Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so.  God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night.  He also made the stars.  God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth, to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness.  And God saw that it was good.  And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.

• Genesis 1:14-19

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was with God in the beginning.  Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.  In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

• John 1:1-5

“There are three steps or premises in [Gottfried Wilhelm] Leibniz’s reasoning:
“1. Everything that exists has an explanation of its existence.
“2. If the universe has an explanation of its existence, that explanation is God.
“3. The universe exists.”

• William Lane Craig, On Guard

Dr. Craig goes further.  Leibniz states his rules.  Without need of drawing conclusions, at least to someone who understands Logic, it becomes plainly obvious that since premises 1 and 3 are true, then the universe has an explanation for its existence.  If premise 2 is then true, then the explanation for the existence of the universe is God.  Dr. Craig made those additional premises to make it abundantly clear to everyone.

With just the first three premises, it is obvious that the universe would have an explanation and that explanation is God.  Yet, the atheists among us eliminate the second premise.

Yet, in debates over this topic, the second premise cannot easily be disregarded off hand.  There is the concept for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.  Taking that further, for something to exist or for some action to happen, there must be a “cause.”  The people in debates from the atheist side will state that the Big Bang had no cause, yet, this violates known science.

Let’s pull out the modern dictionary.  There are two branches of science, although maybe one hundred years ago, one of these branches would be in the realm of belief, conjecture, or even fantasy, rather than science.  What is now referred to as experimental science is the science that can be proven, the science that has these inviolable laws, the science that I refer to as “real science” or in the previous paragraph, “known science.”

The other type of science is called “historical science.”  It included the theories of evolution, millions of years of the universe, and even climate change (although the observations are compelling).  In each of these, some observations are made; some guesswork is then made to match the observations to the theory; and a certain element of “belief” is then applied.  You cannot return in history to see if the Big Bang was spontaneous and without “cause” or if there was a genie who lit a match, but then where did the genie come from?  No one can prove evolution, even taking pairs of each “kind” onto Noah’s Ark and now having 195 breeds of dog, rather than one kind, can be explained by the DNA within the “kind” having all the DNA of the various 195 breeds and then through mutations, we get the various breeds.  The American Kennel Club added two new breeds in 2020 to make it 195, if you wanted to know.  DNA research, part of experimental science, is quickly proving Darwin’s theories of the origin of the species to be impossible and the use of the word “evolution” for anything to be outdated since “evolution” is inadequate compared to simple DNA science.

Thus, “historical science” is the science without concrete proof, requiring “belief” regardless of your preconceived notions, but evidence from experimental science has been consistent in pointing to the Biblical record and disproving the “no God version of historical science,” at least the “historical science” that disagrees with the Bible.  Note:  Creation is an historical science, an explanation of the origins of everything.  It explains that God, someone outside space and time, created everything and His influence remains, because He loves us.

This was a long definition, but when people debating against the Bible are forced to live by known scientific principles, they must produce some other parallel universe that “lights the match,” creating the Big Bang.  I believe the Bible, and God saying something and it suddenly happening is one gigantic Big Bang.  In other words, they can believe a parallel universe with such sophistication that they can enter our “lack of universe” to light a match under the singularity so that the Big Bang will have a cause.  Yet, believing that interruption into this universe is far more fanciful than believing that a loving God created the Heavens and the earth, designing it perfectly so that the earth is in a Goldilocks Zone, “just right” for so many things that it seems crazy that it happened by chance.  Yet, the agnostics that I know bristle at “intelligent design,” because the only way to really explain intelligent design is to then postulate an intelligent designer, or Creator, or God.

That is the point.  Critical thought, without the preconceived notion that God does not exist, always seems to point toward God.  Really, critical thought always points to God, but some people bury their heads in the sand.

This has been a return to the Heavy Topics series.  I plan to spend a few weeks in William Lane Craig’s book.  When I left off after John Calvin’s work (volume 1) before the Christmas break, I had finished my notes on his volume 1.  I may return with volume 2 next or move to other apologetics books or a philosophy book that I plan to purchase.

If you like these Tuesday morning essays about philosophy and other “heavy topics,” but you think you missed a few, you can use this LINK. I have set up a page off the home page for links to these Tuesday morning posts. I will continue to modify the page as I add more.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.