defined as “a defense for our faith.” Apologetics comes from a compound Greek word. Greek, like English, has compound words made of two or more other words. In this case the Greek words are apo, primarily used to mean “from;” and logos, primarily meaning, in its most generic sense, “word.” Logos is also commonly used in an expanded way to mean “reason, the mental faculty of thinking, meditating, reasoning, and calculating.” The Greek philosopher Heraclitus [HAIR-AH-KLEYE-TUS] first used the term Logos around 600 B.C. to designate the divine reason or plan which coordinates a changing universe. The Apostle John’s used that same word logos in John 1:1 when John said, “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” RD: Right. So, on this episode of Anchored by Truth I wanted to just spend a little more time making sure that we connect the concept of information with this whole notion of the “defense of the Christian Faith.” So, one issue I would like to deal with right away is the whole notion that apologetics is really not necessary. We often say that God is the only One who can change a human heart. If that’s true then many people don’t see a need for us humans to actually try to defend the faith. After all, if conversion is up to God all we should have to do is just tell people about God and Jesus and that should be enough. VK: And some Christians would say that in some of the best known verses about sharing the gospel there is no mention of apologetics. Romans, chapter 10, verses 14 and 15 say, “How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can anyone preach unless they are sent?” That’s from the New International Version. Those verses clearly talk about us sending and preaching so others can hear and believe but they don’t say anything about “defending the faith.” RD: True enough, but those verses are part of a larger discussion by the Apostle Paul about the difference between the Jews believing they can be saved by the law as opposed to being saved by faith in Jesus. The larger point that Paul was making was that Paul’s people the Jews were zealous in wanting to know God but they had drifted into thinking that a zeal for the law was sufficient for God to accept them. Paul was trying to clarify that no amount of zealousness for the law was sufficient to make us acceptable to God. To be saved by the law we would have to keep the law perfectly. VK: Which no human being apart from Jesus has ever done, or could do. RD: Right. No human being can be saved by our own works because none of us can keep the law perfectly. Jesus did keep the law perfectly which qualified Him to be a fit representative for those of us who can’t. So, the point Paul was making when he talked about sending and preaching was that all believers have a responsibility to share our faith with others. In those verses from Romans, Paul was describing the need for us to “preach” but he was not prescribing the content of our preaching. Elsewhere, as in Acts chapter 17 shows very clearly that he used logic and reason in his own preaching. In talking to the assembly on the Areopagus he began his message with an appeal for the Athenians to think about “The God who made the world and everything in it…” In effect Paul was using a form of what is often termed the cosmological argument. VK: Wikipedia defines the cosmological argument as “… an argument which claims that the existence of God can be inferred from facts concerning causation, explanation, change, motion, contingency, dependency, or finitude with respect to the universe or some totality of objects.” So, in slightly different words the cosmological argument is an argument based on the existence of the cosmos. RD: Yes. The cosmological argument is one form of what is sometimes termed “classical apologetics.” And I think it is likely the most common form of apologetic argument since it so easy to understand and it begins with a starting point that people have to agree with. We exist. The universe exists. Careful observations about the universe such as the Laws of Thermodynamics tell us the universe is not eternal. Basic reason tells us that anything that is not eternal cannot account for its own existence. Anything that is self-existent, that is which possesses the power of existence unto and all by itself, would have to be eternal because a self-existent entity cannot go out of existence. Since the universe cannot provide an explanation for its own existence, it is reasonable to go looking for an explanation for the reason the universe exists outside of the universe. At any rate, the point is that the Apostle Paul was clearly a skilled apologist and he used apologetics in his own preaching. So, in those verses from Romans that you cited Paul was not dismissing the need for apologetics. He was simply stressing the need for us to be active in spreading the gospel to bring salvation to as many people as possible. In Romans Paul was talking about the necessity for evangelism but not the content of evangelism. VK: So, in this series, and in many of the others that we’ve done on Anchored by Truth, we are discussing the content of the evangelistic message. And the point we are making is that good apologetics should be one component of an evangelistic message. Evangelism cannot be limited to apologetics. Apologetics is primarily aimed at the mind. But good evangelism also has to address the needs of the heart. In some ways the heart’s needs are more urgent for most people. So, we must always be prepared to address those as well. People need to know that Jesus brings forgiveness of sins because without that people have no effective way of dealing with the guilt that we all feel. People need to know that Jesus loves them. The desire to be cherished and valued is basic to all human beings. And people need to know that God wants them to be included in His family. People need to know that they belong. All those and more are heart needs. And we certainly don’t want to minimize their importance. But just as it is important to address the heart needs we must also not forget about the head. RD: Exactly. The church must address the whole person just as Jesus commanded in Mark 12:30 where he told his listeners that they must, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” Jesus wasn’t trying to take an inventory of human anatomy and physiology there. He was telling his listeners that they had to devote all of themselves to God. VK: After all, God devoted all of Himself to us when the 2nd person of the Trinity took on a human body and then sacrificed Himself for us. RD: Yes. So, God gave His all to us and we must give our all to Him. It’s important to note that in his admonition Jesus included a reference to the “mind” as well as to the heart, soul, and strength. In looking at apologetic approaches that’s what we are doing. And that’s where I think that this discussion of information becomes valuable. I see it as a supplement to many of the other approaches that have been used throughout church history. VK: I see where you’re going with this. There are at least three apologetic arguments that are termed classical apologetics. The cosmological argument is one of those. As you’ve said the cosmological argument is possibly the best known and easiest to understand. But there is also the teleological [TEAL-EE-AH-LODGE-EH-KAL] argument. The teleological argument is an argument based on design or purpose. The teleological argument demonstrates the existence of God by beginning with the observation of purpose in nature. The teleological argument reasons that design cannot exist without a Designer. And classical apologetics also includes what is called the ontological [ON-TOE-LODGE-EH-KAL] argument. But I’m not even going to attempt to explain that. RD: Yeah. I don’t blame you. The ontological argument is probably the most esoteric of the classical arguments. Ontology is the study of “being.” If something exists it is sometimes said to have “ontological status.” I think the easiest way to think about ontology is to just distinguish between the real and the imaginary. So, the ontological argument is based on the idea that anything that is real is better than something that is imaginary. VK: I think there are some people in the movie business that might disagree with you. RD: True. But even movie makers make real movies. An imaginary movie might be great but it doesn’t sell any tickets. And that’s the essential idea behind the ontological argument. We can conceive of a perfect being. Now our individual ideas of the perfect being might vary a bit but we can all conceive of a perfect being. But if that perfect being were only imaginary it wouldn’t be nearly as good as a real perfect being. Furthermore, it is obvious that all human beings as well as every other living creature are dependent beings. We depend on air, water, food, sunlight, etc. for our existence. The same thing is true for inanimate structures like stars. They depend on the availability of fuel to continue to burn. Well, there must be an ultimate source which supplies what all those dependent entities need to maintain their existence. That Something or Someone must be completely independent of need. Philosophers refer to that entity as a Necessary Being. That Necessary Being then would be perfect because it (He) would be able to provide for the existence of everything else. So, the ontological argument essentially recognizes that that Necessary Being is the Perfect Being that we all conceive of. And again, an imaginary perfect being would not have any ontological status so it couldn’t supply the needs of anything. There have been many different formulations of the ontological argument down through the years and they can get pretty esoteric. If someone wants to look further I would suggest they look an Anselm, Descartes, or more recently the American philosopher, Alvin Plantinga. VK: As you said, that’s all pretty esoteric. RD: But it does point out something important. Despite the claims of the evolutionists life on this earth cannot account for its own existence. The universe cannot account for its own existence. The 2nd law of Thermodynamics tells us that someday the universe will burn itself out. And even those people who believe in the Big Bang have no explanation for how the original singularity came into existence. So, they usually resort to saying things like, “the laws of physics tell us how something can come from nothing.” Well, no they don’t. Because if there was ever time when nothing existed there wouldn’t have been any “laws of physics.” And that’s the problem with all explanations for existence that attempt to exclude God. They always wind up in a place where they have unanswered questions and their advocates tell us that we just have to live with those questions. VK: And therein lies the role for apologetics. Apologetics leads us through the questions and ultimately supplies the answers to those questions that can’t come from anywhere else. Now we can live our whole lives and never ask the questions. Or we can live our lives and simply suppress our desire for the answers. But ultimately neither one of those approaches satisfies us. God built human beings with an innate curiosity because that curiosity will always lead us back to our need for Him. RD: I agree. And that is what our examination of information does. It leads us back to God. As we talked about in our first two episodes in this series, information is a non-material component of the created order that is not generated by, dependent upon, or impacted by matter, energy, time, or space. Because information is non-material and is unaffected by matter or energy it is logically impossible to attribute the presence of information to matter or energy. But that’s all atheists or anyone who denies the existence of God has to work with. For them they’re surrounded only by physical phenomena so they must find some way to attribute everything that they come across in their experience to an origin in matter or energy. In a previous episode we saw that there are actually laws of information that act exactly like other natural laws with which we’re more familiar like the law of gravity or the Laws of Thermodynamics. But these other natural laws can be framed in terms of matter and energy. Information cannot. VK: So, the atheist is now stuck with a conundrum. How can material phenomena produce a non-material phenomenon that can describe the material but remain unaffected by the material? For Christians, and even other theists, the conundrum doesn’t exist. God produced the cosmos ex nihilo – from nothing other than his own ineffable power. RD: Yes. The nature of the physical universe itself points us to a power that must lie beyond the universe. Information is another one of the many attributes of the universe that supports that basic line of reasoning. In that sense it forms another and very powerful argument for the existence of God. VK: Which is what all apologetic approaches do. But that does not mean that all apologetic approaches are equal – or equally suitable for use in evangelistic settings. And we haven’t touched on all the apologetic arguments that are out there. We’ve only touched on a few. RD: Yep. Besides the cosmological, teleological, and ontological arguments – which are considered “classical apologetics” there are people who favor a moral argument. Others prefer a historical approach to demonstrating God’s necessary existence. VK: The moral argument was used by CS Lewis in his classic work Mere Christianity. It essentially says that we all feel the presence of certain obligations that should govern our behavior – moral laws if you will. But the existence of a law requires a Law Giver. Historical apologetics points to events in world history, such as the resurrection, as evidence that the God of the Bible is actively involved in our world and its affairs. For instance, regarding evidence for the historicity of the resurrection, British historian, A. N. Sherwin-White has written that “For Acts, the confirmation of historicity is overwhelming. … any attempt to reject its basic historicity, even in matters of detail, must now appear absurd. Roman historians have long taken it for granted…” Many other historians have come to similar conclusions about parts of the Bible as diverse as Isaiah, Daniel, Kings, and Chronicles. RD: Yes. And there are still other forms of apologetics such as pre-suppositional apologetics and transcendental apologetics that we don’t have the time or need to cover. But all apologetic approaches share something in common. They start with an observation about the universe or world history that can’t be reasonably denied. Then they proceed to look for an explanation of the attribute or phenomenon they have observed. Inevitably they find that a satisfactory explanation cannot be contained within the four corners of the visible universe. So, as we have said, we can simply throw up our hands at that point and proclaim that there is no possible explanation or we can follow the considerable affirmative evidence, such as the reliability of scripture that points to the existence of God. VK: Apologetics is a little like the classic murder mystery where the murder was seemingly committed in a locked room where there is no immediate evidence of any way the murderer could have entered or left. Then the clever detective arrives and finds that there’s a previously unknown, hidden panel that they discovered by a careful analysis of the room’s dimensions. Or there’s a bit of wax on the floor that shows where the window latch dropped back into place after the murderer left through the window. Or a scratch on floor shows that the key on the inside was really on the outside when the door was locked. The detective always finds the clue overlooked by everyone else to divine the truth. RD: Yep. Except that in this case the evidence isn’t hard to discern. It’s out there in plain sight for everyone to see. It has to be. If God had hidden evidence of himself people might have a legitimate excuse for their unbelief. But they don’t. Romans, chapter 1, verses 18 through 20 say, “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.” VK: And Psalm 19, verses 1 and 2 say, “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge.” RD: So, as in your detective example, the universe contains clues, more than clues really, that point to the fact that there is a God who made everything, sustains everything, and governs everything. Information is one more phenomenon within creation that points out that the universe cannot be explained simply by its material elements – matter, energy, time, and space. The universe exhibits design in its smallest elements such as the atom to its largest structures such as galaxies. Design needs a Designer. The universe needed a power source to get it going because it is steadily running out of power. The laws of thermodynamics tell us that. Life would not exist at all if DNA did not contain an embedded program that tells the various base pairs, genes, and motors how to operate to both operate and replicate. The program embedded within DNA is another form of information. In fact, DNA is most sophisticated data storage and use structure we know about within the universe. But how did that information get into the DNA? The cells’ protein machines can’t explain the information because without DNA the cells wouldn’t know how to make the machines. But without the machines to build the DNA it couldn’t hold, store, or transmit the information. The answer of course is that God created everything, installed the programs, and continues to sustain all that He created. We can accept or reject that conclusion but we can’t avoid the facts that point to it. VK: So, again, the big idea that we are discussing is that information is another line of evidence that proves that if God did not exist the universe could not appear as we see it. Information is non-material and information always exhibits order, organization, specificity, and purpose. And those things require intelligence. Well, our thought-provoking journey continues. This sounds like a great time to pray. Today let’s listen to a prayer that our nation would experience a renewed hunger for the One who formed the universe and who put His presence into both its largest and smallest structures. ---- PRAYER FOR RESTORATION OF THE WORSHIP OF THE ONE TRUE GOD VK: We’d like to remind our audience that a lot of our radio episodes are linked together in series of topics so if they missed any episodes or if they just want to hear one again, all of these episodes are available on your favorite podcast app. To find them just search on “Anchored by Truth by Crystal Sea Books.” If you’d like to hear more, try out crystalseabooks.com where “We’re not perfect but our Boss is!” (Bible Quote from the Good News Translation) Acts, Chapter 17, verses 23 and 24, Good News Translation Laws of information 1 (creation.com) Laws of information 2 (creation.com) We are less than dust (creation.com) https://www.josh.org/what-is-the-design-argument-for-gods-existence/

