Answering Objections on God's Existence

We are we are beginning we are at class 5 tonight which means we have gone over the midpoint over the over the center line as it were. And where you're going to be tonight. Dealing with a specific objection.

And we're going to be talking about how we can interact with this specific objection. So we're going to in the last half of the course be dealing with a little bit more of the practical applications of all of the well theory and philosophy that we've talked about in the first half of the course.

Hopefully you all did your reading. Hopefully you came tonight prepared to engage. I do have a couple of handouts. They were over there. I don't know if they've made their way around. I've been here. Thank you.

You should have. Of course your well I mean I have mine here. Excuse me. You should have a copy of chapter 7 and 8 that's next week and a copy of the classical arguments for the existence of God. That is what we're going to be going over after the break.

That's what we're going to be talking about after the break. So set those off to the side for now and very quickly I want to ask you some questions on last week's class. So if you were here and you took notes you may want to grab your notes and take them out so that you can answer these questions.

We talked last week about objections and object tours that we face. What are the three categories of objections that we will see. What's one of them. Janice. The existence and nature of God. That's one of the objections.

And we said there are many arguments that come under that category. But that's a specific category. The existence and nature of God. What's this. Another one. Yes James. Nature nature and reliability of scripture.

Yes it's the second one. And what's the third one. I saw another hand James or I'm yeah John. Interpretation application of scripture. Very good. All right from there. We said there were five different types of people that might use one of these objections.

What was one of those atheism. That's atheist agnostics was number one Bobby. Good. Number two anybody secularist spiritualists. Number three false religions. False religion is number four heresy. Number five hyper skeptics anti-theists.

I have a friend of mine who is an evangelist and he goes and he's any he engages when they have these these big events. I don't know if you know this but there are events that go on where atheists will gather together and and encourage one another in their atheism.

It's like it's just it's just another religion. They're just you know getting together to encourage their disbelief in God there. I think the free free thinkers can't rally or something they call it but he goes to these things and he talks to people engages with people.

And a few years ago down and I think it was down in Stark. They put up a monument to something some some ungodly thing. They put up this monument and so my friend stood on it to preach like stood on their monument to preach the gospel.

And he said the whole time he was scared to death because he said he was about this high off the ground standing on it preaching. He thought they were going to come and clip his legs you know just because he said if somebody would have come and not that you know I mean anybody can be immoral.

He wasn't saying that necessarily. They would do that because they're atheists. Or we were just afraid because he's on this sort of precarious perch. And if what he said would have made somebody mad enough you know these hyper skeptics you know he said if they would have come and hit his legs he would have probably fallen to his death because it was you know five feet off the ground he probably would have fell headfirst you know.

So just just made me think about that when I think about hyper skeptics and I do want to apologize right off my my voice is going as you can probably tell and I don't think that I'm sick. I don't have any fever or anything like that.

I think it's just over time. You know my voice needs a break and I haven't really had one recently so you may find that it may be hard to hear me at times tonight. I'll try not to let that happen. So tonight we're going to begin to unpack some of the objections and provide answers tonight specifically we're going to provide an answer to this if you face somebody and they say to you I do not believe God exists.

That's the specific objection we're going to deal with tonight and provide some answers to that objection. And I want to just write off. I want to say this please do not try to memorize these answers this I'm not giving you a script.

You know if one of the things you'll learn if you ever do spend any time if you ever go and talk to say Jehovah Witness or anything like that you'll you'll learn. A lot of those people are in their mind going off of a script.

They've learned to memorize a script and if you start talking to them they have specific scripted answers to like if you bring up John 1 1 to a Jehovah Witness boom they they've got their scripted answer because they they know what you're going to say and boom they go they have their answer.

And that's not we're not doing that. We're not creating little just robots that can repeat stuff. I want us to understand the concepts of what we're talking about and then you formulate your own way of speaking to people.

This is why my favorite thing to do when a Jehovah Witness comes to my house which is rare anymore is I like Ray Comfort's knife in the back analogy where you know you person knocks on the door open the door hi how are you.

You know and you know if they're Jehovah Witnesses almost immediately because they're going to be holding literature from either the awake or some other Watchtower publication and so what I what I do is I listen for a moment to their initial spiel and then I just say I want to ask you a question if you came here today and you found me dying I had a knife in my back and I only had two minutes to live.

