Theology of Mission: A Scholarly Paper

                                                                         Introduction

The Psalmist seeks God who is everlasting to everlasting so that the poet might have the Lord’s work shown to his servants. That work is repeatedly revealed through the divinely inspired word and plays out in people’s lives as they respond. The mission of God permeates all things that God is and does. That mission is shown from the first words of Genesis to the final words of Revelation and has taken many millennia to march towards its climax. Every believer is to be about God’s mission. Understanding its foundations, categories, motifs, and application grounds the believer and moves them forward in the call upon their life. To be called into the salvation of God is to be drafted into accomplishing his mission. Let each of us respond in lockstep with the Psalmist’s desire to see the work of God all around us.  

Biblical Foundation of Mission 

The biblical foundation of the mission starts, as all things do, with God himself. In the study of missions, missiology, the mission of God is referred to as Missio Dei. Which, for George Peters and J.F. Shepherd, has the purpose of the “… glorification of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.” This mission of God can be seen as beginning before creation. The apostle Paul writes, “… but because of his purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began, and which now has been manifested through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel … (2 Timothy 1:9-10 [ESV])” Christ’s first generation disciples were not engaging in something new, but in the revealed mystery of God,  which he had been working towards even before he spoke existence into being.  Therefore, it is no surprise that when God’s prize creation, humanity, fell to temptation and a curse was spoken over all creation, God himself gave hope in that moment. To the woman who first took the forbidden fruit, God speaks hope, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel. (Genesis 3:15)” This not only was meant to bring hope to humanity in a hopeless moment but was to reveal the end goal of God’s mission to restore and elevate his creation once again. Paul would understand this and write, “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. (Galatians 4:4-5)” And when the time came, and God began his adoption process, the Scriptures reveal, “The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet … (1 Corinthians 16:20)”

From the promise or the protoevangelium of Genesis 3, God begins his work, which focuses on the lineage of Abraham It would be this lineage that both Matthew and Luke would connect Jesus to in their Gospels. John the Baptist refers back to this lineage, by which salvation occurs, when he speaks of the raising of children of Abraham from stones. Paul, too, would refer back to this lineage as that which Christians are brought into by faith. Through this lineage, God would work out his purposes to bring about goodness in the people of Israel and, through them, “…  make known his deeds among the peoples … tell of all his wondrous works!” God’s work through the nation of Israel and the specific covenant with David was to bring about the arrival of the Messiah.

Jesus is the pinnacle of God’s mission that began before the earth’s foundations. It is through the sacrifice of Jesus that God’s redemptive work finds its fulfillment that all nations can be truly blessed. This message, however, is not taken by the Risen Christ to the world but instead is given to his newly established Church. This work is to be carried out, “And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come. (Matthew 24:14)” It is this partnership between the Divine Missionary and his people of all nations now where the Church finds herself. She carries the message of God’s redemptive work until the day her Bridegroom returns and puts everything right. For this very reason, Paul proclaims to the Church, “Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain. (1 Corinthians 15:58)”

Theological Categories 

Though there are doubtless many categories that would help to understand the topic of missions, two theological categories seem to be the bookends to missions: the theology of the Trinity and that of eschatology. When thinking of the beginning of missions, we must always begin with God. When thinking of the purposes of missions, one must turn to the goal, which is the eschaton of God’s divine plan. 

However, breaking down the beginning of missions, Christians have one more step to enter God’s being. Through Jesus’ life, the revelation that God is a tri-personal being reveals deeper truths about why God engages in the creation that he does. God creates personal beings, such as humans, because he is a personal being. God’s love is shown in pursuit of humanity, even while they rebel against him because love exists within the Godhead. 

