Evidence for God | The Summit Church, Blue Ridge | Raleigh, NC - February 2018

In February 2018 Dr. Craig visited North Carolina State University for a series of speaking events hosted by Cru. On 2/24/18 Dr. Craig gave a lecture, followed by a Q&A time, on "Philosophical Issues in the Atonement."

VIDEO: You know, nobody asked me if I wanted to exist. Yeah, one day – boom – there you are, and you think to yourself, “Why am I here?” Well, what do you think? Is there a reason we're here? Do our lives have any real significance?

Well, that depends.

On what?

On whether or not God exists.

Wait hold on, are you saying that my life has no significance because I don't believe in God?

No, not at all! I'm saying that if God doesn't exist, it doesn't matter what you believe; our lives would have no objective meaning, value, or purpose. Many atheists themselves recognize this. “If atheism is true life is absurd.”

Okay, and why do they think that?

To begin with, if God does not exist then the physical universe is all there is, which means you and I are just accidental byproducts of nature.

Right, so?

That means we were not intentionally designed, so there's no purpose for us being here.

Whoa!

It gets worse. If God does not exist, there is no absolute standard of moral value. You've heard of Richard Dawkins, the atheist. He points out that in a materialistic universe “there is at bottom no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pointless indifference.”

So you're saying atheists can't be good people?

No, I'm not saying that. Many atheists live good lives. What I'm saying is atheism fails to provide an objective basis for seeing any particular action as good or evil.

Oh, come on! After millions of years of sociobiological evolution, humans have developed a sense of morality. We all know it's good to feed a hungry child and bad to torture someone for fun.

Of course we do, but that's precisely what atheism cannot explain. If there's no God then what we consider right or wrong is nothing more than an accident of evolution or a human social convention.

So what? I'm good with that.

Really!? Evolution implies survival of the fittest, not morality. And social convention means that racism, intolerance, and cruelty are not really wrong; they just happen to be unpopular.

Okay, so atheists need to come up with some objective standard for rights and wrongs. How about this: If an action leads to human flourishing then we can say it's objectively good; and if it doesn't, it's objectively evil.

But why think that human flourishing is good? Aren't you being species-centric? Why not refer instead to the flourishing of rats or cabbages?

Well...

And who gets to decide what contributes to human flourishing? Hitler was convinced killing millions of Jews would promote human flourishing, and Margaret Sanger thought forcing poor people to be sterilized would lead to human flourishing. As Kai Nielsen points out, “pure practical reason will not take you to morality.” So if atheism is true, there is no legitimate basis for saying that behaving one way is worse than behaving any other way. So it really doesn't matter how you live your life. Your day-to-day choices are meaningless.

That's depressing.

So if there's no God, what happens when you die?

Well, nothing. You simply cease to exist.

Right. So one person lives a kind, generous, thoughtful life. Another lives a horrible, violent, selfish life. It doesn't matter! In both cases the outcome is the same: nothingness. So how can their life choices have any objective meaning?

Well, it's certainly meaningful if I discover a cure for cancer or save a child's life.

I agree completely! But atheism can't explain why! Scientists predict that eventually the whole universe and mankind with it will die out. So everything comes to nothing. That's why atheist Bertrand Russell says we must “build our lives on the firm foundation of despair.”

No thanks! I'd rather live a happy life.

You're not alone. Every atheist has to choose between being happy or being consistent. You can tell the whole world you're an atheist, but you can't really live like one.

Okay, so you're a Christian. If your God did exist, how would that change anything?

If Christianity is true then each one of us is here for a reason, and life does not end at the grave. And God? He's the absolute standard of goodness. He knows you, he loves you, and he intentionally created you. So your life ultimately does have objective meaning, value, and purpose. That means you can live a life that's both happy and consistent.

Well, that doesn't prove Christianity is true.

Agreed. I'm simply pointing out that for Christians living a life that is both happy and consistent is possible. For atheists, it's not. So what are you going to choose?

DR. CRAIG: Given the absurdity of life and the unlivability of atheism, it's imperative, I think, that we retrace our steps and ask anew whether God exists. I want to share with you now three arguments for God's existence which I think makes it very probable that God does indeed exist.

Number one: God makes sense of the origin of the universe. Have you ever asked yourself where the universe came from? Typically, atheists have said that the universe is just eternal and that's all. But is that plausible? The next video explains how the scientific evidence for the origin of the universe points beyond the universe to its personal creator.

