Evidence for the Existence of God

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General Comments

Hey folks,

1) For those who have asked about upcoming speaking engagements, I don't have a lot going on right now in terms of traveling to give talks, just a few local talks between now and the holidays. The Spring months are fairly open for me, with a few exceptions, so if you are looking for an apologetics/evangelization speaker at your parish and/or conference, just let me know...

2) For those of you in the Diocese of Birmingham, please join Bishop Baker and me at the annual Diocesan Rosary for Life and Vocations on Sunday, October 2nd, at the Lourdes Shrine on the grounds of the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament in Hanceville. There will be Eucharistic Adoration and we will pray the Joyful Mysteries for Life and the Luminous Mysteries for Vocations. The time is 3:00 - 4:30 PM. It is a beautiful setting right by the river and it is always a wonderful, peaceful, and holy experience. We would love to have you join us...

Introduction

I'm working on a couple of talks that I will be giving to the high school PSR class at my parish. The first one will be on Sunday, October 2nd. The talks are on the Evidence for the Existence of God and I thought I would share them with you. Below is the first part of Session 1. Some of this is being borrowed from past newsletters so it may sound familiar for long-time readers. I hope you enjoy it...

Challenge/Response/Strategy

Evidence for the Existence of God

Why are you here? That was the question that was asked in a video you watched last week...“Why are you here?” And it wasn’t asking about why are you here in this room, it was asking why are you here...on this earth? Why are you alive? Why do you exist?

Very good questions, especially since high school is the time that most folks start thinking about such things. High school was the time when I started thinking about those things: Why am I here? What is the meaning of life? Does my life have a purpose?

Now being in a Catholic religion class, you guys are undoubtedly aware that the correct answer to those questions - or at least the answer you’re expected to believe - has something to do with God. According to the Catholic Church, the correct answer is that I exist...the purpose of my existence...is to know, love, and serve God in this life so that I may be with Him forever in the next. Essentially, the Church teaches us, that we were made...to be with God.

Again, that’s what, as Catholics, we are supposed to believe. And, I hope you do believe that. But, here’s the thing, in order to believe that the purpose of your existence is for you to be with God in Heaven forever, you have to first believe...IN God, right? I mean, before I can come to the conclusion that the reason I exist is to be with God, I have to first believe IN God.

Here’s the thing - we know what we believe, or what we’re supposed to believe - that God exists - but do we know why we believe that? [Ask questions: Why do you believe in God? Can you give me a reason for why you think God exists? What does science tell us about the existence of God?]

Here’s the thing, though: I don’t want you to believe in God just because your parents told you God exists, or because your priest told you so, or because that’s what we tell you is so here in the parish religion class. I want you to believe it because you have thought this whole existence of God thing through and come to the conclusion that believing in God is actually the most reasonable and logical and intelligent position to hold.

You see, if you haven’t already run into folks who don’t believe in God, you will be doing so very soon - there may even be some of you who have questioned the existence of God. And those of you who are about to go off to college are going to be running into a lot of folks who don’t believe in God - and a good number of those people will be your professors. If you let it be known that you believe in God, you are going to be challenged by atheists, secular humanists, materialists, relativists, and many others on this whole question of whether or not God exists.

And, if you are not prepared to respond to the arguments they make, then you run a great risk of losing your faith, or, at the least, having your belief in God greatly diminished. So, what I want to do here today, and in our next meeting, is give you a few different reasons for believing in the existence of God. I want to give you reasons based on common sense, on logic, and, believe it or not, on science.

So, why should you believe in God? And I know there was some discussion last week about creation and evolution or Adam and Eve vs. evolution or something along those lines, right? Well, I might touch on some of that today, but if I don’t, then just know that the next time I’m here we will cover that topic in great depth. Just suffice it to say, for now, that as Catholics, we are allowed to believe in evolution - with a few caveats, but we are also allowed to not believe in evolution. In other words, for the Catholic, believing or not believing in evolution is not a matter of faith.

But, again, I’ll talk more about that later. Right now I want to go back farther than evolution. I want to start where you should always start...in the beginning. Genesis chapter 1, verse 1: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Here is the first reason I want you to ponder in regard to the question of God’s existence: Why is there something...rather than nothing? Think about that. Why is there something, instead of nothing?

This is a question that no atheist can answer. Ask an atheist: “Why is there something instead of nothing?” See what they say. “I don’t know.” Or, “Just because.” Or, “Well, there is no reason, it just randomly happened.” Or, I’ve had one tell me, “Because of the Big Bang.”

Do you know what the Big Bang Theory is? Who knows what the Big Bang Theory is - and I’m not talking about the TV show. The Big Bang Theory essentially states that all the matter and energy in the universe was once condensed into a tiny little point known as a singularity. In the first few moments of its existence, this singularity exploded - the Big Bang - and caused matter and energy to expand into what we now know as...the universe.

