LEADER TIMES WEEKEND RELIGION ARTICLE FOR
July 23, 2016 by William H. Scarle, Jr. 813-835-0129
NOTHING COMES FROM NOTHING
Carl Sagan (Nov. 9, 1934 – Dec. 20, 1996) was fond of saying, “The cosmos is all that is or was or ever will be.” In other words, in the beginning there was nothing. This affirmation is made in contrast to the biblical claim that, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” The Bible states that God made all that exists. The atheist believes that nothing made all that exists. The cosmos is simply the result of time, chance and natural selection.
There are at least two obvious problems with this assertion. First, the cosmos does in fact exist. Inert matter does not do anything unless it is moved to do it by an outside intelligence. David’s five smooth stones would have sat in the stream bed in the Valley of Elah if he hadn’t picked them up and used then as sling stones. There is no reason to believe that nothing produces anything.
The second problem is that the cosmos not only exists but evidences a complexity of organization that is beyond our ability to fathom. The Bible tells us we are created in God’s image and have been given dominion over the cosmos, so we are working on it. We call this science. The founders of Western science were by in large Christians who believed that the universe was a revelation of the greatness of God and given to mankind to elevate knowledge and happiness.
Recently a school of scientific inquiry has demonstrated that the complexity of the cosmos, from outer space to micro biology, is in fact irreducible. That is, it could not evolve because the component parts are all necessary for the operation of the systems. The absence of one would shut down the whole. Needless to say, the Intelligent Design movement gets nothing but scorn from materialistic science, not because there is any lack of evidence. The evidence is profound. The wrath comes because it does not fit their starting point, which is “In the beginning, nothing.”
The affirmation that science disproves God is an outrageous fabrication. For starters material or natural science can deal only with matter. It is based on observation, hypothesis and confirmation. Theology makes some logical deductions from the natural and moral order of the created world, but moves beyond the world of matter. Atheism’s hang-up is that they start with the affirmation that nothing but matter, time and chance exist. Noting is acceptable that does not fit that starting point no matter how rational or self-evident.
Atheism has given Western civilization little to commend it. The biblical perspective is that “The Spirit of God moved” over the chaos and enabled the creation of a rational universe.
What atheism has given us in the twentieth century are the totalitarian regimes of the like of Mao Zedong, Joseph Stalin and Adolph Hitler, all of whom were atheists and Darwinists. The murder of millions came out of their concepts of the survival of the fittest.
It is time for our culture to stand up to the irrationality of secular atheism and refuse to support educational institutions that propagandize for its support. Nothing comes from nothing but chaos, particularly in the moral and cultural realm. To claim otherwise is to avoid the realities in which we live out our lives.
(Bill Scarle can be contacted at ravscarle@verizon.net) END-whs