“O the depths of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God” (Rom.11: 33).
Paul reaches this great climax, he has reached the highest peak of the mountains, the Everest after writing of the marvelous doctrines from Romans 1:1-11:32. His intellect has been moved by the Spirit and words are not enough he says “O” what feeling and depth is in this letter as he worships the living God. He has not the word to describe it or the mind to explain it.
Today every thing starts with man and ends with him, this is anthropomorphic, but in Scripture every thing starts and ends with God, this is theocentric or God centered (Gen. 1:1 and Revelation 22:12). Man wants to know about himself but the highest and ultimate knowledge a man could have is the knowledge of God. He tells you about yourself, about sin, about salvation, about the past, about the future. Since He knows everything it is important we know Him. Then we will worship him with all our heart, soul and mind. No argument creates faith. They are useful but cannot lead to faith.
A. The Existence of God.
Many say they do not believe in God. However they present poor reason for their arguments. God will bring the evidence against Him that he has left in nature (Rom. 1:20). Man is inexcusable. “The fool has said in his heart there is no God” (Psalm14:1). These people are fools. The Bible does not argue about the existence of God it declares it. It does not give proofs about His existence it assumes it. Throughout history many philosophers, theologians, scientists, and others argue for and against the existence of God. A basic problem is that there is no universally accepted definition of God. There are many definitions of God’s existence but are contradictory to the Bible and are so non-specific or impersonal or without moral attributes that the Christian cannot accept them. However, it is certain that the evidence of a desire to know God or to seek out what and who He is suggests to man something or someone exists that meets the definition. Arguments for the existence of God typically include metaphysical, empirical, inductive, and subjective types. Viewpoints represented include atheism, either no belief in God or the view that God does not exist; theism, the view that God exists; and agnosticism, the view that whether or not God exists is unknown or unknowable. The existence of God is continually discussed and debated in the academic world both in philosophy and in popular culture.
B. No argument Creates Faith.
Arguments are useful but cannot lead to faith. Scriptures tell us no one can believe in God without faith, without the inward work of the Holy Spirit. Someone coming to God must “believe he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him” (Heb.11:6) and “without faith it is impossible to please Him.” Faith is a gift of God. When a person believes in God the proofs are of some help. You can make use of them to strengthen your faith, to show people they are inexcusable.
C. The Possibility of Knowing God.
Is God really there? Is he still alive? Can I know Him? History proves that mankind has an innate awareness of God, in all generations everywhere, people are conscious God exists. It is possible to know the God who made the universe and the world and gave us our existence.
a. Deism. Is the belief that God exists but He cannot be known. They believe that God made the universe like a clock fully wound up, and having done so, He set it down and had no more interest in it.
b. Experiential concept. There are those who believe God can be know through a particular experience or blessing. Experiences may delude us to the reality of who God is. We may have an experience though drugs, emotions, demonic activities it does not mean we have experienced the true and living God. This is wrong we need to know the Giver not the gift. This is starting from self. Blessing comes by being “pure in heart “Matt.5:8.”
c. What is it to know God? Jesus gives us the definition. “And this is eternal life, that they may know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent” (Jn.17:3). It is not what we have received or experiences we had, it is revealed. This may lead to experience.
D. The Incomprehensibility of God.
God cannot be fully comprehended or understood. “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways (Isa. 55:8). As we study His Word we know more about Him and His ways, we grasp some truths He reveals in His Word. But He is too awesome (unique) and far beyond us so we depend on what he reveals to us and trust His Spirit to teach us about Him. (1Tim. 1:16; Isa. 55:8-9). Even though He is not comprehensible He can be known. The partial knowledge we have is a real and true knowledge. The Bible teaches us enough about Him for us to be saved and to worship Him in His majesty and to go on learning more about Him.
F. The Cosmological Argument
Cosmological means “based upon the fact of the cosmos.” (Rom. 1:20). This is the argument from the universe and nature: that every effect has a cause. It has two basic assumptions:
1. Anything that begins must have a cause.
2. The universe had a beginning so it was caused.
This assumption is more commonly known as the principle of cause and effect. If something happens, something else must have caused it to happen. Since the universe exists someone caused it to exist and that someone is God. Matter is not eternal as is proved by the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics or entropy (some energy is becoming less available). The starry heavens look the same today as they did when Adam looked up at them except for a few “novas” dieing comets and meteorites. The sun, moon and stars were formed specifically to “be for signs, and seasons, and for days and for years” they were a sign (witness) of God’s creative power “and also to give light upon the earth” (Gen. 1:14-16). They witness to every nation and generation (Ps. 19:1). It actually shows knowledge. The apostle Paul used these arguments in his epistle to the Romans. (Rom. 1:18-22). The created universe is sufficient evidence for the eternal power and divine character of God. He uses the argument from nature as an effect, to God as the Cause, (Rom. 10:17-18). As the people of Derbe were about to offer a sacrifice to him and Barnabas, he told them “worship the living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them” (Acts 14:15-17). Paul starts his sermon on the Acropolis by pointing to the cosmos (Acts 17:24). When preaching to the heathen he usually starts out this way.
