Origins “For since the creation of the world His

invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being

understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. ”

(Romans 1:20)

Why Something is Here

“Why do we have something rather than nothing at all?”

Martin Heidegger

“The Fundamental Question of Metaphysics”

“Some would claim the answer to these questions is that there is a God who

chose to create the universe that way. It is reasonable to ask who or what created the universe, but if the answer is God,

then the question has merely been deflected to that of who created God. In

this view it is accepted that some entity exists that needs no creator, and that

entity is called God. This is known as the first-cause argument for the existence of

God. We claim, however, that it is possible to answer these questions purely

within the realm of science, and without invoking any divine beings.”

– Stephen Hawking The Grand Design

Four Possible Options

1. Reality is an Illusion – It’s not there. 2. Reality was Self-Created– It made

itself. 3. Reality is Self-Existent– It’s always

been there. 4. Reality is Created by Something

that is Self-Existent– It was made by something that has always been there.

Reality an Illusion?

Student: “Professor, I’m not sure I even exist!” Professor: “Who ,then, may I say is asking?”

You must exist to deny your own existence; it is self-defeating to claim

you don’t exist and are just an illusion. Illusions require something experiencing the illusion. In other words, reality is not an illusion.

“Because there is a law like gravity, the universe can and will create itself

from nothing in the manner described in

Chapter 6” – Stephen Hawking The Grand Design

Reality Self-Created via Chaos/chance?

First Problem: Uniformity & Naturalism

Naturalists like Hawking affirm two contradictory presuppositions. Naturalism provides no answer as to how the very laws (like gravity) producing uniformity in

nature also lend themselves over to the evolution of nature. If naturalists state that nature violates its own laws in order to account for something like macroevolution

they are essentially allowing for interruptions in the normal and predictable operations of nature while simultaneously refusing to make allowances for miraculous

works of God within the same realm.

A naturalistic worldview provides no guarantee that the future will be like the past because without belief in a sovereign God who governs the universe and maintains

its uniformity the world is left to chance. Yet chance occurrences do not provide any basis for uniformity in nature.

Second Problem: What is ‘Nothing’?

particles

energy

matter

motion

space

…everything

How to Think About ‘Nothing’

“Nothing is what rocks dream

about.” – Aristotle

“Hawking's argument appears to me even more illogical when he says the

existence of gravity means the creation of the universe was

inevitable. But how did gravity exist in the first place? Who put it there? And what was the creative force

behind its birth?

Similarly, when Hawking argues, in support of his theory of spontaneous

creation, that it was only necessary for 'the blue touch paper' to be lit to 'set the universe going', the question

must be: where did this blue touch paper come from? And who lit it, if not

God?” – Dr. John Lennox

Two Down, Two to Go…

• Something exists • Nothing cannot create

something • Therefore, a necessary

and eternal being exists -Jonathan Edwards

“There are not many options – essentially just two. Either human intelligence ultimately

owes its origin to mindless matter; or there is a Creator. It is strange that some people

claim that it is their intelligence that leads them to

prefer the first to the second.”

– Dr. John Lennox

So Which Is it…?

“However concrete physical reality is sectioned up, the result will be a state of affairs which owes its being to

something other than itself.” – Dallas Willard

The Position Logically Stated

• Everything in the universe is dependent (contingent) • If every part of the universe is dependent, then so is

the whole • Therefore, the universe is dependent right now on

some independent / Necessary Being for its present existence

Biblical Support for the Position

"He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together." Colossians 1:17

"And He ... upholds all things by the word of His power..."

Hebrews 1:2-3

The Position Broken Down Further

• Some limited, changing being(s) exist • The present existence of these beings is caused by

another • There cannot be an infinite regress of causes of being • Therefore, there is a first Cause of the present

existence of these beings • The first Cause must be infinite, necessary, eternal,

simple, and unchangeable • This first uncaused Cause is identical with the God of

the Bible

If all other beings that are caused are limited beings,

then the first cause must be unlimited. The first cause determines what kind of

beings exist, is uncaused, and since everything is limited,

then you must go back to an unlimited or ‘infinite’ being

that began everything.

