Excerpt

ADRIAN J. ADAMS, ESQ

Which god is God?

Chapter I

Why is there something rather than nothing?

—Gottfried Leibniz, mathematician*

Attorney-theologian John Warwick Montgomery observed that inherent to the practice of law is an effort to resolve conflicts, which creates a natural interest in resolving conflicts in religious claims. When it comes to God, there are many claims to investigate. Atheists insist there is no God, Hindus believe in many gods, Jews follow one God, and New Agers declare themselves to be gods. These claims cannot all be true. Using the principles of legal evidence, we can determine which ones have merit. The first conflict to settle is whether God exists.

Atheists declare there is no evidence of God’s existence; therefore, he does not exist. Atheists, however, commit two errors. The first is that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. The second error is that atheists rely solely on direct evidence. Because God has not been photographed, weighed, or measured, he does not exist. If that is the standard for investigation, then an atheist’s mind does not exist since it cannot be photographed, weighed, or measured. Fortunately, there is another form of evidence used by courts to establish truth. It is called circumstantial evidence.
Author Daniel Defoe used it in Robinson Crusoe, where the main character is shipwrecked on an uninhabited island. After years of isolation, he sees a footprint in the sand and immediately knows someone else is on the island. Even though he did not see the person (direct evidence), he correctly deduced his presence from the footprint (indirect evidence).

Typically, most evidence in modern courtroom trials is circumstantial. It is not unusual for judges and juries to make findings based entirely on circumstantial evidence. It is a powerful tool that can be used to establish God’s existence.

The Riddle of the Universe

At the start of the 20th century, scientists agreed the universe had no beginning or end—it was infinite and eternal. In The Riddle of the Universe, published in 1900, German zoologist Ernst Haeckel declared that science had put the “myths” of God and creation to rest. According to Haeckel, physics and astronomy proved there was no God. Five years later, an obscure patent office clerk began unraveling these claims.

In 1905 and again in 1917, Albert Einstein introduced revolutionary concepts about space and time. Einstein’s theories showed that our universe is not infinite and eternal. Instead, it was young, had a sudden beginning, and was expanding outward at high speed. Einstein’s theories greatly annoyed atheists because of their theological implications.

In 1919, English astronomer Arthur Eddington confirmed an element of Einstein’s revolutionary theories when he photographed the bending of light during a solar eclipse. It was not supposed to happen, yet it did. Ten years later, American astronomer Edwin Hubble discovered that galaxies were moving away from the Earth. The farther away they were, the faster they traveled—the same effect produced by an explosion. It was another confirmation of Einstein’s mathematical equations.

If the universe expands outward as time moves forward, reversing the timeline would shrink the universe to a single point. Going any farther would be an abrupt end to the universe, where nothing existed. A universe with a starting point implies God’s existence, which English astronomer Sir Arthur Eddington found repugnant. Even Einstein thought he had made a mistake and adjusted his equations to make them conform to prevailing beliefs in an infinite, eternal universe.

Although others accepted the evidence of an expanding universe, Einstein dismissed it. It was not until he met with Hubble and examined photographic plates of receding galaxies that Einstein saw proof that the universe was expanding outward in all directions. At that point, he dropped his opposition and restored his original equations. Einstein later admitted that doubting his own work was the biggest blunder of his life.

Even with Hubble’s evidence and Einstein’s reluctant support, the scientific community had trouble accepting a young universe with an abrupt beginning. English astronomer Fred Hoyle strongly opposed Einstein’s theory because it supported the concept of creation. In 1950, Hoyle derisively called Einstein’s model the “big bang” theory—a description that stuck.

Like Hoyle, the openly atheistic Soviet Union opposed the sudden appearance of the universe out of nothing because of its theistic implications. The Soviets condemned anything supporting God’s existence and labeled the evidence a cancerous tumor because it smacked of too much religion. The concept was so dangerous that Communist Party leaders banned any discussion of an expanding universe from Soviet astronomy. They also rejected another challenge to atheism—evidence the universe is wearing out.

Death Implies Birth

By definition, an eternal universe has no beginning or end—it always existed and will exist forever. Yet everywhere astronomers looked, they found evidence the universe was running down. The Earth’s rotation is gradually slowing down, and the moon is steadily receding from our planet. The sun is burning millions of tons of fuel per second, pouring heat into the cold depths of space, never to return. All suns eventually run out of fuel and die. Countless massive stars have already collapsed and formed black holes. Just as battery-driven toys run out of energy and stop, the universe is running out of energy and will experience what scientists call “heat death.”

This irreversible process is known as the second law of thermodynamics or the law of increasing entropy (disorder). Entropy is a fundamental law of nature that is supreme among all other laws. Science writer Isaac Asimov labeled it universal and unbreakable. MIT professor of physics Alan Lightman pointed out that a vase can fall off a table and break into pieces, but the fragments never pull themselves together and leap back onto the table. The process is irreversible—it goes in one direction only.

In 1931, professor of physical chemistry Richard Tolman realized that if the universe were eternal, it would already be dead since energy loss cannot continue forever. Because the universe is not already dead, it cannot be eternal; therefore, it had a beginning.

Fred Hoyle highlighted the theological implications in his book The Nature of the Universe. He said the only way to avoid the issue of creation is for the universe to be infinitely old. However, if this were so, no hydrogen would be left because it steadily converts into helium. The conversion is a one-way process with no new hydrogen being created. Hoyle observed that the universe consists almost entirely of hydrogen, which means the universe is young, and the creation issue cannot be avoided.