VIDEO: Does God exist, or is the material universe all that is or ever was or ever will be? One approach to answering this question is the cosmological argument. It goes like this. Whatever begins to exist has a cause. The universe began to exist.Therefore, the universe has a cause. Is the first premise true? Let's consider. Believing that something can pop into existence without a cause is more of a stretch than believing in magic. At least with magic you've got a hat and a magician. And if something can come into being from nothing, then why don't we see this happening all the time? No; everyday experience and scientific evidence confirm our first premise. If something begins to exist, it must have a cause. But what about our second premise? Did the universe begin, or has it always existed? Atheists have typically said that the universe has been here forever. The universe is just there, and that's all. First, let's consider the second law of thermodynamics. It tells us the universe is slowly running out of usable energy, and that's the point. If the universe had been here forever it would have run out of usable energy by now. The second law points us to a universe that has a definite beginning. This is further confirmed by a series of remarkable scientific discoveries. In 1915 Albert Einstein presented his general theory of relativity. This allowed us for the first time to talk meaningfully about the past history of the universe. Next Alexander Friedmann and Georges Lemaitre, each working with Einstein's equations, predicted that the universe is expanding. Then in 1929, Edwin Hubble measured the red shift and light from distant galaxies. This empirical evidence confirmed not only that the universe is expanding, but that it sprang into being from a single point in the finite past. It was a monumental discovery almost beyond comprehension. However, not everyone is fond of a finite universe, so it wasn't long before alternative models popped into existence. But one by one, these models failed to stand the test of time. More recently three leading cosmologists, Arvind Borde, Alan Guth, and Alexander Vilenkin, proved that any universe which has on average been expanding throughout its history cannot be eternal in the past, but must have an absolute beginning. This even applies to the multiverse, if there is such a thing. This means that scientists can no longer hide behind a past eternal universe. There is no escape. They have to face the problem of a cosmic beginning. Any adequate model must have a beginning just like the standard model. It's quite plausible then that both premises of the argument are true. This means that the conclusion is also true; The universe has a cause. And since the universe can't cause itself, its cause must be beyond the space-time universe. It must be spaceless, timeless, immaterial, uncaused, and unimaginably powerful, much like... God. The cosmological argument shows that in fact it is quite reasonable to believe that God does exist.

DR. CRAIG: One of the most startling developments of modern science has been the discovery that the universe is not eternal in the past but had an absolute beginning about 14 billion years ago in a cataclysmic event known as the Big Bang. As explained in the video, in 2003 Arvind Borde, Alan Guth, and Alexander Vilenkin were able to show that any universe which is in a state of expansion throughout its history cannot be eternal in the past but must have an absolute beginning. And that goes for multiverse scenarios, as well. In 2012, Vilenkin showed that models which do not meet this one condition still fail for other reasons to be past-eternal. Vilenkin concluded, “None of these scenarios can actually be past eternal. . . . All the evidence we have says that the universe had a beginning.”^[1] In the fall of 2015 Vilenkin strengthened that conclusion. He wrote:

We have no viable models of an eternal universe. The BGV [Borde-Guth-Vilenkin] theorem gives reason to believe that such models simply cannot be constructed.^[2]

The Borde-Guth-Vilenkin theorem proves that classical space-time under a single very general condition cannot be infinite in the past but must reach a boundary at some time in the finite past. Now, either there was something on the other side of that boundary or not. If not, then that boundary just is the beginning of the universe. If there was something on the other side of that boundary then it will be a region described by the yet-to-be discovered theory of quantum gravity. In that case, Vilenkin says, it will be the beginning of the universe. Either way the universe began to exist.

Now, the video describes scientific evidence for the universe's beginning, but in my published work I also lay out philosophical arguments to show that the universe began to exist. Just think about it. If the universe never began to exist then the number of events in the past history of the universe is infinite. But how could an infinite number of past events elapse one after another in order for today to arrive? That would be like trying to count down all of the negative numbers ending at zero. That seems like an absurd task for before you could count any number you would already have to have counted an infinite number of prior numbers. And if you could count down from infinity, then why did you finish only today? Why not yesterday, or the day before that? At any point in the past, you've already had an infinite amount of time to finish your countdown, and therefore you should already be done. These sorts of absurdities suggest that the idea of an actually infinite past is absurd.

