Talk to the hand!
In my last post I introduced the Cosmological Argument to you and in this post I want to address some objections or questions that may come up from those you share with. If you missed the Cosmological Argument click here to read it first.
The most likely response to the Cosmological Argument that you may get is a question, “Who made God?” This is a key question in Richard Dawkins’ book The God Delusion. Apologist Sean McDowell notes “While rhetorically powerful, this objection misses the point of the argument. The claim is not that everything has a cause. Rather, everything that begins to exist has a cause.” Think about it, if God was caused, then you would have an infinite regress without a beginning. Remember our conclusion from the last post.
Since the universe is physical, finite in space, has a beginning, and slowly running out of energy we can then say the cause had to be outside the physical, (i.e. non-physical) infinite, timeless, changeless, and powerful. Sounds a little like the God the Bible describes.
While this doesn’t point to a particular God, like that of the Bible, the character traits that are given this creator/beginner are the same as the God of the Bible. God is non-physical, infinite, timeless, changeless, and powerful. This type of being does not need a cause.
Another objection you might hear from someone is that the universe caused itself to come into existence without the aid of anything outside itself. This is as it sounds, absurd. It that were possible, why wouldn’t other things come into existence all by themselves also? Why don’t we have people or basketballs randomly appearing in the universe? The laws of nature cannot explain how this might be, this is the ultimate magicians rabbit out of the hat trick.
One last objection to the Cosmological Argument might be to the premise that the universe does not have a beginning. Someone may want to challenge your statement that you make on a beginning. They may point out that the recent work of Stephen Hawking, a brilliant Astrophysicist and mathematician. Hawking says that the beginning of the universe can be avoided because time has been rounded off at the final moments before the Big Bang Singularity. The way that Hawking got this to work in mathematical equations was with the use of imaginary numbers combined with Einsteins equations. Unfortunately these numbers do not work out when you replace the imaginary numbers with real numbers in real life. “But if the universe can be eternal and uncaused,” as Sean McDowell states “then why can’t God?” What is most unreasonable is to suppose that the universe arose, uncaused from nothing.
As always, questions, comments, discussions are welcome. If you can think of any other objects feel free to post them in a comment.
DId God Really Say... 
Excellent post, John! I think that some people also look over the fact that God created, and therefore is also outside of, time. You are right that if one imagines that God had a beginning, then you are forced to consider an infinite regress of past “causes” (when, in fact, there is a single un-caused cause). This problem also occurs when thinking about just the simple linear progression of time, leading from one event to another. If the universe itself was eternal and had no beginning, then we are dealing with an infinite number of past events, which is a possibility only in the minds of professors, and not in the real world. The fact that we exist in material form in the real, physical world at this moment, excludes an eternal past “in time”. I think that we misconstrue the term “eternal”, believing it to be “time that never ends”, when in fact it may mean “outside of time”, or “independent of time”. One can make a case for an infinite series of past events in the same way that one can make a case that an arrow shot at a target will never actually hit the target by arguing that the arrow, as it flies, will continually cut its distance from the target in half, and it can do this infinitely and not actually get there, just like an asymptotic mathematical concept. But in the real world, the arrow does actually hit the target. It does get there, just like we are really here right now. We are not “approaching” where we are in time and place right now; we are actually here. So an infinite series of past events is impossible. Time had a beginning just as much as matter did; and God created all of it.
I love Jesus. He died for my sins and he died for yours too. All you have to do is Admit your sin, believe He died for you, commit your life to Him.Those are really all the facts I need. Love your blog. But I won’t be sharing any deep theological truths so you two have fun being the lovable intellectuals that you are and I’ll stick to kids ministry and the ABC’s LOL Love y’all. ; )
To summarize my wife: Heart broke….God fix……
You know, there is a lot of truth to what you both said. I’ve often found that God finds a way to help us in many ways whether that is intellectually or through the simple truths of life, pains and joys both. He calls us to him on an individual level. Thanks for the comments.