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Universe
A good friend of mine, Ken Chumbley, in his book entitled "The Gospel Argument
For God", which is published by the Florida College Bookstore, has a chart on
page 56. Now, I do not want to stir anything up, but another good friend of
mine, Mike Schmidt, insisted to me that the chart was his idea. But that's not
important. I cannot reproduce the chart in this medium, but I can describe it
for you. It is something to think about.
Ken's (or Mike's) chart begins with a single word at the top of it: UNIVERSE.
Then, assuming that everyone can pretty much agree that the UNIVERSE exists, the
chart has two arrows going from the word UNIVERSE to two possible alternatives:
NO BEGINNING or BEGINNING? Very few scientists continue to hold out for NO BEGINNING. Theories of the "Steady State" and "Oscillating" universe do not jive with what we know. That is the reason there is so much talk about the "Big Bang" in scientific circles; because physical laws which we already know prohibit a belief in a Universe without a BEGINNING.
The chart continues the progression by having two more arrows going from BEGINNING to two more alternatives:
UNCAUSED or CAUSED? Since the UNIVERSE exists, and since it must have had a
BEGINNING, then we want to know if it was UNCAUSED or CAUSED. Did the
UNIVERSE just suddenly exist for no reason? Or was there a reason, or CAUSE?
Everyone recognizes that effects have causes. To
suggest otherwise makes scientific investigation a farce.
And since the UNIVERSE was CAUSED to BEGIN, we need to determine something further about that CAUSE. Kenny's chart has two more arrows leading from CAUSE to two more alternatives:
IMPERSONAL or PERSONAL? You've seen the numbers that mathematicians have come up
with against the likelihood that the CAUSE was IMPERSONAL; that random events
got us to where we are today. But all those numbers assume there is something to
start with. Even the slightest chance they afford (Kenny cites one calculation
as 1 in 10,000,000,000 to the 124th power) is taken away when we remember that
the chance of something coming from nothing is 0. However,
belief in a PERSONAL CAUSE outside the physical universe and material realm
itself presents no such problem. What are the chances that Bible believers are
correct when we affirm that the UNIVERSE was CAUSED to BEGIN by a PERSON; that
is, God created it? I do not know; it is probably impossible to come up with an
accurate number, but whatever it is, it is a much, much more likely event than
the 0% chance of the alternative.
Wake up world! "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."
See you in October, Lord willing.
By Jon W. Quinn
The Final Page
From Expository Files 2.9; September, 1995