Episode 186 – A Necessary God Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. In John 14:6, Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” The goal of Anchored by Truth is to encourage everyone to grow in the Christian faith by anchoring themselves to the secure truth found in the inspired, inerrant, and infallible word of God. Script Notes: The heavens proclaim the glory of God. The skies display his craftsmanship. Day after day they continue to speak; night after night they make him known. They speak without a sound or word; their voice is never heard. Yet their message has gone throughout the earth, and their words to all the world. Psalm 19, verses 1 through 4, New Living Translation ******** VK: Hi! I’m Victoria K. Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. I’m here today with RD Fierro, founder of Crystal Sea Books, and part-time poet. Today on Anchored by Truth, as we approach Thanksgiving and Christmas, we are going to begin a new series where we focus on the central figure of the entire Bible: Jesus. That seems appropriate as we come to the time of year when we celebrate the Lord’s birth, doesn’t it RD? RD: Well, Christmas is certainly a time of the year when people begin to more naturally think about Jesus because the reminders of him start to appear more and more around us every day. But, of course, it’s important to remember that we really should focus on Jesus every day of the year. For Christians, Jesus should be the focus of our daily lives. And actually throughout our lives we should be on a quest to get to know God better each day that is granted to us. VK: I agree with that. So, today we’re going to start listening to a new Crystal Sea story. This time it’s one of our rhymed pieces that you wrote as a Christmas epic poem. This is actually the second installment of a story that you began a long time ago. You said you originally wrote the first installment because you wanted to give it as a gift to some co-workers? RD: I did. Years ago when I worked in one of those big state agency buildings that are so common here I wanted to give Christmas presents to some of my co-workers but doing that in a state agency can sometimes be tricky. So, I decided that one present I could give was a little entertainment so I wrote a piece that was inspired by some of things that used to entertain the kids of my generation: Christmas poems and the short serial stories you used to see in the movie theaters before the main feature. Each of those film pieces would always leave you hanging so you had to come back every week to see what happened. So, I wrote a Christmas story in six parts and each part left you wondering what would come next. VK: And then a few years ago you decided that the story needed to continue so you wrote the next installment of what is going to be, when completed, a poetic trilogy. The story began in Crystal Seas’ Christmas epic poem: The Golden Tree, Komari’s Quest. The story continued in The Golden Tree, Eagle Enigma. Today, we are beginning the final part of the trilogy. Here is part one of The Golden Tree, The Frost Lion. ---- The Golden Tree: The Frost Lion – Part I VK: I really like some of the lines from that part. “Where the lights soared in the vault overhead and proclaimed indescribable glory as if the heavens could not but proclaim their omnipotent Creator's story.” Not only are the lines lyrical but they also evoke such clear imagery. I can imagine kids sitting around their mom and dad … RD: Or grandmother and grandfather... VK: Or grandparents and listening to this recording with them - just like families used to sit around and listen to someone read The Night Before Christmas. Of course, that’s one of the reasons we wanted to put this poem out there. To give families an entertaining story that also would allow parents to discuss their faith with their kids. RD: Exactly. There are so many questionable choices these days that are advertised as being “family friendly” but they are based on a secularist view of the world. We wanted to be sure that there was a story that was available for “fireside” listening that directed everyone’s attention to the real “reason for the season.” VK: Well, there are a total of seven parts to Golden Tree: The Frost Lion. So, for the next six weeks we’ll be letting the story unfold as we continue to unpack insights into how the Bible is such an integral part of being able to frame a coherent world view. I mean the two fundamental attributes that you believe would have to characterize any book that would constitute a genuine special revelation of God are that that revelation would have to be consistent with the created order as it is observable by creatures within it – essentially us. And that revelation would have to display supernatural origin. RD: Right. As hard – or as exciting – as it may be to comprehend empirical observations, combined with logic, tell us that the visible universe does not – indeed cannot – provide an explanation for its own existence. The universe, as grand and vast as it is, has all the fingerprints of having a beginning in space and time. Also, the second law of thermodynamics, the law of entropy, tells us that it will have an ending. Anything that has a limited life span, no matter how long some people might conceive that light span to be, cannot be self-existent. Only a self-existent being or entity can account for its own existence or the existence of anything else. Some philosophers use the terms Necessary Being and Contingent Beings to describe the difference between the two. VK: And since the universe is not eternal it looks very much like it is contingent on something or someone outside itself to account for its existence – a Necessary Being upon which it is dependent. And we call that Necessary Being God. So just like the bears in our story when we see the northern lights or stars twinkling in a deep night sky we can know that that the starlight - and the night sky and especially our ability to see and understand all that grandeur - points to the need for a Creator. And we’ve seen that the bears we’ve just met aren’t the first bears who have lived in this land. It was actually their ancestors who left their home and shortly we’ll learn they were searching for the lair and throne of their Creator – who they thought of as the Great White Bear. RD: Yes. I think the symbolism for the story is already pretty plain but I would like to point out one thing - and that’s what I want to spend some time on today – is that the bears who set out on their quest wouldn’t ever have started out if they weren’t convinced that the Great White Bear existed. And that’s one of the problems that we see reflected so clearly in today’s very relativistic culture. Too many - far, far, far too many people today, both inside the church and out, are defeated in their own quests because they have been misled to believe that there is no Creator – no Great White Bear if you will. As a result, they see the world as fundamentally being either chaotic at best or outright meaningless at worst. VK: I think you need to expand on that thought a bit. You’re saying that God isn’t just a logical necessity to explain the existence of a contingent universe, but that an awareness of God is an essential component of us being able to comprehend our place in that universe? RD: To quote what I say in some of our humorous Life Lessons with a Laugh - exactamundo. VK: So you’re quoting yourself. Sounds like something only a writer would do… RD: Again, exactamundo. Anyway as the eminent theologian RC Sproul used to say, “Ideas have consequences.” The idea that the universe was framed by an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, and holy God carried with it the inextricable notion that the universe has been created intentionally and for a purpose. As such the universe would display design and order and the intelligent creatures within that universe – us – could perceive that design and order. VK: And that very concept formed the foundation for what we think of as science today. And that’s why many of the founders of modern science – like Sir Isaac Newton and Louis Pasteur were strong Christians. They were convinced that there was design, order, and logic in universe because the universe had been made by a being that was supremely purposeful and logical. As such, they were encouraged to go and discover that order and use the results of it to improve the lives of the people around them. Or said a little differently they were encouraged to go on their own quests to discover more about the creation and thereby appreciate even more the Creator. RD: So all that made perfect sense. If the universe had been created by a God of order, logic, and purpose then creation would be comprehensible. Those early giants of science took seriously the Biblical statement that man had been made in the image of God, so they felt sure that God would bless their efforts at applying themselves to understand what he had created. But one of the tragic effects of the success of their work and the amazing results they achieved is that over time – and now we’re talking about centuries not decades – the work of science became divorced from the original source of the inspiration for them to do the work. Scientists – not all, but a great many – became convinced that it was possible to understand creation while ignoring the Creator. VK: Or said slightly differently, they sought the blessing without regard to the Blesser. So, one of the points you’re making is that somewhere along the journey – the quest – for discovery, a lot of people forgot why the journey was begun in the first place. And that is reflected in our society and culture today. RD: Yes. And Christmas is a great example of that same phenomenon happening in our calendar and celebration of the common understanding that was the foundation of our communities. The word “Christmas” obviously derives from the words “Christ” and “mass.” And one of the big reasons that gift exchanges became a part of the celebration was in commemoration of the great gift that God had given the world in the birth of Jesus. And, of course, the whole reason that God gave us the gift of Jesus was because after the fall in the garden of Eden God had begun his great plan of redemption. So, in a very real way the history of all of mankind gives evidence of God’s plan unfolding in exactly the way God intended. VK: And you believe that even some of the more tragic of the things that we see around us provides evidence for the existence of God and the truth of scripture? RD: Yes. C.S. Lewis noted that one of the things that convinced him to become a Christian was that he couldn’t get over the idea that some things were right and some things were wrong. But then he realized for that idea to make sense – that there’s a difference between right and wrong – he had to have an explanation for where that idea came from. Why did he think that there was a real distinction? Of course, the only logical conclusion was because there was a Being – a God somewhere – who had established the whole moral and ethical scheme to begin with. That’s just as true today as it has ever been. VK: That’s a pretty remarkable idea when you think about it. The very notion that we have ethical sensibilities to begin with is dependent on there being a real difference between right and wrong. And not just a matter of personal convenience like preferring squash to broccoli. When people begin to assert that something is wrong they don’t just mean that they find it inconvenient. They mean that there is a determinable ethical distinction that compels – or should compel – our behavior. And we all know that. Anyone who doesn’t know that there is a difference between right and wrong we would describe as a sociopath. RD: And we would have good reason for doing so. Now in saying this we’re not saying that there is universal agreement on the precise details of what’s right or wrong and different societies at different times have arrived at varying conclusions about the specifics. But there’s never been a society that didn’t make some kind of a distinction regardless of what they did with the specifics. In some cultures the distinctions might have been ones that we would consider trivial – like acceptable dress for women and men. In other they would have been more profound or serious – like the relationship between a government and its people or whether private ownership of property is permitted or prohibited. The rules have varied but every culture, tribe, and nation has had rules of some sort. VK: And pretty much all people everywhere know that they have – at one point or another – violated those rules. Written or unwritten. Government or cultural. Religious or secular. We have an inherent awareness that as moral and ethical agents we have certain obligations that we are subject to. So we see that not only is there a physical order to the physical universe there is also an ethical order that applies to us as people. But without there being a God, a holy and purposive God, we would have no reasonable explanation for the existence either of the obligation or the sense that we need to be accountable the obligation. And that same sense that tells us that we are subject to the obligation tells us that we have all fallen short. RD: Right. We all know that we’re not perfect, but to know that means we know that somewhere there is a standard against which that determination can meaningfully be made. That’s why Jesus had to come and why the Christian claim that Jesus was perfect, was sinless, is so essential. Again, to refer to Sproul again, RC used to say that if he was in a discussion with someone who just refused to acknowledge the existence of God, one of the final questions he would ask such people is what they did with their guilt. VK: And we all have guilt. And some of us feel it far more keenly than others. If we don’t have Jesus, if we don’t know Jesus, then we’re the only ones who can shoulder that guilt. But the moment we understand that the Perfect Man, Jesus, has willingly taken our guilt onto his own shoulders, we can start to become free of that guilt. And that’s one of the keys to beginning and completing our own quests through life. As we talked about a long time ago on Anchored by Truth, understanding the Bible provides context and meaning to our lives. Knowing that God himself made a provision for our imperfection removes the need for us to continue to feel guilty forever. Knowing that Jesus is our savior is the truth that sets us free. RD: And that’s one of the things we really want to focus on as the days unwind toward Christmas. We want to take a close look at how we can be sure that Jesus isn’t a mythological figure, but instead is a real person who was born, walked and lived at a specific place and time, and died. But then he demonstrated that he was God’s atoning gift by walking out of the grave and appearing to a group of women first and then to his disciples. If Jesus wasn’t a real person who did those things we would have absolutely no hope for being justified before a perfectly holy God. A mythological figure, no matter how charming, couldn’t save anyone. But Jesus did and does. So, as we conduct our own quests through life, if we’re pursuing worthwhile ends we can be confident that they aren’t futile. There is a meaning to our individual lives even when those lives are set against the backdrop of an unimaginably grand cosmos. The Bible and Jesus give us that meaning. As Augustine famously said, “Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee.” VK: Sounds like it’s a great time to have a prayer. Since we’re approaching Thanksgiving how about if today we listen to a prayer for that special day when we turn our attention to the goodness that God has shown to us. ---- Prayer for Thanksgiving – VK: We’d like to remind our audience that a lot of our radio episodes are linked together in series of topics so if they missed any episodes or if they just want to hear one again, all of these episodes are available on your favorite podcast app. To find them just search on “Anchored by Truth by Crystal Sea Books.” We hope you’ll be with us next time as we continue our discussion of the reality of Jesus’ life. We hope you’ll take some time to encourage some friends to tune in too, or listen to the podcast version of this show. Also, we’d to remind listeners that copies of The Golden Tree: Komari’s Quest and The Golden Tree: Eagle Enigma are available from our website. If you’d like to hear more, try out crystalseabooks.com where “We’re not perfect but our Boss is!” (Bible Quotes from the New Living Translation) Psalm 19, verses 1 through 4, New Living Translation (Sources used for this episode or other in this series) “Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee.” Augustine, Confessions https://www.crossroadsinitiative.com/media/articles/ourheartisrestlessuntilitrestsinyou/ https://www.proginosko.com/2019/07/reforming-apologetics-common-notions/

Thank you for listening to Will Wright Catholic. Please share it by clicking the blue button below!The Nature of Human BeingsLet's start with… well… everything! Reality exists: both natural and supernatural. The natural realm is everything that we can detect, observe, or measure. This part of the created order includes atoms, molecules, and matter, in general, but it also includes unseen forces like gravity, electromagnetism, and the like. All of this exists in space and time, in a closed system where matter is neither created nor destroyed. But is there more? The “more” would be above nature or “supernatural.” The supernatural is all that exists apart from the material and natural realm. Angels, demons, and the Creator Himself all exist apart from the visible observable universe. Truly, God deserves His own category as the only Necessary Being whereas everything else is contingent on Him.We speak of the things of our material universe as Nature. Here on Earth, nature includes the elements: earth, fire, water, wind, and life. However, there is another usage of the term “nature” which is more important to our conversation today. The nature of a thing is the basic or inherent features of that thing. So, when we speak of human nature, we are not necessarily referring to the things which can be observed in human behavior or external characteristics shared by homo sapiens. Human nature is the basic or inherent features of being human. What is written into the very heart of man? What pertains to the nature of the human person from the beginning, now, and forever? This is what we mean by human nature.All Human Beings Have the Same NatureAll human beings have the same nature. If they did not, then they would not be human. Again, the vital distinction is in the difference between observable behaviors on the one hand and those intrinsic and essential aspects on the other. The former is merely behavior and the latter is the necessary realities of being human. We are human beings, after all, not “human doings.” So, if someone has a mental disorder that causes them to act in a way that is opposed to human nature, they are nonetheless still human. This distinction is important because we hear people speak of such and such phenomena “existing in nature” and drawing the conclusion that the observed phenomena must be “natural.” Quickly falling apart upon examination, this line of thinking leads to great confusion about human nature. A coworker recently brought up an example of this with the phenomenon of geophagy. In certain instances, pregnant women will begin to experience an inordinate desire to consume dirt and clay. The ingestion of this non-food item is compulsive and might derive from a deficiency in iron. At any rate, it is not “normal” or “well-ordered” to eat dirt and clay. Yet, geophagy “exists in nature.” So, is it part of human nature to eat dirt and clay? No. Something is seriously off in this phenomenon. Just because some human beings do certain things or even desire certain things, this does not make it part of human nature.What We Ought to BeBecause all human beings have the same nature, endowed by the Creator, there are certain standards consistent across the entire human race. When we say what a human being essentially is, there is an implication of what human beings ought to be.From before recorded History, human beings have been self-reflective - incidentally, self-reflection and powers of abstraction is an intrinsic part of human nature. In this self-reflection, human beings have interrogated the known and the unknown, within and without themselves. The fundamental questions resound through the ages: who are we? Why are we here? What is the purpose of life? Why is there life at all? Who am I? What is a human being? What does it mean to be a human being? Is there something after death? Do I have a soul? And so on…These questions are universal: in every time and in every place, human beings have voraciously questioned everything. Many of these questions require philosophical investigation and others require scientific examination. But philosophy and science can only get us so far in inquiry. From the beginning, human beings have also relied on the queen of the sciences: theology. Admittedly, theology was not called the “queen of the sciences” until the High Middle Ages. Schools of higher learning used the trivium of grammar, logic, and rhetoric