Cosmological Arguments for the Existence of God

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Type
Class
Topic
Apologetics
Books
Genesis, Psalm, Isaiah, Romans, 1 Peter
Written for
Teens & Adults
Notes
944 words

How you may use this

Use it as you wish. Adapt it, cut it, teach it. The personal stories are mine: either credit me for those or, better, tell your own. Most of the rest I gathered from other sources over the years, so I claim little original here. My one requirement — do not take this and teach it without further study.

The notes

“Christianity is a religion of the mind, not just of the heart.” What do you think about that statement?

  • Psalm 8.1, 19.1, 139.14

JUST HOW BIG IS OUR UNIVERSE?

  • Light year - the distance light travels in a year

  • 5 trillion, 878 million, 630 million miles

  • 8 min from Sun to Earth –> 7 hrs from Sun to Pluto

  • The Universe - 20 B LY / the world

  • Our SuperCluster - 150M LY / the USA

  • The Local Group - 4M LY / the state of Tennessee

  • The Galactic Realm - 25K LY / Middle Tennessee

  • Our Solar System - 4.6 B miles / Marshall County, Lincoln County, Williamson County

  • 25 Sextillion (25 followed by 21 zeroes) stars in our entire universe

  • 1 Billion + galaxies (ours is named the Milky Way), 587 Quadrillion miles across

  • 100 Vigintillion (1 followed by 65 zeroes) planetary bodies

  • Our neighborhood - the sun, Earth, and moon

  • Every 18 miles the earth moves 1/9 of an inch from a straight line

  • 1/8 inch would be too close, 1/10 inch would be too far (throw us off course)

  • The Moon is 240,000 miles from Earth - took astrobauts 4 days to get there in the 60’s and 70’s

  • If the Moon were 1/5 closer (48K miles), Earth would be covered by water

“A First Cause”

  • Where Did You Come From, The Ball, and The Floor

  • Where did you come from? How were you created? I think we all know the answer.

  • Why did you catch that ball? There were a hundred things that could have happened when I threw that, but —— made a choice to catch it.

  • Why did the ball fall to the floor? Because I dropped it.

  • With every cause (sex, throwing the ball, dropping it), there is an effect (you, catching the ball, the ball hitting the floor).

  • Itʼs so simple, yet so complex to argue.

  • Modern-day scientists would have you believe in the Big Bang Theory, that one day, billions of years ago, a tiny tiny bit of gas and dust no bigger than the head of a pin exploded to form our universe.

  • The idea of the Universe being created by God baffles scientists, because they donʼt recognize the cause.

  • The Cause of the Universe is God, the effect is what we see around us.

  • Long ago, guys named Plato and Aristotle thought that with the order and design that surrounds us every day, not to mention the order and design in the heavens, was evidence for something called a “first cause.” They argued that something cannot come from nothing, and there had to be intelligent or supernatural cause behind it.

  • The Cosmological Argument comes from the word cosmos, which means world or universe.

The “Five Pillars of Science”

  1. Time = the measurement of how we long or short we perceive things to be
  2. Force = not the Force, but anything that has kinetic energy and has motion.
  3. Action = this is anytime we use a verb in describing something, i. e. “Mike caught the ball”, stuff like that.
  4. Space = just what it sounds like - everything not on this earth or in the atmosphere.
  5. Matter = empty space is not matter. Everything we here on earth is. This table, our bodies, all of it is classified as matter.

  • Using these Five Pillars, scientists have said that every experiment, every theory, every measurable part of science must at least have one of these pillars happen or involved in it.

  • Genesis 1.1 = “In the beginning (time), God (force), created (action), the heavens (space), and the Earth (matter).”

  • We have two choices: God created the Universe, or He didnʼt.

  • If He did not, nothing makes sense. Because order cannot come from chaos.

  • How long would it take for something as simple as pens in boxes to come back together or a piece of electronics come together?

  • How did complex things such as our bodies come to be created then?

  • Our eyeballs are the most complex machines on the planet. They process information and send it to our brains to allow us to see.

  • If God did create the universe, and in concert everything in it, then the Universe makes sense. It is understandable, plausible, and rational.

The Law of Biogenesis

  • The Law of Biogenesis basically states that “something cannot come from nothing.”
  • 1 in 10 X 340,000,000 = Odds that a single-celled organism evolved into a human being

Our Free Will

  • IMO, the ultimate argument for the existence of God • God made us with emotions. Where did those emotions and free will come from? They didnʼt come from matter, or a single-celled organism. • If we evolved from a single cell, where did our moral framework come from? • We know right and wrong! Of course it is taught to us by whoever raises us, but who taught the first humans?

Scriptures

  • Romans 1.20 • Isaiah 40.8 • 1 Peter 3.15 • Why that last verse? Because itʼs all that matters. One day, you will have to defend Godʼs Word and defend your faith. What will you say? What evidence will you have? • These last few weeks, Iʼve provided ample evidence for the existence of God. • You donʼt have to memorize all this stuff to be able to prove God to those who donʼt believe, you just have to know where the evidence comes from.

Near it on the shelf