And that's all the time that you have to share your message with me. I want you to tell me how I can be saved. Go that's and I've done that. And first the the look of stunned because they're not used to that question kind of throws them off their their script.

But it also points out a fundamental flaw in the Jehovah Witness theology. They don't have a gospel that can save a dying man. They don't have a gospel that will save someone because their gospel is based on works.

They don't have a gospel in fact they have bad news not goodness. And so that's a way to begin the conversation to point out the error in their system. But that again as I said is just you know if you if you learn a script and somebody somebody addresses something you're just not ready for it's gonna throw you off your script.

So it's best just not to do that. So instead of trying to memorize answers I want you to internalize the reason and principle behind what we're talking about tonight and as we consider specific objections tonight and next week is next week we're going to look at the problem of evil.

Listen for the underlying presuppositions of the of the objector himself. Be aware that when the objector is coming at you he is often stealing from the Christian worldview to make his argument. Make notes of that and understand this.

There may be times when you run into people who argue better than you and just because someone argues better does not make their argument correct. Dr. James White points this out very well because he is a seasoned debater having been in over 150 public moderated debates and he is a reformed Baptist.

But he will sit down and he and I've talked about this before he'll sit down with people and he'll pretend to be a Mormon and he'll argue not. I mean people know it. But what I'm saying is he can argue against the position because he's such a good arguer he's such a good debater that even if it's a position he doesn't hold he can argue it because he's so good at arguing.

And this is one of those things that we have to remember. We're not seeking to become the best debater in the world. We just want to present the truth. And just because someone argues well does not make them right.

Also just because someone is an expert in one area does not make them an expert in all areas. I've talked to people and and they they they're experts in something and they think that that expertise in that area makes them somehow able to opine about other things.

Give you an example from my own life. It's probably won't apply to you guys in an immediate sense but you know I spent a lot of time with karate people because I do karate been karate 20 27 years and you get around them the karate masters and I've been they've been karate 40 50 years.

And these guys are they're the head you know they get to talking and everybody's oh this guy knows all this stuff. Usually they don't. They know about karate. They know that about the one thing. The same thing happens.

I mean think about Bill Nye. All right. Bill Nye the engineer. That's what he is. He has a degree in engineering his engineering science. Well it's yeah it's a one of the sciences one of the ways that science is executed.

And so is he a scientist in that sense. Yes. But he speaks on global warming as if he is an expert. He speaks on abortion as if he is an expert. He speaks on human sexuality as if he is an expert. He's neither a theologian neither a philosopher.

But he speaks as if he is and people go oh he's the Bill Nye the science guy. He knows all these things. No he really doesn't. So can somebody be good at arguing. Yes doesn't make him right. And just because someone's an expert in one area does not make them an expert in every area.

So keep that in mind don't ever let somebody talk down to you just because they may be an expert in whatever their field is. And I want to say that's one of the reasons why very rarely anymore do I make scientific arguments when I'm discussing God's existence because I'm not a scientist.

I know a little bit about science. I know a little bit about a lot but I don't know enough to have a real live scientific conversation that goes deep into the weeds with a scientist. So it's really not my goal to have a scientific conversation now that's not saying I won't reference certain scientific principles which we'll see tonight.

But ultimately I'm not out there trying to you know make scientific arguments. I give you a good example and this is from my own life and failure. When I first became a believer I really started looking at all the arguments for evolution and I was like oh that's so terrible.

It's not scientific. And I came to this conclusion entropy denies the evolution. And so the second law of thermodynamics is the law of entropy. And entropy makes evolution impossible. Therefore if you believe in entropy which is a scientific fact you shouldn't believe in evolution.

And I said that to a bunch of people because I thought it was right. It's not right. Entropy does not deny evolution and that's not a good scientific argument. But you've probably heard that you've probably heard people say the second law of thermodynamics denies the principles of evolution.

It doesn't. It's not a scientific it's not a good scientific argument. Scientists know about entropy. And so if you try to use this argument that you don't really understand because I didn't know what it meant I just heard it and it sounded good you're gonna end up in a bad way.

If you try to make arguments that you really don't know are true and you really don't understand. So you got to be careful with that am I making sense. So I realize this may seem belabored but my point is to say that we need to be.