Astronomers never see evolution taking place they just “discover ” new stars. “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth… For He has spoken and it was done” (Ps. 33:6, 9). They were created mature just as Adam and Eve were created mature. They did not evolve from a “Big Bang” or from “continuous -creation” which are evolutionary theories. Heat does not pass form a cold body into a warm one, cars rust, clothes wear out, the universe is winding down, it all had a beginning. The creation of an active universe, calls for someone outside the cosmos to create it. He created it from nothing because matter is not eternal. No theory can adequately explain the cosmos in a better, scientific or intelligent way. The first cause was the eternal God it is absurd to say nothing came form nothing. Every finite and contingent being has a cause it cannot cause itself. There must be a first cause; or, there must be something that is not an effect.
Men try to explain the universe apart from the Creator and without regard to biblical evidence. Astronomers greatly disagree among themselves regarding the origin of the universe. Many oppose the Big Bang theory. Others repudiate the idea of a revolving universe or the expanding universe. Still others attack the idea of an evolution of the universe. Some just give up and say they don’t know. They continue to confuse us with a variety of ideas and theories and by a succession of ingenious cosmological ideas, none of which will remotely resemble the truth that strongly supports creationist cosmologies. Even the so-called Big Bang Theory, would have had to have been caused. Who caused the gases to make the explosion happen and who cause it to cool down, who put these laws into action? If the universe came from a big bang, then matter should be evenly distributed. What made that piece of matter, BEFORE it exploded and created this wonderful universe we live in? Scripture says “In the beginning God,” but they say in the beginning hydrogen.” Someone had to create the matter it did not come out of nothing. Nothing creates nothing something was created by someone, God created matter. Whatever begins to exist has a cause. The universe began to exist. It had a beginning. There is a cause for intelligent design (I.D.) it need a Designer. There is rational, empirical evidence for this.
The complexity of the cosmos points to the existence of an intelligent Creator. The Law of entropy, laws of chemistry, laws of physics, laws of biology, laws of nature etc are evidence of a complex Creator, God.
F. The Teleological Argument
This is the argument of order, purpose and design. The universe has purposes. It says that everything leads up to something-that is clearly evident. The word “teleological” is derived from the Greek word telos, meaning end or purpose. A) Every design has a designer. “He that planted the ear shall he not hear? He who formed the eye shall he not see?” (Ps. 94:9). “When I consider the heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have ordained, what is man that you are mindful of him, or the son of man that you visit him” (Ps. 8:3-4). “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows forth his handiwork. Day unto day utters speech, and night unto night shows knowledge” (Ps. 19:1-2). It actually shows knowledge. The apostle Paul used these arguments in his epistle to the Romans. (Rom. 1:18-22). The created universe is sufficient evidence for the eternal power and divine character of God. He uses the argument from nature as an effect, to God as the Cause, (Rom. 10:17-18). As the people of Derbe were about to offer a sacrifice to him and Barnabas, he told them “worship the living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them” (Acts 14:15-17).
b) Order never arises spontaneously to disorder. Our ordered universe is intricately designed and infinitely ordered it did not come from nothing nor develop by itself. The law of cause and effect is “If like laws do not produce like effects” science would be impossible. The world would be chaos not cosmos. To say that 0=0 is logical but some scientists and atheists go back to the beginning and say 0 can produce something. What they say began with nothing then is illogical to say 0 produces something. There first had to be a cause – God (Gen.1:1). The complex order of the universe calls for a belief in an intelligent Cause. Intelligent order cannot come from a non-intelligent origin. This is why scripture calls those who believe this “fools” (Ps. 14:1; Rom. 1:22, 25). Atheists are not born that way, it is normal for a child to believe in God and this “inate” belief must be “educated” out of him if he is to become an atheist, “they did not retain the him in their knowledge” (Rom. 1:28). The evidence is there for a Creator but men prefer to avoid him. They try as many means as possible to explain away the multitude of evidences of order and design in nature. Order cannot arise out of disorder. It is like throwing a lot of tools on the ground at random and a bunch of monkeys build a 747 aero plane or a magnificent bridge or a computer or a building or a watch. Or to give them a university course on biology and have them explain the human body and the brain. It doesn’t happen in the real world. These are not formed by “chance” as evolutionists believe. Complexity needs intelligence. Organization needs an Organizer. The magnificent array of complex effect in the universe demand an intelligent Cause – God.
c) Random mutations do not produce order but disorder (2nd Law of Thermodynamics). An impersonal atom cannot produce a person with feelings, emotions and thought. Design demands a designer. The earths hydrosphere, atmosphere and lithosphere are stressed in the rhetorical question of Isaiah (40:12) and answered in (Isa. 40:25; Ps. 104: 24). Life cannot come out of non-life. The sciences of biology and chemistry say “life comes out of life.” It did not come out of a series of “unknowns” chemicals or an ocean of soup which is unknown. This is being taught in most of our schools, colleges and universities in spite of the fact that there is not once piece of observable evidence. This is paganism (Ps. 115:4-8). Only God who is life can give life (Jn.1:4).
d) Designs in Created things. ( 1) DNA stands for DeoxyriboNucleic Acid. It is the genetic material of a cell. The chromosomes inside the nucleus (control centre) of the cell are made of DNA. It is very fine and tightly coiled but there may be as much as a meter in a single cell. DNA is really a code. DNA is divided into functional units. These functional units are genes which carry all the instructions for making up our body. So there is a gene that tells the body to have brown hair and so on.