Robert M. Doran sees four divine relations within the Trinity as he studies the likes of Aquinas and Lonergan: paternity, filiation, active spiration, and passive spiration; these, in turn, add to the theology of missions. First, Doren looks to the paternal terminology that Jesus uses of himself as the Son and his Father. From this relationship within the Godhead, the second divine relationship, filiation, is seen within Jesus’ parable of the Prodigal Son, where the mission purpose is linked heavily with family reunification. Paul’s adoption language fits rightly in this vein of the family dynamic. The relationship of the Holy Spirit preceding the Father and the Son, active spiration, connects to mission by way of the Church being something that proceeds from Christ himself. It is Jesus who is the builder of the Church, and it is he who is its foundation. The final divine relationship that shows itself in mission is passive spiration. This may be seen in the fact that it is the Son who commissions the disciples to be disciple-makers and witnesses, as it is the Father and Son who, in a sense, commissions the Holy Spirit to convict the world and indwell the believer. 

Looking to God as Trinity, missions are not simply something that God does but come forth from the very eternal person of God and how he relates within the Godhead. Missions are the divine eternal act of the relational God working out his eternal attributes. By the Church participating in God’s mission, they are participating in God’s divine personhood.

If the eternal Triune God is the theological category one begins with, as they think of missions, then eschatology is where one must end. Only a tiny glimpse is given to the new creation of Revelation 21 and 22. Yet this very glimpse brings the whole of Scripture to its inevitable conclusion. From his eternal being, God creates a universe in which relational beings exist to interact and worship their Creator. These relational beings rebel, and God’s mission is put into full swing. This climaxes in the person of Jesus, and the rest of human history as it has been under the fall, marches towards the return of Christ and all things being remade anew. The eschaton, or final act of God, flows on the words of God from his throne, “Behold, I am making all things new. (Revelation 21:5)” This final act of newness ushers humanity into God’s eternal and unrevealed mystery. Yet this is not where the book of Revelation ends. The final word in the book is that of the coming of Christ. The eschaton is linked with the mission of God to bring about the salvation of those who would respond to the Gospel. Jesus’ words, “Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay each one for what he has done … (Revelation 22:12)” are both a call to the Church to be about their Lord’s work and a warning to those who have yet to respond to the Gospel’s message. And so the eschaton of God’s new creation work is given as a means to spur on the mission of God to its completion.

Motifs in Mission Theology

Several motifs within the Scripture carry the idea of what missions are for the Church. The authors of Introducing World Missions point to David Bosch’s six motifs, and Wilbert Shenk’s more broad motifs, before putting forth their own. From the authors of Introducing World Missions’ motifs, the kingdom of God and shalom are fascinating. 

The kingdom of God is said to be “intertwined” with that of mission. Moreau, Corwin, and McGee put forth that the kingdom is the operational seat, while it is also the goal of every Christian to strive for. In this, the authors see how it is both a force to be reckoned with and yet a movement of the “quiet, life-changing” work of God. Moreau, Corwin, and McGee put forth that the kingdom is the operational seat, while it is also the goal of every Christian to strive for. The kingdom of God motif is an all-encompassing work of God. He establishes his kingdom in the opening two chapters of Genesis, sees a rebellion against the kingdom in chapter three of the same book, and then spends the following chapters to restore it. This restoration becomes “at hand” in the life of Jesus and is fully realized in the closing chapters of Revelation. 

The second motif of shalom that Moreau, Corwin, and McGee mention is interesting because it flows from the title of Christ, Prince of Peace. The authors write, “... shalom is concerned with the spiritual (salvation), the physical (healing), the psychological (wholeness), and the social (justice and freedom from war).” This works hand-in-hand with the kingdom motif due to the desire to restore all things. If the kingdom was good in Genesis 1 and 2, a sense of peace follows. If one of the kingdom’s goals is to restore that good creation, then peace would be an understandable companion. So when God speaks through his prophet of a future time when, “The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat … (Isaiah 11:6),” an image of peace is noticeably displayed. It is this peace that Paul writes to the Roman Church as something that all Christians should seek. 

