Class # 5. Does Absolute Truth Exist? A Basic Guide to Christian Apologetics

Session # 5 – Sunday May 10th

Does Absolute Truth Exist? A Basic Guide to Christian

Apologetics

Session # 5 – Sunday May 10thDoes Absolute Truth Exist?

A Basic Guide to Christian ApologeticsHey All: We had a great time on Sunday morning Discussing God’s Creation. For those who attended, thanks and here is the PowerPoint we used on Sunday.

For all of you who were not able attend class, please remember that the PowerPoint does not include my lecture, and comments or the discussion that took place in class. However, the PowerPoint should be a good outline for you.

See you all next Sunday as we finish “ In the Beginning There Was a Great S.U.R.G.E”

Class Thesis Statement

“Once one looks at the evidence, it takes more faith to be a non-Christian than it does to be a Christian”

REVIEW SESSION Can We Handle the Truth?

Truth is absolute, exclusive and knowable.

To deny absolute truth and its know-ability is self-defeating. Any statement that is un-affirmable (contradicts itself) must be false.

Truth is not dependent on our feelings or preferences. Something is true whether we like it or not.

REVIEW SESSION Can We Handle the Truth?

People often get their beliefs from their parents, friends, childhood religion, feelings, or culture. While such beliefs could be true, it’s possible they may not be.

We can use philosophical principles, including those found in logic and science, to test the truth of beliefs.

Mission Trails Regional ParkA Personal Story

The Twelve Points That Show Christianity Is True

Truth about reality is knowable.

The opposite of true is false.

It is true that the theistic God exists. This is evidenced by the:a. Beginning of the universe

(Cosmological Argument)b. Design of the universe

(Teleological Argument / Anthropic Principlec. Design of Life (Teleological Argument)d. Moral Law (Moral Argument

Session 5. May 10th

It is true that the theistic God exists. This is evidenced by the :a. Beginning of the universe

(Cosmological Argument)S.U.R.G.E.Second Law of ThermodynamicsUniverse is ExpandingRadiation From the Big BangGreat Galaxy SeedsEinstein Theory of Relativity

In the Beginning There Was a Great S.U.R.G.E.

“Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind.”

Albert Einstein

Cosmological ArgumentFive Lines of Scientific Evidence

Second Law of ThermodynamicsUniverse is Expanding

Radiation from the Big BangGreat Galaxy SeedsEinstein’s Theory of Relativity

S.U.

R.G.E.

National Academy of SciencesAlbert Einstein Memorial

April 22, 1979

At the dedication ceremony, physicist John Archibald Wheeler described the statue as "a monument to the man who united space and time into space-time...a remembrance of the man who taught us...that the universe does not go on from everlasting to everlasting, but begins with a bang”.

Sculptor, Robert Berks

Emerald Middle School East Coast Trip 2007

Washington DC /New York City

Sculptor, Robert Berks

Elm and holly grove in the southwest corner of the Nation Science Academy grounds

Washington DCNational Mall

Sculptor, Robert Berks

Kennedy CenterPotomac River, adjacent to the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C.

Elm and holly grove in the southwest corner of the Nation Science Academy grounds

•The Theory of General Relativity•The Photoelectric Effect•The Equivalence of Energy and Matter

•"As long as I have any choice in the matter, I shall live only in a country where civil liberty, tolerance, and equality of all citizens before the law prevail.”

•"Joy and amazement at the beauty and grandeur of this world of which man can just form a faint notion ...”

•"The right to search for truth implies also a duty; one must not conceal any part of what one has recognized to be true."

.

Albert Einstein 1879-1955. German-born, theoretical physicist. Professor at the Berlin Academy of Science. 1933 – visiting USA and chose not to go back to Germany because of the political situation in Germany and the treatment of Jews by the Nazis. 1940 – Becomes USA citizen. Princeton University.

.•Einstein's views about religious belief have been collected from interviews and original writings.•Called himself an agnostic, while disassociating himself from the label atheist. •Believed in the pantheistic god, but not in a personal god. However, his comments on admitting creation, and divine thought better describe a theistic God.

Reading Selection: I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist by Geisler & Turek, pp. 73 & 74

.•Albert Einstein 1916 •General Theory of Relativity•Universe not eternal, had a beginning.•Beginning of all time, matter, and all space.

General Theory of Relativity

Einstein’s Theory of RelativityTheory of Relativity in 7 Minutes

.

•Cosmological constant (fudge factor) •Showed the universe static and avoided an absolute beginning.

•Called his findings “irritating”

Total Solar EclipsePrincipe Island, May 1919

Sir Arthur Eddington1882-1944

1919 Arthur Eddington

“Philosophically, the notion of a beginning of the present order of nature is repugnant to me…I should like to find a genuine loophole.”

Alexander Friedmann (Russian) 1922

Proved Einstein divided by Zero in his algebraic equations.

