Class # 5. Does Absolute Truth Exist? A Basic Guide to Christian Apologetics
-
Upload
rogerskirk -
Category
Spiritual
-
view
84 -
download
1
Transcript of Class # 5. Does Absolute Truth Exist? A Basic Guide to Christian Apologetics
![Page 1: Class # 5. Does Absolute Truth Exist? A Basic Guide to Christian Apologetics](https://reader035.fdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022062515/55ce1737bb61ebfe158b4660/html5/thumbnails/1.jpg)
Session # 5 – Sunday May 10th
Does Absolute Truth Exist? A Basic Guide to Christian
Apologetics
![Page 2: Class # 5. Does Absolute Truth Exist? A Basic Guide to Christian Apologetics](https://reader035.fdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022062515/55ce1737bb61ebfe158b4660/html5/thumbnails/2.jpg)
Session # 5 – Sunday May 10thDoes Absolute Truth Exist?
A Basic Guide to Christian ApologeticsHey All: We had a great time on Sunday morning Discussing God’s Creation. For those who attended, thanks and here is the PowerPoint we used on Sunday.
For all of you who were not able attend class, please remember that the PowerPoint does not include my lecture, and comments or the discussion that took place in class. However, the PowerPoint should be a good outline for you.
See you all next Sunday as we finish “ In the Beginning There Was a Great S.U.R.G.E”
![Page 3: Class # 5. Does Absolute Truth Exist? A Basic Guide to Christian Apologetics](https://reader035.fdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022062515/55ce1737bb61ebfe158b4660/html5/thumbnails/3.jpg)
Class Thesis Statement
“Once one looks at the evidence, it takes more faith to be a non-Christian than it does to be a Christian”
![Page 4: Class # 5. Does Absolute Truth Exist? A Basic Guide to Christian Apologetics](https://reader035.fdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022062515/55ce1737bb61ebfe158b4660/html5/thumbnails/4.jpg)
REVIEW SESSION Can We Handle the Truth?
Truth is absolute, exclusive and knowable.
To deny absolute truth and its know-ability is self-defeating. Any statement that is un-affirmable (contradicts itself) must be false.
Truth is not dependent on our feelings or preferences. Something is true whether we like it or not.
![Page 5: Class # 5. Does Absolute Truth Exist? A Basic Guide to Christian Apologetics](https://reader035.fdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022062515/55ce1737bb61ebfe158b4660/html5/thumbnails/5.jpg)
REVIEW SESSION Can We Handle the Truth?
People often get their beliefs from their parents, friends, childhood religion, feelings, or culture. While such beliefs could be true, it’s possible they may not be.
We can use philosophical principles, including those found in logic and science, to test the truth of beliefs.
![Page 6: Class # 5. Does Absolute Truth Exist? A Basic Guide to Christian Apologetics](https://reader035.fdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022062515/55ce1737bb61ebfe158b4660/html5/thumbnails/6.jpg)
Mission Trails Regional ParkA Personal Story
![Page 7: Class # 5. Does Absolute Truth Exist? A Basic Guide to Christian Apologetics](https://reader035.fdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022062515/55ce1737bb61ebfe158b4660/html5/thumbnails/7.jpg)
The Twelve Points That Show Christianity Is True
Truth about reality is knowable.
The opposite of true is false.
It is true that the theistic God exists. This is evidenced by the:a. Beginning of the universe
(Cosmological Argument)b. Design of the universe
(Teleological Argument / Anthropic Principlec. Design of Life (Teleological Argument)d. Moral Law (Moral Argument
![Page 8: Class # 5. Does Absolute Truth Exist? A Basic Guide to Christian Apologetics](https://reader035.fdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022062515/55ce1737bb61ebfe158b4660/html5/thumbnails/8.jpg)
Session 5. May 10th
It is true that the theistic God exists. This is evidenced by the :a. Beginning of the universe
(Cosmological Argument)S.U.R.G.E.Second Law of ThermodynamicsUniverse is ExpandingRadiation From the Big BangGreat Galaxy SeedsEinstein Theory of Relativity
![Page 9: Class # 5. Does Absolute Truth Exist? A Basic Guide to Christian Apologetics](https://reader035.fdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022062515/55ce1737bb61ebfe158b4660/html5/thumbnails/9.jpg)
In the Beginning There Was a Great S.U.R.G.E.
“Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind.”
Albert Einstein
![Page 10: Class # 5. Does Absolute Truth Exist? A Basic Guide to Christian Apologetics](https://reader035.fdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022062515/55ce1737bb61ebfe158b4660/html5/thumbnails/10.jpg)
Cosmological ArgumentFive Lines of Scientific Evidence
Second Law of ThermodynamicsUniverse is Expanding
Radiation from the Big BangGreat Galaxy SeedsEinstein’s Theory of Relativity
S.U.
R.G.E.
![Page 11: Class # 5. Does Absolute Truth Exist? A Basic Guide to Christian Apologetics](https://reader035.fdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022062515/55ce1737bb61ebfe158b4660/html5/thumbnails/11.jpg)
National Academy of SciencesAlbert Einstein Memorial
April 22, 1979
At the dedication ceremony, physicist John Archibald Wheeler described the statue as "a monument to the man who united space and time into space-time...a remembrance of the man who taught us...that the universe does not go on from everlasting to everlasting, but begins with a bang”.
Sculptor, Robert Berks
![Page 12: Class # 5. Does Absolute Truth Exist? A Basic Guide to Christian Apologetics](https://reader035.fdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022062515/55ce1737bb61ebfe158b4660/html5/thumbnails/12.jpg)
Emerald Middle School East Coast Trip 2007
Washington DC /New York City
![Page 13: Class # 5. Does Absolute Truth Exist? A Basic Guide to Christian Apologetics](https://reader035.fdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022062515/55ce1737bb61ebfe158b4660/html5/thumbnails/13.jpg)
Sculptor, Robert Berks
Elm and holly grove in the southwest corner of the Nation Science Academy grounds
Washington DCNational Mall
![Page 14: Class # 5. Does Absolute Truth Exist? A Basic Guide to Christian Apologetics](https://reader035.fdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022062515/55ce1737bb61ebfe158b4660/html5/thumbnails/14.jpg)
Sculptor, Robert Berks
Kennedy CenterPotomac River, adjacent to the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C.
Elm and holly grove in the southwest corner of the Nation Science Academy grounds
![Page 15: Class # 5. Does Absolute Truth Exist? A Basic Guide to Christian Apologetics](https://reader035.fdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022062515/55ce1737bb61ebfe158b4660/html5/thumbnails/15.jpg)
•The Theory of General Relativity•The Photoelectric Effect•The Equivalence of Energy and Matter
•"As long as I have any choice in the matter, I shall live only in a country where civil liberty, tolerance, and equality of all citizens before the law prevail.”
•"Joy and amazement at the beauty and grandeur of this world of which man can just form a faint notion ...”
•"The right to search for truth implies also a duty; one must not conceal any part of what one has recognized to be true."
![Page 16: Class # 5. Does Absolute Truth Exist? A Basic Guide to Christian Apologetics](https://reader035.fdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022062515/55ce1737bb61ebfe158b4660/html5/thumbnails/16.jpg)
.
Albert Einstein 1879-1955. German-born, theoretical physicist. Professor at the Berlin Academy of Science. 1933 – visiting USA and chose not to go back to Germany because of the political situation in Germany and the treatment of Jews by the Nazis. 1940 – Becomes USA citizen. Princeton University.
![Page 17: Class # 5. Does Absolute Truth Exist? A Basic Guide to Christian Apologetics](https://reader035.fdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022062515/55ce1737bb61ebfe158b4660/html5/thumbnails/17.jpg)
.•Einstein's views about religious belief have been collected from interviews and original writings.•Called himself an agnostic, while disassociating himself from the label atheist. •Believed in the pantheistic god, but not in a personal god. However, his comments on admitting creation, and divine thought better describe a theistic God.
![Page 18: Class # 5. Does Absolute Truth Exist? A Basic Guide to Christian Apologetics](https://reader035.fdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022062515/55ce1737bb61ebfe158b4660/html5/thumbnails/18.jpg)
Reading Selection: I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist by Geisler & Turek, pp. 73 & 74
![Page 19: Class # 5. Does Absolute Truth Exist? A Basic Guide to Christian Apologetics](https://reader035.fdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022062515/55ce1737bb61ebfe158b4660/html5/thumbnails/19.jpg)
.•Albert Einstein 1916 •General Theory of Relativity•Universe not eternal, had a beginning.•Beginning of all time, matter, and all space.