Here, I would put forth my motifs influenced by these three lists: rebellion, promise, call, incarnation, indwelling, commission, and return. Though it is a negative, rebellion is the breakpoint of humanity; this could also be called the motif of serration to blunt the harshness of the term. The mission is unnecessary without the motif of rebellion/separation between God and humankind. Mission happens because there’s a reason for it to happen. If Adam had not rebelled, then there would have been no need for the second Adam, Christ, to come. The Gospel is the Good News because the bad news of rebellion is real and ever-present. The second motif would be promise. The promise is God’s hope and mystery that is revealed repeatedly through the Scriptures to Eve, Abraham, David, and the prophets. It is realized in Jesus, and through him, it is given to those who put their trust in him.  The third is the call. God calls people into his work, which they must respond to. This call is for God’s redemptive work. It was given to Abraham, and God continued to call when the incarnate Word walked the shores of Galilee with the words, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. (Matthew 4:19.)” The fourth motif would be an incarnation. It was the God himself who brought about salvation. No human was up to the task of fulfilling God’s mission of restoration, so the eternal Son wrapped himself in humanity’s flesh and became the payment for sin. Motif number five is indwelling. By accepting the work of Christ on a person’s behalf, they are indwelled by the Holy Spirit.It is by the Holy Spirit that we receive the power of God to carry out the mission of God. Apart from the Spirit, we simply build human structures to care for spiritually dying people without the transformational power that bridges them from eternal death to eternal life. For it is the Spirit who “… convict(s) the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment. (John 16:8)” The sixth motif, commission, is similar to that of the third but carries without a specificity that the other does not. The call is to the general life of God, while the commission is the specific work of making disciples. The Church is not simply to talk about God; we are to train others in the life and work of God. The call is the life; the commission is the work of the Church and what every believer is to march in. The final motif, and the seventh in keeping with the complete number of God, is return. The work of the Church in commission is that of the return of Christ, not only by witnessing the Gospel of the kingdom but also by living in holiness and godliness. The return of the Bridegroom should turn the believer’s eye away from their everyday living and see their life within the framework of God’s mission.

Application for the Church

In applying the topics above, we look to three facets of the Church: The overseers, the sent, and the laity. Those who make up the office of overseers are those whom God has called to shepherd local congregations. In doing so, they are the initial champion of God’s mission work. They are to speak frequently about the kingdom of God, pointing others to Christ as the head of the Church and the one from whom all things flow from and back to. The overseers are to watch for the Holy Spirit’s gifting and build up the next generation of disciples for the mission. Overseers are also those who are pointing to the peace and the coming eschaton of Christ’s return. They are to communicate the peace of God that all believers are to live in now and the peace that will come at the return of the Bridegroom. For it is their role “… to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ … (Ephesians 4:12)”

It is through the overseers’ equipping that the next generation rises and is called to become the sent of God. Some are called to international missions, broadly sent, where they will leave their nation and culture behind to bring the Gospel to tongues and people not their own. These sent ones must learn from those who came before them how best to relay the timeless Gospel in different cultural contexts than where they grew up. However, there will be ones who might stay within their cultural and national boundaries. Yet they must never forget, and so must be encouraged to remember, that the Gospel must be a “testimony to all nations … (Matthew 24:14)” They’re work is both to reach their neighbor and region with Christ’s message of redemption and to be of the mind that until the return of Jesus, all people must hear. So, the local sent must support those who are broadly sent.

Finally, the laity must see themselves as foundational to the call of senders. Not everyone is a Paul and Barnabas who crosses the seas to speak the Gospel. Nor is every Christian a Timothy or a Titus who stayed to build up local congregations. Most of the laity are more akin to Stephen, a caretaker of local ministries. The laity are takers of collections that support fellow brothers and sisters in the faith and those of the sent ones. Yet, at the same time, they must be encouraged to be like Stephen, who continued to preach the Gospel in his context, and to seek God in finding their gifts and possibly the call to be a sent one. Every believer is called and commissioned to be a part of God’s mission, and when the Church is wholly involved, the testimony to the nations will be proclaimed.

