The Cosmological Argument


The resurrection of Jesus is the most important event that ever happened or ever will happen!  If there is no resurrection then our faith is in vain and we are dead in our sins.  The apostle Paul says as much in 1 Corinthians 15.  As Born again Christians we are commanded to spread the gospel.  Undoubtedly, you have been trained in some method of sharing your faith: Roman Roads, Faith, Got Life, ect.  In Got Life there is the all-important key question to determine where a person is with respect to salvation.  We are trained to listen for a works answer or a faith answer.  Suppose your conservation goes like this;  Christian: "In your personal opinion what do you understand it takes for a person to go to heaven?"  Reply: "Heaven does not exist because God does not exist!"  Now what are you going to do?  You received neither a works answer or a faith answer.  Most people will try to share the gospel or maybe give out a copy of the Case for Christ.  When I hear this, I just want to cry!  Don't get me wrong, I loved the case for Christ but it is the wrong book for the job.  You see, what we are dealing with is an atheist.  An atheist is someone who says, I know for a fact there is no God.  If there is no God, then miracles are not possible and therefore no resurrection.  The gospel and evidence for the resurrection being evidence for a miracle will simply be dismissed since the atheist says "I already know miracles are not possible".  So where do we go from here?  Science is the answer since atheists hold science in high regard.  The following is the basic outline for the Cosmological Argument.


Basic Outline

  1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
  2. The Universe began to exist.
  3. Therefore the Universe has a cause.
If one and two are true then number three certainly follows.    You would think number two would draw the most fire from critics but the massive amount of evidence discovered over the last 40 years has forced atheists to reject number 1. 

Whatever begins to exist has a cause.

Number one would seem to be obvious.  After all, have you ever seen anything come into existence uncaused?  If someone rejects this premise then simply ask him, "Why is there something rather than nothing at all"?

The Universe began to exist.

I'm going to discuss 3 reasons from science to address this part.  they are as follows:

  1. The amount of useable energy in the universe is decreasing.
  2. The Big Bang.
  3. Time and Space had a beginning.
The amount of useable energy in the Universe is decreasing.

This fact is a result of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics.  Note that it is possible to have local increases in energy like when you eat something but globally the amount of energy is decreasing.  Remember what we are trying to prove, the Universe had a beginning.  So, how does this help us?  I want you to picture a big hourglass.  Now  imagine that each grain of sand in the hourglass represent a single unit of energy.  Now we have a finite amount of sand representing all the useable energy in the Universe.  (This is reasonable since the Universe is finite, very big but finite.)  Now what would happen if the Universe did not begin to exist?  There would have been an infinite amount of time before now and therefore our hourglass would be finished, i.e. no more energy left!  Since this has not happened we can conclude the Universe had a beginning.

The Big Bang.

It has been discovered that light from distant stars and other galaxies is "more red" than it should be (Light has a frequency so this can be measured).   Because of this we know that everything in the universe is moving away from each other.  If we follow the universe back in time we would get the collapse of all mater into one single point (A singularity).  This is where the Big Bang came from.  In more common term what the Big Bang says is that universe came from absolutly nothing, hence the universe had a beginning.

Time and Space had a beginning.

The General Theory of Relativity states that not only did space have a beginning but also time itself.  You may be familiar with the Twin Paradox from Relativity Theory.  The twin paradox says that if one identical twin were to travel in a space ship at high-speed  for say 10 years, 5 years out and  5 years back, the twin left on earth would be say 20 years older depending on the speed of the space ship.  In other words time slows down as you approach the speed of light.  I know that might sound like science fiction but I assure you it is not.  For example very precise time keeping pieces called atomic clocks have been used to verify this part of Relativity Theory.  Two atomic clocks were verified reading the same time.  One clock was kept on the ground and the other was taken in a high-speed jet.  When the clocks were brought back together to compare the times, the clocks indeed read differently.  As a former rocket scientist I can verify this since equations involving time are programmed into satellites so that position and time can be verified accurately.

So, the Universe began to exist.


Therefore the Universe had a cause.

Therefore, what do we know about this cause?  Well from the Big Bang Theory we know that the entire Universe was created out of nothing so the cause must be omnioptent.  The cause must also be immaterial since all of mater was created.  From the General Theory of Relativity we know that the cause created time so the cause must be eternal.  Since the cause is eternal and immaterial the cause must also be personal.1  So we have the immaterial, omnioptent, eternal,  personal creator of the universe.  This agrees with God of the Bible and no use has been made of the Bible.

[1] The Case for a Creator.  Lee Strobel, 2004.  Chapter 5.

References:

The Case for a Creator, Lee Strobel.

I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist, Norman Geisler and Frank Turek.

Reasonable Faith, William Lane Craig.