We need to be honest and how we present the faith and how we present our answers to objections and understand that we're not standing on our scientific pedigree. We're standing on the Word of God. That's my basis not the the scientific principles of entropy or any of that stuff.

I'm standing on the Word of God. So how do we respond to someone who says I don't believe in God. Well where would this fall into the category that we discussed. Of the three categories this is the very first one a person who denies the existence or nature of God specifically his existence.

But what did I say last week about this. They may remember it's the least common least common. The least common person you're going to run into most likely especially in this area of the world is somebody who says I don't believe God exists.

Now you might. Pew Research. Pew Research Center states that the number of people who identify as atheists doubled from 2007 to 2014. Does anybody want to take a stab at the doubling of people who claim to be atheists.

What's the number. No no percent. What's the percentage of people who claim to be atheists. It went from 1 .6 to 3 .1. They went from 1 .6 to 3 .1 from 2007 to 2014. So again that's out of every hundred people it went from one and a half people and I get half a person there went from.

It went from one to two people for two to three people basically four out of every hundred. Now again though we're speaking of a very particular category people who claim that God does not exist or they say I do not believe in God understand this.

That is a powerful statement and very few people are willing to make it. Some people would say I don't know if God exists or I'm not sure if God exists. But for somebody to say I do not believe in God I have a relative right now she does not believe in God.

At least what she says is I don't believe in God. But it's always followed by the. But the last time we talked to her I was so funny she says. But my kids do and my husband does. Now none of them are churchgoers.

Understand this. But her little kids who grew up in a home with a mother who doesn't believe that there's they know they want to pray and that's that she won't pray with him. I mean consider that the reality of it.

But that's that's the point. Right is even the kids know right. So it's even in her house she's only 25 percentage. In her own home she makes up less than the majority. Al Mohler said this. I'll read this to you.

He said that basically atheism was not even used in any significant way as a as a word until the 16th century. I'll read the quote he says atheism has appeared in some form in Western culture since the midpoint of the last millennium the word atheist did not exist within the English language until the reign of Queen Elizabeth the first.

The earliest atheists were most often philosophical and theological skeptics who denied the existence of a personal God. Nevertheless the God they almost always rejected is the God of the Bible. In other words a specific rejection of Christianity.

The earliest atheists were usually notorious as well as were well-known heretics. Their denials of God and the Christian faith were well documented and understood. But the early atheists had a huge problem.

How could they explain the existence of the cosmos with a clear answer without a clear answer to that question. Their arguments for atheism failed to gain much traction as even the ancient Greeks understood.

One of the most fundamental philosophical questions is this. Why is there something rather than nothing. Every worldview is accountable to that question. In other words every philosophy of life must offer some account of how we in the world around us came to be the creation myths of ancient cultures and the philosophical speculations of the Greeks served as evidence of the hunger in the human intellect that takes form as what we now call the question of origins.

For some time atheists were hard-pressed to offer any coherent answer to that question. Once they ruled got out of the picture they had virtually no account to offer regarding creation. Of course that all changed with Charles Darwin in quote that's that was a long quote.

But that was Moeller's statement basically saying up until about the 16th century there were no any anyone who identified as atheists. And even then when the atheists were making themselves known the question was where'd we come from.

You were here. How did we get here and and and so it wasn't until the advent of Darwinism that it became actually possible for someone to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist. That's what Richard Dawkins says.

He says Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist. That was Richard Dawkins statement. So unfortunately in this class we won't get to really dive into Darwinism and its many problems.

But for now it's important to note that most of the people we will talk to who claim to be atheists will come from an evolutionary worldview because they don't have any other answer. Most of the people that we talked to who say they don't don't believe in God will almost inevitably believe in evolution as the answer to origins.

Because they don't have any other answer to offer unless they say we came from aliens which is actually gaining traction. Aliens is the new answer. Where did we come from a god and a person. Yeah see I don't know about that.

Yeah. Yes sir. Yeah. Now when was when was what. What do you remember. What century that was. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well and again that's the rise and you know modernism and the and we see all that. And it's a it's a serious issue.

And that's why we have more today than ever before people who are just saying there is no God. But at that point in time it wasn't tenable. Nobody would accept that idea. Now for just a moment I do want to say something about Darwinism.