Conclusion

The Missio Dei is rooted in the person of the Living God, who, from his triune nature, creates a universe in which finite beings have the will to rebel or walk in obedience to the Creator. Due to this will, the mission of God works tirelessly to mend and restore the broken relationships that result from rebellion. Through the foundation of God’s word, the mission of God reveals itself to move through the seed of Eve to Abraham, culminating in Jesus. Through his work, the mission of God breaks open to all those who would join him in it by trusting in Christ as Savior. In the end, it is a task given to Christ’s Church to carry His Gospel to all nations as a testimony of his great holy love. His mission marches on to the great and glorious day when all things are made new, and those who trust in him will be ushered into a new mystery of which “… no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him. (1 Corinthians 2:9)” May each professing Christian seek to be used by God to bring about his eternal kingdom, for all glory, honor, and power of the Lord Almighty. 

Bibliography

August, Jared M. “The Messianic Hope of Genesis: The Protoevangelium and Patriarchal Promises.” Themelios 42, no. 1 (April 1, 2017): 46–62. 

Grisanti, Michael A., “The David Covenant,” The Masters Seminary Journal, 10/2 (Fall 1999) 233-250, https://tms.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/tmsj10p.pdf.

Cotro, Hugo A. “Best Is Better Than Good: Christology and Progressive Revelation in Hebrews.” DavarLogos 17, no. 2 (2018): 1–35.

Davis, Barry C., “Psalms,” The Baker Illustrated Bible Commentary, ed. Gary M. Burge and Andrew E. Hill, Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2012.

Doran, Robert M., The Trinity in History: a Theology of the Divine Missions: Volume Two: Missions, Relations, and Persons, Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press, 2019.

Moreau, A. Scott, Corwin, Gary R. and McGee, Gary B., Introducing World Missions: A Biblical, Historical, and Practical Survey, ed. A. Scott Moreau, Second Edition, Encountering Mission, Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2015.

Peters, George W. and Shepherd, J.F., A Biblical Theology of Missions, Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers, 1984.

4 Arguments for the Existence of God - Argument 2, The Fine Tuning Argument

  Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson went camping. After they had dinner and a bottle of wine they lay down for the night and went to sleep. 

Some hours later, Holmes awoke and nudged his faithful friend. "Watson, look up at the sky and tell me what you see." 

Watson replied, "I see millions and millions of stars." 

"What does that tell you?" 

Watson pondered for a minute. "Astronomically, it tells me that there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets. Astrologically, I observe that Saturn is in Leo. Horologically, I deduce that the time is approximately a quarter past three. Theologically, I can see that God is all powerful and that we are small and insignificant. Meteorologically, I suspect that we will have a beautiful day tomorrow. Why, what does it tell you?" 

Holmes was silent for a minute, then spoke. "Watson, you imbecile. Someone has stolen our tent!”

Sometimes the most obvious things are not so no obvious. For Christians, our belief in God is usually based on experiences we have had with them. For many people who don’t believe, the reverse is true. Usually those who don’t believe in God do not have experience with him, and therefore declare there is no evidence. 

One of the accusations that is thrown at Christians, is that there are no arguments for the existence of God. This is usually followed by the accusation that Christians just believe on blind faith. 

And there are times, when we Christians take these accusations and internalize them. We start saying things like, you just have to take it by faith. 

But the Bible never calls us to a blind faith. The Greek word for faith is pistis (pis’-tis), and instead of meaning blindly accepting something someone gives you, it actually has the understanding of trust, based on past evidence. In fact, the first time the word is used in the Gospel of Matthew, it’s in connection with experiencing God’s provision and then lacking in faith or trust, towards his future provision (Matthew 6:30). In fact when Jesus is asked by John the Baptist’s disciples if he is truly the Messiah, Jesus points to the proof of people being healed, demons being exorcised, and the gospel being preached.