![Page 20: Class # 5. Does Absolute Truth Exist? A Basic Guide to Christian Apologetics](https://reader035.fdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022062515/55ce1737bb61ebfe158b4660/html5/thumbnails/20.jpg)
General Theory of Relativity
![Page 21: Class # 5. Does Absolute Truth Exist? A Basic Guide to Christian Apologetics](https://reader035.fdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022062515/55ce1737bb61ebfe158b4660/html5/thumbnails/21.jpg)
Einstein’s Theory of RelativityTheory of Relativity in 7 Minutes
![Page 22: Class # 5. Does Absolute Truth Exist? A Basic Guide to Christian Apologetics](https://reader035.fdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022062515/55ce1737bb61ebfe158b4660/html5/thumbnails/22.jpg)
.
•Cosmological constant (fudge factor) •Showed the universe static and avoided an absolute beginning.
•Called his findings “irritating”
![Page 23: Class # 5. Does Absolute Truth Exist? A Basic Guide to Christian Apologetics](https://reader035.fdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022062515/55ce1737bb61ebfe158b4660/html5/thumbnails/23.jpg)
Total Solar EclipsePrincipe Island, May 1919
![Page 24: Class # 5. Does Absolute Truth Exist? A Basic Guide to Christian Apologetics](https://reader035.fdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022062515/55ce1737bb61ebfe158b4660/html5/thumbnails/24.jpg)
Sir Arthur Eddington1882-1944
![Page 25: Class # 5. Does Absolute Truth Exist? A Basic Guide to Christian Apologetics](https://reader035.fdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022062515/55ce1737bb61ebfe158b4660/html5/thumbnails/25.jpg)
1919 Arthur Eddington
“Philosophically, the notion of a beginning of the present order of nature is repugnant to me…I should like to find a genuine loophole.”
![Page 26: Class # 5. Does Absolute Truth Exist? A Basic Guide to Christian Apologetics](https://reader035.fdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022062515/55ce1737bb61ebfe158b4660/html5/thumbnails/26.jpg)
Alexander Friedmann (Russian) 1922
Proved Einstein divided by Zero in his algebraic equations.
![Page 27: Class # 5. Does Absolute Truth Exist? A Basic Guide to Christian Apologetics](https://reader035.fdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022062515/55ce1737bb61ebfe158b4660/html5/thumbnails/27.jpg)
Edwin Hubble1927 Mount Wilson
Observatory•100 inch telescope•“red shift” in light of every observable galaxy•Galaxies were moving away from from us.•General Relativity was again confirmed.•Universe was expanding from a single point in the distance past.
![Page 28: Class # 5. Does Absolute Truth Exist? A Basic Guide to Christian Apologetics](https://reader035.fdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022062515/55ce1737bb61ebfe158b4660/html5/thumbnails/28.jpg)
Albert Einstein, Edwin Hubble, and Walter Adams (l-r) in 1931 at the Mount Wilson Observatory 100" telescope, in the San Gabriel Mountains of Southern California
![Page 29: Class # 5. Does Absolute Truth Exist? A Basic Guide to Christian Apologetics](https://reader035.fdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022062515/55ce1737bb61ebfe158b4660/html5/thumbnails/29.jpg)
Cosmological Constant (fudge factor)Einstein: “the greatest blunder of my life”Einstein: “I want to know how God created the world”
![Page 30: Class # 5. Does Absolute Truth Exist? A Basic Guide to Christian Apologetics](https://reader035.fdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022062515/55ce1737bb61ebfe158b4660/html5/thumbnails/30.jpg)
Launched into low Earth orbit in 1990, and remains in operation. With a 2.4-meter (7.9 ft) mirror, Hubble's four main instruments observe in the near ultraviolet, visible, and near infrared spectra. The telescope is named after the astronomer Edwin Hubble.
Hubble's orbit outside the distortion of Earth's atmosphere allows it to take extremely high-resolution images with negligible background light. Hubble has recorded some of the most detailed visible-light images ever, allowing a deep view into space and time. Many Hubble observations have led to breakthroughs in astrophysics, such as accurately determining the rate of expansion of the universe.
