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Atheism against Religion Atheism: A Logical Analysis Christian

The Creation Argument: How the atheist’s view creates a logical problem


One of the most hotly debated argument when it comes to proving or dis-approving God is “How The Universe was Created?”

Let me begin by saying that I do not think God made this universe in six days and I also conclude that it might have taken billions of years for evolution to take control of our planet.

Thus saying do I concur with science? yes I do.

Do I negate the Biblical story, no. I can only assume that thousands of years ago, man did not have the unblinking, revealing nature and reality of the cosmos.

Do I think that it is an error? certainly not. All discovery is limited by our own perceptions. The Bible is filled with poetry and metaphorical language and though I am sure that there is no hidden pattern or clues hidden in it for a higher truth than the knowledge of science about our universe. I am sure that most of the biblical language is not be taken and interpreted literally, it should be within its context, translated and understood.

So then where does that leave us on the creation case? First of all since one outside of Christianity would not view Bible as an authentic source I would not bring it in the debate except for obvious references.

AN ATHEIST VIEW:
HOW DID GOD CREATED SOMETHING OUT OF NOTHING? IT IS SCIENTIFICALLY IMPOSSIBLE.

The above is one of the many arguments that are thrown out at the Biblical case of Creation. Let me say that while I agree with the argument as it is a matter of fact, I can not understand some of the implications it produces.

1. For something to be created it has to have a beginning. since everything falls in the measuring tape of time, matter can not be produced from nothing since that would cancel the scientific fact and the atheist’s belief.

So to follow the atheist view, at some point in time, matter was formed. How it was formed? is a question that no scientist or atheist for that matter can answer. and for this argument to hold true. we have to assume position that matter was already present, since the whole argument is that it can not be created from nothing. where did it come from? no one knows and that begs the question about its origins.

Stephen Hawking in his book “A Brief History of Time” writes about the origins of our universe and he demonstrates the limits of our knowledge in Chapter: “Space and time” pages 14 to 19. Now don’t get me wrong. Hawking does not say that the Bible is right. in fact he only tells us how it is impossible for us to know things that happened beyond a certain event of time.

an excerpt from the book. please read the above specified pages to read the enitre context.
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“Given an event P, one can divide the other events in the universe into three classes. Those events that can be reached from the event P by a particle or wave traveling at or below the speed of light are said to be in the future of P. They will lie within or on the expanding sphere of light emitted from the event P. Thus they will lie within or on the future light cone of P in the space-time diagram. Only events in the future of P can be affected by what happens at P because nothing can travel faster than light.

Similarly, the past of P can be defined as the set of all events from which it is possible to reach the event P traveling at or below the speed of light. It is thus the set of events that can affect what happens at P. The events that do not lie in the future or past of P are said to lie in the elsewhere of P.

What happens at such events can neither affect nor be affected by what happens at P. For example, if the sun were to cease to shine at this very moment, it would not affect things on earth at the present time because they would be in the elsewhere of the event when the sun went out.
We would know about it only after eight minutes, the time it takes light to reach us from the sun. Only then would events on earth lie in the future light cone of the event at which the sun went out. Similarly, we do not know what is happening at the moment farther away in the universe: the light that we see from distant galaxies left them millions of years ago, and in the case of the most distant object that we have seen, the light left some eight thousand million years ago. Thus, when we look at the universe, we are seeing it as it was in the past.”

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What Hawking means is that light is the only source to see in the past or the future and as nothing travels faster than light than it is safe to assume that we can see events happening in the past only when the light energy radiated from them reaches us. But it also implies events that may as well occur outside of the cone of past and present and even beyond the reach of light since light tends to fade the farther it goes from its source. so if an event is to occur outside the cone or beyond the cone of time than we could not see it.

So it is suffice to say that an atheist can not tell you how matter originated for the first time. As Hawking describes, since the origin happened before we could actually trace it in time and since it is impossible to calculate, it doesn’t matter since whatever happened can not alter in any way the present. Now this argument may define the case as rested for science but it lacks answer. to their original argument. how did matter originate? if it was there for eternity, we have no proof of that. and since one can not look back in time, a scientific follower simply assumes that matter can only be the result of preexisting matter, no matter how blank his data may be.

2. If God made everything out from nothing than who made God? since everything created must have a creator. that begs the question about God?

Now here is the second argument and it is very clever indeed. God created everything, a Christian would even go far as to say that even time is something that was designed by God. Now we can think of a simple Bible reader eager to defend his faith to be in error but in truth I have found every other story to have its own drawbacks as well. For the question of knowing about God – one must step outside of the scientific realm and calculate the possibilities of a God.