Because if God is true, then there should be logical reasons for his existence. Instead of stepping back from the accusations of blind faith, we should be able to stand firm in our trust of God, and present sound arguments for God’s existence. 

This is why we are going through these 4 arguments for the existence of God. Because there are people out there, roughly 1 out of every 2 people we encounter, who question if God existence. We as faithful disciples of Jesus, should want to be ready to give an answer that is honoring to Christ, intelligent, and gracious. 

So in our first week we talked through a cosmological argument called the Kalam Argument. This argument had three premises: 1) Everything that begins to exist has a cause, 2) The universe began to exist, 3) The universe has a cause. That cause has to be separate from the universe and so it must be spaceless, timeless, and immaterial. And since that cause created a working universe that we can rationally observe, it must be intelligent.

It’s this intelligence that leads us into our second argument, the Fine Tuning Argument. In short, the Fine Tuning Argument goes like this, “…the fact that the universe is able to support life depends delicately on various of its fundamental characteristics, notably on the form of the laws of nature, on the values of some constants of nature, and on aspects of the universe’s conditions in its very early stages (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/fine-tuning/).”  In other words, our universe is too perfect for life, to be an accident. This is our first premise, All observable evidence points towards the universe being purposefully fined tuned to sustain life.

In his 1988 book, A Brief History of Time, Stephen Hawking wrote, “It would be very difficult to explain why the universe should have begun in just this way, except as act of a God who intended to create beings like us….In fact, if one considers the possible constants and laws that could have emerged, the odds against a universe that has produced life like ours are immense (http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/Nave-html/Faithpathh/hawking.html).”

In an article for the publication the New Scientist, Marcus Chown wrote, “IT HAS been called the Goldilocks paradox. If the strong nuclear force which glues atomic nuclei together were only a few per cent stronger than it is, stars like the sun would exhaust their hydrogen fuel in less than a second. Our sun would have exploded long ago and there would be no life on Earth. If the weak nuclear force were a few per cent weaker, the heavy elements that make up most of our world wouldn’t be here, and neither would you.

“If gravity were a little weaker than it is, it would never have been able to crush the core of the sun sufficiently to ignite the nuclear reactions that create sunlight; a little stronger and, again, the sun would have burned all of its fuel billions of years ago. Once again, we could never have arisen.

"Such instances of the fine-tuning of the laws of physics seem to abound. Many of the essential parameters of nature – the strengths of fundamental forces and the masses of fundamental particles – seem fixed at values that are ‘just right’ for life to emerge. A whisker either way and we would not be here. It is as if the universe was made for us

(https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21128221-500-existence-why-is-the-universe-just-right-for-us/)."

In a youtube video, a naturalist by the name of Fraser Cain said, “I’ve got to say, you are one of the luckiest people I’ve ever met. For starters, you are the descendant of an incomprehensible number of lifeforms who were successful, and survived long enough to find a partner, procreate, and have an offspring. Billions of years, and you are the result of an unbroken chain of success, surviving through global catastrophe after catastrophe. Nice going.

“Not only that, but your lineage happened to be born on a planet, which was in just the right location around just the right kind of star. Not too hot, not too cold, just the right temperature where liquid water, and whatever else was necessary for life to get going. Again, I like your lucky streak.

“Yup, you are pretty lucky to call this place home. In fact, you happened to be born into a Universe that has the right physical constants, like the force of gravity or the binding force of atoms, so that stars, planets and even the chemistry of life could happen at all. But there’s another lottery you won, and you probably didn’t even know about it. You happened to be born on an unassuming, mostly harmless planet orbiting a G-type main sequence star in the habitable zone of the Milky Way (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcTDFUDWCp8)."

These are atheist and naturalist people, speaking to the incomprehensible reality, that our universe appears to be perfect for life. Meaning, without the laws of physics working the way they do, or something else just a hair off, none of this would be possible.

Now, the question becomes what does it mean that the universe is fine tuned?

