J. Matt Barber
The fool says, 'There is no God'
By J. Matt Barber
"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." – Genesis 1:1
Be they theist or be they atheist, on this most scientists agree: In the beginning there was nothing. There was no time, space or matter. There wasn't even emptiness, only nothingness. Well, nothing natural anyway.
And then, bang! Everything. Nonexistence became existence. Nothing became, in less than an instant, our inconceivably vast and finely tuned universe governed by what mankind would later call – after we too popped into existence from nowhere, fully armed with conscious awareness and the ability to think, communicate and observe – "natural law" or "physics."
Time, space, earth, life and, finally, human life were not.
And then they were.
The overwhelming consensus among scientists, whether they believe in God or deny Him, is that the "Big Bang" moment of singularity is the only feasible explanation to account for the universe and everything in it. All things material must have a beginning and an end.
Still, scientists disagree over the who, what, when, why and how of it all. The Genesis account ascribes manifestation of this incomprehensibly complex and precisely honed universe to a benevolent, omnipresent, omnipotent and omniscient God who transcends time and space. This is, as it goes, the only way to account for a universe teeming with evidence of design, painstakingly engineered and clearly crafted by a superior intelligence that far exceeds man's finite ability to comprehend.
Everything cannot come from nothing.
Psalm 19:1 says, "The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands."
Others say it ain't so. Secular materialists and atheists claim it can't be – that such explanation is a "God of the gaps" supernatural explanation and, therefore, must be banished from the realm of scientific inquiry. They demand that anything beyond the known natural is off limits. Atheists attribute all of existence to, well, nothing. It just kind of happened. Genesis 1:1 of the materialist Bible might read: "In the beginning nothing created the heavens and the earth." Fuzzy math. Nothing plus nothing equals something. Zero times zero equals everything.
And so, they have reasoned themselves into a corner. These same materialists acknowledge that, prior to the moment of singularity – the Big Bang – there was no "natural." They admit that there was an unnatural time and place before natural time and space – that something, sometime, somewhere preceded the material universe. That which preceded the natural was, necessarily, "beyond the natural" and, therefore, was, is and forever shall be "supernatural."
Reader, meet God.
In short: the Big Bang blows atheism sky high.
Scripture admonishes: "The fool has said in his heart, 'There is no God.'" (Psalm 14:1) It never ceases to amaze me the spectacular hoops through which God-deniers will jump to rationalize God's existence out of existence.
I got a chuckle the other day from one such God-denier. Stephen Hawking is, no doubt, a brilliant physicist. He's widely considered one of the most intelligent men alive.
Which makes his abject foolishness all the more puzzling.
In a desperate attempt to explain how a finally tuned, infinitely complex universe with highly intelligent, mindfully self-aware human beings can "appear spontaneously from nothing," Hawking threw the "M-theory" Hail Mary during a recent lecture titled "The Origin of the Universe."
According to NBC News, "M-theory posits that multiple universes are created out of nothing, Hawking explained, with many possible histories and many possible states of existence. In only a few of these states would life be possible, and in fewer still could something like humanity exist. Hawking mentioned that he felt fortunate to be living in this state of existence."
This is also known as the "multiverse" theory. It is, essentially, the God-deniers last best attempt to explain away a universe that exhibits smoking gun evidence of intelligent design and fine-tuning clearly intended to support life. The multiverse theory – to the extent it can be called a theory (there's exactly zero evidence to support it) – conjectures that our universe is merely one universe among an infinite number of invisible, parallel universes. It just so happens that we live in that one spontaneously self-created universe wherein, against astronomical odds (quite literally) – everything fell right in to place.
Poof – here we are.
In other words, we won the cosmic-parallel-dimension lottery at a-bazillion-to-one odds.
And they say we rely on blind faith?
1 Corinthians 1:18-19 says, "For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written: 'I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.'"
Indeed, how frustrating it must be. So bright, yet so dull – "fearfully and wonderfully made," yet in stubborn denial of the Maker.
Romans 1:20 observes, "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."
Yet excuses they make; silly, unsupported, irrational excuses. According to Scripture, atheists like Hawking are fools. They are perishing. But even as they perish, they futilely grasp at multiverse straws, willfully blind to the loving Creator-Redeemer who reaches with nail-pierced hands to save them.
I feel sorry for Stephen Hawking. He's had a very difficult life. Fifty years with Lou Gehrig's disease, confined to a wheelchair and unable to move. A brilliant mind trapped in a failing body.
Pray for him.
Still, brilliant though he may be, Dr. Hawking is only human. "For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength." (1 Corinthians 1:25)
I would encourage Dr. Hawking – all God-deniers for that matter – that, in and through Jesus Christ, they can be made new in body, mind and soul.
They need only ask.
Because, for now at least, we do live in time and space.
And time is ticking.
Our next time is eternal. Our next space we now choose.
Choose wisely.