and the quadrivium of arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy to investigate the universe - both seen and unseen, within and without. Nevertheless, theology as the study of God and the divine in general could be called religion.What is Religion?Before we can define what religion actually is, we need to understand what we, as human beings, are capable of. Man is made in the image and likeness of God. Being made in the image and likeness of God is to possess a rational soul. Human beings have the ability to know things (intellect) and the ability to choose freely the good (will). Endowed with freedom, man seeks the good and is capable of understanding the ordering of reality, established by the Creator. Given possession of a rational soul, man ardently seeks after reality. The disposition of the soul towards the good, true, and beautiful, in practice, is religion. The word religion has derived diverse meanings over the last few millennia. Cicero seeks religion as deriving from the verb relegere which means “to treat carefully.” On the other hand, the fourth century Christian apologist Lactantius says:“We are tied to God and bound to him [religati] by the bond of piety, and it is from this, and not, as Cicero holds, from careful consideration [relegendo], that religion has received its name (Divine Institutes, IV, xxviii).”Speaking in a Neoplatonic mode, the great St. Augustine in City of God gives a sense of recovering God: “having lost God through neglect [negligentes], we recover Him [religentes] and are drawn to Him.” However, he later leaves behind this idea in favor of Lactantius' view, saying, “Religion binds us [religat] to the one Almighty God.”St. Thomas Aquinas, in the Summa, does not make a decision between the three views but sees them as all valuable: careful consideration, recovering God, and binding oneself. In a general sense, religion is the free choice to subject oneself to God. We are binding ourselves to God and Him to us in the practice of true religion. Are Human Beings Religious? Certainly, some human beings are religious, but would it be proper to say that all human beings are religious? Controversy is perpetual surrounding this question, especially in the modern world. How many times have you heard someone say, “Oh. I'm spiritual, but not religious.” Or perhaps you have heard the usually evangelical Christian idea that religion is opposed to the true practice of faith in Jesus Christ which is a relationship. However, I hope to show by the end of this short article that all human beings are truly religious, at the deepest metaphysical level. The first example of being spiritual and not religious is something that I will get to in a moment. But, let us begin with the second notion of relationship versus religion. If religion is about voluntary subjugation to God and binding ourselves to Him and Him to us, then I would suggest that religion, properly understood, is entirely about relationships. Right relationship with God bears fruit in the right relationship with our neighbor. The practice of true religion is all about relationships. Often, when people levy this rejoinder, it is from a misconception or false view of what religion ought to be.Spiritual, But Not Religious?Now to the notion of spiritual, but not religious. At the core of our being, as human persons, we are religious. This is the fundamental fact of our nature. It is right to say that we are spiritual, but it would be equally correct to say that we are corporeal. We are body and soul. If we were bodies without souls, we would be zombies. And if we were souls without bodies, we would be ghosts. So, our bodily-ness and spiritual-ness are part and parcel of our humanity. Yes, we are spiritual. But how then could we not also be religious? The human heart is made to worship. The notion of worship comes from the Middle English word worthschipe. Literally, it is an amalgamation of the word worth meaning “worthy” or “honorable” and the suffix -ship which means a denotation of a property or state of being. To worship something is to show with the depths of our being, body and soul, what we put worth in. What is worthy to us? This is what we worship. Centering and prioritizing our lives conveys what we worship and bears fruit in our actions.Oxford University professor Roger Trigg said in 2011 that, “We tend to see purpose in the world. We see agency. We think that something is there even if you can't see it… All this tends to build up to a religious way of thinking… If you've got something so deep-rooted in human nature, thwarting it is in some sense not enabling humans to fulfill their basic interests. There is quite a drive to think that religion is private. It isn't just a quirky interest of a few, it's basic human nature.”Professor Trigg hits the nail on the head. Religious thinking is basic human nature. All human beings have a hardwired religious drive. Now, an atheist might say that this is a bio-evolutionary oddity which motivated us in the past but is antiquated. They might say, like Marx, that religion is the opiate of the masses. I would say that the atheist and the marxist are in denial about their own nature and are dismissing as a nuisance the idea that perhaps God is in control. Because what is marxism or atheism if not a deep desire for control over the uncontrollable, for knowledge over the unknowable? Everyone puts worth in something. If they are not worshiping God - who alone is worthy - then that religious drive, essential to human nature, will be directed to something else. The rub is that the new object of worship will always be infinitely less than the Almighty. And so, aiming far below the Way, the Truth, and the Life, man falls prey to his base desires and can never find happiness. The conception of “spiritual, but not religious” does not conform to reality and will always result in the worship of creation rather than the Creator. Our soul, at the deepest level, desires to bind itself to the higher things. If we aim at God, then He will bind us to Himself. If we aim at lesser things, then we will be bound to them, to our detriment and perhaps even our damnation.Human Nature Cannot Be RepressedAny attempt to repress, control, or snuff out human nature in the realm of religion has miserably failed and has always been accompanied by widespread human suffering. In the 20th Century alone, we can look to the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, the Nazi regime in Germany, the later Soviet policies in Russia, the Cultural Revolution in China, and other instantiations of godless Communism and Socialism. Human nature is hardwired into our being at the deepest levels. The human heart will always seek out God and will only be satisfied in Him. As St. Augustine said in the opening of his Confessions, “Our hearts are restless, until they rest in Thee.” Our restless hearts are religious. They want to worship. Who or what are they worshiping? Even for the believer, the exercise is worthwhile: what is the object of our worship, our desire, and our ultimate affection? If the answer is God, then we must beg the Lord for the grace to grow in this. If the answer is anything else, the pruning shears need to spring into action. Thank you for reading Will Wright Catholic. If you've enjoyed it, please share it by clicking the blue button below! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit willwrightcatholic.substack.com

This lecture discusses key ideas from the Medieval philosopher, theologian, and Dominican friar, Thomas Aquinas, and focuses on his Summa Theologiae, Prima Pars, q. 2. It focuses upon his discussion in article 3, which sets out the famous "Five Ways," each of which is a separate argument for the existence of God, conceived in some specific manner. Each of these is intended to be an a posteriori argument The first way focuses on motion or change, and argues that God is the Prime Mover. The second way focuses on efficient causality, and argues that God is the First Cause. the third way focuses on possibility and necessity, and argues that God is Necessary Being. The fourth focuses on degrees of being, and argues that God is supreme goodness, being, and every other perfection. The fifth way, a design argument, focuses on order and governance within the world, and argues to God as the governor or orderer of all things. In this article, we also consider a version of the Argument from Evil, and a discussion about adequacy of explanation that prefigures Occam's Razor To support my ongoing work, go to my Patreon site - www.patreon.com/sadler If you'd like to make a direct contribution, you can do so here - www.paypal.me/ReasonIO - or at BuyMeACoffee - www.buymeacoffee.com/A4quYdWoM You can find over 2000 philosophy videos in my main YouTube channel - www.youtube.com/user/gbisadler You can find Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologiae online here - www.newadvent.org/summa/

Episode 150 – Truth and Proof – Part 10 – An Inescapable God Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. In John 14:6, Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” The goal of Anchored by Truth is to encourage everyone to grow in the Christian faith by anchoring themselves to the secure truth found in the inspired, inerrant, and infallible word of God. Script: The heavens proclaim the glory of God. The skies display his craftsmanship. Day after day they continue to speak; night after night they make him known… their message has gone throughout the earth, and their words to all the world. Psalm 19,verses 1 through 4, New Living Translation ******** Hello! I’m Victoria K. Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. We’re excited to be with you as today we conclude our series that we’ve called “Truth and Proof.” This series is all about helping our listeners think carefully about their faith. The Christian faith is not a belief system that requires its followers to abandon their brains when they surrender their hearts to Jesus. So, for the past several episodes we’ve been focusing on the logic, reason, and evidence that demonstrates that placing your faith in the God of the Bible is not only reasonable – it would actually be unreasonable to do otherwise. And today to help us complete our series we have RD Fierro back in the studio. RD is an author and the founder of Crystal Sea Books. RD, the world around us today clamors that we must choose between our Christian faith or science. But that demand is unreasonable isn’t it? RD: Well, before we get into our discussion for today I’d like to thank all the people who are joining us here today. Like many of our series on Anchored by Truth this “Truth and Proof” series has been intellectually challenging so we know that anyone who has listened to any of the episodes are truly serious about their Christian faith. And to answer your question, yes, it is unreasonable to ask a Christian to choose between faith and science because science actually helps demonstrate the validity of the Christian faith and worldview. And we’re certainly not the first people to point that out. For instance, in 1991 Berkeley law professor Phillip Johnson wrote a book called Darwin on Trial. Johnson’s book was so compelling that the debate about design in nature and a supernatural Designer was forever changed. Johnson wrote “In brief, what makes me a ‘critic of evolution’ is that I distinguish between naturalistic philosophy and empirical science, and oppose the former when it comes cloaked in the authority of the latter.” VK: So, what Johnson is pointing out is that empirical science does not, and should not be equated with, philosophical naturalism. Philosophical naturalism is basically the idea that the only things that we can know to exist are those of the material universe. As such, philosophical naturalism rejects any claims that anything supernatural, including God, exists. But, as we have pointed out during this series, this anti-supernatural bias flies in the face of logic, reason, and evidence. It is very clear from science that the material universe does not and cannot explain its own existence. Empirical observations reveal that the universe is one giant effect – and effects need causes. RD: Exactly. But we need to point something out. The logic and reason behind the “science has proved that God doesn’t exist” is just sad but wrong but the marketing of that very bad idea has been brilliant. VK: I’ve had a few products like that through the years. The commercials were brilliant. The products were – well, let’s just be charitable and say they didn’t live up to the promises. RD: Same thing is true with the idea that “science disproves God” or its slightly better dressed cousin “faith in God is ok as long as you don’t insist it’s true.” They’re bad ideas, bad logic, and bad science but, as in so many cases, bad products that are marketed effectively will be embraced by many people. And all we have to do is look around us to see that’s what’s happened in the faith vs. science debate. The debate itself is completely unnecessary because reason and science because Christianity is perfectly consistent with real science and the founders of many of the major branches of modern science were devout Christians such as Johann Kepler who articulated the major laws of planetary motion and Robert Boyle who is regarded as the first modern chemist and the founder of modern chemistry. And Carolus Linnaeus who is credited with establishing the modern taxonomic system was also a Biblical creationist. VK: This false dichotomy that is so popular in modern entertainment and culture is one of the reasons we wanted to do a series on what is often termed “apologetics.” Apologetics does not mean anyone is apologizing for being a Christian. The term comes from a Greek word meaning “to give a defense” and that’s what Christian apologetics does – provides a reasoned defense for the truth of Christianity. And while even ardent Christian apologists will acknowledge that good apologetics may not necessarily change someone’s heart, good apologetics is a form of “pre-evangelism.” Good apologetics will hopefully remove barriers for some people. So, what do you want to cover as we wrap up this “Truth and Proof” series? RD: I’d like to examine some of the broad – but fallacious - assertions that are often tossed about that, too often, become barriers between people and accepting the truth of Christianity. VK: Then we should probably start with the assertion you hear so often. “There is no such thing as absolute truth.” How would you respond to someone who says that? RD: I’d ask them whether their assertion was “absolutely true.” The person who says that there is no such thing as absolute truth is claiming that there is no such thing as absolute truth while wanting you to accept their claim as being absolutely true. VK: In other words they are making a claim that is self-refuting or self-defeating. The same thing is true for all philosophies or claims that deny the existence of truth. Broadly speaking there are four philosophies that deny the existence of absolute truth: agnosticism, relativism, skepticism, and post-modernism. RD: But each of them is self-defeating. Each fails its own central premise. For instance the skeptic says we must doubt the existence of absolute truth – but does not doubt the absoluteness of their own position. Said differently, the skeptic is certain about doubt. The relativist tries to say “all truth is relative” but makes their claim as if the claim were absolutely true. All attempts to deny the existence of absolute truth are self-defeating. VK: How would you respond to the claim that “science has proven that there is no God?” RD: Well, first I would ask them to go talk to the previous questioner because the statement “science has proven there is no God” is an absolute truth claim. But second, I would ask which discipline within science has demonstrated that God doesn’t exist and then listen for their answer. VK: Then they might say that the Big Bang Theory has eliminated the need for God to be the Creator of the universe. RD: They might – but if they did so they have missed the most fundamental implication of the Big Bang. VK: Which is? RD: If the Big Bang Theory is true then it necessarily means that the universe had a beginning. Anything that has a beginning – or an end for that matter - cannot be eternal which means another entity must have caused the universe to come into being. And given how big and complex the universe is the cause for the universe would have to be a Being like the God of the Bible – infinite in power, knowledge, and presence. VK: Then they might say that there are other theories out there that explain how the universe can have existence but still without the need for a God. There are ideas such as a rebounding universe that just goes through endless cycles or the multiverse which postulates an infinite series of universes of which ours is just the one we happen to be in. RD: Again, it’s certain possible to make those kinds of assertions but the biggest problem that they face is that there absolutely no empirical evidence for either of these theories or any of the others that are proffered. For example, let’s take a quick look at the multiverse idea which is an extension of the notion of string theory. Many people may have heard the term “string theory” but most probably have no idea what it actually means. VK: According to one article on the Creation Ministries International website “string theory proposes that [particles] may instead exist as one-dimensional loops or ‘strings’ that cut across or exist in nine spatial … dimensions compared to the three spatial … dimensions we understand and use in relativity theory. Some suggest that these strings exist as higher dimensional objects called branes (membrane-like structures) that act like vibrating flat sheets or tubes etc. These ideas can even be extended to support the idea of multi-universes coexisting with our own, and that our own universe (the big bang) was the result of the collision of two of these branes in some higher-dimensional hyperspace. The goal is to get the universe to create itself—that way, no first cause would be needed, hence no God.” RD: Note the last sentence from the portion you just read. The goal of all these amendments to the Big Bang Theory – again, none of which have any scientific, empirical support – is to avoid the straightforward conclusion that if the universe did come into being because of a “big bang” it means the universe is not eternal and therefore needs a Creator. So, to avoid that conclusion scientists will engage in their own version of myth making – concocting these fascinating alternatives to God’s creative activity that make for great science fiction movies but completely fail in the real world. VK: And some scientists have been willing to admit that they do so. Harvard evolutionary biologist and geneticist Richard Lewontin wrote: “We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failures to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counterintuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.” RD: It’s really important to note that the goal of what Lewontin has called “just-so stories” is to keep that Divine Foot out of the door. Lewontin knows that the moment you acknowledge that science not only doesn’t have to exclude God – but in fact points out the need for a creative, Necessary Being – the cat is out of the bag. The point of all this is that even if the currently favored explanation for the origin of the universe, the Big Bang Theory, were true it still doesn’t avoid the conclusion that there is a God. The big bang would mean the universe had a beginning in space and time and that in turn means something or Someone must have caused it. By the way some of this discussion might give the impression that I am somehow “anti-science.” But that’s nonsense. I was trained as an engineer and I have a great appreciation for all benefits that science has conferred on our modern world. But it would be fair to say that just because I trust science that doesn’t mean I will uncritically accept the pronouncements of all who call themselves scientists. VK: That would be a dangerous bumper sticker. “I trust