If you're unfamiliar with that term what I mean Darwin of course is the one most noted for explaining his understanding of the origin of species. If you ever if you ever hear people say usually people say the origin of the species.

That's not what the book is called. The book is called the origin of species. It's the it's the idea that all species come from a single ancestor. That is Darwinism. And he didn't really invent the idea he built on the shoulders of people who had come before him and his as Richard Dawkins said it made people who doubted or did not want to believe in the existence of God feel like they had an intellectually fulfilled way of doing so.

But here's the thing about Darwinism that you need to remember because you will face people who say I'm an evolutionist or I'm a Darwinist or whatever you need to understand that it does not. It does not deal with the most profound questions of human existence because it proposes a naturalistic answer for the origin of life.

But it does not provide the mechanism for that origin. Darwinism is about change within an existing system. It does not deal with the origin of the system. Well but that's not even Ed I know what you're talking about.

But that's not even the point I'm making. The point I'm making is they deal with the changes. They don't deal with where the starting point is. See the idea that everything came from a single cell. That's the argument.

But a cell itself is complex. And the inner workings of a cell are in fact so complex that they could not have come together by accident. That's Michael be he's argument. In the book Darwin's black box he proposes the idea of irreducible complexity that even if we go back to the cell and say the cell is the beginning of everything and everything comes from the single cell.

The single cell itself is so constructed that it is it could not have come about by random chance. It had to have been created. And irreducible complexity I've talked about in previous sermons. He uses the example of a mousetrap.

He says a mousetrap has five pieces. It has the base it has the spring it has the latch it has the trigger and it has the hammer. The part that slams. He says if one of those pieces were missing the mousetrap would not work.

So the question is when did when did it become a mousetrap. Well when all the pieces came together. And the argument is what was it before. It was nothing. It was pieces. How did the pieces come together.

It had to. It demanded an intelligent creator to put that mouse or something as simple as a mousetrap is irreducibly complex. You take one piece away it doesn't function. And his argument is the same for the cell.

Now I have a picture on that. If you go to the Sovereign Grace Academy page I posted a picture of a cell. I know some of you aren't on Facebook but the picture of the cell that was so intricate and so so amazingly designed.

You can just google just google the the live a living cell and what is involved in a living cell and see the ideas. Darwin believed that that was it was just it was simplest matter of what creates all things.

It was this it was it was this it was it was simple. But it's not simple. It's highly complex. When we get down into the the nanos if you get down into the the microscopic things we find out that complexity doesn't end.

How complex are. You look at DNA and how complex is our DNA. And it's it's so small it's almost invisible even with the technology that we have it's so small. So the concept of well we all came from a simple cell.

No such thing no such thing. So here here is my here really all that's this introduction. Here's here's how I would respond if someone were to say I do not believe in God. If someone were to simply just you know and I've had this happen so I can speak from experience on this.

And I said well I just don't believe God exists. My first question to them I wouldn't go. I would I wouldn't go into the I wouldn't immediately go to Romans 1 and say you know God exists. You're suppressing that truth and unrighteousness.

You need to repent and believe. Now I may get there. But I'm not necessarily going to start there. My first question would be how do you believe life came to exist. That would that would be it first. I do not believe God exists.

Okay I do not believe God exists. How do you believe life came to exist. And if they say evolution my answer would be evolution is not an answer to how life came to exist. Because it does not. It does not give an answer to the origin of life only how life has supposedly changed through the process of the survival of the fittest.

Well that's where we're going. It's not example how life came to exist just how life changes. And see. I don't deny and here's the thing don't get don't throw your tomatoes. Yet. I don't deny that evolution exists now.

I deny Darwinian evolution because Darwinian evolution says that all life came from a single cell. Therefore you and I have the same ancestors as do the orangutan and the and the bonobos and all the different and all that we all have the same ancestor.

That is not true biblically. The Bible says I have an ancestor. His name is Adam and God created him specifically in his own image. That's my ancestor. And he didn't come from an animal. He came from God.

He was created by God. So immediately I deny the idea that me and the monkeys and the zebras and everything came from one single source. The Bible doesn't teach that. And I don't believe it. But I don't have to argue with them about change within the species.