Each gene is a code for a particular protein. Our bodies are made up of proteins. So the genes dictate how we are made and what our bodies look like. One aspect of this sustenance is that God has programmed the ‘recipe’ for all these structures on the famous double-helix molecule DNA. This recipe has enormous information content, which is transmitted one generation to the next, so that living things reproduce ‘after their kinds’ (Genesis 1, 10 times). ‘There is enough information capacity in a single human cell to store the Encyclopaedia Britannica, all 30 volumes of it, three or four times over. (2) The Atom. It is not a modern knowledge, the Greeks knew about it but did not know as much as we know. The tiny atom is made up of many minutes smaller parts, a form of microscopic universe in which there is continual action, motion and motion similar tour solar system. Why does it not all collapse, who put the super glue in it to hold it and our universe together, who designed it? (3) The telescope reveals the infinite “bigness” of God’s creation, and the microscope the infinitude of “smallness.” (4). Water. Which is made up of 2 gases, H2O two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen, a precise mathematical formula. Combined in a slightly different proportion results in a deadly poison. Who made it the life giving liquid living things need? (5) The Honey Bee. It is organized in a society 20-60000 individual bees. The queen who is much larger can produce 50000 eggs in one season (1500 a day), the drones or male bees who are in the minority and are driven out or killed at the end of the season, the worker bee (an undeveloped female) who do all the work. They feed the young, gather the honey, and build cells to store what they have gathered. (6) The migration of Birds turtles and fish, whales, salmon. How do wild geese and ducks know when to take flight in the spring and autumn? They travel thousands of miles and even end up in the same place as the generations before. (7) Weather cycles. Evaporation and precipitation. (8) Plant life and the information code put into the tiny seed. (8) The Wonders of the Snow. The form, design and beauty are amazing. It occurs when rain (precipitation) takes the form of minute crystals of ice, formed form vapour in the air when the temperature is below 32 Fahrenheit. (10) The complex order of the heavens. The mathematical equations, the distances are exact. A few degrees nearer the sun and we would fry a few degrees away and we would freeze. God measured it all out.
G. The Moral Argument
The moral argument for the existence of God examines the link between objective moral values, and God himself. It included our awareness of good and bad, our sense of right and wrong. What is the explanation of morality? Were do norms and standards come from? Why do we have ethics? Why do we have laws? Why eject all morality? Why do we say the holocaust was wrong? Why do we believe that the murder of parents of children is wrong? Why do we believe rape and child abuse is wrong? Some say morality is a biological adaptation or an accident of evolution. The last few generations have been taught evolution in schools and universities. Since it teaches that man is evolved from something that crawled out of the slime then evolved into a monkey then a man. People are taught they are animals and so they treat each other as animals, and show little respect for humanity. Crimes against people are at a high level. But when a person is taught they are in God’s image, they show more respect for people, for law, for norms and standards. Mankind still bears the image of God although it is a marred image. It is like a beautiful master piece with a can of black oil thrown over it but the original is still underneath. The believer “seeks the kingdom of God and his righteousness” (Mat.6:33), it is first on the list not pleasure. “at his right hand are pleasures forever more” (Ps. 16:11). Morally and ethically the Christian asks what would Christ do or say in any given situation. The Bible is our guide for our moral standards. The Decalogue of Human Freedom is the Ten Commandments (Ex.20). Men have a moral conscience, even though there may be differences they came form God but have been corrupted.
H. The Anthropological Argument
The nature and explanation of man. Why is he here? Where did he come from? What is his purpose? Who is he? Why does he have a conscience? Why does he have a mind? Why des he have moral judgments? Why does he have reason? God is a moral being. The Bible says man was made in “the image of God.” (Gen.1:26-28). It is a spiritual image but closely attached to the physical. Paul said, “Put on the new (character) …..according to the image who created him” (Col. 3:10; Eph. 4:24). Man differs to the animals in that he is aware of God and has a desire to know and worship him from an early age, he has a moral and spiritual conscience, culture, he learns it is indistinct like an animals.
I. The Ontological Argument
This argument is based upon the Being of God. The Bible declares who God is. He is not a myth, a man made god like Hercules, or Apollo, or some other pagan god. The true and living God is a spirit, omnipresent, omniscient. He is not evolving into a greater God, there is nothing higher or greater than him. The idea of God win us was put there by God.
J. The Rational Argument
The world operates by order and natural law. (Job. 38:22-23). The earth rotates on its axis in 24 hours at 1000 MPH . This gives balance to nature, vegetation etc. The moon is 240000 miles away it guides the motions of the sea. God’s creation is perfectly balanced otherwise mean would not be able to exist. There is a thinking mind behind it. i.e. We are not a lucky cosmic accident.