Well, from an article by Robert Roy Britt for the website Live Science, we’re going to look at five, of what he calls “lucky facts” of Earth (https://www.livescience.com/21546-earth-facts.html).

Fact 1: The earth is in the habitable zone of the solar system. If we were Venus, we would be to close to the Sun and therefore be to hot. Things like water, the basis for all life, would boil. If we were Mars, we would be too cold, and our water would be ice. But being right where we are, we have liquid water, a requirement for life. But not only are we in a habitable area of our solar system, our solar system itself is in a habitable region of our galaxy. We’re far away from the middle of the galaxy where there’s a lot of radiation. We’re away from the chaos of the arms of the galaxy, where things are like an L.A. freeway. And we’re away from the outer edges of the galaxy, where the gravity is less stable, and we could fly off into the unknown.

Fact 2: We have a natural orbiting satellite called the Moon. Firstly, it helps create tides on Earth. The Tidal Zone, contains sea life, that are edible for us. Tides also are a way that the ocean cleans itself, making it possible for life to continue in them without becoming stale. Not only does it create tides, but the Moon also protects us from incoming asteroids that could cause devastation to the earth. 

Fact 3: Our earth is pretty stable as planets go. With the Sun coming up and going down at regular intervals. If it wasn’t, the earth would be scorched by the Sun’s heat on one side and frozen on the other. We also have temperate zones on the earth. Though life can survive in extremes, with microbes being found even in volcanic areas, most life thrives in moderate areas. Areas that are above freezing temperatures, and below sweltering ones. Many people in Quartzsite in the winter are a realization of this very fact. That being out of the cold is better for you. This in turn gives rise to plants, who clean the carbon dioxide from the planet and replace it with oxygen. This also allows us to have a variety of crops and seasons.

Fact 4: There’s this thing called constant gravity. And in reality, science doesn’t completely understand how it works. We know the effects of gravity, and how more mass means more of it, but why? In fact, I remember hearing one atheist scientist come up with the idea that we’re seeping gravity from another reality. But one things for certain, anymore of it and there would be nothing here, because the whole of the universe would collapse into itself Any less, and our planet couldn’t stay in it’s habitable zone.

Finally, Fact 5: Like in Star Trek, the Earth has a shield. The Earth has a protective magnetic field. This keeps out cosmic rays from scorching us, and solar storms from devastating us. It also deflects smaller specks of rock that could impact the planet.

Those are just five “lucky facts” about the fine tuning of the universe. There’s more, but I think we’ve presented a good basis. Without any one of these things, life cannot occur. And the natural question that follows this apparent fine tuning of the universe is why then is it like this?

In a Q&A session, MIT Professor, Alex Byrne, says that the best explanation to the fine tuning argument is a god (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQHmaim6EWg). But at that explanation Byrne becomes uncomfortable, because now he has to ask the next logical question, who is this god? 

And it’s easier to take the course of people like ASU Professor Paul Davies who wrote in an article titled, “Yes the universe looks like a fix. But that doesn’t mean that a god fixed it.” He starts off the article with, “Scientists are slowly waking up to an inconvenient truth - the universe looks suspiciously like a fix. The issue concerns the very laws of nature themselves. For 40 years, physicists and cosmologists have been quietly collecting examples of all too convenient "coincidences" and special features in the underlying laws of the universe that seem to be necessary in order for life, and hence conscious beings, to exist. Change any one of them and the consequences would be lethal. Fred Hoyle, the distinguished cosmologist, once said it was as if ‘a super- intellect has monkeyed with physics’.” 

But when Davies ends his article, instead of concluding that there really is a super-intellect monkeying with physics, instead he concludes, “Thus, three centuries after Newton, symmetry is restored: the laws explain the universe even as the universe explains the laws. If there is an ultimate meaning to existence, as I believe is the case, the answer is to be found within nature, not beyond it. The universe might indeed be a fix, but if so, it has fixed itself (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2007/jun/26/spaceexploration.comment).”