The First Cause is Infinite

If all other beings are contingent (dependent)

beings, then the first cause must be independent. Put

another way, all other beings are unnecessary – they could

not exist. The first cause must exist so everything else

can, so it is the only necessary being that exists.

The First Cause is Necessary

Non-existence cannot give rise to existence, and the first cause gives rise to all other existence, so it must be eternal.

No matter what a person thinks about God, they must necessarily go back to some eternal being/thing.

The First Cause is Eternal

"An egg which came from no bird is no more

'natural' than a bird which had existed from

all eternity." – C. S. Lewis

All multiplicity implies a prior singularity. The first cause cannot be composed of anything/multiple parts, but

instead must be pure and simple in its existence. It must be one.

The First Cause is Simple

Change indicates potential, but because the first cause is infinite, it has no potential or

ability to go from worse to better or from better to

worse. So the first cause is unchangeable.

The First Cause is Unchangeable

Why Can’t The Universe Be the First Cause?

Can the universe meet the previous set of criteria? No…

• The universe is not infinite, necessary, or eternal: all the scientific evidence points to the fact that it had a beginning, and what has a beginning has a cause and is not eternal. Something must have existed prior to it

• The universe is not simple: it definitely has multiple parts to it

• The universe is not unchangeable: change in the universe is quite evident

Why Can’t The Universe Be the First Cause?

• Second Law of Thermodynamics – the universe is running down • Expanding Universe – confirmed through Hubble telescope • Radiation Echo – discovered in the 1930’s by Bell Lab

scientists • Galaxy Seeds – discovered in the 1990’s by COBE explorer • Einstein’s theory of relativity – proves universe had a beginning

What Proof Do You Have?

“A Creator must exist. The Big Bang ripples and subsequent scientific findings are clearly

pointing to an ex nihilo creation consistent with the first few verses of the book of Genesis.”

- Henry F Schaeffer III, Quantum Chemist

• Everything that begins to exist must have a cause • The universe began to exist • Therefore, the universe had a cause

The Kalam Cosmological Argument

“Now we see how the astronomical evidence leads to a biblical view of the origin of the world. The details differ, but

the essential elements and the astronomical and biblical

accounts of Genesis are the same; the chain of events

leading to man commenced suddenly and sharply at a

definite moment in time, in a flash of light and energy.”

- Dr. Robert Jastrow

Genesis and the Categories of Reality

1. Time 2. Force 3. Action 4. Space 5. Matter

“In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the earth.” – Genesis 1:1

Time Force Action Space Matter

Evolutionist Herbert Spencer said all of reality was made up of five components:

The multiple universe theory postulates the simultaneous existence of many, possibly infinitely many, parallel universes in

which almost anything which is theoretically possible will ultimately be actualized. So, then, there is nothing surprising in the fact

that we have the universe that we do.

What About the ‘multi-verse’ Hypothesis?

Philosophical Response:

A multi-verse still has the problem of an infinite

regress. Such an issue is not limited to this universe;

it applies to any reality. You still must get back to

a first cause, and uncaused cause for

everything, including a multi-verse.

What About the ‘multi-verse’ Hypothesis?

Scientific Response:

Scientifically, no evidence for it, but also, good

reasons that such a thing does not exist. No model has evidence showing any reality that extends into

the infinite past. One of the best proofs of this is

the Borde-Guth-Vilenkin theorem

What About the ‘multi-verse’ Hypothesis?

The 2003 theorem that was proposed by Arvind Borde, Alexander Vilenkin, and Alan Guth proved that any universe which has, on average, been expanding throughout its history cannot be infinite in the past but must have a

past space-time boundary.

What makes their proof so powerful is that it holds regardless of the physical description of the universe. The Borde-Guth-Vilenkin theorem is

independent of any physical description of that moment. Their theorem implies that even if our universe is just a tiny part of a so-called “multiverse”

composed of many universes, the multiverse must have an absolute beginning.