Crisis of Faith

In his book God and the Astronomers, astrophysicist and founder of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies Robert Jastrow wrote that scientists cannot bear the thought of the universe exploding into existence because they must ask who or what caused it—where did the matter and energy come from?

The sudden appearance of the universe out of nothing created a crisis of faith for atheists. Rather than accept it, some became obsessed with developing theories to make the universe eternal. According to theoretical physicist and cosmologist Alan Guth, the idea of an eternal universe is appealing because it frees scientists from questions about how the universe was created or what existed before it was formed.

Steady-State Theory. One of the first to challenge Einstein’s big bang theory was Fred Hoyle, who was openly hostile to religion. The idea of the universe suddenly appearing out of nothing was intolerable to him. To account for an expanding universe, Hoyle theorized that new matter kept forming in an existing eternal universe. It would account for an expanding universe without the need for a beginning. As the universe expanded, new material filled the gaps, keeping the universe steady. It allowed Hoyle to exclude God.

The problem with his theory was the source of the continuous flow of new matter. According to Hoyle, new material came from nothing; it just appeared. To advance his proposal, Hoyle made a point of associating his theory with atheism and Einstein’s theory with religion.

Hoyle’s steady-state theory fell into disfavor as mounting evidence pointed to a single creative moment for the universe. It suffered a fatal blow in 1965 with the discovery of cosmic background radiation. Two radio astronomers had been working on an antenna for a satellite communications system when they picked up an annoying hiss from space. At first, they thought it might be bird droppings on the antenna. They cleaned the antenna, but the hiss continued. It came from every direction in space—a faint radiation for which there was no known source.

As word of their discovery spread through the scientific community, colleagues realized it was cosmic radiation left over from the fiery act of creation. The radiation provided decisive evidence of a universal explosion, which Hoyle could not explain. The discovery was a setback for atheists. Undaunted, they offered new proposals to eliminate God.

Oscillating Universe. Atheists began promoting a theory of an oscillating universe. They argued that an infinite number of big bangs occurred in the past and would continue for eternity. Each time the universe exploded into existence, gravitational forces caused it to collapse, only to explode again into another universe. Princeton physicist Robert Dicke favored the idea because it avoided the problem of explaining the original creation of matter. Nobel Prize recipient and high energy physicist Steven Weinberg, who wrote about the physics surrounding the sudden origin of the universe, observed that some scientists were attracted to the oscillating model not because it had any particular merit but because it avoided the biblical account of creation.

Despite the oscillating theory’s philosophical attractiveness to atheists, there is no evidence the universe previously collapsed and no data to support a future collapse. Moreover, Einstein’s theory does not allow a collapsing universe to rebound into another universe any more than a bowling ball dropped onto a sandy beach could bounce. Furthermore, growing evidence supports the continued expansion of the universe, not its collapse. Not only is there not enough gravity to slow its expansion, antigravitational forces are causing it to accelerate. Evidence from the Hubble space telescope shows the universe will expand forever.

No Boundaries Theory. With the collapse of the oscillating universe theory, theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking tried his hand at eliminating God. His proposal erased the boundaries of the universe. In his book A Brief History of Time, Hawking argued that ifthe universe had no border, it would have no beginning or end; it would simply be.

Recognizing his theory’s inherent problems, Hawking admitted it was a proposal that could not be deduced from other principles and was too complicated to calculate mathematically. Moreover, to make it feasible, Hawking resorted to imaginary time. A proposal that does not flow from other principles, cannot be verified mathematically, cannot be tested, and relies on imaginary time cannot be taken seriously. It explains why Hawking’s theory has no support in the scientific community.

Bubble Universes. The bubble universe theory is another attempt to eliminate God. Supporters speculate that an undetectable mother universe in an undetectable dimension gives birth to undetectable daughter universes for eternity. Our universe is one of those bubble universes—the only one we can see.
One science writer observed that bubble universes are based on conjecture and fuzzy notions. One of the irrational ideas is the energy source to create daughter universes. Like Hoyle’s discredited steady-state theory, proponents speculate that new universes emerge out of nothing because you can never run out of nothing. An undetectable mother universe in an undetectable dimension producing daughter universes out of nothing qualifies as science fiction, not science.

Occam’s Razor

Occam’s razor is a widely accepted scientific principle that the simplest explanation to a problem is usually the best. An example is the orbit of the planets around the sun. The scientific community once believed the Earth was the center of our solar system. Anyone could see the sun, moon, and stars move across our sky. The problem was that their movements were erratic. Until the 1500s, scientists developed increasingly complex models to explain complicated and unpredictable movements of planets around the Earth.

In 1543, the Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus offered a simple solution. He proposed that planets circled the sun, not the Earth. His explanation made planetary movements predictable. Over time, scientists abandoned their complicated models of planetary motions in favor of the simple solution offered by Copernicus, which was the right one.

The fact that the universe exists demands an answer. There are two possibilities for how a highly ordered universe appeared out of nothing. The first involves debunked science, speculation, imaginary time, fuzzy notions that cannot be tested or verified, and an infinite number of undetectable universes feeding on nothing because you can never run out of nothing. The second answer is elegantly simple—a higher intelligence created the universe. As Stephen Hawking wrote, “So long as the universe had a beginning, we could suppose it had a creator.”