the science. It’s the scientists I doubt.” Well, someone might say that even if science and some scientists agree that there is a God that that doesn’t mean that God is the God of the Bible. What would you say then? RD: I’d say I agree. We can know from logic, reason, evidence, and science that God exists – but we can only know a limited amount about his attributes and character from general revelation. To know more we need God’s special revelation and we get that from the Bible. So, to know whether the Bible is the word of God we need to examine its attributes and see whether the claim can be trusted. Here at Anchored by Truth we believe that any book that makes the claim to be the word of God would have to meet two criteria. First, the book would have to be consistent with what we know of the physical universe and the history of the world. Second, the book would have to provide evidence of supernatural origin. VK: As long time Anchored by Truth listeners know we believe that there are four lines of evidence that demonstrate that the Bible is the inspired, inerrant, and infallible word of God. First, the Bible is historically reliable. Second, the Bible displays a remarkable unity for a book that was composed by over 3 dozen human authors who wrote over a span of 1,500 years. Third, the Bible gives evidence of supernatural origin especially through a large body of fulfilled prophecy. And the 4th line of evidence is that the Bible has resulted in an untold number of lives that have been positively changed by its transcendent message. RD: Exactly right. For shorthand I call those lines of evidence reliable history, remarkable unity, fulfilled prophecy, and redeemed destinies. And that’s what we focus on continuously. In fact, as far as I know, Anchored by Truth, is the only radio show I know that focuses exclusively on demonstrating the inspiration, inerrancy, and infallibility of scripture. VK: So, if someone wants to know whether the Bible is historically reliable we could point them to our “Facts in Acts” series or our series on David and Goliath. Some people think that a story about a short, teenage boy killing a 9 foot tall trained soldier must be a fable or myth - but we provide evidence from history and science that show the story is historically reasonable. RD: And we have Anchored by Truth series on the remarkable unity of scripture such as our series on miracles and “15 critical scriptures.” And we have several series on the large body of fulfilled prophecy that the Bible contains including a series on the book of Daniel, one on the role of the prophets, and an entire show on what may be the most remarkable prophecy in the Bible – Daniel’s so-called 70 weeks prophecy. We also do interview shows from time to time with people whose lives have been changed by the Bible. In some cases the changes have been dramatic. One gentleman we interviewed Armando “Mondy” Flores had his life changed by one specific scripture. VK: But only after his wife and her family had been praying for him for 19 years. RD: Yes. A remarkable example of how God used a faithful wife and His word to covert one more sinner. But once Mondy was converted, like Paul, Mondy began testifying to the grace he’d received. He was a senior executive in a Fortune 500 corporation and the day after he received Christ he was in the corporate HQ testifying to his salvation. Just about all of our episodes of Anchored by Truth are available from our website crystalseabooks.com. So, when listeners get the question about how we can be sure that the true God is the God of the Bible that website can be an invaluable resource in helping people to answer the question intelligently. VK: The irresistible conclusion from the evidence is that the Bible is exactly what it claims itself to be – the inspired, inerrant, and infallible word of God. RD: Right. You know, as we mentioned in one of the episodes in this “Truth and Proof” series, biochemist, atheist, and co-discoverer of DNA, the late Francis Crick, began studying biochemistry in the 1940’s as a way to disprove the existence of God. But, in fact, what Crick discovered was that there was an irreducibly complex information system at the heart of all life. In effect Crick demonstrated the exact opposite of what he intended to. He thought he could show that life didn’t need a creator. What he discovered was that life not only needs a creator – and has one – but also that the Creator has left His fingerprints in every living being. Crick was a phenomenal scientist but he wrong about God. His materialistic presuppositions prevented him from acknowledging the very truth that his own work pointed out. This is such a shame because the ability to derive the truth about God from reason and evidence has eternal consequences. We do Anchored by Truth because we want people to be able to put on the full armor of God to withstand the devil and his worldly allies. And for those who are familiar with Ephesians Chapter 6 they will know that the very first piece of armor Paul mentions is the “belt of truth.” I have heard people say that it is enough to just make sure we know Jesus, but if we don’t know the truth about Jesus and are able to defend it the first person’s faith that is at risk is our own – and close behind it is the faith of our families and friends. VK: Amen. Today as we close we’re going to do something a little different. We usually like to close with a prayer but today we’re going to give our listeners a peek at one portion of Crystal Seas’ upcoming rhymed piece on Genesis – The Genesis Saga. This portion happens to be the 5th section of The Genesis Saga and it’s entitled The Truth in Genesis. We wanted listeners to hear it because it is a form of apologetics but it is done in rhyme which can make it easier for people to absorb the message. As we’ve been talking throughout this series many studies indicate that as many as 75% of the kids raised in a Christian household will abandon their faith when they leave home. And one of the biggest reason they will do is because they won’t be prepared to respond to the world’s lies that we’ve gone over in this episode. Please don’t let that happen to your kids or grandkids. If you don’t protect them by preparing them who will? ---- THE TRUTH IN GENESIS VK: Before we close we’d like to remind our audience that a lot of our radio episodes are linked together in series of topics so if they missed any episodes in this series or if they just want to hear one again, all of these episodes are available on your favorite podcast app. To find them just search on “Anchored by Truth by Crystal Sea Books.” If you’d like to hear more, try out crystalseabooks.com where “We’re not perfect but our Boss is!” (Bible Quote from the New Living Translation) Psalm 19, verses 1 through 4, New Living Translation Is 'string' the next big thing? - creation.com TRUTH IN GENESIS 1. It has been many thousands of years 2. Since the start of creation’s tale. 3. So long ago was light released, 4. Now with legends of origins we’re regaled. 5. Some say that all we can see 6. All we can touch, taste, or feel, 7. Came from nothing and nobody 8. As if such an idea could be real. 9. Some say that the heavens and earth 10. Have always been in existence. 11. They assuredly assert that there is no God 12. And they do so with great persistence. 13. They say that atoms, energy, and space 14. Stretch back into eternity past. 15. They find no place for a Creator who’s good 16. In a cosmos that came from a blast. 17. The laws of physics and chemistry they say 18. Tell us all that we need to know 19. About how bright stars burn in the heavens 20. And provide light throughout the cosmos. 21. But if all that is came from a bang, 22. Where did the bang come from? 23. If no mind or Architect played any part 24. Wouldn’t chaos be all that could come? 25. The universe exhibits order and plan 26. Can design without a Designer spread? 27. And how can living creatures appear and arise 28. From inanimate particles that are dead? 29. The smallest cell holds billions of atoms 30. Organized with exquisite precision. 31. Did all those brilliant molecular machines 32. Come to life with no Mind’s decision? 33. And those who with great vigor contend 34. That dead things gave rise to the living, 35. When faced with those who believe otherwise 36. Often aren’t very forgiving. 37. They tell us we must turn from God 38. And let their explanation of origins speak 39. But it would be easier to trust their claims 40. If from their science, the truth hadn’t leaked. 41. If the universe is protons and electrons 42. And some energy that enables them to link. 43. Then how does this random collection 44. Give them the ability to think? 45. Can random, purposeless matter 46. Give the skill to reason and reflect? 47. Wouldn’t it take an omnipotent Being, 48. Logic with flesh to connect? 49. If they are right, their minds are built 50. Of particles that had no design. 51. So why would any care what their particles dictate, 52. When their particles deny the divine? 53. God created man in His image. 54. Part of that image is free will. 55. If that will’s used to deny the Creator, 56. The serpent’s in the garden still. 57. Man abused Free will and caused the fall 58. As he yielded to foul temptation 59. But God knew all that would come 60. And had prepared for man’s reclamation. 61. In the courts of heaven the Glorious three 62. Had selected a people to save. 63. All men sin and fall short of the goal 64. But there’s no need to lie in the grave. 65. Men and nations, people everywhere 66. The True Son wants your sin to bear 67. He made morning stars, he makes all things new 68. He made all creation, he can surely save you

Episode 147 – Truth and Proof – Part 7 – Science Points to a Creator Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. In John 14:6, Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” The goal of Anchored by Truth is to encourage everyone to grow in the Christian faith by anchoring themselves to the secure truth found in the inspired, inerrant, and infallible word of God. Script: Then God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And God saw that the light was good. Then he separated the light from the darkness. 5God called the light “day” and the darkness “night. Genesis, Chapter 1, verses 3 and 4, New Living Translation ******** Hello! I’m Victoria K. Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. We’re excited to be with you as we continue our series we’ve called “Truth and Proof.” This series is all about the truth that there is a God and that God is the God of the Bible. Furthermore, as we go along we are offering the proof that supports the truth. This series on Anchored by Truth was inspired by a Sunday School lesson series that was prepared and delivered by Dr. Gregg Alexander. Today we’re fortunate to have Dr. Gregg Alexander back on the show with us. He’s going to help us explore one of the best known lines of reasoning that demonstrates God’s existence: the cosmological argument. But before we get into the meat of the show, GREGG would you like to take a couple of minutes and tell us a little about why you decided you wanted to do your “Truth and Proof” series for your Sunday School class? GREGG: - Introductory comments - VK: So, I’d like to remind everyone that the reason we have undertaken this series is to help listeners know how to defend the Christian faith. This defense is often termed “apologetics.” Lay people will sometimes think that apologetics as an area of study is beyond the reach of regular Christians. But we certainly don’t believe that it is. Any reasonably mature, thinking Christian can readily understand the lines of reasoning that demonstrates that the existence of God is a logical necessity to have a coherent world view. And when we speak of defending the Christian faith we’re not thinking of people going out and debating on a stage somewhere. The first place we must defend our faith is in our own hearts. The second place that we must defend it is in our own homes. If all we ever did with apologetics was do those two things any efforts we made would be well worth while. GREGG: I agree. 10, 20, or 30 years ago we lived in a culture that readily accepted Christianity even if some individuals did not. 50 years ago you would even find some support for the Christian world view taught in grade schools and high schools because the truth of Christianity was widely accepted. But those days are long behind us. Our broader culture is no longer not only not acquiescent to Christianity but it is outright hostile to it. And some elements of our society are vehemently hostile. We have entered one of those periods of history where Christians can no longer be complacent that we just worship in our churches and things will be all right. The opposition to Christianity enters every home, every day if in no other way through the internet and the so-called mainstream media outlets. Arguments against the validity of Christianity are all around us. If we do not actively prepare to counter them the fabric of our society will continue to erode. VK: But the good news is that it does not have to be that way, does it? We have the truth on our side but we must equip ourselves to be able to present that truth. It is not up to us to change anyone’s heart. That’s God’s job. Our job is just to be able to witness to the truth in gentle and respectful ways. GREGG: As I said last time I was on Anchored by Truth, that there is nothing more important than our faith in God and not just any God but the God of the Bible. A correct understanding of God is the difference between an eternity in heaven or an eternity in hell. Those are pretty high stakes.. VK: But the good news is that it does not have to be that way, does it? We have the truth on our side but we must equip ourselves to be able to present that truth. It is not up to us to change anyone’s heart. That’s God’s job. Our job is just to be able to witness to the truth in gentle and respectful ways. Well, let’s do a very brief review of one of the major points that we discussed last time – a proof for God’s existence that you call the “metaphysical proof.” The metaphysical proof for God’s existence begins quite simply with the observation that we exist. And we know that we exist as contingent, dependent creatures. GREGG: And because we are dependent creatures we know we must depend on someone or something outside ourselves for our origin and for our continued existence. But that chain of dependency cannot go on forever. Somewhere there must be a Being that caused the origin of contingent beings and provides the resources or elements upon which they are dependent. We call that Being a Necessary Being. The Necessary Being must be uncaused and independent and therefore must be infinite because He existed before anything else. As such, there was nothing and no one who could place limits on him. And, when we look more closely we see that we possess the attributes of personality, rationality, and morality. The only possible reason we can possess such attribute is if the Necessary Being possessed them first. VK: The irresistible conclusion from this line of reasoning is that the Necessary Being satisfies all the qualities of a theistic God. He is self-existent, infinite, uncaused, personal, rational, and moral. So, the metaphysical proof for God is one way of demonstrating that God is – for lack of a better term – “necessary” to explain the universe we see around us. But, Dr. Alexander, you said that today you wanted to offer another line or argumentation that also demonstrates this same point. GREGG: Yes. Today, I want to move on to a look at the cosmological proof for God’s existence. The cosmological argument for the existence of God is probably the best known of all the many arguments that are used. The Cosmological Argument is an argument from consideration of the beginning of the universe – it comes from the Greek word cosmos meaning “universe, world.” There are two forms of the argument. The first says that the cosmos or universe needed a cause at its beginning, the second form argues that it needs a cause to continue existing. The first form is called the horizontal argument because it proceeds along the time line from the beginning. It is also called the kalam (Arabic: “eternal”) cosmological argument: the universe is not eternal, so it must have had a Cause. That Cause must be considered God. This argument has a long and venerable history even outside Christianity. For instance, there are Islamic philosophers such as Alfarabi and Avicenna who have been strong advocates for it. So, today I want to take a look at some of the scientific evidence that supports this form of the cosmological argument, i.e., it is evidence that reasons back to a Cause of the beginning of the universe. VK: Well, just to be sure that we are being clear for the listeners the Cosmological Argument for the existence of God goes like this: 1. The universe had a beginning. 2. Anything that had a beginning must have been caused by something else. 3. Therefore the universe was caused by something else - a Creator. GREGG: Yes. And to help us keep organized as we go through a discussion of some of the scientific evidence I want to use the 5 letter acronym “SURGE” to make these categories of evidence easier to remember. The “S” is Newton’s Second Law of Thermodynamics. The “U” is for the universe which is expanding. The “R” is for the radiation echo from space, more technically known as “microwave background radiation.” The “G” is for Great Galaxy Seeds. The “E” is for Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity. Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity was the beginning of the end for the idea that the universe is eternal. The theory has been verified to five decimal places, and it demands an absolute beginning for time, space, and matter. From General Relativity came the discoveries of the expanding universe, the radiation echo, and the great galaxy seeds. VK: And again, just to be clear, today there is no way in the brief time that we have allotted to each of these shows that we can cover all the material that is relevant to the cosmological argument. There are a great many allied issues that pertain to the issue of the origin and operation of the cosmos that we simply don’t have time to get into today. These are issues that are relevant to the general discussion of the validity of the Bible and the historicity of Genesis in particular – but they are outside the scope of today’s discussion. : GREGG: I agree. But just to illustrate your point let’s look at a scenario. Suppose someone were to say to you, “there’s no such thing – or person – as God; the universe has always been here; why does there need to be a ‘creator’?” Carl Sagan once said, ‘the cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be.’ VK: Then I might reply “what about the Big Bang? What about all the scientists who have accepted it as a fact, and have gone from that point to trying to figure out the age of the earth? Afterall, the mere fact that scientists are trying to establish the age of the universe tells us they don’t think it eternal.” GREGG: Then our hypothetical atheist might say, “But I just can’t accept all that Bible stuff – especially the Genesis stuff that says the universe is only six or seven thousand years old – that’s ridiculous – everyone knows there were dinosaurs on earth from about 120 million years ago to about sixty million years ago; where’s all that in your Bible? – isn’t that proof that the Bible is nothing more than a story – probably a myth – maybe a hoax?” VK: Then after reading your Sunday School notes I might reply, “That brings up some interesting questions. For instance, when it comes to dating the age of the earth many people are familiar with the process of using uranium and plutonium degradation to assign a date to the earth’s age. Many people may also have heard about potassium-argon dating or carbon-14 dating. All of these have been used extensively. But what most people don’t know is that when they have been used they come up with variable and inconsistent conclusions. Yet, there is another method - helium diffusion dating – that has its foundation in research from the 1970’s and was the work of a group of very reputable scientists. And helium diffusion dating shows the universe to be about six thousand years old. GREGG: And that is the whole reason I write those notes – to help people understand that some of the issues that people see as being settled are, in fact, very much still in doubt. To my knowledge helium diffusion dating has never been proven wrong. Furthermore, there was a leg bone of Tyrannosaurus Rex unearthed in 1990 and studied at the University of Montana. This particular leg bone was not only found to not be fully fossilized, but had blood cells and hemoglobin fragments remaining in it! How a bone that is supposed to be 60 million years old still has visible blood cells and hemoglobin is a complete mystery to scientists. But it is not a mystery if the bone is thousands of years old and not millions. The point of this scenario is to illustrate that many of the issues that people point to that they believe invalidate the Bible do not do so at all. But these are really peripheral questions that we can discuss some other time. The main question is whether or not the universe had a beginning, and the argument against there being a beginning is not only with the Bible, but with virtually all secular scientists. VK: And that’s an important point. The most widely accepted theory of the origin of the universe today is undoubtedly the so-called “Big Bang” theory. The Big Bang theory hypothesizes that about 14 to 16 billion years ago there was a truly cosmic explosion – the Big Bang – that created all the structures that we currently see around us in the universe. Now not all scientists agree with the Big Bang theory as the best explanation for the origin of the cosmos but it is the dominant theory today. So, what we are going to do next is proceed with an analysis of how even the Big Bang theory points to the fact that, if it were true, the universe had a beginning in space and time. This does not mean that we are agreeing with the validity of the theory. We are merely demonstrating that even by secular science’s most accepted hypothesis it is inescapable that the universe is not eternal. Now, when many secular scientists are asked what caused the Big Bang they just sort of shrug their shoulders or they dismiss the question as being irrelevant. But, of course, the question is not irrelevant at all. GREGG: No. It is not. But for today we’re going to confine ourselves to demonstrating that even if we were to accept the Big Bang theory we still find out that the universe cannot be eternal. In our last episode of Anchored by Truth we introduced the acronym SURGE to organize five categories of evidence that show that the universe had a start in space and time. So let’s look again at the S-U-R-G-E acronym for evidence of a beginning of the universe. VK: The “S” in SURGE stands for Newton’s Second Law of Thermodynamics. According to the second law of thermodynamics - in a closed, isolated system, such as the universe is - the amount of usable energy is constantly decreasing. Or, simply put, the universe is running out of power. Therefore, it cannot be eternal. Otherwise, it would have run out of usable energy long ago. GREGG: Exactly right. Things left to themselves, without outside intervention, tend toward disorder because of the decline in energy – the law of “entropy” [symbol S in physics, appropriately] which is a measure of the unavailability to do work, i.e., the tendency of a closed system toward disorder. Since the universe has not reached a state of total disorder, then this process has not been going on forever. The fact that the universe still has an abundance of usable energy tells us that the universe cannot be eternally old. VK: The “U” in SURGE is for the universe which is expanding. GREGG: Right. In 1916 Albert Einstein didn’t like where his theory of General Relativity was taking him. He was “irritated” that his calculations were indeed revealing that the universe was not eternal but had a beginning, i.e., all time, all space, and all matter had a starting point. History records how he tried to “fudge” his numbers by introducing a “constant” in order to show that the universe is static and to avoid the issue of a beginning. But in 1929 he looked through Edwin Hubble’s telescope and he could no longer avoid the obvious: the universe was indeed expanding. VK: And I believe that the evidence that the universe is indeed expanding is often referred to as the “redshift.” GREGG: Yes. The so-called redshift is an apparent displacement of the light waves coming from distant galaxies toward the longer wavelengths, i.e., toward the red end of the visible spectrum. This is usually interpreted as a “Doppler effect” resulting from the recession of the galaxies along the line of sight. The Doppler effect is the apparent change in the observed frequency of a wave as a result of relative motion between a source and an observer, e.g., the sound made by a low-flying aircraft as it approaches an observer is different from the sound made as it passes and flies away because of “compression” of the sound waves as it approaches, and “expansion” of the sound waves as it moves away. The redshift indicates that the distance between the galaxies is continuously increasing, i.e., the universe is continuously expanding. VK: Does the “redshift” tell us anything else? GREGG: Well, it told Einstein that his General Theory of Relativity was correct – much to his own disappointment. Dutch astronomer Willem de Sitter discovered that Einstein’s theory of General Relativity, if correct, required the universe to be expanding which meant it couldn’t be eternal. The rate at which the velocity of recession of the galaxies increases with distance as determined by the redshift is expressed as the Hubble constant. The reciprocal of the Hubble constant, the Hubble time, is a measure of the age of the universe, assuming that the rate of expansion has remained constant. The rate of expansion of the universe, whether speeding up or slowing down, is not fully agreed upon, but it seems likely that the gravitational attraction between the galaxies would result in slowing down the rate of expansion with time. So, there are some unknowns associated with an expanding universe but the one element that is not in debate is that it points to a universe that is not eternal. VK: And, again after reviewing your Sunday School series, the “R” in SURGE is for the radiation echo from space, more technically known as “microwave background radiation.” By 1948 three scientists had predicted that this radiation would be in space if the so-called Big Bang actually occurred. And in 1965 two scientists at Bell Labs, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson, detected cosmic radiation that was coming at them from all directions. This discovery was huge because it confirmed the presence of heat and light radiation that would be the expected afterglow from the fireball of the gigantic Big Bang explosion. GREGG: Right. The light waves from the Big Bang are no longer visible because the wavelengths have been stretched by the expanding universe to wavelengths slightly shorter than those produced by a microwave oven. This was the nail in the coffin for any lingering hope that the universe is in an eternal steady state. Astronomer Robert Jastrow said this: “The discovery of the remnant of the primordial fireball radiation made a deep impression on astronomers. After this discovery, support for the Steady State theory weakened although some astronomers still favored it. The clincher, which has convinced all but a few doubting Thomases, is that the radiation discovered by Penzias and Wilson shows the characteristic pattern of intensities at different wavelengths and frequencies of radiation that matches the pattern of the radiation produced in an explosion … The idea of a universe that came into being abruptly is distasteful to the scientific mind. Yet the evidence for the expanding universe is too clear to be ignored.” VK: And, the “G” is for Great Galaxy Seeds. If the Big Bang actually occurred, scientists believed that we should see slight variations, or “ripples” in the temperature of the cosmic background radiation. These ripples would allow matter to congregate by gravitational attraction into galaxies. In 1989 the search for these ripples was initiated by the satellite called COBE for Cosmic Background Explorer. GREGG: Yes. The findings from COBE were announced in 1992 and were so incredible that Stephen Hawking called them “the most important discovery of the century, if not of all time.” What were the findings? Not only were the ripples discovered, but the ripples show that the explosion and expansion of the universe was so precise as to cause just enough matter to congregate as to allow for galaxy formation, i.e., to form “seeds,” but not enough to cause the universe to collapse back on itself. Any slight variation either way and biological life as we know it would not have been possible. The lead astronomer of the project, George Smoot, called the findings the “fingerprints of the maker.” COBE documented the presence of incredible energy seeds, the largest of which extends across one-third of the known universe. VK: And the “E” in SURG E is for Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity. This was the beginning of the end for the idea that the universe is eternal. The theory has been verified to five decimal places, and it demands an absolute beginning for time, space, and matter. From General Relativity came the discoveries of the expanding universe, the radiation echo, and the great galaxy seeds. GREGG: Right. Astronomer Robert Jastrow said this in an interview with Christianity Today: “Astronomers now find they have painted themselves into a corner because they have proven, by their own methods, that the world began abruptly in an act of creation to which you can trace the seeds of every star, every planet, every living thing in this cosmos and on the earth. And they have found that this happened as a product of forces they cannot hope to discover . . . That there are what I or anyone would call supernatural forces at work is now, I think, a scientifically proven fact.” VK: Now I would like to clarify something for the benefit of our audience. Today we have been speaking of the origin of the universe using the conventions that are most commonly used in scientific circles today such as “Big Bang.” But we would like to point out that there are competent scientists, both Christian and non-Christian, who would disagree with idea of a “Big Bang.” They would not disagree that empirical observations point to a beginning for the universe. But they look at the same evidence that used to support the Big Bang theory and interpret it differently. GREGG: Right. That’s a very important note. The scientific evidence for the Cosmological Argument addresses the first premise in the argument, i.e., “The universe had a beginning.” We’ve used the SURGE acronym to make it easy to organize five categories of evidence from secular science that can be used to prove there was a beginning – usually called the “Big Bang” by the secular scientists. But as you’ve noted, not all astrophysicists are so secular, and some have postulated theories based on sound science that sound very biblical, using terms like “the deep” (Genesis 1:2), “the expanse” (1:6), and the six days of Creation. In our last episode I mentioned two books that provide alternate interpretations. The conclusions of the authors on the major question are the same. The universe had a beginning. But their understanding of the mechanics are different. The books I would direct you to are Starlight and Time by D. Russell Humphreys (Master Books, 1994), and the follow-up by the same author entitled Thousands, not Billions. VK: When we began this discussion of the cosmological argument we said there are two forms of the cosmological argument. Thus far we have only looked at the first of the two. The first says that the cosmos or universe needed a cause at its beginning. The second form argues that it needs a cause to continue existing. The first form is called the horizontal argument because it proceeds along the time line from the beginning. The second form of the cosmological argument is called the vertical cosmological argument, and it doesn’t reason from a beginning but from the being of the universe as it now exists. But whichever form of the argument is used, the scientific evidence that we have been talking about supports the cosmological argument. It is evidence that reasons back to a Cause of the beginning of the universe. GREGG: And this kind of evidence can be effective in helping bring people to the truth. For instance, as we mentioned last time, Jastrow started out as an agnostic but he came around to the fact that the nature of the universe persuaded him that the universe needed a creator. VK: Well, we hope everyone will join us next time as we continue this fascinating discussion about the arguments and evidence that demonstrates that there is a firm basis in logic and reason for our Christian faith. This sounds like a great time to go to God in prayer. Today let’s listen to a prayer for our friends. Good friends are a blessing from God and we should all take time regularly to pray for God’s mercy and favor to be with them. ---- PRAYER FOR FRIENDS VK: We’d like to remind our audience that a lot of our radio episodes are linked together in series of topics so if they missed any episodes or if they just want to hear one again, all of these episodes are available on your favorite podcast app. To find them just search on “Anchored by Truth by Crystal Sea Books.” If you’d like to hear more, try out crystalseabooks.com where “We’re not famous but our Boss is!” (Bible Quote from the New Living Translation) Genesis, Chapter 1, verses 3 and 4, New Living Translation

Episode 146 – Truth and Proof – Part 6 – A Creation Needs A Creator Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. In John 14:6, Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” The goal of Anchored by Truth is to encourage everyone to grow in the Christian faith by anchoring themselves to the secure truth found in the inspired, inerrant, and infallible word of God. Script: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Genesis, Chapter 1, verse 1, New Living Translation ******** Hello! I’m Victoria K. Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. We’re excited to be with you as we continue our series we’ve called “Truth and Proof.” This series is all about the truth that there is a God and that God is the God of the Bible. Then we’re going on to offer proof that supports that truth. Today we have Dr. Gregg Alexander back on the show with us. This is a real blessing for us because this series that we are doing was inspired by a series that Gregg presented to his Sunday School class several years ago. GREGG would you like to take a couple of minutes and tell us a little about your background and perhaps just a little bit about your own testimony? GREGG: - Introductory comments - VK: So, I’d like to remind everyone of the purpose of this series. We are learning how to defend the Christian faith. This defense is often termed “apologetics.” Now sometimes people will get the mistaken impression that apologetics is an arcane or esoteric area of study beyond the reach of ordinary Christians. Nothing could be further from the truth. Apologetics is simply the way we work out the command given to us in 1 Peter, chapter 3, verse 15 where we are told: “… if someone asks about your hope as a believer, always be ready to explain it. But do this in a gentle and respectful way.” That’s the New Living Translation. The truth is that any sincere, mature Christian can become an effective apologist – at least effective enough to demonstrate the two main points that are the concern of classical apologetics. The first point is the existence of God and the second point is that God is the God of the Bible. What do you think, GREGG? GREGG: I agree. It does take some time and effort to develop a well-grounded understanding of the principles and concepts that are usually included under the umbrella of apologetics – but when you consider the payoff it’s an investment well worth making. VK: What are you thinking? GREGG: Simply that there is nothing more important than our faith in God and not just any God but the God of the Bible. A correct understanding of God is the difference between an eternity in heaven or an eternity in hell. Those are pretty high stakes. And unfortunately, right now in our country and in our time none, or at least very few, of the cultural, academic, or societal forces are aligned to help preserve our faith. So, unlike times past, when you might have thought that some degree of common sense apologetics would have helped us become grounded in the basis for our faith – none of that is present today. But that doesn’t mean we can’t succeed in developing the strengths and skills we need. We can. With just a bit of concentration and thought people can not only know that there is a “god,” but also they can know a lot about the nature of that “god” including that logic and reason tell us that god is the God of the Bible. VK: So, where do you want to start today? Last time we covered the fact that even pagan philosophers have reached the realization that somehow, somewhere there must be a cause for everything that we see around us. We spent quite a bit of time on Aristotle’s thinking on the subject of ultimate causes and the kinds of changes we see from empirical observations of the universe. GREGG: And that was a great foundation for what I’d like to talk about today. I’d like to start by talking about what I call the “Metaphysical Proof of God’s Existence:” VK: Sounds intriguing. Where do you begin? GREGG: I begin with the most obvious statement of all – one that cannot be denied. Something exists and I’ll extend that a bit further to say I actually do exist. VK: Well, I can vouch for that. If you didn’t exist who would I be speaking with? GREGG: Precisely. Someone trying to deny my existence would be making a denial to a non-existent entity and that would be pretty silly. But something else I know, we all know for sure, is that I am a contingent being. I came into being and I change. Therefore, something must have caused my existence. I could exist or not exist. At one time I didn’t exist. Since there was a time I didn’t exist something must have caused me to come into being. The result of this line of reasoning is that we can be absolutely positive that I have a cause. Now nothing cannot cause something. Everything that has had a beginning has had a cause. VK: Again, all that seems perfectly obvious. So obvious, that is almost seems unnecessary to state it. GREGG: It is obvious but it is an essential step along our line of reasoning and I don’t want to skip any steps. I want everyone to be absolutely sure of the foundation that we’re building. So, once we’re sure that we know that I, and all human beings and other creatures for that matter, are contingent beings we can easily see they cannot account for their own existence. So, the next point in this metaphysical proof of God’s existence is that only a Necessary Being can cause a contingent being. Therefore, I am caused to exist by a Necessary Being. This follows undeniably from the points that we have already discussed. VK: Well, just to be sure that everyone is following along let’s define our terms. By contingent being you simply mean a being that might exist or might not exist. Such a being is dependent on something or someone else beyond itself for its existence. GREGG: Yes. And a Necessary Being is a being that does not depend on anyone or anything else to account for its existence. This Being accounts for its own existence or said slightly differently this Being is self-existent. It possesses the power of existence unto and by itself. VK: And since a contingent being cannot account for its own existence it would be dependent on a Necessary Being. Aristotle called this Being the “Unmoved Mover.” And some people refer to it as the Prime Mover. Everything in motion has to have