Because they'll say well don't you believe humans are evolving. And I'll say well in one sense yes. Because for instance the today boys in high school are setting records in track and field that would have won them gold medals a hundred years ago at the Olympics because of better diet because of more training because of better exercise methodologies and because of all kinds of things that create better athletes we now have again people young boys setting records that were that were or beating records that were set by professional athletes or at least athletes at the top of their field a hundred years ago.

So is that evolution. No it's a. It's a but it is change. It's growth. In one sense survival of the fittest is not necessarily anti-biblical. It's built in. God builds in the the that strength overcomes and builds and grows.

And growth and all these things are you know think about life expectancy. I mean the Puritans. You know the life expectancy was a 30 40 years old. I mean I was I'm already dead. You know I read you know.

But right now what's life expectancy. He's Bobby's counting down the days apparently 78 .6 years. It's the same. So right away if someone were to say I don't believe God exists my first question would be how do you believe life came to exist.

If they said evolution I would say that's not an answer. In fact if you want an exit if you want a picture of this happening watch the movie Expelled with Ben Stein. Because at the end of the movie Ben Stein who's not a Christian but he is a Jew expelled at the end of the movie he sits down with Richard Dawkins and he asked Richard Dawkins where did life come from.

Richard Dawkins says evolution he says. But that's not origins. How did it start there. Dawkins did not give him a satisfactory answer. In fact his answer was he moves to aliens. Perhaps aliens seeded.

Or if I'm lying I'm dying. Bobby you've seen it. It's not. It's exactly. He moves to some other source. Because if you do not believe the Bible you will believe anything. And he has to find something to produce the seed.

But he stays with his presupposition because he says even if it were aliens those aliens came about through Darwinian evolution. That's almost a direct quote from the movie. So what's the presupposition of the person.

That again we are. So we're going to identify presuppositions. The presupposition one is that evolution can explain origins. And it can't. And to evolution is true in the sense that they believe Darwinian ism is true.

So they've already they've already provided you two of their presuppositions. Remember I said we're presuppositional apologetics. We look. We not only think of our own presuppositions we listen for theirs.

And so at some point in this conversation my next statement would probably be something like this. Do you want to know what the Bible says about how life came to exist. Two simple questions. How do you think life came to exist.

Let them answer however they want to answer. Okay we were born off the back of a turtle. Whatever. Let them give you whatever answer doesn't matter. It's not that you're not listening. I am listening.

I'm listening for their presuppositions. I'm listening to. Maybe perhaps what their level of education is. Where what have they learned. And I'm listening for that. As I asked the question how do you think life came to be.

Whatever their answer though is I will immediately go to. Do you want to know what the Bible says. That's fine. No that's what I'm saying. If they say that's what. That's a good thing Ross. But you just said if you say that's what I was taught in school I would say you know what.

I went to a public high school. And you know what my science teacher told me. This is honest truth. My science told me teacher told me. He said I'm going to tell you what the book says. But I don't believe.

It's true. Because I believe God's Word. That's what my site mr. Kelly and my science teacher my eighth grades. Or I'm sorry 11th grade science teacher. He said he said I'll tell you what the book says.

He says. But I don't believe it. Because I believe the Word of God. So praise God. And absolutely absolutely. That's what the movie expelled is about. Expelled is about teachers being losing their positions because they're teaching intelligent design.

For me to be in that class and in my final paper I had to write I had to choose a position with the three scenarios that he gave me as far as.

What's gonna happen like in ten times. Interestingly enough I just have to say I don't mean interrupt you but your what was the classes humanities. But he had you right about the end times. Yeah the singularity.

He still listened to what I had to say as far as in my paper and you still got.

A good great praise the Lord. And again what. What is apologetics. Giving a defense for the hope that is within us. That's what you did. You said this is what I believe. It's true. Based on the Word of God.

That is my authority. This is why I'm saying. I'm not teaching you tricks. I'm not teaching you off. He says this. You say this. You suck. He jobs. You know whatever you know it's not that. It's. It's just two simple questions.

How do you think life began. And can I tell you what the Bible says you. So that's not much of an apologetic. You'd be amazed how much traction the Bible can get. Because it is the Word of God. It actually does what it says.

It can do. The Word of God changes hearts. What is tell us faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of Christ. Right. Let me just tell you what the Bible says. The Bible says God made the whole world.