Since something cannot come into being from nothing, the absolute beginning of the universe implies the existence of a beginningless, uncaused, timeless, spaceless, changeless, immaterial, enormously powerful, personal creator of the universe.

Number two: God makes sense of the fine-tuning of the universe for intelligent life. In recent decades, scientists have been stunned by the discovery that the existence of intelligent life depends upon a delicate balance of initial conditions given in the Big Bang itself. Scientists once believed that whatever the initial conditions of the universe might have been, eventually intelligent life might evolve somewhere. But now we know that in fact our existence is balanced on a razor’s edge. The existence of intelligent life anywhere in the cosmos depends upon a conspiracy of initial conditions which must be fine-tuned to a degree that is literally incomprehensible. The following video explains how this remarkable fine-tuning points to an intelligent designer of the universe.

VIDEO: From galaxies and stars down to atoms and subatomic particles, the very structure of our universe is determined by these numbers. These are the fundamental constants and quantities of the universe. Scientists have come to the shocking realization that each of these numbers has been carefully dialed to an astonishingly precise value, a value that falls within an exceedingly narrow life-permitting range. If any one of these numbers were altered by even a hairsbreadth, no physical, interactive life of any kind could exist anywhere. There'd be no stars, no life, no planets, no chemistry. Consider gravity, for example. The force of gravity is determined by the gravitational constant. If this constant varied by just one in 10 to the 60th parts, none of us would exist.To understand how exceedingly narrow this life-permitting range is, imagine a dial divided into 10 to the 60th increments. To get a handle on how many tiny points on the dial this is, compare it to the number of cells in your body, or the number of seconds that have ticked by since time began. If the gravitational constant had been out of tune by just one of these infinitesimally small increments, the universe would either have expanded and thinned out so rapidly that no stars could form and life couldn't exist, or it would have collapsed back on itself with the same result: no stars, no planets, and no life. Or consider the expansion rate of the universe. This is driven by the cosmological constant. A change in its value by a mere one part in 10 to the 120th parts would cause the universe to expand too rapidly or too slowly. In either case the universe would again be life-prohibiting. Or, another example of fine-tuning: if the mass and energy of the early universe were not evenly distributed to an incomprehensible precision of one part in 10 to the 10 to the 123rd, the universe would be hostile to life of any kind. The fact is, our universe permits physical, interactive life only because these and many other numbers have been independently and exquisitely balanced on a razor's edge. Wherever physicists look, they see examples of fine-tuning. The remarkable fact is that the values of these numbers seem to have been very finely adjusted to make possible the development of life. If anyone claims not to be surprised by the special features that the universe has, he's hiding his head in the sand. These special features are surprising and unlikely. What is the best explanation for this astounding phenomenon? There are three live options. The fine-tuning of the universe is due to either physical necessity, chance, or design. Which of these options is the most plausible? According to this alternative [physical necessity], the universe must be life-permitting. The precise values of these constants and quantities could not be otherwise. But is this plausible? Is a life-prohibiting universe impossible? Far from it. It's not only possible; it's far more likely than a life-permitting universe. The constants and quantities are not determined by the laws of nature. There's no reason or evidence to suggest that fine-tuning is necessary. How about chance? Did we just get really, really, really, really lucky? No; the probabilities involved are so ridiculously remote as to put the fine-tuning well beyond the reach of chance, so in an effort to keep this option alive, some have gone beyond empirical science and opted for a more speculative approach known as the multiverse. They imagine a universe generator that cranks out such a vast number of universes that, odds are, life-permitting universes will eventually pop out. However, there's no scientific evidence for the existence of this multiverse. It cannot be detected, observed, measured, or proved, and the universe generator itself would require an enormous amount of fine-tuning. Furthermore, small patches of order are far more probable than big ones, so the most probable observable universe would be a small one, inhabited by a single, simple observer. But what we actually observe is the very thing that we should least expect: a vast, spectacularly complex, highly-ordered universe inhabited by billions of other observers. So even if the multiverse existed, which is a moot point, it wouldn't do anything to explain the fine-tuning. Given the implausibility of physical necessity or chance, the best explanation for why the universe is fine-tuned for life may very well be it was designed that way. A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a super intellect monkeyed with physics and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question. There is for me powerful evidence that there is something going on behind it all... it seems as though somebody has fine-tuned nature's numbers to make the universe. The impression of design is overwhelming. The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge.

