The Theistic Argument
All matter has a past. All matter has an effect.
But there is more than matter … there is intelligent life.
There is purpose.
There is a moral consciousness.
There is personality and self-consciousness.
The Ontological Argument
Anselm
It is not possible for us to suppose God without His existence.
A necessary being must exist.
Something must have the power of being within itself or nothing would possibly exist. (Something must possess self-existence.)
We cannot think of the nonexistence of God or of a perfect being.
We each have an identity of a being than which none greater can be conceived.
Infinite being must exist because we cannot conceive of its not existing.
A thing is greater if it exists than if it does not exist.
A thing is greater if it necessarily exists than if it does not necessarily exist.
Cosmological Argument
Searching for the first cause who needs no antecedent.
The person that has the power of being in Himself.
A cause necessarily must have an effect.
Every effect necessarily must have a cause.
It is only the necessary being who does not have a cause.
If we find one molecule, we are faced with only four possible explanations:
- An illusion – What is the cause of the illusion? Where did the illusion come from?
- Self-created – Violates the Law of Non-Contradiction and the Law of Causality.
- Self-existence
- Created by something that is self-existent
If something exists, then something, somewhere, somehow, is self existent.
If something exists now, something exists necessarily.
What is this self-existent something?
If there ever was a time when nothing existed, what would exist now? Nothing!
Logic has no quarrel with self-existent reality.
Causal Argument
The ultimate cause must be the uncaused cause.
Independent and Eternal.
The phrase, “Everything has a cause” is incorrect. The correct statement is “Every effect has a cause.”
Infinite series of antecedent causes … infinite absurdity.
Everything does not have an antecedent cause.
Teleological Argument
Our purposeful nature comes from a purposeful Creator.
The creature cannot develop something of which the Creator is not capable.
Moral Argument
Morality … a creator-implanted characteristic.
Historical Ecclesiastical Argument
The Influence of Christianity as a proof
Murder for pleasure was eradicated.
Cannibalism
Civilizations improvement (Education)
Hospital Care
Charity for the less fortunate
Witness from the martyrs
Lesser Arguments
Argument from Personal Experience
Against the Argument from Chance
If Chance rules, God cannot.
If chance existed, it would destroy God’s sovereignty. If God is not sovereign, then He is not God.
What is chance?
Chance has no power.
Chance is not an entity.
Chance has no causality.
Chance has no being.
Chance has no influence.
“Chance is an unknown cause of a known effect.”
Chance is a cover-up for ignorance.
To say that something happened by chance is to say that something happened by nothing.
Arguing that something comes from nothing.
Denies the law of non-contradiction.
Something is not nothing.
For something to come from nothing it must self-create itself.
Some hide under the term “Spontaneous Generation”
Quantum Leap
If the quantum leap is literally simultaneous then we have a bona fide contradiction.
A quantum leap is an illusion.
There is an dimension of quantum theory that Sproul does not understand.
But one thing I know … the cause of this mysterious activity is not chance.
We have no effects without causes. (just as we have no causes without effects.)
Logic cannot tell us how the earth began … but it can tell us how the earth did not begin.
Unfathomable Grace 