What if like the diagram above, I put God way past the point of light in the past cone. so technically if there was to be a God, we can not see him, just as we can not see how the universe and matter originated for the first time.

Now someone can say that it all started with a black hole and a huge supernova, agreed, but that is merely an assumption of how it may have originated, since it is impossible to know otherwise, we are not even sure if the Big Bang actually happened at all.

So what if hypothetically, God made everything from his own existence. One can say in a vague sort of way that if God is to be pure energy it might have had power to do so. And God is so far back in time that it is impossible scientifically to locate him. Then one can say that, yes. Something can be created, not from nothing but from God it self. Just like a part of himself.

So who made God? hmm, I would take the liberty here, not from the Bible and not from science either but by logic itself.

If following science, matter can exist in eternity since nothing can be made from nothing. It had to exist. Taking that same approach I come to the conclusion that for everything to be created it has to have a creator since nothing can be created from nothing (as science says) and someone had to create it and I say it was God’s own self that formed the universe. life from life, power from power. for something to start it needs a trigger to be pulled and therefore for a kick start, God would be needed. he must exist, simple kinetics demand it.

because if matter can exist in eternity, why not God? since both are hidden and proven beyond observed time – impossible to trace to their origins.

Soon I will be discussing the Intelligent Design argument as well.

By John A. David

A student of theology, a bible teacher and a graphics designer. I ramble a lot about Christian faith, apologetics and atheism.

35 replies on “The Creation Argument: How the atheist’s view creates a logical problem”

An interesting and well thought out article. We agree on some, if not all of the details and suppositions, and I always appreciate finding another who appears to be truly seeking answers outside of the far-too-frequent cliches, and completely unsubstantiated views that are fueled only by emotionalism and retaliatory comment. I will be following your page for further updates. Peace.

Thanks for responding John. I hope you didn’t take my reply the wrong way. In truth, I have no real “objection” to anything you said, so much as a differing opinion on one basic point. Where we appear to differ, is that I have serious doubts as to whether we can ever, while still hampered by the limitations of a corrupted earthly mind, ever “calculate the possibilities of a god”, at least any god that would even come close to accurately resembling the Creator of this universe we find ourselves in at this time. Remember the words from 1 Corinthians 2:9, “…No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love Him…” If I accept that all I can possibly know about God is what He has chosen to reveal of Himself, then there is no room for human calculation, but only Divinely-Inspired acceptance. All-in-all, however, I agree with you strongly enough to choose to follow your Blog. Please keep up the good work.

Thank you for responding too, and No, I didn’t take your post the wrong way. What I meant was that if there were things we could further expound on this post then it would be a pleasure for me to do so.

And I would agree that we can not fully know God, in his fullness, not in this body anyway.

Cheers.

You are welcome, and I would like to hear further on the views you hold regarding that which you comment about “it might have taken billions of years for evolution to take control of our planet”. If evolution, as the theory is commonly understood, is a valid idea, where does this leave the Biblical record which states multiple times in Genesis, “each after its own kind”. I myself believe in adaptive variation within a species, but until I see an animal that is clearly in the process of moving outside of its own kind (a cat or dog, for instance, becoming a bird, or a reptile), then I can’t believe in Evolution as most people appear to understand it. Anyway, we have to start our dialogue somewhere. : )

I welcome the discussion 🙂

think it has to do with how we read Genesis. You are aware that OEC’s do not generally take the genesis account as literal. I believe it is pretty vague according to the breadth of knowledge that people have today. The best thing comes in my mind is that the author simply wrote which made sense or which could make some sense. Because in all honesty, in my opinion, Jewish stories do get a little dramatic in their presentation because of the use of poetry and metaphor. However, this is not a proof of errors but presentation. The point of the story is the God-breathed element in man. I do not think it is any scientifically accurate procedure which is being explained.

Plus there are several real problems in there as well if we take a literal interpretation. For example. Why does the teeth of a shark, goat, lion, aligator, zebra, hippo, differ?

The genesis account tells us that vegetation was the only source of food at least before the fall; so now if the lion was made according to its own kind then logically he ate grass, but the teeth of a lion are not made to eat grass, there is enough space in between those teeth to hold the spine of an animal and break it. Plus, if vegetation is the original goal of all animals then I can not explain how claws came to be in predators and not goats?

So you can see now that it is not the evidence for macro-evolution that convinces me but rather without it most of the things are hard to explain. We can not explain teeth and claws with a literally consistent interpretation, that would make no sense. Because the conditions for taking it literal would make the interpretation self-contradictory. If we say everyone ate grass then we also have to concede that predator teeth and claw make no sense, in the first place.

And if we say that predators only developed these features after the fall, then we are indirectly supporting evolution.