DR. CRAIG: The examples of fine-tuning shared in the video are all accurate, up-to-date, and well established.

It's important to keep in mind that the term “fine-tuning” does not mean design. The expression is a neutral term that just means that the range of life-permitting values of these fundamental constants and quantities is exquisitely narrow. If the value of even one of these constants or quantities were to be altered by less than a hairsbreadth then the delicate balance required for the existence of life would be destroyed and the universe would be life-prohibiting instead. Fine-tuning in this neutral sense is well-established.

The question then that we face is this: What is the best explanation of the cosmic fine-tuning? As the video explains, there are three live options in the contemporary literature on fine-tuning: physical necessity, chance, or design. So our argument may, once again, be formulated in three simple steps:

1. The fine-tuning of the universe is due to either physical necessity, chance, or design.
2. It is not due to physical necessity or chance.
3. Therefore, it is due to design.

As the video explains, the only serious alternative to design today is the multiverse chance hypothesis. There are multiple problems with this hypothesis, but let me concentrate on the most important. If our universe were just a random member of a multiverse then we ought to be observing a much different universe than we do. Roger Penrose of Oxford University has pressed this objection forcefully. He points out that the odds of our universe's initial low entropy conditions obtaining by chance alone are on the order of one chance out of 10 to the power of 10 to the power of 123. By contrast, the odds of our solar system suddenly forming in an instant by the random collision of particles is one chance out of 10 to the power of 10 to the power of 60. That number, says Penrose, is “utter chickenfeed” compared to one chance out of 10 to the power of 10 to the power of 123.^[3] What that means is that it is far more probable that we should be observing an orderly patch no larger than our solar system since a universe like that is so unfathomably more probable than a fine-tuned universe like ours. In fact, the most probable observable universe is one which consists of a single brain which fluctuates into existence out of the quantum vacuum with illusory perceptions of the external world. So if you accept the multiverse explanation, you're obligated to believe that you are all that exists and that your body, this auditorium, the Earth, and everything you perceive in the world are just illusions of your brain. No sane person believes such a thing. On atheism, therefore, it is highly improbable that there exists a randomly ordered multiverse. Ironically, the best hope for the partisans of the multiverse is to maintain that God created it and ordered its worlds so that they are not randomly ordered. God could give preference to observable worlds which are cosmically fine-tuned. So in order to be rationally acceptable, the multiverse needs God.

With the failure of the multiverse hypothesis, the alternative of chance collapses. Neither physical necessity nor chance provides a good explanation of the fine-tuning of the universe.

Finally, number three: God makes sense of objective moral values and duties in the world. The following video makes this argument very clear.

VIDEO: Can you be good without God? Let's find out. [An atheist saves a cat stuck in a tree.] Absolutely astounding! There you have it; undeniable proof that you can be good without believing in God. But wait; the question isn't can you be good without believing in God. The question is, can you be good without God? See, here's the problem. If there is no God, what basis remains for objective good or bad, right or wrong? If God does not exist, objective moral values do not exist, and here's why. Without some objective reference point, we have no way of saying that something is really up or down. God's nature provides an objective reference point for moral values. It's the standard against which all actions and decisions are measured. But if there's no God, there's no objective reference point. All we are left with is one person's viewpoint, which is no more valid than anyone else's viewpoint. This kind of morality is subjective, not objective. It's like a preference for strawberry ice cream; the preference is in the subject, not the object, so it doesn't apply to other people. In the same way, subjective morality applies only to the subject. It's not valid or binding for anyone else. So in a world without God, there can be no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference. God has expressed his moral nature to us as commands. These provide the basis for moral duties. For example, God's essential attribute of love is expressed in his command to love your neighbor as yourself. This command provides a foundation upon which we can affirm the objective goodness of generosity, self-sacrifice, and equality, and we can condemn as objectively evil greed, abuse, and discrimination. This raises a problem. Is something good just because God wills it, or does God will something because it is good? The answer is: neither one. Rather, God wills something because he is good. God is the standard of moral values, just as a live musical performance is the standard for a high-fidelity recording. The more a recording sounds like the original, the better it is. Likewise, the more closely a moral action conforms to God's nature, the better it is. But if atheism is true there is no ultimate standard, so there can be no moral obligations or duties. Who or what lays such duties upon us? No one. Remember, for the atheist, humans are just accidents of nature, highly evolved animals. But animals have no moral obligations to one another. When a cat kills a mouse, it hasn't done anything morally wrong; the cat's just being a cat. If God doesn't exist, we should view human behavior in the same way. No action should be considered morally right or wrong. But the problem is good and bad, right and wrong, do exist. Just as our sense experience convinces us that the physical world is objectively real, our moral experience convinces us that moral values are objectively real. Every time you say, “Hey! That's not fair! That's wrong! That's an injustice!” you affirm your belief in the existence of objective morals. We're well aware that child-abuse, racial discrimination, and terrorism are wrong, for everybody, always. Is this just a personal preference or opinion? No. The man who says that it is morally acceptable to rape little children is just as mistaken as the man who says two plus two equals five. What all this amounts to then is a moral argument for the existence of God. If God does not exist, objective moral values and duties do not exist. But objective moral values and duties do exist. Therefore, God exists. Atheism fails to provide a foundation for the moral reality every one of us experiences every day. In fact, the existence of objective morality points us directly to the existence of God.

