Series: Know God (www.metachurch.tv/knowgod)
Sermon: No God?
Scripture: Genesis 1:1, 1 Peter 3:15
ICE BREAKER: Are you naturally more of a skeptic or more of a believer?
REVIEW:
This week we covered three arguments for the existence of God. We started a new series acknowledging that less and less people are claiming spiritual belief every year. Atheism has been on the rise for decades now, and the Church rarely offers any answers to these big questions!
The premise of week 1 is that everyone puts their faith in something. For too long, atheists have claimed that a Christian has no standing because their worldview requires faith; however, when really digging into the biggest questions in life, atheists exercise significant faith too!
In fact, after digging in further and further, it seems atheism requires MORE faith than belief in God in quite a few areas. The arguments we looked at were:
Creation (Cosmological Argument):
Everything that begins to exist has a creator
The universe began to exist
Therefore, the universe has a creator
The vast majority of the scientific community has come to the consensus that the universe sprang into existence out of nothing at the Big Bang. If you believe in God, then SOMEONE (a spaceless, timeless, immaterial, all-powerful, personal being) created something out of nothing. If you do NOT believe in God, then you have FAITH that nothing created something out of nothing.
Design (Teleological argument):
Every design has a designer
The universe has a highly complex design
Therefore the universe has a designer
There are over 100 natural constants that must be fine-tuned to a mind-blowing degree for the universe to sustain life on earth. The likelihood of the universe existing, and us existing in it, is practically 0% - and yet, the universe does exist alongside life on our planet! Add on to that the second law of thermodynamic which says that things always move toward disorder and entropy, not order and design, and the fine-tuning of the universe makes absolutely no sense.
If God exists, then He is the creator and as the all-powerful creator you would expect to see design in His universe. If there is no God, we must have faith that an infinite number of coincidences and mere fortune created systems and structures more complex than our minds can even understand.
Morality (Moral Law Argument):
Every law has a law giver
There is an objective moral law
Therefore, there is a moral law giver
As a culture, we agree that some things are objectively wrong. In other words, they are wrong no matter what! The problem is, for something to be objectively true, it must be rooted in something outside of those determining it. If not, then it is just opinion and can change as the thoughts of the culture change.
If God exists, then He as designer and creator is the objective standard for Moral virtue, ethics, and duties. Those Morals exist outside of us and are discovered through His revelation to us. If God does not exist, then we have NO GROUNDS for objective morality. This means you cannot say anything is truly good or bad.
APPLY:
Have you ever thought much about these deep questions like, "Why is there something instead of nothing." or, "how is the world so intricately designed."?
How would it help you to have a more reasoned faith?
What was your biggest takeaway from Sunday's sermon?
PRAY:
Spend some time praying for those who do not believe in God. Ask the Holy Spirit to give you confidence in sharing your faith and showing what God has done in your life.
