Stealing from God: Why Atheists Need God to Make Their Case

by Frank Turek

The God of the Bible is not like Zeus, Apollo, Baal, and the rest, or even what the Bible calls an “angel.” God is not a created being among other beings inside the universe. He is Being itself and transcends the entire created order! He is the ultimate and sustaining cause of all created things, including angels, human beings, and the material world we call the universe. This kind of God can be known by all people

because God has revealed Himself through two books: the book of nature (which everyone has) and the Bible.

Atheists can’t just identify what they think are deficiencies in theism. They must make a compelling case that everything has been caused by materials and consists only of materials, including The beginning of the universe The fine-tuning of the universe The laws of nature The laws of logic The laws of mathematics Information (genetic code) Life Mind and consciousness Free will Objective morality Evil. It’s rare to find an atheist attempting to explain more than one or two of these things materially. How could they? How can laws be materials?

Every day the media and academia pound out an incessant drumbeat against the Christian faith, some to the point of mockery. They depict Christianity as completely unreasonable (even though, as we shall see, it is atheism that is unreasonable). Despite the fact that Christians founded most of our major universities to advance Christianity (Harvard premised learning on John 17:3!), atheism is just assumed to be true at many of those schools today. The existence of God is not even a topic to be studied or debated. Instead, belief in God is often mocked or dismissed even in “religion” courses. Yet how we live, and the destiny of my life and your life, ultimately hinges on the question “Does God exist?” If God exists—especially the God of the Bible—then what we believe and how we live matters for all eternity. If no God exists, then nothing ultimately matters and there is no objective game plan for living. That’s why “Does God exist?” is literally life’s most important question.

Has gravity ever created something from nothing? How about the second law of thermodynamics? Even macroevolution, if it’s true, isn’t capable of creation out of nothing (ex nihilo). Impersonal forces, which we call natural laws, can’t create—they merely govern what’s already there, provided no one intervenes. Atheist Stephen Hawking famously declared, “Because there is a law like gravity, the universe can and will create itself out of nothing” (The Grand Design, 180). With all due respect to Dr. Hawking, that is nonsense. Gravity is not a creative force and didn’t exist until the universe was created. Dr. John Lennox wrote a book refuting Hawking’s atheistic assertions (called God and Stephen Hawking). For a shorter response, see his article titled, “As a scientist I’m certain Stephen Hawking is wrong. You can’t explain the universe without God.” September 3, 2010, The UK Daily Mail, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1308599/Stephen-Hawking-wrong-You-explain-universe-God.html, accessed July 3, 2014. [5] In an interview at the end of the Kindle edition of his book, Dr. Krauss said he can’t definitely say there is no God but then said, “It is highly unlikely, of course. But what I can claim definitively is that I wouldn’t want to live in a universe with a God—that makes me an anti-theist, as my friend Christopher Hitchens was.” Lawrence Krauss, A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather than Nothing (New York: Atria Books, Kindle edition, 2012). [6] In a ...

Atheists try and rebut this conclusion by saying we wouldn’t be here to observe this universe if it wasn’t fine-tuned. That’s true, but that doesn’t explain why the universe is fine-tuned. Philosopher John Leslie shows why that atheist rebuttal doesn’t work. Imagine an entire firing squad fired at you, but none of the shooters hit you. Just because you are alive to observe the fact that no one hit you would not explain why no one hit you! Likewise,

just because we are alive to observe a fine-tuned universe does not explain why the universe is fine-tuned.

Before we get back to Madison, let’s go to Irvine and drop in on that debate with Dr. Bahnsen questioning Dr. Stein: Bahnsen: Do you believe there are laws of logic then? Stein: Absolutely. Bahnsen: Are they universal? Stein: They are agreed upon by human beings, not realizing it is just out in nature. Bahnsen: Are they simply conventions then? Stein: They are conventions that are self-verifying. Bahnsen: Are they sociological laws or laws of thought? Stein: They are laws of thought, which are interpreted by man. Bahnsen: Are they material in nature? Stein: How could a law be material? Bahnsen: That’s the question I’m going to ask you. Stein: I would say no. Notice that Dr. Stein, despite being an atheist and a materialist, admitted that the laws of logic are not material. It was then his turn to question Dr. Bahnsen: Stein: Dr. Bahnsen, would you call God material or immaterial? Bahnsen: Immaterial. Stein: What is something that’s immaterial? Bahnsen: Something not extended in space. Stein: Can you give me any other example, other than God, that’s immaterial? Bahnsen: The laws of logic. [Raucous laughter.][1] So in Madison, I took my cue from Dr. Bahnsen to respond to Michael’s question. Here is how our exchange began: Michael: Can you please explain to me how something can exist without time, space, or matter to exist out of? And if you can explain how that is possible, can you...

What else is immaterial other than God? According to materialist atheists..... Logic!

Atheists claim to be champions of reason. But as we’ve seen, atheism cannot explain the origin of the laws of logic or our ability to reason. No future discovery will change that fact.

We have enough evidence to draw a firm conclusion that nature universally brings nonliving things to disorder. Nature will take a building and turn it into a pile of bricks, but nature will never take a pile of bricks and turn it into a building.