We live in a finite universe
Science is the search for causes to explain effects. What could be the cause of the universe? People will often reply, “The Big Bang.” But that isn’t an explanation – it’s the thing that needs to be explained. “The Big Bang” is just a name for the event of the universe coming into existence – it’s not the cause itself; it’s simply the effect.
So the question remains, what adequate cause could bring the universe into existence? The cause must possess the following features:
Non-physical
The cause can’t be physical, because matter is not eternal.
Powerful
It must be unimaginably powerful to produce a universe from nothing.
Eternal
It must be timeless (i.e. eternal), because it brought time into existence.
Personal
Impersonal things don’t have the capacity to choose. If the cause of the universe was impersonal and had eternally existed then the universe would have existed eternally as well. The only way you can have the universe come into existence from an eternal cause is if the cause chose to act.
So the cause is a personal, powerful being, unconfined by time or space. In a word, that cause is God – the omnipotent, eternal, personal God revealed in the Bible.
I remember hearing a presentation by an atheist who was asked what it would take for him to believe in God. He replied by saying that, were something at that moment to appear out of nothing in front of him, he would believe in God. The odd thing is that this atheist had just been speaking about a universe that came into existence out of nothing. The question is, why would something coming into existence out of nothing in the present prove God, whereas everything coming into existence out of nothing in the past didn’t?
We live in a fine-tuned universe
A finite universe points to a powerful creator, but a fine-tuned universe points to an intelligent designer. This can be seen in physics and biology.
Physics
Physicists have found that the existence of the universe is balanced on a very thin tightrope. There are dozens of physical constants and quantities which, had they been the slightest bit different, would have ruled out stars, planets and chemistry.[1]
It’s like a machine with a control panel. The panel has dozens of dials, each with trillions of possible settings. For the machinery to work each dial has to be set to the right value. If one of the dials is the slightest bit off then the machine can’t work. If you arrived at the factory and found the machine working, would you conclude that someone had come in and randomly spun all the dials? Of course not. But this is what atheists are forced to conclude about the universe – by sheer fluke it came into existence (without a cause) with the settings exactly right. To give you an idea of how finely tuned the universe is, consider that the dial on our factory machine for the initial entropy of the universe has 10123 settings– that’s a 1 with a thousand trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion zeros after it![2] (The number of subatomic particles in the entire known universe is only 1 with eighty zeros after it!)
Or consider the force of gravity. Imagine a ruler stretched across the observable universe – a ruler 14 billion light years long and divided into inch-long segments. If the force of gravity was moved one inch along that ruler the universe wouldn’t exist.[3]
These are just two of the dials that have to be set just right. There are loads of others.
Random chance is never going to spin those dials to get the correct values. You need an intelligent designer.
Biology
Back in Darwin’s day it was supposed that a single cell was a simple thing, but research has revealed its complexity. The cell is like a motor car factory with loads of mini assembly lines and all the different parts performing different functions in a very busy but highly efficient way. A typical cell contains billions of units of DNA comprising the chromosomes that make the machines that cause the cell to work. DNA can only be described in terms of language or code, and has been likened to a computer program; indeed, Bill Gates said DNA is far, far more advanced than any software Microsoft had created.[4]Every single one of the trillions of cells in the human body contains a database larger than the Encyclopaedia Britannica. But where does this information come from? Who is the programmer? Who wrote the language and devised the code? Information can only come from intelligence. Thus, biology, as well as physics, points to an intelligent designer.
Conclusion
3,000 years ago King David wrote, “The heavens declare the glory of God” (Psalm 19:1). 2,000 years ago Paul wrote that the existence and power of God are “clearly seen...by the things that are made” (Romans 1:20). This has only become more obvious as science has advanced and knowledge increased. As the agnostic astronomer Robert Jastrow said:
"For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountain of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries".[5]
The more we investigate the universe, the more we see the fingerprints of God. Science has not buried God; it has buried atheism. You can reject the existence of a Creator if you want, but in light of a fathomable, finite, fine-tuned universe, you can’t claim that science is on your side.
[1]The fine-tuned constants include the force of gravity, the electromagnetic force, and the strong and weak nuclear forces. The fine-tuned quantities include the entropy level of the universe and the ratio of protons to electrons.
[2]https://beliefmap.org/god-exists/universe-fine-tuned/cosmological-constant/
[3]Lee Strobel, The Case for a Creator, Zondervan, 2004, p. 138.
[4]Bill Gates, The Road Ahead, cited in Lee Strobel, The Case for a Creator, A Journalist Investigates Scientific Evidence That Points toward God, Zondervan, 2004, p. 238.
[5]Robert Jastrow, God and the Astronomers, cited in Geisler & Turek in I don’t have enough Faith to be an Atheist, p. 94.