© J. Matt Barber
April 21, 2013
"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." – Genesis 1:1
Be they theist or be they atheist, on this most scientists agree: In the beginning there was nothing. There was no time, space or matter. There wasn't even emptiness, only nothingness. Well, nothing natural anyway.
And then, bang! Everything. Nonexistence became existence. Nothing became, in less than an instant, our inconceivably vast and finely tuned universe governed by what mankind would later call – after we too popped into existence from nowhere, fully armed with conscious awareness and the ability to think, communicate and observe – "natural law" or "physics."
Time, space, earth, life and, finally, human life were not.
And then they were.
The overwhelming consensus among scientists, whether they believe in God or deny Him, is that the "Big Bang" moment of singularity is the only feasible explanation to account for the universe and everything in it. All things material must have a beginning and an end.
Still, scientists disagree over the who, what, when, why and how of it all. The Genesis account ascribes manifestation of this incomprehensibly complex and precisely honed universe to a benevolent, omnipresent, omnipotent and omniscient God who transcends time and space. This is, as it goes, the only way to account for a universe teeming with evidence of design, painstakingly engineered and clearly crafted by a superior intelligence that far exceeds man's finite ability to comprehend.
Everything cannot come from nothing.
Psalm 19:1 says, "The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands."
Others say it ain't so. Secular materialists and atheists claim it can't be – that such explanation is a "God of the gaps" supernatural explanation and, therefore, must be banished from the realm of scientific inquiry. They demand that anything beyond the known natural is off limits. Atheists attribute all of existence to, well, nothing. It just kind of happened. Genesis 1:1 of the materialist Bible might read: "In the beginning nothing created the heavens and the earth." Fuzzy math. Nothing plus nothing equals something. Zero times zero equals everything.
And so, they have reasoned themselves into a corner. These same materialists acknowledge that, prior to the moment of singularity – the Big Bang – there was no "natural." They admit that there was an unnatural time and place before natural time and space – that something, sometime, somewhere preceded the material universe. That which preceded the natural was, necessarily, "beyond the natural" and, therefore, was, is and forever shall be "supernatural."
Reader, meet God.
In short: the Big Bang blows atheism sky high.
Scripture admonishes: "The fool has said in his heart, 'There is no God.'" (Psalm 14:1) It never ceases to amaze me the spectacular hoops through which God-deniers will jump to rationalize God's existence out of existence.
I got a chuckle the other day from one such God-denier. Stephen Hawking is, no doubt, a brilliant physicist. He's widely considered one of the most intelligent men alive.
Which makes his abject foolishness all the more puzzling.
In a desperate attempt to explain how a finally tuned, infinitely complex universe with highly intelligent, mindfully self-aware human beings can "appear spontaneously from nothing," Hawking threw the "M-theory" Hail Mary during a recent lecture titled "The Origin of the Universe."
According to NBC News, "M-theory posits that multiple universes are created out of nothing, Hawking explained, with many possible histories and many possible states of existence. In only a few of these states would life be possible, and in fewer still could something like humanity exist. Hawking mentioned that he felt fortunate to be living in this state of existence."
This is also known as the "multiverse" theory. It is, essentially, the God-deniers last best attempt to explain away a universe that exhibits smoking gun evidence of intelligent design and fine-tuning clearly intended to support life. The multiverse theory – to the extent it can be called a theory (there's exactly zero evidence to support it) – conjectures that our universe is merely one universe among an infinite number of invisible, parallel universes. It just so happens that we live in that one spontaneously self-created universe wherein, against astronomical odds (quite literally) – everything fell right in to place.
Poof – here we are.
In other words, we won the cosmic-parallel-dimension lottery at a-bazillion-to-one odds.
And they say we rely on blind faith?
1 Corinthians 1:18-19 says, "For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written: 'I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.'"
Indeed, how frustrating it must be. So bright, yet so dull – "fearfully and wonderfully made," yet in stubborn denial of the Maker.
Romans 1:20 observes, "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."
Yet excuses they make; silly, unsupported, irrational excuses. According to Scripture, atheists like Hawking are fools. They are perishing. But even as they perish, they futilely grasp at multiverse straws, willfully blind to the loving Creator-Redeemer who reaches with nail-pierced hands to save them.
I feel sorry for Stephen Hawking. He's had a very difficult life. Fifty years with Lou Gehrig's disease, confined to a wheelchair and unable to move. A brilliant mind trapped in a failing body.
Pray for him.
Still, brilliant though he may be, Dr. Hawking is only human. "For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength." (1 Corinthians 1:25)
I would encourage Dr. Hawking – all God-deniers for that matter – that, in and through Jesus Christ, they can be made new in body, mind and soul.
They need only ask.
Because, for now at least, we do live in time and space.
And time is ticking.
Our next time is eternal. Our next space we now choose.
Choose wisely.
© J. Matt Barber
The views expressed by RenewAmerica columnists are their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of RenewAmerica or its affiliates.
(See RenewAmerica's publishing standards.)