been set in motion but somewhere there as to be a first cause for motion or change. GREGG: Exactly right. So, these points establish the fact that somewhere there is a Necessary Being that began the entire change of existence for everything else – for all contingent beings, structures, or artifacts. But let’s continue our line of reason. I know more about me than just that I exist. I know that I am a personal, rational, and moral kind of being since I engage in personal, rational, and moral actions and activities. I don’t just exist. I exist in a particular way with particular abilities and attributes. Therefore, it is reasonable for me to look for a cause for my abilities and attributes. VK: Again, that follows undeniably. When Dr. Jonathan Sarfati was helping us with our Truth in Genesis series he would often remind us that being able to explain the operation of something is quite different from being able to explain the origin of the thing. It’s one thing to know that a car needs gas, or batteries, to move down a road but that’s very different from explaining how the car was built in the first place. GREGG: But when we see a car we know that somewhere at sometime there was a car builder that had to create the car. And we know that that car builder must have had the requisite knowledge and abilities to create the car to function the way it does. The car didn’t just magically create its own ability to move and carry passengers and cargo. Well, since I know that I possess the ability to engage in personal, rational, and moral actions and activities I can know that this Necessary Being must be a personal, rational, and moral kind of being. The Being couldn’t give me something he didn’t already possess. So, by the Principle of Analogy I can know that I am similar to him. VK: I think I know where you are going with this particular thought. Since you are a personal, rational, and moral kind of being we can know that this Necessary Being is personal, rational, and moral. He must possess these attributes because we owe our origin to him. So, he must have imparted these attributes to us. If he had not how could we explain our possession of them? GREGG: That is exactly right but now we have to qualify that observation. The Necessary Being does possess personal, rational, and moral attributes but he possesses them in a necessary way, not in a contingent way. In other words, these attributes must exist within the essence of the Necessary Being. No one gave these attributes to the Necessary Being. The Necessary Being has always existed so there was no way for another entity to pass anything to him at a point of origin. Any attributes the Necessary Being possesses are part of his very essence. VK: The Necessary Being is eternal and uncaused. I don’t want to be tedious but this being is Necessary. He’s necessary because if he didn’t exist no contingent being would ever have existed. The Necessary Being is necessary for anything else to exist – including us. So, if there weren’t a Necessary Being out there, or in here for that matter, we contingent beings wouldn’t be around at all to be talking about him. Our existence is contingent on his existence. This isn’t the kind of thing must of us spend our days discussing. GREGG: Well, as a wise man once said, “Given the state of our nation and world maybe it would have been a good idea for us to spend our days discussing these kind of ideas.” More damage may have been done to the world from the idea that the universe has no creator and that human beings are just a random collection of undirected molecules than from any other idea in history. As we’ve been talking about, nothing that is dependent or contingent can come into being without being created by a Necessary Being. And that Necessary Being must be personal, rational, and moral or he could not have created personal, rational, or moral creatures. Furthermore, that Necessary Being must be unchanging, unlimited and singular. VK: How can we be sure about that? GREGG: Because a Necessary Being does not and in fact cannot come to be. A Necessary Being has no possibility to be other than it is. And that Necessary Being cannot be caused by another, undergo change, or be limited by any possibility of what it could be. And there cannot be more than one Necessary Being because there cannot be two infinite beings. If there were two Beings then each would be limited by the presence of the other. That would mean that neither Being would be unlimited. VK: Well, the logic behind that chain of thought seems to be impeccable. We know that we are contingent, dependent creatures. That’s easily proven. Cut off oxygen for ten minutes, water for a couple of weeks, or food for a month or so and we will all find out that we are dependent on forces and substances outside ourselves to maintain our existence. So, someone or something must be there to supply what we need. And that someone or something must have always existed otherwise there would have been no beginning to the chain of dependency. And we know can see that that Ultimate Beginning has to be unlimited, unchanging, personal, rational, and moral. If it were not we couldn’t be here and possess the attributes that we do. Right? GREGG: Right. Therefore, beginning with our own existence we have built a line of reasoning that one necessary, eternal, uncaused, unlimited (= infinite), rational, personal, and moral being exists. So, now let’s move to assigning a better, or at least more user friendly label, for that Being. Such a Being is appropriately called “God” in the theistic sense, because He possesses all the essential characteristics of a theistic God. This is a powerful, I might say irrefutable, argument that the theistic God exists – the One God Who is prior to all that had a beginning. “over and above,” i.e., transcendent over all that had a beginning – the One Being Who cannot not be, cannot not know, cannot be limited in power or presence or perfection, cannot be other than Reality – cannot be other than Truth. Simply stated, God is not a “logical principle,” but the Giver of logical principles. VK: Wow. When you think about it – and sadly not many of us do – this line of reasoning that demonstrates a Theistic God is something any thinking person can grasp. We’ve only been talking about this metaphysical proof for God for about 15 minutes. So, in 15 minutes or less we’ve been able to follow a chain of thought tht moves from simply being aware of our existence to being aware that a Theistic God must exist. This seems almost deceptively simple. GREGG: I don’t know that I would say that it is “simple” but I would say that it is understandable by any person who will take – as you said – to think about it. And one of the magnificent parts of this line of argumentation is that no one needs any special preparation to grasp it. No one needs a special college course, seminary class, or even enormous library to absorb it. It just takes pulling ourselves away from our phones, TVs, and social media accounts long enough to focus on a little deep thinking. Surely, our God deserves that much of our time and attention. VK: So, that’s what you call the metaphysical proof for God’s existence. And I think anyone who was paying close attention would see that it is very persuasive. In fact, it’s hard to see how someone could reasonably disagree with its line of reasoning. We exist. We exist as contingent, dependent creatures. Dependent creatures must depend on someone or something outside themselves, but that chain of dependency cannot go on forever. Somewhere there must be a Being that caused the origin of contingent beings and provides that upon which they are dependent. We call that Being a Necessary Being. The Necessary Being must be uncaused and independent and therefore must be infinite because He existed before anything else. As such, there was nothing and no one who could place limits on him. And, when we look more closely we see that we possess the attributes of personality, rationality, and morality. The only possible reason we can possess such attribute is if the Necessary Being possessed them first. So, the Necessary Being satisfies all the qualities of a theistic God. He is self-existent, infinite, uncaused, personal, rational, and moral. Does that just about sum it up? GREGG: Yes, but let me hasten to add that the metaphysical argument for God’s existence is not the only way of demonstrating that the God of the Bible must exist. I know we don’t have a lot of time remaining today but let’s at least take a quick look one or two others. Now, the three best known arguments for the existence of God are the Cosmological Argument, the Teleological Argument, and the Moral Argument. I say that these are the best known because there are other arguments for God existence but I want to keep this discussion as practical as we can. We just don’t have the time to be exhaustive. The first of these three is the Cosmological Argument which is an argument from consideration of the beginning of the universe (Gk, cosmos = “universe, world”). The second is the Teleological Argument from design (Gk., telos = “end, purpose”) and the third is Moral Argument. VK: And let me note that for anyone who would like to pursue a more exhaustive study Crystal Sea Books founder, RD Fierro, and you highly recommend Norman Geisler’s Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics. Much of the information Dr. Alexander is presenting now can be found on pages 276 through 283 of that book. GREGG: The Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics is a particular favorite of mine and I had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Geisler and I have enormous respect for the work he did. He is now home with Jesus but the value of his work remains. So, let’s move on. The Cosmological Argument begins with the fact that there is a universe rather than none at all, which must have been caused by something beyond itself. The law of causality says that every finite thing is caused by something other than itself. There are two basic forms of this argument. The first form of the Cosmological Argument says that the cosmos or universe needed a cause at its beginning. The second form argues that it needs a cause to continue existing. The argument that the universe had a beginning caused by something beyond the universe can be stated this way: 1. The universe had a beginning. 2. Anything that had a beginning must have been caused by something else. 3. Therefore the universe was caused by something else (a Creator). VK: That seems pretty straightforward. That’s the basic line of argumentation. So, what evidence can be cited in support of the validity of the argument? GREGG: A wide range of both scientific and philosophical evidence can be used to support this argument. For instance, time cannot go back into the past forever, for it is impossible to pass through an actual infinite number of moments. You can never finish an infinite series of real things. If this is so, then time must have had a beginning. If the world never had a beginning, then we could not have reached now. But we have reached now, so time must have begun at a particular point and proceeded to today. Therefore the world is a finite event after all and needs a cause for its beginning. This part of the argument can be summarized like this: 1. An infinite number of moments cannot be traversed. 2. If an infinite number of moments had to elapse before today, then today would never have come. 3. But today has come. 4. Therefore, an infinite number of moments have not elapsed before today (i.e., the universe had a beginning) 5. But whatever has a beginning is caused by something else. 6. Hence, there must be a Cause (Creator) of the universe. VK: So, the Cosmological Argument begins with the simple point that there is undeniably a cosmos. Something exists. We can all discuss the various elements and parameters of the nature of the cosmos but it is undeniable that we live within a cosmos. And once we begin looking carefully at that cosmos we can start to see that the individual elements of the cosmos always direct us back to the same basic point. The universe had a beginning and anything that has a beginning cannot explain its own existence. But I think we have to be careful. Sometimes when we talk about these things it can be very challenging. As we’ve said. These are not the kinds of things we normally talk about in everyday conversation. GREGG: I agree. There are great arguments for the existence of God that are a lot more fun than the rather laborious points we’ve been going through. But we have to remember that these metaphysical first principles are the bedrock of reality, and they are the spring board from which comes the other arguments, for most of the commonly used arguments are in some manner related to cause and effect. The principles and the metaphysical proof for God’s existence that I have just laid out are probably a bit cumbersome for casual conversation. So, in our next episode of Anchored by Truth I hope you’ll let me come back and give the audience some arguments that are handy, easy to remember, easy to understand, and very difficult to refute. VK: Can we get a sneak peek at what some of those might be? GREGG: The scientific evidence for the Cosmological Argument always goes back to the first premise in the argument, i.e., “The universe had a beginning.” So, I like to use five categories of evidence from secular science that prove there was a beginning – usually called the “Big Bang” by the secular scientists. VK: But we would like to add that in this context the term “Big Bang” is just a label – a shorthand way of saying the universe had a beginning. So, while secular scientists may call the beginning of the universe a “Big Bang” the scientific evidence of the universe’s beginning fits equally well, or better, with an instantaneous act of creation by an almighty God. GREGG: Agreed. So very quickly, the word SURGE, makes these categories of evidence easier to remember. The “S” is Newton’s Second Law of Thermodynamics. The “U” is for the universe which is expanding. The “R” is for the radiation echo from space, more technically known as “microwave background radiation.” The “G” is for Great Galaxy Seeds. The “E” is for Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity. This was the beginning of the end for the idea that the universe is eternal. The theory has been verified to five decimal places, and it demands an absolute beginning for time, space, and matter. From General Relativity came the discoveries of the expanding universe, the radiation echo, and the great galaxy seeds. VK: And the fact that the universe’s beginning points to the need for God was recognized by well-known Astronomer Robert Jastrow. Jastrow said this in an interview with Christianity Today: “Astronomers now find they have painted themselves into a corner because they have proven, by their own methods, that the world began abruptly in an act of creation to which you can trace the seeds of every star, every planet, every living thing in this cosmos and on the earth. And they have found that this happened as a product of forces they cannot hope to discover . . . That there are what I or anyone would call supernatural forces at work is now, I think, a scientifically proven fact.” GREGG: Jastrow started out as an agnostic but he came around to the fact that the nature of the universe persuaded him that the universe needed a creator. Interestingly, not all astrophysicists are so secular, and some have postulated theories based on sound science that sound very biblical, using terms like “the deep” (Genesis 1:2), “the expanse” (1:6), and the six days of Creation. Two books I would direct listeners to are Starlight and Time by D. Russell Humphreys (Master Books, 1994), and the follow-up by the same author entitled Thousands, not Billions. VK: Well, we hope everyone will join us next time as we continue this fascinating discussion with Dr. Alexander. This sounds like a time to go to God I prayer. Since our children are back in school and busily working their way through the academic year, today let’s listen to a prayer for all of them who could benefit from a little divine help with upcoming tests. ---- PRAYER FOR TAKING A TEST VK: We’d like to remind our audience that a lot of our radio episodes are linked together in series of topics so if they missed any episodes or if they just want to hear one again, all of these episodes are available on your favorite podcast app. To find them just search on “Anchored by Truth by Crystal Sea Books.” If you’d like to hear more, try out crystalseabooks.com where “We’re not famous but our Boss is!” (Bible Quote from the New Living Translation) Genesis, Chapter 1, verse 1, New Living Translation

Episode 145 – Truth and Proof – Part 5 – Proof a God Exists Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. In John 14:6, Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” The goal of Anchored by Truth is to encourage everyone to grow in the Christian faith by anchoring themselves to the secure truth found in the inspired, inerrant, and infallible word of God. Script: For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God. Romans, Chapter 1, verse 20, New Living Translation ******** Hello! I’m Victoria K. Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. We’re excited to be with you as we continue our series we’ve called “Truth and Proof.” This series is all about the truth that there is a God and that God is the God of the Bible. Then we’re going on to offer proof that supports that truth. Today we have a special guest with us on the show, Doug Apple who is the manager of the WAVE-94 radio station in Tallahassee, Florida. Like a lot of people in Christian radio Doug is a diligent student of the Bible and he has thought deeply about his faith. This includes wanting to help others see that the Christian faith is a faith that will not only satisfy our souls but also our minds. Today Doug is going to help us take a detailed look at some of the essential observations that form the foundation for the inescapable truth of God’s existence. But before we get into the discussion, Doug would you like to take a couple of minutes and tell us a little about yourself? DOUG: - Introductory comments - VK: So, I’d like to remind everyone of the purpose of this series. We are learning how to defend the Christian faith. This defense is often termed “apologetics.” Now sometimes people will get the mistaken impression that apologetics can only be done, or should only be done, by professional apologists. The truth is, however, that any sincere, mature Christian can become an effective apologist – at least effective enough to demonstrate the two main points that are the concern of classical apologetics. The first point is the existence of God and the second point is that God is the God of the Bible. We do this by demonstrating the truth of the New Testament, and, therefore, the truth of Christianity. What do you think, Doug? DOUG: I agree. It may take a little time and effort to “prove” God’s existence, but every mature, thinking, normal person can – by the power of his mind and the operation of his senses – come to the valid conclusion that somehow some thing is “bigger than” he or she is. And, this is precisely what every culture has done over the last 6,000 plus years of recorded history. Just about every culture throughout history has come to the realization that “someone,” or a bunch of “someones” is pulling the strings at a higher level than the level where we are. And, with some deeper thought people can not only know that there is a “god,” but also they can know a lot about the nature of that “god.” And when they have reached those two conclusions, hopefully, they will look in the direction of the real God. VK: So, at this point let’s again stop and briefly review what we’ve covered so far in the first four episodes of this series. First, truth is what corresponds to reality. In other words truth corresponds to the way things really are. The way things really are is the same for all people in all places, and for all belief systems. Whether or not someone knows the truth, or believes the truth, is not the point. We’ve also learned that truth is knowable and absolute. DOUG: You have also covered the fact that the absoluteness of truth counters the claims of skepticism, agnosticism, relativism, and post-modernism. Those are four philosophies that deny the existence of absolute truth, but each of them is self-defeating. Each fails its own central premise. For instance the skeptic says we must doubt the existence of absolute truth – but does not doubt the absoluteness of their own position. Said differently, the skeptic is certain about doubt. And in your last episode of this series you covered the fact that the existence of truth is supported by the most fundamental laws of logic which include: • The law of identity (A is A). • The law of non-contradiction (A is not non-A at the same time in the same relationship). • The law of the excluded middle (either A or non-A). VK: These laws of logic mean that opposites cannot both be true at the same time and in the same sense. This counters the idea of religious pluralism – the idea that all religious faiths are equally valid. The opposite of true is false. This unbreakable law applies to all aspects of the universe – including religion. So, the belief that God exists and the belief that God does not exist are fundamentally at odds with one another and there is no third option. So, one of those beliefs must be true and the other must be false. The same would be true of the distinction between monotheism and polytheism. Monotheists believe there is one and only one God. Polytheists believe there are many gods. Both views cannot be true. DOUG: What we’re building up to is a proof for the existence of God – and not just any “god,” but the real Jehovah God of the Bible – the God of Reality. This real God started His revelation of Himself with the words, “In the beginning God . . .” (Genesis 1:1). In this verse, God, in His wisdom – and possibly with a little grin of anticipation – gives us a hint as to how we actually can prove to ourselves and to others the reality of His existence. Even if we could not be sure of God’s existence in any other way – and there are other ways – we can be sure of God’s existence by observing His creation. But as I said we must build up to that final conclusion. Before we can demonstrate that the God of the Bible is an objective reality we must first demonstrate that reason, logic, and evidence support the need for some kind of a divine being. VK: And as we’ve mentioned before that need has been recognized by pagan philosophers as well as Christian theologians. In a previous episode we mentioned that Aristotle was one of those philosophers who arrived at this conclusion simply by making keen observations of the world around him. DOUG: In the order of famous Greek philosophers there are three who are still household names even today. First came Socrates. Socrates’ most famous student was Plato. After Plato there came Aristotle. As you mentioned Aristotle was a diligent observer of the world around him. He wrote extensively about the physical universe, and he, like some of the philosophers before him, saw that there was one thing that all beings have in common, and that is being itself. But when Plato and Aristotle and others speak of “being,” they are not speaking of existence, they are speaking of essence. Existence was implied. So, mere existence was not their primary concern. Their primary concern was understanding what constituted the essence of things. VK: And Aristotle’s philosophy about the essence of things started with his work in “physics.” Said slightly differently Aristotle began his thoughts about “being” and “essence” with his observations of the physical universe. He then shifted to an understanding of what is prior to the physical universe that gives “being” to everything else. “Prior to” was not a chronological designation. It didn’t mean the passage of time, but rather the order in which things came to “be.” Aristotle’s work along these lines went “beyond” or “after” his work in physics, and became known as “metaphysics.” The focus of metaphysics is the nature of being and reality. Later, a new and separate philosophical discipline about the origin of reality followed along. That study of origin of reality came to be known as “cosmology” – the study of the origin of the universe and its laws. DOUG: So, one of the observations made by Aristotle was that the one constant he observed all about him was change. Aristotle noted two basic kinds of change: substantial change – the change in the substance of something, e.g., something comes to be (like a plant coming up out of the ground from a seed), or something ceases to be, e.g., like dying. We could come up with a lot of other examples but the point is that substantial change is reflected in birth and growth or decay and death. In addition to “substantial change,” the other form of change Aristotle noticed he called accidental change – the change that occurs when something adheres to the substance of another something, but is not inherent in that substance or essence. For example when I learn something new I have changed but I am still of and possess the same “essence” which you might call “human-ness.” And I am still the same substance which you might call “Doug-ness.” But despite me possessing the same essence and substance I am still different for having learned something. In other words my essence and substance didn’t change but one or more of my attributes as the world perceives me did. So, Aristotle noted that, even as change marked everything in the world around him, with that change some aspects of things stayed the same and some other aspects did not. VK: A particularly dramatic example of change was death. In death living beings undergo a fatal change resulting from the withdrawal of its life. But even through this change one creature did not become another. A dead dog did not turn into dead squirrel or a tree, or anything else. But Aristotle recognized that the dead body did not remain that way for long. The thing that made it what it was, i.e., the power within it that accumulated and arranged the atoms and the molecules of the universe into that particular body and held them together is now gone. Consequently, the elements of that body quickly become disorganized. The form of that body – the dog-ness didn’t change; but the substance, what we would call “matter” – the part left behind – did change. Aristotle’s understanding of reality, then, involved two components: actuality – what doesn’t change and potentiality – what does change. DOUG: So, Aristotle’s view of reality was that everything in creation is composed of both form (actuality) and matter (potentiality). The implication of this view is that the reality we perceive through our senses is constantly changing but that the forms or essences of things did not. Aristotle didn’t have modern science, but he had an exceptional mind and genius intellect. He likely saw that everything necessary to make an oak tree is contained in the acorn. If he had had a microscope, he might have been the first to accurately note that everything necessary for me to be me was contained in a single cell inside my mother. And when that cell divided into more cells they grew, and they differentiated, and they matured, and they became a unique human being unlike anyone else – just the same process that got us all here. And that being will continue to change. The notion has been bounced around in medical circles for the last 80 years that every atom of the human body is changed out every seven years. This cannot readily be proven, but we know with certainty that there is a constant balance being achieved between the dying cells and the new ones. The turnover rate for various body tissues has been calculated in the range of 3 years to 16 years, the brain being on the low end. I’m not sure if that’s the good news or the bad news. And we know with certainty that the last changes in the human body happen very quickly – those changes we call “decomposition.” VK: It didn’t take long for observers of nature to realize that when a tomato seed is planted a tomato plant comes up. Ditto for every other kind of plant – what you sow is what you reap. If a pregnant dog and a pregnant cat are fed the same kind of food, the dog will have a puppy and the cat will have a kitten. It has nothing to do with the food they eat except that the food provides each one with the building blocks necessary to make a kind of replication of the mother and father. DOUG: So, it would seem from Aristotle’s model that the actual thing – the “form” – is in the seed, or the acorn, or the fertilized egg for the particular species. And the potential thing – the “matter” – is the elements of the earth and of the universe which are capable of becoming the substance of any type of plant or animal. So, the question becomes what is it in that seed or egg that “drives” the earthly elements to be arranged in such a way as to become a unique product? Well, we now know something that Aristotle didn’t. We know about the genetic code – the code of life, if you will. We know that every living creature has a pre-programmed set of instructions present in its DNA. So, in that tomato seed, or in that acorn, or in that pre-born human baby, beginning with the most fundamental components of mass and energy and working outward to and through the DNA, there is the form of that thing – immaterial, unmeasurable, unseen, and, in a certain sense, eternal. And, that form has being – not only is it specific, and, therefore, has a unique essence, but also it operates in the material universe, and, therefore, it exists. VK: And we know some other things that Aristotle didn’t. We know about the underlying properties of atoms and sub-atomic particles through the Standard Model of particle physics, general relativity, and a system called quantum mechanics. For instance, we know that quarks interact by gluon exchange; that neutrons decay to protons through the weak interaction mediated by boson force carriers. We know that quarks and other sub-atomic particles spin. We’ve come to know a lot about the building blocks of physical reality. What we see through our modern observations is the proof of what Aristotle observed: there is constant change. When we reduce all physical matter to its smallest components we see that even the quark changes in its characteristics and interactions, but it’s still a quark! And nature testifies to what Aristotle believed. All around us is change, but something always remains the same and something else doesn’t. So, what is it that always remains the same? DOUG: It is the thing that is the actual – the form – not the thing that is the potential, the matter. This means there has to be something that accounts for the order and the arrangement of every physically existent thing, beginning with its most fundamental components. Plato and Aristotle called it “form” – and they knew it had to be something that is immaterial. They reasoned that can’t be seen, felt, or measured. And they knew this something cannot itself change, and is, therefore, eternal. They knew this because if it came into being it would have undergone change from non-being to being. Now the listeners don’t have to remember any of the particulars of any of this. But they do need to remember that the matter of the universe is the part that can change whereas the forms of those individual things of the universe don’t change. The matter, which is mass and energy, not only can change, but is constantly changing, even if the change is only motion. And here is the take-home message: all change requires a cause. VK: That is such an important point so I want to restate it. All change requires a cause. And we see change all about us. Yet, we also see that despite this change there is still something that accounts for the order and the arrangement of every physically existent thing, beginning with its most fundamental components. Plato and Aristotle called it “form” – and they knew it had to be something that is immaterial; that it couldn’t be seen, felt, or measured. They also knew that that something that ordered everything else could not itself change, and would therefore be eternal. This concept of an Eternal Cause that causes order throughout the material creation while being immaterial itself brought them – and brings us – to God. We’re not yet at that God being the God of the Bible but we are firmly standing on the top step of the staircase we’ve been climbing. DOUG: So, let’s catch up to the stairs we’ve been ascending. We started out simply by acknowledging the existence of truth. Then we demonstrated that the fundamental laws of logic not only indisputably prove that truth exists but those laws also prove that we exist. We then extended that awareness of our existence to the existence of a material universe and we’ve taken this realization further to the fact that there must be an Eternal Cause that brings order to the material universe. VK: Right. Aristotle is given credit for coining the term “Unmoved Mover” as one term for this eternal cause. The term “Prime Mover” was also used. Aristotle and Plato knew that the Unmoved Mover must be eternal because if it had come into “being” it would have undergone change from non-being to being. The fact that Aristotle, with a little help from some of his Greek predecessors could deduce all this truly is remarkable. DOUG: Especially since Aristotle did not have the benefit of the technological and scientific information that we do today. Today we know far, far more about the fundamental components of the physical universe. As you alluded to briefly, we know there are two particles that cannot be reduced to anything smaller or more simple. We know there are four fundamental forces that simply “are” and cannot be reduced to anything more basic. And we know there are four “force carriers” which behave as both particles and energy waves, and have no mass. And with these basic components of all mass and energy there is always directional motion, spin motion, interaction, and the potential for different relationships among them. There is always change, because what we – and everything – are made of is in motion. We also know that each thing of substance is uniquely different from every other thing of substance, that it has its own unique form. Otherwise everything would be the same thing. So, we can start building from there to everything else. Each thing is “formed” by component parts put together by “form” – the determiner of each substance. We can now say that form is cause, matter is the changeable intermediary, and substance is effect. We use the words “cause” and “effect” in much the same way as we would say “the producer” and “the product” – cause produces an effect. Every effect has a cause. VK: Right. And when we look at the universe we see a countless variety of forms, for there is a countless number of different things. And we know a few other things. The universe is in motion. The earth, the sun, the moon, planets, and galaxies are moving in relation to one another. We know that things come into being, undergo change, and appear to go out of being such as when a plant comes out of a seed, grows, dies, and decays. DOUG: Ancient thinkers, like Aristotle, saw the same things. So, Aristotle saw the cause as the “actualizer.” Or said differently Aristotle saw that everything that comes to be is caused by something that already is. VK: Or in other words, the actualizer transforms potentiality into actuality. The actualizer produces change. One very important change that the actualizer produces is changing non-being into being. DOUG: And Aristotle saw that everything that comes into being is limited, only a finite part of all there is. He also saw the things that come into being as being contingent. The things that came into existence were dependent on something else for their existence. Therefore, they could exist or not exist. Aristotle saw all things that come into being as ultimately requiring a cause that is not dependent on any other cause – a cause that is not contingent, for if it was contingent it would be dependent on something else for its existence. This brought Aristotle to another of his great contributions – the realization that that an infinite regress of causes is impossible. There must be a starting point – there had to be a “first actualizer” to get the whole series started. Something that “has to be” is something that is necessary. Later philosophers and theologians would come to refer to this idea of the first actualizer as the “Necessary Being.” VK: Christians of course agree with this line of reasoning but we have an awareness that Aristotle did not. We know that the God of the Bible is that Necessary Being. We are blessed because we have not only the line of reasoning that was available to Aristotle, God’s general revelation, but also we have God’s special revelation in the Bible. Now, as we’ve said before we know that all of this can produce some head scratching and even some headaches. But once Christians master these principles it produces a Christian who can encounter the barrage of criticism aimed today at the Christian faith and emerge unscathed. DOUG: Absolutely. There are real challenges and real reasons for studying apologetics. But, as you have emphasized throughout this “Truth and Proof” series, being able to understand and defend Christianity is not the sole province of the clergy, the evangelists, the authors, the pastors, the scholars, or any other group of “professional Christians.” It is the province of every Christian. It is possible for all people who have the desire to understand these concepts and ideas. Paul told us this in the opening scripture we listened to from Romans 1:20. Paul said that the people who deny God’s existence don’t have any excuse for denying it because God has made his clear through His creation. Frankly, Aristotle proves Paul’s point. Aristotle was able to come to the awareness that the nature of reality pointed to an Unmoved Mover, a first actualizer, a Necessary Being. So when we hear people deny the existence of God we should also keep in mind what Jesus said to his listeners in John 8: 43-47: “Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say. You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. Yet because I tell the truth, you do not believe me! Can any of you prove me guilty of sin? If I am telling the truth, why don’t you believe me? He who belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God.” VK: Jesus’ warning shows that as important as that is for adults to make an effort to understand something about apologetics, it’s even more important for our kids and grandkids. Apologetics, as an area of study, isn’t first and foremost a way to win arguments. It’s a way to protect ourselves, our friends, and especially immature believers from a hostile world. Naturally, we also hope that an increased understanding of the foundations of our faith will also make us better witnesses to that world. Well, this sounds like a time we really need to go to God I prayer. Today let’s listen to a prayer of corporate confession because there are certainly times in all our lives when we have fallen short. The good news is that even when that happens God has promised that if we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us. ---- PRAYER OF CORPORATE CONFESSION VK: We’d like to remind our audience that a lot of our radio episodes are linked together in series of topics so if they missed any episodes or if they just want to hear one again, all of these episodes are available on your favorite podcast app. To find them just search on “Anchored by Truth by Crystal Sea Books.” If you’d like to hear more, try out crystalseabooks.com where “We’re not famous but our Boss is!” (Bible Quote from the New Living Translation) Romans, Chapter 1, verse 20, New Living Translation

