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Reasons In and Out of a Worldview

"I believe that anyone sincerely seeking Truth is going to find it. The problem is, most people are not looking for Truth, they are looking for evidence to support their assumptions. It takes a lot of humility to actually pursue Truth sincerely."- Rachel Oja*

In so many of my interactions with people, I have found that they have already made a commitment one way or the other to certain worldviews and are looking for intellectual reasons to either maintain that commitment, be public about the commitment or escape another commitment. I know people who are ready to accept any worldview except for X and others who are committed to accepting any form of worldview Y. Some are currently in worldview Z but are looking for intellectual reasons to either remain in or to get out.

I have found that Christianity is not immune to this observation. Some people are looking to get in but need intellectual reasons, while other are looking to get out but need intellectual reasons. I have seen people leave Christianity because someone asked them "well, who created God?". I have seen people come to Christianity for "fire insurance". Neither of those being logical reasons.

Has Dr. Sean Carroll escaped the theistic implications of the Big Bang?

Does The Universe Have A Cause?

One of the most popular arguments for God's existence is the argument from the beginning of the universe. It goes like this:

1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause.

2. The universe has a beginning

3. Therefore, the universe has a cause.

That conclusion serves as a springboard to identify that the cause of the universe must be timeless, spaceless, and possess immense causal power. When combined with other scientific observations of the universe, it is implied that this cause additionally is both intelligent and personal. The argument from the beginning of the universe provides powerful evidence that God is the Cause of the universe.

Because this argument's reasoning is valid and its conclusion strongly implies theism, atheists commonly attack the argument by denying one of its premises: namely, the second one, that the universe had a beginning. Dr. Sean Carroll is one such atheist. He attempts to escape the theistic implications of the beginning of the universe without denying the (appearance of a) beginning of the universe. A friend presented to me this slideshow from Dr. Carroll not too long ago:

Introduction

For nearly all my life, I've had a fascination with the physical sciences. Meteorology and astronomy were two of them that always caught and kept my attention as a kid. In my teens was when I started to focus more on information technology, and in my twenties I was drawn to defending the truth of the Christian worldview through science, philosophy, and other knowledge disciplines. Living in Oklahoma, the weather is always in the news, and being that I frequent philosophical and scientific sites, popular astronomer Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson comes across my screen once in a while as well. In the last year, a few different articles have shown up from the meteorological, astronomical, and philosophical worlds, which the combination is what caught my attention. Today, I want to take some time to show how technology, being used to simulate natural phenomena, can be used to show that God exists, and I will address a popular naturalistic alternative explanation that was proposed by Tyson (and others). Let's start with the weather and super-computers.

Introduction

A couple years ago the documentary "Is Genesis History?" was released. This documentary aims to defend the truth of the Christian worldview by defending the historicity of the early chapters of the Bible from a scientific perspective. The documentary attempts to accomplish this by demonstrating evidence in support of intelligent design and a young (~6000 years old) creation. As those who follow this blog know, I do not hold to the view that the universe is 6000 years old, as Del Tackett and the other contributors to "Is Genesis History?" do, yet I affirm the historicity and scientific accuracy of the Genesis accounts of origins.

Because many people (including those in this documentary) believe that the historicity of these early chapters and a young earth interpretation of them cannot be separated, a friend has asked me to offer some comments in the way of clarifying this common misunderstanding and some other concerns in the movie. There is much unnecessary confusion and heat in the Church concerning the debate over origins, so I am hoping to provide a charitable critique in the context of Christian unity and love.

Introduction
As humans we tend to prefer to listen to those who agree with us and avoid the discomfort of having our views challenged.We find this in all sorts of people who hold all sorts of different views- be they religious, philosophical, political, or whatever. As a child my most common exposure to this attitude was from those in the church. I remember one person pointing to scripture to affirm such an attitude:

Now we have not received the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who comes from God, so that we may understand what has been freely given to us by God. We also speak these things, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual things to spiritual...The spiritual person can evaluate everything, yet he himself cannot be evaluated by anyone." 1 Corinthians 2:12-15 (HCSB)

It was offered that the wisdom of unsaved people is useless to me, and the wisdom that I offer them is foolish to them. I was led to believe that anytime an unbeliever challenged my view, that scripture encouraged me to completely disregard it and anything else the person had to say. After all, even a challenge that seemed genuine or logical was really to trick me into rejecting God: that is the agenda of the Enemy- the "Father of all lies." Even the consideration that something I believed might be wrong was a cause for alarm.