Edwin Hubble1927 Mount Wilson

Observatory•100 inch telescope•“red shift” in light of every observable galaxy•Galaxies were moving away from from us.•General Relativity was again confirmed.•Universe was expanding from a single point in the distance past.

Albert Einstein, Edwin Hubble, and Walter Adams (l-r) in 1931 at the Mount Wilson Observatory 100" telescope, in the San Gabriel Mountains of Southern California

Cosmological Constant (fudge factor)Einstein: “the greatest blunder of my life”Einstein: “I want to know how God created the world”

Launched into low Earth orbit in 1990, and remains in operation. With a 2.4-meter (7.9 ft) mirror, Hubble's four main instruments observe in the near ultraviolet, visible, and near infrared spectra. The telescope is named after the astronomer Edwin Hubble.

Hubble's orbit outside the distortion of Earth's atmosphere allows it to take extremely high-resolution images with negligible background light. Hubble has recorded some of the most detailed visible-light images ever, allowing a deep view into space and time. Many Hubble observations have led to breakthroughs in astrophysics, such as accurately determining the rate of expansion of the universe.

Hubble Space Telescope

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_Space_Telescope

Sir Arthur Eddington1882-1944

Cosmological ArgumentFive Lines of Scientific Evidence

Second Law of ThermodynamicsUniverse is Expanding

Radiation from the Big BangGreat Galaxy SeedsEinstein’s Theory of Relativity

S.U.

R.G.E.

Cosmological Argument

Cosmos = Universe1. Everything that had a beginning had a

cause2. The universe had a beginning3. Therefore the universe had a causeFor an argument to be true:• Logically valid• Premises must be true

Cosmological ArgumentPremise 1: Everything that had a beginning had a cause.

Law of Causality. Fundamental Principle of science.

Things don’t happen without a cause.

Francis Bacon 1561-1626 Father of Modern Science“True knowledge is knowledge by causes”

Cosmological ArgumentPremise 2: The universe had a beginningDid the universe have a beginning?If no, then no cause is needed.If yes, then the universe must have a cause.Before Einstein (and other scientists) atheists could comfort themselves with the belief that the universe was eternal.

If the Universe is eternal, you don’t need a creator.

Second Law of Thermodynamics

S - Second Law of Thermodynamics

Study of matter and energy.

YouTube Video Thermodynamics

Every physical and biochemical process must obey the First and Second law of Thermodynamics!

First Law of Thermodynamics

The Universe has only a finite amount of energy.

Universe would be out of energy by now if it had been running for all eternity.

How does this prove that the universe had beginning?

Second Law of Thermodynamics

Universe is not eternal, it had a beginning.

Law of Entropy

Law of EntropyNature brings things to disorderIf the Universe is becoming less ordered, where did the original order come from?

The Universe cannot be eternal, if it were, we would have reached complete disorder (entropy) by now.

Reading Selection: I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist by Geisler & Turek pp. 77 & 78

Einstein and Eddington

U – Universe Is ExpandingGeneral Relativity predicted an expanding universe.

Hubble – decade after Einstein’s General Relativity Theory, proves the universe is expanding and expanding from a single point.

No Space

No Time

No Matter

No Space No Time

No Matter

Mathematically and logically – not a point but actually nothing.

Universe is not expanding into empty space, but space itself is expanding – there was no space before the “Big Bang”

Universe did not emerge from existing material but from nothing.

Time, Space, Matter came into existence at

the Big Bang

Craig vs. Atkins Debate 1998What is the Evidence for/against the Existence of God? Atlanta, Georgia

William Lane Craig Dr. Peter AtkinsWilliam F. Buckley Jr.Moderator

Whole matter of the universe began to exist at particular time in the past. An atheist must believe that the matter of the universe came from nothing and by nothing.Dr. Atkins conceded in this debate and his books that all time, all matter, and all space exploded out of nothing.

Dr. Akins struggles to explain how the universe could come into existence, uncaused out of nothing.

Full debate is one hour and 30 minutes. Available on YouTube.com

Dr. Atkins: “Now we go back in time beyond the moment of creation to when there was no time, and to where there was no space…”

Dr Atkins then describes a time before time, he asks us to imagine a swirling dust of mathematical points which recombine again and again and finally come by trial and error to form our space-time universe.

Dr. Akins - British Physical ChemistryOxford and UCLA

Big QuestionsWhat do you do with the Second Law of Thermodynamics?

What do you do with Law of Causality?

Swirling mathematical points are not nothing. How do you explain this?

Atheists cannot explain how the universe began from absolutely nothing.

Anthony Kenny, Atheist & British Author

“According to the Big Bang Theory, the whole matter of the universe began to exist at a particular time in the remote past. A proponent of such a theory, at least if he is an atheist, must believe that the matter of the universe came from nothing from nothing.”