Here’s a quote from National Geographic about the Big Bang Theory:

Before the big bang, scientists believe, the entire vastness of the observable universe, including all of its matter and radiation, was compressed into a hot, dense mass just a few millimeters across. This nearly incomprehensible state is theorized to have existed for just a fraction of the first second of time.

Big bang proponents suggest that some 10 billion to 20 billion years ago, a massive blast allowed all the universe's known matter and energy—even space and time themselves—to spring from some ancient and unknown type of energy.

Well, what are the problems here for an atheist who thinks the Big Bang created the universe? National Geographic - a magazine of science - says that all the matter and energy of the universe existed BEFORE the Big Bang took place. Furthermore, National Geographic says that all matter and energy, and even time itself, sprang from “some ancient and unknown type of energy.” “Ancient and unknown” type of energy, huh? Isn’t that interesting? I wonder what that “ancient and unknown” type of energy could be?

Okay, so if anyone ever tells you the Big Bang has something to do with the creation of the universe, then you know that they don’t know what they’re talking about. You can correct them by telling them that the Big Bang has to do with the expansion of the universe, but not its creation. The Big Bang deals with pre-existing matter.

Alright, why is that important for our purposes? Because the atheist, the secular materialist, still has to answer the question: “Why is there something instead of nothing?” The theist - those who believe in God - has an answer to the question. The atheist does not. Where did matter come from and why? The atheist has no answer. Science has no answer.

Okay, so what does all this have to do with God? Well, I think you know what it has to do with God, but you have to make an atheist put the clues together. Think about this. And have any atheists you might know think about this: Can something create itself...yes or no? No, right? A rock can't create itself, a bird can't create itself, a tree can’t create itself, and so on. Which also means, big picture, that matter cannot create itself.

So, something other than matter, must bring matter into existence. So, the non-material must bring the material into existence. Makes sense, right? Also, from science, we know that every effect has a cause. Cause and effect. So, if we start tracing each effect to its cause, and keep going farther and farther back in time, we have two possibilities, either: 1) there is a series of causes and effects that stretches back for an infinite amount of time - no first cause, or no beginning, in other words; or 2) there is at some point in the series of causes and effects, an uncaused cause from which all cause and effect emanate. Something that did not come into existence, but that has always existed.

Something that is, in fact, existence itself, which brought the universe into existence. Out of those two choices, the first one is actually impossible [Expand on this with examples]. You know, through common sense, that everything has to have a beginning. Plus, the series of causes and effects cannot go back for an infinite amount of time, because that would mean that it would never have gotten to where we are. We would not exist. So, logic tells us that the universe was begun by a non-material uncaused cause. That is what we call God.

So far so good. What else do we know about the “something” that brought the universe into existence? Well, it cannot have a cause. If it had a cause, then we are stuck with the same problem already discussed - you cannot have an infinite regression of causes and effects because, being infinite, it would never have arrived at where we are, and thus we would not exist. So, the cause of the universe was itself, uncaused. The uncaused cause of which Aquinas, and Aristotle before him, spoke of.

Also, judging from the order we find everywhere in the universe, one can rightly speculate that this “something” is something which has an ordered nature. I would also claim that this “something” seems to possess an intelligence by which it ordered the material universe. Can one explain such precision in the laws of physics, chemistry, math, and so on as just blind chance? I guess you could, but from a statistical standpoint, what are the odds of that?

I mean think about it - a million monkeys sitting in front of a million keyboards, typing away for a million years would never reproduce a Shakespearean play; nor even a Shakespearean sonnet; and probably not even a single line of a Shakespearean play or sonnet. Yet, the tiniest cell of any plant or animal is more complex, more amazing, more glorious, and more incredible than the greatest of Shakespeare’s works - and folks want me to believe it came into being because of the blind laws of the blind universe that came into being by blind chance? Sorry, not buying it. Logic points to an intelligence behind the ordering of the universe.

What else? This “something” that created the universe is not subject to time. How so? Well, time is a function of the material universe. Therefore, this “something,” not being material, is not subject to time and, therefore, is infinite in time. This “something” also has to be very powerful - after all, it created the entire universe.

So, let’s put it all together: there is “something” that is non-material, and which existed before the material universe, that caused the material universe to be brought into being, and which itself does not have a cause. This “something” is not subject to time - it is infinite. It is most likely ordered, and most likely intelligent. And, one other thing then, if it is intelligent, it undoubtedly has a will as it would have made the conscious decision to bring the universe into existence.

This non-material, uncaused, exceedingly powerful, probably ordered and intelligent, infinite, cause that caused the universe to come into being - you call it what you want, I call it God.

Closing Comments

I hope all of you have a great week!

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