But as C.S. Lewis once wrote in a work called The Laws of Nature, “The trigger, the side wind and the earth are not laws, but facts or events. They are not laws, but things that obey laws…here comes the snag. The law won’t set it in motion (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_20yiBQAIlk).”

By saying this, C.S Lewis helps us realize that the universe itself can’t fix itself, because to fix itself right, would mean that it had intent. But it doesn’t have intent, it has laws to which it must abide by. It cannot fix a law, because it has no concept of a way to fix it. Therefore it needs an outside source, the thing in which set the universe in motion.

But this outside source must be greater. It cannot be confined by the same laws as the universe, but rather beyond the laws in order to put them in motion. Hence what we discussed last week in the Kalam argument, do you see how they are connected? 

In a 20/20 interview in 1989 Stephen Hawking said this, “It is difficult to discuss the beginning of the universe without mentioning the concept of God. My work on the origin of the universe is on the borderline between science and religion, but I try to stay on the scientific side of the border. It is quite possible that God acts in ways that cannot be described by scientific laws.”

And again we are brought back to the concept of god, a being beyond the constraints of a universe that appears fine tuned for life. Specially, life on a planet we call Earth.

But who is this god, as MIT professor Alex Byrne asks? Well it is the one that, from Isaiah 45:12 and 18 says, “12 It is I who made the earth and created mankind on it. My own hands stretched out the heavens; I marshaled their starry hosts…18 For this is what the Lord says—he who created the heavens, he is God; he who fashioned and made the earth, he founded it; he did not create it to be empty, but formed it to be inhabited…”

It is the one whom Paul spoke about when he wrote in Romans 1:20, “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.”

And the Psalmist spoke about this God when he wrote, “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. 2 Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. 3 They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them. Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world (19:1-4).”

And he is the God whom the Apostle John said was Jesus when he wrote, “Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made (John 1:3).”

So how would this look in a conversation, when about half of the Americans we meet do not know if God exists? Well, it might sound something like this. 

“What are your spiritual beliefs?” 

“Well I believe there’s a god, but I don’t know if he/she/or it exists."

“Well there’s this argument for God’s existence called the Fine Tuning Argument. It goes something like this, The universe is seems finally tuned for the purpose of life.”

“What does that mean?”

“Well if we didn’t have constant gravity, the universe would either collapse on itself or it would allow things like our plant to spin off into space.”

“That makes sense, but that’s only one thing.”

“Then there’s the fact that we live in a habitat zone. Our planet does, and our solar system does. If our plant was closer to the sun we’d be too hot, any further away and we’d be too cold. If our solar system was too close to the center of our galaxy we’d begin to collapse, and too far away we’d have flown off into the vastness of space.”

“Ok”

“Another one is that our plant is stable. We have short days and nights, and pretty short seasons. All of which allows for us to have crops, and semi-mild seasons. And then there’s.””

“Ok, I see your point. But science doesn’t say that because our universe seems fined tune it means there’s a god.”

“Well, ASU Professor Paul Davies, naturalist Fraser Cain, and the late Stephen Hawking’s all said so. Here let me show you a video by MIT Professor, Alex Byrne.”

*After the video* “The God of the Bible claims to be the cause of the universe, with the purpose of creating life. May I show you a few verses?”

In the end, the reality is, the question isn’t, is the universe fined tuned by God? The question is, are we willing to accept it? By rejecting the logical conclusion that a being beyond the universe created it, people are not basing it on the evidence, but rather on a desire to not accept God, like professor Paul Davies is doing. But our responsibility is to simply present the argument, and it’s the Holy Spirit’s job to convict, and the person’s job to accept or reject.

My challenge for you this week, is to spend time searching for more information on the Fine Tuning of the universe. We covered five facts today, but there are many more. Because, if God is true, then his creation reflects it’s Creator, and we can praise him that he has give us evidence to trust him deeper. Amen.

