Is belief in God reasonable? No, really. Is it? Many thinkers from scientists to philosophers have put the idea of God to the test. There are many who accept its validity, or possibility, while many still remain who deny such an absurd notion. There are countless reasons people choose to believe, or disbelieve, but what is the intellect behind their decision? For Christians reading this, search your doubts and push forward to understand why you believe what you do. For the skeptic, or the searching, set aside time to reason through this to better understand why so many people believe something that so many claim to be delusional.
As a disclaimer, the argument given below does not account for the view of Young-Earth Creationists. You are however invited to think through the argument to see if there is more to this than the Young-Earth perspective has to offer. Assume bias to Old-Earth Creationism.
What is the Cosmological Argument?
The Kalaam Cosmological Argument (KCA) has roots as far back as the prime-mover concept introduced by Aristotle. Over the years, the argument has moved through several different worldviews, namely Islam, Judaism and Christianity. Today, thinkers such as William Lane Craig, ph.D of philosophy at Talbot University , and many others in respected academic fields, debate over the argument’s validity. So what exactly is the Kalaam Cosmological Argument? The KCA is a set of premises that lead to the necessary conclusion that the universe needs an explanation outside of itself. The argument goes like this:
- Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
- The universe began to exist.
- Therefore, the universe has a cause.
To truly understand how such an absurd conclusion is reached, we must first understand the reasoning behind each of the first two premises. If even one of these two is false, then the conclusion does not logically follow, and the argument is voided.
The First Premise: Whatever Begins to Exist Has A Cause
When was the last time dinner made itself? Even in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, the one exception to magical creation is that magic cannot create food from nothing. In every day life, people can observe the fact that new things do not pop into existence. They must have a cause. If things could truly just come into existence then we should see it happening all the time. However, reality says no to the notion of self-creation. Does material change form to “make” new substances? Absolutely! Chemistry proves this! So does that not mean that new things do not need a cause? Well it does if you think that a chemical reaction is not a cause, but this would be a foolish claim. Think of your personal coming of existence. You did not simply appear into existence. You were created by the combination of two different sex cells. Many chemical reactions happened during this process, but to say they were uncaused is nonsense. If new humans could just come into existence with no cause, then maybe the virgin birth would not be such a hard grasped reality for non-believers.
The Second Premise: The Universe Began to Exist
In his book, A Universe from Nothing, theoretical physicist and cosmologist, Lawrence Krauss, asserts that we can indeed get something from nothing. He argues that particle fields pre-existing the universe are responsible for setting up the reactions necessary to make a universe possible. “The universe is the way it is, whether we like it or not. The existence or nonexistence of a creator is independent of our desires. A world without God or purpose may seem harsh or pointless, but that alone doesn’t require God to actually exist.” (Something From Nothing, Krauss). Krauss claims that the universe needs no metaphysical explanation for its existence. It just is. Ironically, this does not solve any problem of the origin of the universe. It only denies reason to search further and the methods by which we do so. In the book, Krauss points to particles that have “always existed” as the reason for the “creation” of the universe. Krauss is correct about one thing: other bodies did indeed come from such particles. Science upholds the notion. However, his logic fails to test and find a point of origin of the physical. Krauss tries to prove the universe began existing from these particles, but this does not make logical sense. This is because it fails to give an answer to where these physical particles themselves originated. The logical fallacy that Krauss and many other scientists make in trying to find universal origin from “nothing” is that they actually have to redefine “nothing” to fit their models’ conclusion. When they say the universe can come from “nothing”, they do not mean “nothing” the way it’s defined. What they actually mean is that the universe came from something, but define it as “nothing” since there are no smaller physical bodies pre-existing them from what we know. These types of models rely on the universe being eternal. But, is the universe eternal? Is the material world all that ever has been or will be? To answer these questions, we need to delve into science.
First let us examine energy. The First Law of Thermodynamics states, “energy cannot be created nor destroyed”. This however only means that energy itself will always continue to exist in the same amounts. The Second Law of Thermodynamics tells us that the universe is slowly running out of usable energy! “When energy transfer occurs, some will be transformed into less useful energy (waste heat)”. The point is this: an eternal universe would have long run out of usable energy by now. The continuation of the universe depends upon energy being transformed uniformly. However, scientists observe that around 50% of energy is given off as waste heat, while 40% is decomposed and only about 10% is consumed. Waste energy is almost useless. It literally will never be transformed again. This means that the universe has an inherent starting point of all matter and energy, and an inherent ending point of energy, though matter will continue. Through this knowledge of energy, we can determine that the universe is, in fact, not eternal in the past.
Second, we examine the expansion of the universe. The universe is expanding at a very rapid pace. We know this pace as the speed of light. Based on what we observe, the universe is rapidly getting larger. For expansion, something must originate from a central point. Ripples in a pond do not arbitrarily start. They originate from the point of impact of a stone or stick hitting the water. The same applies to the universe. Ripples of existence expand out from a central point. Take away this point and the universe no longer abides by the laws of physics. Alexander Friedmann and George Lemaitre used the equations proposed by Einstein in his General Theory of Relativity to prove that the universe is indeed expanding. Later, in 1929, Edwin Hubble measured the Red Shift of light from distant galaxies to conclude that the universe is expanding from a central point in the finite past. More recently, cosmologists Arvind Borde, Alan Guth, and Alexander Vilenkin proved, “Any universe, which has, on average,been expanding throughout its history cannot be eternal in the past, and must have an absolute beginning.” Vilenkin himself asserts, “[scientists] can no longer hide behind a past-eternal universe. There is no escape, they have to face the problem of a cosmic beginning.” 
From these two proofs, we can conclude that premise two is true. The universe did in fact begin to exist in the finite past. Because the first two premises hold true against the tests of science and metaphysics, the conclusion MUST be true.
The Conclusion: The Universe Has a Cause
Because the two premises were true, we can now logically accept the fact that the universe has a cause. But what exactly can cause such an amazing phenomenon like the Big Bang? The answer has to be something that is spaceless, timeless, immaterial, uncaused, and incredibly powerful. What fits this definition best? God. God does not abide by time, nor does he take up space like material objects. He also cannot be material lest he be composed of something pre-existing, and he must also be incredibly powerful to jump start such a thing as the universe. Therefore, it is very reasonable to say that God is the cause of the universe.
Crimson Calvary 