“It is said that an argument is what convinces reasonable men and a proof is what it takes to

convince even an unreasonable man. With the proof now in place, cosmologists can no

longer hide behind the possibility of a past-eternal

universe. There is no escape, they have to face the problem of

a cosmic beginning.” - Dr. Alexander Vilenkin, Physicist

“Let us recognize these speculations for what they are. They are not physics, but in the strictest sense,

metaphysics. There is no purely scientific reason to believe in an ensemble of universes.”

-Dr. John Polkinghorne, scientist/quantum physicist

“To postulate a trillion-trillion other universes, rather than one God, in order to explain the orderliness of our

universe, seems the height of irrationality.” -Dr. Richard Swinburne, professor/philosopher

Finally, why couldn’t multi-verses be the work of a Creator?

What About the ‘multi-verse’ Hypothesis?

What About Quantum Mechanics?

Some assert that Quantum Mechanics is the answer. They say that things come into

existence from nothing, and QM proves this. This is patently false. There are at least 10 different interpretations of the mathematical

equations of QM. Some of them are fully deterministic. Only some have indeterminate causes (one in particular). And no one knows

which is correct.

Second, it is not true that QM events begin to exist from nothing. They result in

fluctuations in the quantum vacuum, which is not nothing. When these particles form, they

come from energy that is locked in the vacuum. It is a sea of fluctuating energy governed by physical laws having a physical structure. No

evidence suggests that things come into being from nothing.

Spontaneous or self-creation, multi-verses, quantum mechanics and other such propositions by non-believing scientists are an example of “drowning the fish”. You can use all the water in the

oceans in an attempt to drown the animal, but in the end, it will still be there affirming its existence and presence.

Drowning the Fish

Why do Stephen Hawking and Others Offer Such Obviously

Dead-End Propositions?

“Many people do not like the idea that time

has a beginning, probably because it

smacks of divine intervention.”

– Stephen Hawking

“It is rather ironical that in the sixteenth century some

people resisted advances in science because they seemed

to threaten belief in God; whereas in the twentieth

century scientific ideas of a beginning have been resisted because they threatened to increase the plausibility of

belief in God.” – Dr. John Lennox

“I believe in order to understand.”

– Anselm

Scientists Used to Start with God

Great scientists of the past started with God. They began with God because only a God of order could enable them to believe

in an order of the universe, mathematics, etc. They knew you don’t get that type of order from random chance, chaos, or

disorder. But today, some scientists reject God so they have no where else to go other than impossible options like self-creation,

aliens bringing life to earth, etc.

“Men became scientific because they expected law in nature and they expected law in nature because they

believed in a lawgiver." – C. S. Lewis

"Theologians generally are delighted with the proof that the

universe had a beginning, but astronomers are curiously upset. It turns out that the

scientist behaves the way the rest of us do when our beliefs

are in conflict with the evidence."

- Dr. Robert Jastrow

“The tragedy of disbelieving in God is not

that a person ends up believing in nothing, alas it is

much worse: they may end up believing in anything.”

– G. K Chesterton

“There are only two possibilities as to how life arose; one is spontaneous

generation arising to evolution, the other is a supernatural creative act of God,

there is no third possibility. Spontaneous generation that life arose from non-living matter was scientifically disproved 120

years ago by Louis Pasteur and others. That leaves us with only one

possible conclusion, that life arose as a creative act of God. I will not accept that philosophically because I do not want to

believe in God, therefore I choose to believe in that which I know is scientifically

impossible” - Dr. George Wald

Professor Emeritus of Biology at the University at Harvard

Nobel Prize winner in Biology

“Out of nothing didst Thou create heaven and earth – a

great thing and a small – because Thou are Almighty and Good, to make all things good, even the great heaven

and the small earth. Thou wast, and there was nought else from which Thou didst create heaven and earth.”

- Augustine, Confessions

So Why Is Something Here?

“The best data we have [concerning the origin of the universe] are exactly what I would have predicted, had I nothing to go on but the five

books of Moses, the Psalms, and the Bible as a

whole.” – Arno Penzias, Nobel Astrophysicist

“Worthy are You, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power; for You created all things, and because of Your will they existed, and were created.”

(Revelation 4:11)

So Why Is Something Here?

Origins “For since the creation of the world His

invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being

understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. ”

(Romans 1:20)

Why Something is Here