Hubble Space Telescope
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_Space_Telescope
![Page 31: Class # 5. Does Absolute Truth Exist? A Basic Guide to Christian Apologetics](https://reader035.fdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022062515/55ce1737bb61ebfe158b4660/html5/thumbnails/31.jpg)
Sir Arthur Eddington1882-1944
![Page 32: Class # 5. Does Absolute Truth Exist? A Basic Guide to Christian Apologetics](https://reader035.fdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022062515/55ce1737bb61ebfe158b4660/html5/thumbnails/32.jpg)
Cosmological ArgumentFive Lines of Scientific Evidence
Second Law of ThermodynamicsUniverse is Expanding
Radiation from the Big BangGreat Galaxy SeedsEinstein’s Theory of Relativity
S.U.
R.G.E.
![Page 33: Class # 5. Does Absolute Truth Exist? A Basic Guide to Christian Apologetics](https://reader035.fdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022062515/55ce1737bb61ebfe158b4660/html5/thumbnails/33.jpg)
Cosmological Argument
Cosmos = Universe1. Everything that had a beginning had a
cause2. The universe had a beginning3. Therefore the universe had a causeFor an argument to be true:• Logically valid• Premises must be true
![Page 34: Class # 5. Does Absolute Truth Exist? A Basic Guide to Christian Apologetics](https://reader035.fdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022062515/55ce1737bb61ebfe158b4660/html5/thumbnails/34.jpg)
Cosmological ArgumentPremise 1: Everything that had a beginning had a cause.
Law of Causality. Fundamental Principle of science.
Things don’t happen without a cause.
Francis Bacon 1561-1626 Father of Modern Science“True knowledge is knowledge by causes”
![Page 35: Class # 5. Does Absolute Truth Exist? A Basic Guide to Christian Apologetics](https://reader035.fdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022062515/55ce1737bb61ebfe158b4660/html5/thumbnails/35.jpg)
Cosmological ArgumentPremise 2: The universe had a beginningDid the universe have a beginning?If no, then no cause is needed.If yes, then the universe must have a cause.Before Einstein (and other scientists) atheists could comfort themselves with the belief that the universe was eternal.
If the Universe is eternal, you don’t need a creator.
![Page 36: Class # 5. Does Absolute Truth Exist? A Basic Guide to Christian Apologetics](https://reader035.fdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022062515/55ce1737bb61ebfe158b4660/html5/thumbnails/36.jpg)
Second Law of Thermodynamics
![Page 37: Class # 5. Does Absolute Truth Exist? A Basic Guide to Christian Apologetics](https://reader035.fdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022062515/55ce1737bb61ebfe158b4660/html5/thumbnails/37.jpg)
S - Second Law of Thermodynamics
Study of matter and energy.
YouTube Video Thermodynamics
Every physical and biochemical process must obey the First and Second law of Thermodynamics!
![Page 38: Class # 5. Does Absolute Truth Exist? A Basic Guide to Christian Apologetics](https://reader035.fdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022062515/55ce1737bb61ebfe158b4660/html5/thumbnails/38.jpg)
First Law of Thermodynamics
The Universe has only a finite amount of energy.
Universe would be out of energy by now if it had been running for all eternity.
How does this prove that the universe had beginning?
![Page 39: Class # 5. Does Absolute Truth Exist? A Basic Guide to Christian Apologetics](https://reader035.fdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022062515/55ce1737bb61ebfe158b4660/html5/thumbnails/39.jpg)
Second Law of Thermodynamics
Universe is not eternal, it had a beginning.
Law of Entropy
![Page 40: Class # 5. Does Absolute Truth Exist? A Basic Guide to Christian Apologetics](https://reader035.fdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022062515/55ce1737bb61ebfe158b4660/html5/thumbnails/40.jpg)
Law of EntropyNature brings things to disorderIf the Universe is becoming less ordered, where did the original order come from?
The Universe cannot be eternal, if it were, we would have reached complete disorder (entropy) by now.
![Page 41: Class # 5. Does Absolute Truth Exist? A Basic Guide to Christian Apologetics](https://reader035.fdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022062515/55ce1737bb61ebfe158b4660/html5/thumbnails/41.jpg)
Reading Selection: I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist by Geisler & Turek pp. 77 & 78
Einstein and Eddington
![Page 42: Class # 5. Does Absolute Truth Exist? A Basic Guide to Christian Apologetics](https://reader035.fdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022062515/55ce1737bb61ebfe158b4660/html5/thumbnails/42.jpg)
U – Universe Is ExpandingGeneral Relativity predicted an expanding universe.
