Faithfully In Ecuador: Why Couldn't The World Have Always Existed?

WHY COULDN'T THE WORLD HAVE ALWAYS EXISTED?

Christians believe that there must be God because the world had a beginning.

And everything that has a beginning has someone who begins it, a beginner.

But how do we know that the world had a beginning?

Maybe the world always existed…

According to the famous agnostic Bertrand Russell either the world had a beginning, or it did not. If it did not, it did not need a cause (God).

If it did, we can ask, “Who cause God?”.

But if God has a cause, he is not God.

In either case, we do not arrive at a first uncaused cause (God).

The answer to this question is that is meaningless.

It wrongly assumes that everything must have a cause, when what is claimed that everything that has a beginning has a cause.

These two are quite different matters.

Of course, everything that had a beginning had a beginner.

God does not need a cause because He had no beginning.

We need only to show that the universe had a beginning, to show that there must have been a cause of it.

“I never asserted so absurd a proposition as that anything might arise without a cause.”

David Hume

According to the second law of thermodynamics, the universe is running out of usable energy.

According to astronomer Robert Jastrow “Once hydrogen has been burned within that star and converted to heavier elements, it can never be restored to its original state.” So “minute by minute and year by year, as hydrogen is used up in stars, the supply of this element grows smaller”.

But if the universe is running down, it cannot be eternal.

Otherwise, it would not run out of energy, you cannot run out of unlimited amount of energy.

But it does not take forever to run out of limited amount of energy.

“If the overall amount of actual energy stays the same but the universe is running out of usable energy, it has never had an infinite amount – for an infinite amount of energy can never run down. This would mean that the universe could not have existed forever in the past. It must have had a beginning.”

Norman Geisler

According to the second law of thermodynamics, since the universe is getting more and more disordered, it cannot be eternal.

Or it would be totally disordered by now, which it is not.

Hence the universe must have had a beginning – one that was highly ordered.

For it to have the initial amount of energy there must have been a moment when it was given that energy.

When the universe begun.

And whatever has a beginning must have a beginner.

So, the universe must have a beginner, or God.

The world has not always existed.

But God has.

This is Good God Questions Monday. A series dedicated to those good, and difficult, questions about God, universe, life, sin, Christ, love, and everything related.

Why is it so important to answer questions about God?

“but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect”

1 Peter 3:15

Even little children can ask tough question, but there are good answers for all of them. The Bible exhorts us to find them and give them.

“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.”

Colossians 4:6

This post is based on the book “How Made God? And Answer To Over 100 Other Tough Questions Of Faith” by Ravi Zacharias and Norman Geisler.

The First Monday we wondered:

WHO MADE GOD?

The Second Monday we wondered:

WHY COULDN'T THE WORLD HAVE ALWAYS EXISTED?

The Third Monday we wondered:

HOW CAN GOD MAKE SOMETHING OUT OF NOTHING?

The Fourth Monday we wondered:

WHAT WAS GOD DOING BEFORE HE MADE THE WORLD?

The Fifth Monday we wondered:

HOW CAN THERE BE THREE PERSONS IN ONE GOD?