Evolution to me so far seems like the best model to explain what I believe.

I have a real problem with this. This assumes that the authors of the Bible had full control of the content and leaves out inspiration. God wrote the Bible through men. The Biblical Creation Account is to be taken as literally as the Plagues in Exodus, the story of Sodom and Gommorah, and David and Goliath. There is no indication to the contrary.

To say that it is impossible for a 6-day creation is to limit God.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts, David.

I believe that comparing David and Goliath to the genesis account is not a valid comparison. For the same reasons comparing the symbolism of revelation to the account of Israel walk in the wilderness. They are both separate things. However the bible should be taken literally where it is clear enough to be. The genesis account is too vague and simple. Though I have no doubt that the original writers considered it as literal as possible. However we not required to share their conviction, per se.

The indication to the contrary comes from our understanding of how God works and could work. By saying he did not make it in six days, I am not limiting God because I am not saying, he can not. What I am asking is, did he? I mean how much time does it take God to make something. If he said and everything came into existence then what did God do the rest of the whole day? I mean it should only take God a millionth of second to complete the act of creation of light, so if he made light on the first day, then he should have rested the whole day.
Or did he made planets out of matter, like a potter shaping clay. Did he took care of all the nitty gritties by his own hand, did he punch the surface of the moon so it could have craters or did he just willed it to be?

The bible is silent about these things, because it is irrelevant to the story it is presenting. And please notice, the author of the genesis account was also limited by his own understanding and vocabulary. Just because he wrote something a certain way, it does not exactly mean, it happened exactly that way. We can lose our way in words.

I respect the YEC view, I was a YEC once, and my family largely is YEC still, but I think a lot of problems exists in YEC view.

David, you would be excluding a lot of things if you opt to follow the 6-day model. However, I can respect that and I am assuming you treat the first chapters to be literal enough, is that right? There are some serious problems in YEC and to be honest that is why I left it in the first place.

For instance what is your belief about dinosaurs, about their rise and extinction? in a 6-day model, when do would you place, it happened?

The flood, much of the vegetation and resources needed for the dinasouars to survive were not plentiful enough after the flood. Thus, they died off. Smaller animals could survive because they did not need to eat as much.

Even the Big Bang theory posits a tiny, intense bundle of energy mushrooming and changing eventually into atoms which get transmuted in the heat of exploding stars into all the elements and us. That’s a kind of “something from nothing”. So it may not be such a difficult imagining. It’s good to hear from an intelligent Christian who actually thinks about his theology. Thanks for reading my blog too, John.

Four points:

1) Matter does come from nothing continuously. Refer to Quantum Theory for a detailed explanation. (esp. “Quantum Foam”)

2) We likely live in a Multiverse. There are, according to most scenarios, infinitely many Universes in different stages of existence and new ones emerge continuously. There isn’t any reason to suppose this process ever had a beginning or that any outside agent (god) is a participant.

3) You are making several unwarranted assumptions about the opinions of atheists. Atheism is a negative, You can tell nothing for sure about an atheist’s views other than her or his lack of belief in the existence of a creator deity. In other words, atheists do not, as a rule, claim to have all the answers (in my case, I don’t claim to have any). Most are rationalists and skeptics, but this is by no means a universal truth.

4) Your views of matter seems to be more late 19th cent. than early 21st cent. Dr. Hawking’s popular books dumb things down a bit too much, in my opinion.. Try the works of Dr. Brian Greene for something a bit more up to date.

—Gideon

Thanks for your input gideon. I admit when I wrote this article, my knowledge of physics was nowhere near what it is today. However I am really not making a scientific claim per se, I am making a philosophical one.

Anyway, I’ll address your points in the same order.

1. Quantum foam is a nice concept, but apart from theoretical physics we still do not know if that is the real case. Plus, matter or energy does not come from nothing, there is no such thing as nothing. I suggest you take a look at Noether’s theorem of symmetries, that is actually a more good way to understand that the laws of physics are the result of these symmetries. Yet, why do these symmetries exist and why don’t they change?
Dr. stenger used Noether’s discovery to derive his theory and yet, even in his theory, he assumes and actually bypasses some very important questions.

To be fair, I am a big fan of quantum theories but we are still very far from getting a universal theory, a theory of all things.

2. I actually think we might do, it makes sense that there actually exists a multiverse. but hey, how far are you going to assume things? I mean I only assume that there must be a creator, you are actually assuming more here and that also without concrete proof.

I mean can I use Hitchens famous line here, “that which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.”

And to be fair, I admit this cuts both ways.

3. I agree, I guess I am talking to those who think they do. Most atheists I see on the internet are all bash and vile talk. Very few actually engage in a good conversation.