The existence of God is a contentious topic in today's discourse. Theists propose arguments to prove God's existence whereas atheists counter those arguments with their criticisms and the cycle continues to go back and forth. In today's podcast, we are joined by Shaykh Hamza Karamali who will prove the existence of God by utilizing a version of the contingency argument. In a simple manner, Shaykh Hamza teaches our audience the fundamentals of the argument and how to counter popular criticisms of this argument.Timestamps:0:00 Intro2:50 Abu Hanifa vs Atheist8:25 Who Designed the Designer?28:04 Is the Universe Dependent?38:21 Why Can't a Dependent Thing Rely on a Dependent?54:01 What Does "Everything is Dependent" Entail? 57:58 Is Time Contingent?1:03:12 What is a Necessary Being?1:07:54 From Necessity to Allah1:17:33 Can Science Prove God's Existence?1:20:39 Fallacy of Composition1:30:59 Conclusion

Episode 134 – Questing for God Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. In John 14:6, Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” The goal of Anchored by Truth is to encourage everyone to grow in the Christian faith by anchoring themselves to the secure truth found in the inspired, inerrant, and infallible word of God. Script Notes: The heavens proclaim the glory of God. The skies display his craftsmanship. Day after day they continue to speak; night after night they make him known. They speak without a sound or word; their voice is never heard. Yet their message has gone throughout the earth, and their words to all the world. Psalm 19, verses 1 through 4, New Living Translation ******** VK: Hi! I’m Victoria K. Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. I’m here today with RD Fierro, founder of Crystal Sea Books, and part-time poet. Today on Anchored by Truth, as we approach Thanksgiving and Christmas, we are going to begin a new series where we focus on the central figure of the entire Bible: Jesus. That seems appropriate as we come to the time of year when we celebrate the Lord’s birth, doesn’t it RD? RD: Well, Christmas is certainly a time of the year when people begin to more naturally think about Jesus because the reminders of him start to appear more and more around us every day. But, of course, it’s important to remember that we really should focus on Jesus every day of the year. For Christians, Jesus should be the focus of our daily lives. And actually throughout our lives we should be on a quest to get to know God better each day that is granted to us. VK: I agree with that. So, today we’re going to start listening to a new Crystal Sea story. This time it’s one of our rhymed pieces that you wrote as a Christmas epic poem. This is actually the second installment of a story that you began a long time ago. You said you originally wrote the first installment because you wanted to give it as a gift to some co-workers? RD: I did. Years ago when I worked in one of those big state agency buildings that are so common here I wanted to give Christmas presents to some of my co-workers but doing that in a state agency can sometimes be tricky. So, I decided that one present I could give was a little entertainment so I wrote A piece that was inspired by some of things that used to entertain the kids of my generation: Christmas poems and the short serial stories you used to see in the movie theaters before the main feature. Each of those film pieces would always leave you hanging so you had to come back every week to see what happened. So, I wrote a Christmas story in six parts and each part left you wondering what would come next. VK: And then a few years ago you decided that the story needed to continue so you wrote the next installment of what is going to be, when completed, a poetic trilogy. The story began in Crystal Seas’ Christmas epic poem: The Golden Tree, Komari’s Quest. The story continues in The Golden Tree, Eagle Enigma. So, here is part of The Golden Tree, Eagle Enigma. ---- The Golden Tree: Eagle Enigma – Part I VK: I really like some of the lines from that part. “A sea set with ethereal jewels with diamond, jasper, and quartz. Starry lights of a grand display Gleaming beacons of angels gone forth.” Not only are the lines lyrical but they also evoke such clear imagery. I can imagine kids sitting around their mom and dad … RD: Or grandmother and grandfather... VK: Or grandparents and listening to this recording with them - just like families used to sit around and listen to someone read The Night Before Christmas. Of course, that’s one of the reasons we wanted to put this poem out there. To give families a entertaining story that also would allow parents to discuss their faith with their kids. RD: Exactly. There are so many questionable choices these days that are advertised as being “family friendly” but they are based on a secularist view of the world. We wanted to be sure that there was a story that was available for “fireside” listening that directed everyone’s attention to the real “reason for the season.” VK: Well, there are a total of seven parts to Golden Tree: Eagle Enigma. So, for the next six weeks we’ll be letting the story unfold as we continue to unpack insights into how the Bible is such an integral part of being able to frame a coherent world view. I mean the two fundamental attributes that you believe would have to characterize any book that would constitute a genuine special revelation of God are that that revelation would have to be consistent with the created order as it is observable by creatures within it – essentially us. And that revelation would have to display supernatural origin. RD: Right. As hard – or as exciting – as it may be to comprehend empirical observations, combined with logic, tell us that the visible universe does not – indeed cannot – provide an explanation for its own existence. The universe, as grand and vast as it is, has all the fingerprints of having a beginning in space and time. Also, the second law of thermodynamics, the law of entropy, tells us that it will have an ending. Anything that has a limited life span, no matter how long some people might conceive that light span to be, cannot be self-existent. Only a self-existent being or entity can account for its own existence or the existence of anything else. Some philosophers use the terms Necessary Being and Contingent Beings to describe the difference between the two. VK: And since the universe is not eternal it looks very much like it is contingent on something or someone outside itself to account for its existence – a Necessary Being upon which it is dependent. And we call that Necessary Being God. So just like the bears in our story when we see stars twinkling in a deep night sky we can know that that the starlight - and the night sky and especially our ability to see and understand all that grandeur - points to the need for a Creator. And we’ve seen that the bears we’ve just met aren’t the first bears who have lived in this land. It was actually their ancestors who left their home and shortly we’ll learn they were searching for the lair and throne of their Creator – who they thought of as the Great White Bear. RD: Yes. I think the symbolism for the story is already pretty plain but I would like to point out one thing - and that’s what I want to spend some time on today – is that the bears who set out on their quest wouldn’t ever have started if they weren’t convinced that the Great White Bear existed. And that’s one of the problems that we see reflected so clearly in today’s very relativistic culture. Too many - far, far, far too many people today, both inside the church and out, are defeated in their own quests because they have been misled to believe that there is no Creator – no Great White Bear if you will. As a result, they see the world as fundamentally being either chaotic at best or outright meaningless at worst. VK: I think you need to expand on that thought a bit. You’re saying that God isn’t just a logical necessity to explain the existence of a contingent universe, but that an awareness of God is an essential component of us being able to comprehend our place in that universe? RD: To quote what I say in some of our humorous Life Lessons with a Laugh - exactamundo. VK: So you’re quoting yourself. Sounds like something only a writer would do… RD: Again, exactamundo. Anyway as the eminent theologian RC Sproul used to say, “Ideas have consequences.” The idea that the universe was framed by an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, and holy God carried with it the inextricable notion that the universe has been created intentionally and for a purpose. As such the universe would display design and order and the intelligent creatures within that universe – us – could perceive that design and order. VK: And that very concept formed the foundation for what we think of as science today. And that’s why many of the founders of modern science – like Sir Isaac Newton and Louis Pasteur were strong Christians. They were convinced that there was design, order, and logic in universe because the universe had been made by a being that was supremely purposeful and logical. As such, they were encouraged to go and discover that order and use the results of it to improve the lives of the people around them. Or said a little differently they were encouraged to go on their own quests to discover more about the creation and thereby appreciate even more the Creator. RD: So all that made perfect sense. If the universe had been created by a God of order, logic, and purpose then creation would be comprehensible. Those early giants of science took seriously the Biblical statement that man had been made in the image of God, so they felt sure that God would bless their efforts at applying themselves to understand what he had created. But one of the tragic effects of the success of their work and the amazing results they achieved is that over time – and now we’re talking about centuries not decades – the work of science became divorced from the original source of the inspiration for them to do the work. Scientists – not all, but a great many – became convinced that it was possible to understand creation while ignoring the Creator. VK: Or said slightly differently, they sought the blessing without regard to the Blesser. So, one of the points you’re making is that somewhere along the journey – the quest – for discovery, a lot of people forgot why the journey was begun in the first place. And that is reflected in our society and culture today. RD: Yes. And Christmas is a great example of that same phenomenon happening in our calendar and celebration of the common understanding that was the foundation of our communities. The word “Christmas” obviously derives from the words “Christ” and “mass.” And one of the big reasons that gift exchanges became a part of the celebration was in commemoration of the great gift that God had given the world in the birth of Jesus. And, of course, the whole reason that God gave us the gift of Jesus was because after the fall in the garden of Eden God had begun his great plan of redemption. So, in a very real way the history of all of mankind gives evidence of God’s plan unfolding in exactly the way God intended. VK: And you believe that even some of the more tragic of the things that we see around us provides evidence for the existence of God and the truth of scripture? RD: Yes. C.S. Lewis noted that one of the things that convinced him to become a Christian was that he couldn’t get over the idea that some things were right and some things were wrong. But then he realized for that idea to make sense – that there’s a difference between right and wrong – he had to have an explanation for where that idea came from. Why did he think that there was a real distinction? Of course, the only logical conclusion was because there was a Being – a God somewhere – who had established the whole moral and ethical scheme to begin with. That’s just as true today as it has ever been. VK: That’s a pretty remarkable idea when you think about it. The very notion that we have ethical sensibilities to begin with is dependent on there being a real difference between right and wrong. And not just a matter of personal convenience like preferring squash to broccoli. When people begin to assert that something is wrong they don’t just mean that they find it inconvenient. They mean that there is a determinable ethical distinction that compels – or should compel – our behavior. And we all know that. Anyone who doesn’t know that there is a difference between right and wrong we would describe as a sociopath. RD: And we would have good reason for doing so. Now in saying this we’re not saying that there is universal agreement on the precise details of what’s right or wrong and different societies at different times have arrived at varying conclusions about the specifics. But there’s never been a society that didn’t make some kind of a distinction regardless of what they did with the specifics. In some cultures the distinctions might have been ones that we would consider trivial – like acceptable dress for women and men. In other they would have been more profound or serious – like the relationship between a government and its people or whether private ownership of property is permitted or prohibited. The rules have varied but every culture, tribe, and nation has had rules of some sort. VK: And pretty much all people everywhere know that they have – at one point or another – violated those rules. Written or unwritten. Government or cultural. Religious or secular. We have an inherent awareness that as moral and ethical agents we have certain obligations that we are subject to. So we see that not only is there a physical order to the physical universe there is also an ethical order that applies to us as people. But without there being a God, a holy and purposive God, we would have no reasonable explanation for the existence either of the obligation or the sense that we need to be accountable the obligation. And that same sense that tells us that we are subject to the obligation tells us that we have all fallen short. RD: Right. We all know that we’re not perfect, but to know that means we know that somewhere there is a standard against which that determination can meaningfully be made. That’s why Jesus had to come and why the Christian claim that Jesus was perfect, was sinless, is so essential. Again, to refer to Sproul again, RC used to say that if he was in a discussion with someone who just refused to acknowledge the existence of God, one of the final questions he would ask such people is what they did with their guilt. VK: And we all have guilt. And some of us feel it far more keenly than others. If we don’t have Jesus, if we don’t know Jesus, then we’re the only ones who can shoulder that guilt. But the moment we understand that the Perfect Man, Jesus, has willingly taken our guilt onto his own shoulders, we can start to become free of that guilt. And that’s one of the keys to beginning and completing our own quests through life. As we talked about a long time ago on Anchored by Truth, understanding the Bible provides context and meaning to our lives. Knowing that God himself made a provision for our imperfection removes the need for us to continue to feel guilty forever. Knowing that Jesus is our savior is the truth that sets us free. RD: And that’s one of the things we really want to focus on as the days unwind toward Christmas. We want to take a close look at how we can be sure that Jesus isn’t a mythological figure, but instead is a real person who was born, walked and lived at a specific place and time, and died. But then he demonstrated that he was God’s atoning gift by walking out of the grave and appearing to a group of women first and then to his disciples. If Jesus wasn’t a real person who did those things we would have absolutely no hope for being justified before a perfectly holy God. A mythological figure, no matter how charming, couldn’t save anyone. But Jesus did and does. So, as we conduct our own quests through life, if we’re pursuing worthwhile ends we can be confident that they aren’t futile. There is a meaning to our individual lives even when those lives are set against the backdrop of an unimaginably grand cosmos. The Bible and Jesus give us that meaning. As Augustine famously said, “Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee.” VK: Sounds like it’s a great time to have a prayer. Since we’re approaching Thanksgiving how about if today we listen to a prayer for that special day when we turn our attention to the goodness that God has shown to us. ---- Prayer for Thanksgiving – VK: We’d like to remind our audience that a lot of our radio episodes are linked together in series of topics so if they missed any episodes or if they just want to hear one again, all of these episodes are available on your favorite podcast app. To find them just search on “Anchored by Truth by Crystal Sea Books.” We hope you’ll be with us next time as we continue our discussion of the reality of Jesus’ life. We hope you’ll take some time to encourage some friends to tune in too, or listen to the podcast version of this show. Also, we’d to remind listeners that copies of The Golden Tree: Komari’s Quest are available from our website. If you’d like to hear more, try out crystalseabooks.com where “We’re not famous but our Boss is!” (Bible Quotes from the New Living Translation) Psalm 19, verses 1 through 4, New Living Translation (Sources used for this episode or other in this series) “Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee.” Augustine, Confessions https://www.crossroadsinitiative.com/media/articles/ourheartisrestlessuntilitrestsinyou/ https://www.proginosko.com/2019/07/reforming-apologetics-common-notions/

https://youtu.be/yMMAJPo7SoM Can we say God has to be one? Or is there a possibility of multiple gods? Does trinitarian views result in this affirmation of multiple gods and does our understanding of a Necessary Being affirm the Islamic concept (Tawheed) of one God?

Series: The Theology of GodService: Virtual Bible StudyType: Bible StudySpeaker: Phillip W. Martin & Shane ScottJoin Shane & Phillip for another conversation about GodTheology: the study of religious faith, practice, and experience especially: the study of God and of God's relation to the worldGod: the supreme or ultimate reality: Such as: the Being perfect in power, wisdom, and goodness who is worshipped as creator and ruler of the universeEpisode TOG0001: The Importance of Knowing God Colossians 1:10Episode TOG0002: How We Come to Know God, Psalm 24:3-6, Ezekiel 34:11-12; Luke 19:1-10Episode TOG0003: The Necessary Being, Romans 1:18-23Episode TOG0004: Why Call the “Necessary Being” GOD?Episode TOG0005: The Creator and SustainerEpisode TOG0006: God Is PersonalEpisode TOG0007: The Self-Sufficiency of…

Series: The Theology of GodService: Virtual Bible StudyType: Bible StudySpeaker: Phillip W. Martin & Shane ScottEpisode 06: God Is Personal Today at 4PM EDT, Join Shane & Phillip for another conversation about God Theology: the study of religious faith, practice, and experienceespecially : the study of God and of God's relation to the world God : the supreme or ultimate reality:Such as: the Being perfect in power, wisdom, and goodness who is worshipped as creator and ruler of the universe Episode 1: The Importance of Knowing God Colossians 1:10Episode 2: How We Come to Know God, Psalm 24:3-6, Ezekiel 34:11-12; Luke 19:1-10Episode 3: The Necessary Being, Romans 1:18-23Episode 4: Why Call the “Necessary Being” GOD? Episode 5: The Creator and…

God is prior to mass/energy.  God is prior to any system of human thinking.  God is prior to the human nervous system.  The inspired theologian of the Genesis document states that God spoke the cosmos in existence.  No one has disproved this dynamic truth.  Yes, there are theories that claim to explain the origins of matter, but there are mere theories frosted with hubris.  God spoke and the things that are seen were made by God.  God is Necessary Being. 

This episode of Pneumatikos will explore the reality of a poignant wisdom insight.  Deeds determine destiny may not be believed in post-western culture.  After all of the manipulative antics to overthrow the intrinsic principles of the universe there is the realization that without God the world does not make sense.  The technological utopian vision is found wanting because micro-chips and electrons cannot create a laudable ethos.  The God of the gaps that was once believed to be discarded by rationa human fiat is necessary being.