Eternal Part 1 - In the Beginning....

This Sunday, Simon Lace brings us the latest of our short video talks. Once you have watched the video, we encourage you to reflect on the bible text and join us in the prayer that follows below.

To listen to the talk click here.
 
Readings:

Genesis chapter 1 verse 1  (NLT)

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

Hebrews chapter 11 verse 3 (NLT)
By faith we understand that the entire universe was formed at God’s command, that what we now see did not come from anything that can be seen.
 

Prayer & Reflection

Father God, we thank you for the world you have created and we thank you for the life that only you can give us. We thank you for the promise of eternal life, bought at a great cost for us by Your precious Son, Jesus. Father we ask that you reveal yourself to our friends and family who have not yet turned to you. By your Spirit would you lead them into an encounter with Jesus, for we pray this in His name. Amen



Questions to Consider

1. Did you know about the Kalam Cosmological Argument? Can you see any flaws in it? Here it is to consider –
Premise 1: Whatever begins to exist has a cause of its beginning.
Can you think of anything that does not have a cause for its beginning to exist?
 
Premise 2: The universe began to exist.
This is what the “Big Bang” theory tells us and is generally accepted on a scientific basis.

Conclusion: Therefore, the universe has a cause of its beginning.
Such a cause must exist before space and time, and be extremely powerful!

2. Have you been heard of “the multiverse”? Did you realise that there is no evidence for any universe other than our own, and that the multiverse is hypothesised only because there seems no other way (apart from God) to explain our own mind-bogglingly unlikely universe?

3. Why is our universe so unlikely? Because there is no good explanation (apart from God) for the almost unimaginable degree of “fine tuning” required for life to be sustainable within it. As atheist astronomer Sandra Faber put it there are really only two logical possibilities to explain it –
“One is that there is a God and that God made it that way,” she said. But for Faber, an atheist, divine intervention is not the answer.“The only other approach that makes any sense is to argue that there really is an infinite, or a very big, ensemble of universes out there and we are in one,” she said.

4. In this series, we lean into some books written by Dr. William Lane Craig (a doctor of philosophy) and Professor John Lennox (a Professor of Mathematics at Oxford university). Why not read their books (see below) and explore the arguments for yourself?


Resources

Books
God’s Undertaker: Has Science Buried God? John Lennox
Can Science Explain Everything? John Lennox
On Guard! William Lane Craig
 
Websites
Click here for Dr. Craig’s article on the Kalam Cosmological Argument, on his website reasonablefaith.org
 
Here you can find an excellent (and good natured!) debate (on YouTube) between Dr Craig and Alex O’Connor, an agnostic/atheist, on the Kalam Cosmological Argument.