4. Give me a name of a book, anything that you have read so that we can at-least be on the same page. Actually, the grand design by hawking is not old at all. And to be honest he didn’t dumb down anything. His books are good, though I do not share his atheistic convictions.

Just to be clear, I appreciate your taking your time to discuss and by the way I do not think that necessarily we need a God to hand craft the universe or multiverse.

What really excites me though is where does the laws of physics derive from. Quantum theory sounds promising. The problem is, it goes against General relativity. I hope we find some answers.

But my main question would be, why are you assuming that you do not God to form a law, such as gravity? Which basically means you think that it exists or its source exists independently of any outside agency. And on the other hand you MAY also hold that if there is a God he would need to be formed or made or simply, who made God? That is the double standard I am actually against. If you ask this question, then we have a problem, otherwise I do not think I disagree with physics.

I really don’t want to troll here, so I’m going to do my best not to. However it seems to me that your argument, well presented though it is, has a couple of issues. First off, you admit the likelihood that the bible is incorrect on creation, that it is chocked full of metaphor and poetry, I have to ask, if the source of the story of god is so factually inaccurate from where do you get the conviction that it has any veracity at all? I see it quite often and I don’t understand how you can dismiss the book but maintain the story, so to speak.

Second your argument at best only gets you to Deism. It’s still quite a leap to the realm of any theism let alone Christianity. Let me say, I’m not a scientist, or a theologian, just an interested layman but the christian view as I understand it is that god is both outside of time (which is necessary for the creation concept to be true) and a part of time (which is necessary for god to be actively taking part in our reality) In the first case, OK, the possibility does exist and can’t be proved or disproved. In the second however god would be an element inside time and the universe just like anything else and would have to be a quantifiable measurable force. A force which there is absolutely no evidence for. The cosmological argument will never get the theist any further along the path than deism, and it seems to me that getting even that far requires a preexisting predilection toward belief in said deity. Thanks for the post, I always enjoy thoughtful writing.

You’re welcome to contribute what you think.

I would remark a few things.

1. yes I would agree that the Bible WOULD be incorrect if only we are going for a literal interpretation. Since I am not, I do not think it is incorrect. It simply is not telling about the scientific processes at all. The point of the story of creation is theological, not scientific.

2. You made some good observations. I would just like to say that you are correct in pointing that the cosmological argument only gets us to deism. In fact, if you look closely all intellectual arguments, if they do not have any personal concept of God with them, are only good for deism alone. Every argument in one sense gets us to deism, it is only personal faith in a personal God that makes that leap of faith and come out on the other side. Faith without experience is either simply dead or is intellectual in its nature.

About the paradox of God coming into time and then also staying out of it, is quite unimpressive in my opinion. God is not a part of time. Neither is God outside of it, it is not like there is a place somewhere where God sits just outside the boundary of time and waves us a hello.

I would also say that God being inside time, is a view which may be held by some Christians, though I do not think scriptures comment on this one way or the other.

God is existence himself. Plus if God didn’t enter the universe and simply let chain reactions and laws of physics do their work, then I guess God never entered time, except in the case of Christ. If time started at the Big bang, then whatever happened before is irrelevant.

But generally, IF God is a being who designed time then by definition he is greater than the laws he created.

In fact I would ask you that it is without any warrant to even assume that God is bound by the laws of physics just because we are. This is only an extreme anthropomorphic projection of God. Though I don’t blame you, Christians project God, the same like you just did, all the time.

Perhaps you would like to read my posts on relatd things, might help clear some things if not all.

If the universe did not have a beginning…

Why Genesis days are not 24-hour days

The Earth is young but it just looks old: Why Genesis days are not 24-hour days – part 2

Why Genesis days are not 24-hour days – Part 3

I appreciate your tone, John, as I read through your post and the comments following. This topic can become heated, for sure. I also admire the gentle confidence in your convictions. Take care.

God is eternal. He is the beginning and the end. He was not created, but exists eternally. He was not created, but it was from him that all things including matter was created. If you go on to read the bible, the bible says ” But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day” (Peter 2:8). This tells us that God’s time and our time are completely different. So when the bible says that the world was created in 6 days, this does is no way mean 6 human days, so it supports the fact that the world was created over billions of years.

I am a born Hindu from India , I search for the spirituality from childhood .latter in my 20s I find Christianity more closer to science compare to lots of myth and stories in Hinduism . yes as you say it was difficult to believe the Adam and Eve story about human being created …as the Theory of Darwin’s theory of evolution was drilled into my mind through education I was in Christian belief until one day I was debated about conspiracy of the death of Christ and his Miracle which was debated that a yogi can do …

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