Notes from Colson p.57 -67
Scientists have completely reversed their theories in the past few decades. They thought for ages that the Physical Universe was eternal and therefore needs no 'creator'. Now they postulate that the universe did have an ultimate origin and that it began at a finite time in the past - just as the Bible teaches.
Many ancient cultures believed that the material from which the Universe came was eternal. However, today "the indestructibility or permanence of matter" is a scientific fact" wrote a 19th Century proponent of materialism. For many years that is how things stood. Any thought of a Creator and the earth having a beginning was just bare religious faith standing in lonely opposition to established science.
Now in the 20th Century several sources of new evidence appeared : the implications from general relativity theory that the Universe is expanding; that some stars exhibit "red shift", implying that they are moving outward; finally that there are two Laws of thermodynamics which make it imperative to believe in a beginning of the Universe.
The second Law of Thermodynamics, the Law of decay implies that the Universe is in a process of gradual disintegration - implacably moving toward final darkness and decay. I.e. the Universe is running down like a wound-up clock. Thus there must have been a time when it was wound up.
Therefore as Lincoln Barnett said "the inescapable inference is that everything has a beginning: somehow and sometime the cosmic processes were started, the stellar fires ignited, and the whole vast pageant of the universe brought into being."
But the First law of Thermodynamics (the conservation of matter) implies that matter cannot just pop into existence or create itself. Thus if the universe had a beginning, then something external to the universe must have caused it to come into existence. Someone transcendent to the Universe. Paul Davies, the British Physicist, says the big bang "is the one place in the Universe where there is room, even for the the most hard-nosed materialist, to admit there is a God."
The Idea of an ultimate Beginning is no longer merely religious dogma.
The Big Bang theory delivers a near fatal blow to the naturalistic philosophy, for the naturalistic credo regards reality as an unbroken sequence of cause and effect. But the big bang breaks that chain. At the Big Bang science meets a barrier. Many secularists are still squirming and wriggling trying to get out of the implications. Time, space and matter all had a beginning in the past. Many theories have been suggested which are little more than fantasy. One young thirteen year old received a low grade at school because when asked in a test, "Where did the earth come from?" He wrote, "God created it." His test was returned with a BIG RED TICK and twenty points marked off his results. The teacher insisted the answer required was "the Big Bang."
So what was before the Big Bang? What caused it? If the Big Bang was the cause of the Origin of the Universe, then its cause must be something outside of the universe. The Big Bang theory gives much support to the Biblical teaching.
Scientists have completely reversed their theories in the past few decades. They thought for ages that the Physical Universe was eternal and therefore needs no 'creator'. Now they postulate that the universe did have an ultimate origin and that it began at a finite time in the past - just as the Bible teaches.
Many ancient cultures believed that the material from which the Universe came was eternal. However, today "the indestructibility or permanence of matter" is a scientific fact" wrote a 19th Century proponent of materialism. For many years that is how things stood. Any thought of a Creator and the earth having a beginning was just bare religious faith standing in lonely opposition to established science.
Now in the 20th Century several sources of new evidence appeared : the implications from general relativity theory that the Universe is expanding; that some stars exhibit "red shift", implying that they are moving outward; finally that there are two Laws of thermodynamics which make it imperative to believe in a beginning of the Universe.
The second Law of Thermodynamics, the Law of decay implies that the Universe is in a process of gradual disintegration - implacably moving toward final darkness and decay. I.e. the Universe is running down like a wound-up clock. Thus there must have been a time when it was wound up.
Therefore as Lincoln Barnett said "the inescapable inference is that everything has a beginning: somehow and sometime the cosmic processes were started, the stellar fires ignited, and the whole vast pageant of the universe brought into being."
But the First law of Thermodynamics (the conservation of matter) implies that matter cannot just pop into existence or create itself. Thus if the universe had a beginning, then something external to the universe must have caused it to come into existence. Someone transcendent to the Universe. Paul Davies, the British Physicist, says the big bang "is the one place in the Universe where there is room, even for the the most hard-nosed materialist, to admit there is a God."
The Idea of an ultimate Beginning is no longer merely religious dogma.
The Big Bang theory delivers a near fatal blow to the naturalistic philosophy, for the naturalistic credo regards reality as an unbroken sequence of cause and effect. But the big bang breaks that chain. At the Big Bang science meets a barrier. Many secularists are still squirming and wriggling trying to get out of the implications. Time, space and matter all had a beginning in the past. Many theories have been suggested which are little more than fantasy. One young thirteen year old received a low grade at school because when asked in a test, "Where did the earth come from?" He wrote, "God created it." His test was returned with a BIG RED TICK and twenty points marked off his results. The teacher insisted the answer required was "the Big Bang."
So what was before the Big Bang? What caused it? If the Big Bang was the cause of the Origin of the Universe, then its cause must be something outside of the universe. The Big Bang theory gives much support to the Biblical teaching.
Has everyone or anyone not heard of Intelligent Design in all of these 'beginnings' matters?
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