DR. CRAIG: Again, this argument, to repeat:

1. If God does not exist, objective moral values and duties do not exist.
2. Objective moral values and duties do exist.
3. Therefore, God exists.

What makes this little argument so powerful is that people generally agree with both premises. In a pluralistic age, students are scared to death of imposing their values on someone else. They therefore at least give lip service to relativism. So premise (1) seems correct to them. At the same time, however, certain values have been deeply instilled into them such as tolerance, open-mindedness, and love. In particular, they think it is objectively wrong to impose your values on someone else. So they're deeply committed to premise (2) as well. They've just never connected the dots.

Perhaps the most important thing to keep in mind in sharing the moral argument is not to confuse moral ontology and moral epistemology. What do I mean by those terms? Moral ontology has to do with the objective reality of moral values and duties. Moral epistemology has to do with how we come to know the content of moral values and duties. The moral argument has nothing to say about moral epistemology. It is wholly about moral ontology – the grounding of objective moral values and duties in reality.

But people inevitably confuse the two. For example, some people will think that you're claiming that in order to recognize objective moral values you have to believe that God exists, which is obviously false. Others will say that our moral beliefs can be explained as the result of socio-biological conditioning. Both of these objections are irrelevant to the moral argument. You're not saying that in order to recognize objective moral values and duties you have to believe in God. And the socio-biological account at best shows how our perception of moral values and duties has evolved. But if moral values are gradually discovered, not invented, then our gradual and fallible perception of these values no more undermines their objective reality than our gradual and fallible perception of the physical world undermines its objective reality. The argument makes no claim about how we come to know objective moral values and duties, and so these epistemological objections are irrelevant.

From the two premises it follows logically that God exists. The moral argument complements the cosmological and design arguments by telling us about the moral nature of the creator and designer of the universe. It gives us a personal, necessarily existent being who is not only perfectly good but whose very nature is the standard of goodness and whose commands constitute our moral duties.

There are many other arguments for the existence of God, and on our website [ReasonableFaith.org] we have videos explaining some of these, too. As we've seen, these arguments can be very simply formulated and are easy to memorize. Having the premises memorized, you can keep the conversation with an unbeliever on track. If the unbeliever starts to stray off track, just say politely, “If you think that my conclusions are false then you must think that at least one of my premises is false. So, which premise do you think is false and why?” Focus on the premises. Non-believers aren't used to running into Christians who can actually give reasons for the hope that is within them. So if the unbeliever says to you, “There's no evidence that God exists,” you should look at him in surprise and say, “Is that what you think? I can think of at least three good arguments for God’s existence!” And at that point he's got to say, “Yeah? Like what?” And then you are off and running. God is the best explanation for the origin of the universe at a point in the finite past. God is the best explanation for the fine-tuning of the universe for intelligent life. God is the best explanation for the existence of objective moral values and duties in the world. Even if you don’t have the premises of the arguments memorized, I have found that just being able to list the arguments is often enough to satisfy the unbeliever.

Of course, our hope is that you'll go to ReasonableFaith.org and watch these short videos with your unbelieving friend and start a conversation.

In conclusion, the arguments presented here this evening constitute, I think, a powerful, cumulative case for the existence of God. Together they yield a metaphysically necessary, uncaused, transcendent, immaterial, personal creator and designer of the universe who is the paradigm and source of moral goodness. Glory to God!