Hubble – decade after Einstein’s General Relativity Theory, proves the universe is expanding and expanding from a single point.
![Page 43: Class # 5. Does Absolute Truth Exist? A Basic Guide to Christian Apologetics](https://reader035.fdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022062515/55ce1737bb61ebfe158b4660/html5/thumbnails/43.jpg)
![Page 44: Class # 5. Does Absolute Truth Exist? A Basic Guide to Christian Apologetics](https://reader035.fdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022062515/55ce1737bb61ebfe158b4660/html5/thumbnails/44.jpg)
No Space
No Time
No Matter
![Page 45: Class # 5. Does Absolute Truth Exist? A Basic Guide to Christian Apologetics](https://reader035.fdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022062515/55ce1737bb61ebfe158b4660/html5/thumbnails/45.jpg)
No Space No Time
No Matter
Mathematically and logically – not a point but actually nothing.
Universe is not expanding into empty space, but space itself is expanding – there was no space before the “Big Bang”
![Page 46: Class # 5. Does Absolute Truth Exist? A Basic Guide to Christian Apologetics](https://reader035.fdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022062515/55ce1737bb61ebfe158b4660/html5/thumbnails/46.jpg)
Universe did not emerge from existing material but from nothing.
![Page 47: Class # 5. Does Absolute Truth Exist? A Basic Guide to Christian Apologetics](https://reader035.fdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022062515/55ce1737bb61ebfe158b4660/html5/thumbnails/47.jpg)
Time, Space, Matter came into existence at
the Big Bang
![Page 48: Class # 5. Does Absolute Truth Exist? A Basic Guide to Christian Apologetics](https://reader035.fdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022062515/55ce1737bb61ebfe158b4660/html5/thumbnails/48.jpg)
Craig vs. Atkins Debate 1998What is the Evidence for/against the Existence of God? Atlanta, Georgia
William Lane Craig Dr. Peter AtkinsWilliam F. Buckley Jr.Moderator
![Page 49: Class # 5. Does Absolute Truth Exist? A Basic Guide to Christian Apologetics](https://reader035.fdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022062515/55ce1737bb61ebfe158b4660/html5/thumbnails/49.jpg)
Whole matter of the universe began to exist at particular time in the past. An atheist must believe that the matter of the universe came from nothing and by nothing.Dr. Atkins conceded in this debate and his books that all time, all matter, and all space exploded out of nothing.
Dr. Akins struggles to explain how the universe could come into existence, uncaused out of nothing.
Full debate is one hour and 30 minutes. Available on YouTube.com
![Page 50: Class # 5. Does Absolute Truth Exist? A Basic Guide to Christian Apologetics](https://reader035.fdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022062515/55ce1737bb61ebfe158b4660/html5/thumbnails/50.jpg)
Dr. Atkins: “Now we go back in time beyond the moment of creation to when there was no time, and to where there was no space…”
Dr Atkins then describes a time before time, he asks us to imagine a swirling dust of mathematical points which recombine again and again and finally come by trial and error to form our space-time universe.
Dr. Akins - British Physical ChemistryOxford and UCLA
![Page 51: Class # 5. Does Absolute Truth Exist? A Basic Guide to Christian Apologetics](https://reader035.fdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022062515/55ce1737bb61ebfe158b4660/html5/thumbnails/51.jpg)
Big QuestionsWhat do you do with the Second Law of Thermodynamics?
What do you do with Law of Causality?
Swirling mathematical points are not nothing. How do you explain this?
Atheists cannot explain how the universe began from absolutely nothing.
![Page 52: Class # 5. Does Absolute Truth Exist? A Basic Guide to Christian Apologetics](https://reader035.fdocuments.us/reader035/viewer/2022062515/55ce1737bb61ebfe158b4660/html5/thumbnails/52.jpg)
Anthony Kenny, Atheist & British Author
“According to the Big Bang Theory, the whole matter of the universe began to exist at a particular time in the remote past. A proponent of such a theory, at least if he is an atheist, must believe that the matter of the universe came from nothing from nothing.”