You say well I know that. But yeah. But but have you ever really thought about what that means. That means that everything in the world that you see that is an effect. Actually does have a cause. And everything in the world that you see is dependent actually does have an independent creator.

And everything in the world that you see that has order. Actually had one who is himself orderly. Make it. That's what the Bible teaches. It teaches that it makes sense of the world around us. It makes sense of order.

It makes sense of purpose. And it makes sense of morality kind of hinting at what we're gonna get to. Right. What are we gonna get to later. The classical arguments. And what are they. Classical arguments.

As the world is orderly the world is purposeful. The Lord the world has men have morality and purpose. And the Bible gives an answer for that. And your worldview doesn't. And you don't got to slap them with that.

But you can kind of bring that out. You know like I've told the story I think I even told it in this class. But I always like to bring up that young man who sat next to me at the restaurant and he was here.

Why do you believe God exists. And we talked to him and talked to him. And finally I just said I said you see the girl over there. She's waiting on you. She looks rather uncomfortable that you came to talk to me.

Yeah. That's my girlfriend. Do you love her. Yeah I love her. Why. She's nothing but a sack of stardust. I said I said a rather attractive sack of stardust. But still but still from your worldview she has no intrinsic value.

Her love for you is nothing but the firing of synapses in her brain. Her emotions are nothing more than chemical changes in her body. And at the end of her life she will be nothing but stardust. From stardust she came.

And from stardust she shall return. Is that all she is. Of course not. And you know that. Yeah. It's getting back to. Yeah. And it's really though it's all of it. And what we're gonna see. It's a transcendental argument.

Kind of fits into all of the classical arguments. Because it all goes back to the very reason for reason is that God exists. He thought about it. You know again he didn't fall down and believe in Jesus.

And you know start praying at that moment. And I can't remember every word that we had. But he was a very polite young man. Again he pulled up his chair at my table and asked if he could talk to me. Because he heard me talking to somebody else.

I'm never without loudness in my voice I guess. And I said his girlfriend was a little embarrassed but she made for a great illustration. So this is where again I would begin that the first question how do you believe life came to exist.

Second question. Do you know what the Bible says about how life came to exist. And you ought to know that answer. But you know if you don't spend some time with what the Bible teaches. The Bible teaches God made everything out of nothing because he has the power of being and creation in himself.

The Bible says God made all things very good. All of the. And that's important for next we could talk about the existence of evil. God made the world good. And you might even throw this at him. Say do you believe it's possible that something would come from nothing.

Do you believe that it's possible that something would come from nothing. And if they say no then say well then you do believe that something is eternal. Because you do believe there's something here now.

Right. Unless you believe this is all an illusion again the brain in the vat. They may they may believe they're a brain in the vat. But if you believe there's something here now which if you don't you know reach out and pinch them on the arm or something that you believe something is here now then that would necessitate something has always been.

But everything you see is in effect. What's the cause. What's the first cause. They might say well matter and energy. And they might take a scientific attack and say listen matter is neither created nor destroyed.

Energy is neither created nor destroyed. In fact matter is simply a form of energy. And so energy is neither created nor destroyed. Right. That's the argument. Say yes. But energy that is undirected and matter that is unintelligent does not rise and give rise to that which is orderly and intelligent and purposeful.

So what you're saying is an impersonal force gave birth to a personal universe that we are able to relate to. Yes. I just want to show you something John because you're going to be happy. Where is it.

Right here. Because that is the thing. Right. If you say God created everything. The very next statement is often if God made everything who made God and this gives you an opportunity to become not just an apologist but a theologian.

And by the way if you want to be a good apologist first become a good theologian. If you really want to defend your faith in God grow in your faith and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ no more about him.

Because the answer to that really is this. God says in his word I am what the word am means there's it means exist. And that speaks of God's aseity. Aseity means that he has being in himself and that he is the only one who is absolutely independent.

God depends upon nothing needs nothing and has nothing outside himself that he is contingent for his for his own being. See Christians believe in a major distinction. And the distinction is the distinction between the creator and the creature.

And God is the creator and everything else earth moon sun star Saturn Pluto still a planet all of that all that is creature. And that's the one great divide is the divide between creator and creature.