4 Arguments for the Existence of God - Argument 1, The Kalam Argument

  Every November we take a few weeks to tackle an apologetic series, because I am convinced of 1 Peter 3:15, “… 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 …” Christians are to have an apologia, a defense of why they believe that Jesus came to be a sacrifice on behalf of humanity, through the cross, as the only way to enter into salvation. I know some Christians believe that all we need is to tell people Jesus loves them and that’s it, but too often as a pastor I have had people come to me and say things like, “how do I answer this (insert question here)?”

Jesus called us to be as innocent as doves and as wise as serpents (Matthew 10:16). He called us to make disciple and teach them to observe all of Christ’s teachings (Matthew 28:19-20). That is my job as a pastor, to equip Christians to be prepared as they go and share the Gospel (Ephesians 4:12). These apologetic series are not to apologize for being a Christian, but to provide defense for why we believe that Jesus is true.

Last year we worked through how people get a lot of their theology through short video clips online byway of places like TikTok. This year, we’re going to get a little philosophical and give you four arguments that you can use in your tool box that build upon each other for the existence of God, and eventually lead to the existence of the Christian God and salvation in Jesus.  

We’re going to start at the beginning. It used to be that everyone had a basic supernatural god-view. In 1955, 98% of people believed in God, today that has slipped to about 81% (https://news.gallup.com/poll/393737/belief-god-dips-new-low.aspx). Not too bad, but the problem is that research suggests that people are becoming less likely to believe that a god exists (https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/4012827-does-god-exist-only-half-of-americans-say-a-definite-yes/). Meaning that though 81% of Americans believe their is a God, around half of all Americans are more agnostic in their views, and question if God is truly real. Do you see the difference in belief?

Understanding this, let’s look at the first philosophical argument which is called the Kalam Argument, so named because it comes out of the Islamic Medieval period and, in recent years, has been championed by a Christian apologist by the name of William Lane Craig. 

This argument has three premises and they are stated like this.

Premise 1: Everything that begins to exist has a cause.

Premise 2: The universe began to exist.

Premise 3: The universe had a cause.

Conclusion: From the argument we can conclude, the cause of the universe is in line with the biblical concept of God.

Let’s unpack these four premises.

 

First Premise: Everything that begins to exist has a cause. 

For the premise, the word “begins” is of extreme importance. In other words, everything that has come into existence, you, me, the trees, water, the rocks, stars and planets, all began to exist and have a cause as to why they exist.  If we found a watch in the desert, we wouldn’t say it just appeared there. We would instinctively understand that it came there by falling off a person. We would also understand that the watch had been made by a human, and, if pressed, that the watchmaker was made by two other humans. Like the watch, When we look a tree, we understand that the tree comes from a seed. Through observation, we know that water is needed to grow the seed, and usually that water comes from the clouds, which in turn comes from evaporation, and we enter into the circle of life. Since we can observe that all things that begin to exist do in fact have a cause, premise one is true.

The Second premise is: The universe began to exist. 

Can we all agree with that? Whether you believe in the Big Bang, or Intelligent Design, or the Creation story of Genesis 1, there is at least a consensus that the universe had a beginning. That space, time, and matter all had a point in the past where it wasn’t and then it was. However, this wasn’t always the case. Most religions, both ancient and modern, have believed that the universe is eternal. For most religious, the gods might have put things the way they are now, but they were only working from a universe that was already there. Even science before Edwin Humble discovered the background radiation that proved a universe that wasn’t eternal, believed the universe was eternal. Even the great Albert Einstein held to an eternal universe until it became so obvious that he had to abandon his position (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/einsteins-lost-theory-uncovered/). Since we can observe that the universe began to exist, premise two is true as well.

The Third premise is: The universe had a cause.

We know that everything that began to exist has an explanation as to why it is here, premise one, and we know that the universe began exists, premise two, so it must have a cause or an explanation as to how it came to be. But here’s the thing, whatever is the explanation for what caused the universe, must be distinct from it. The watch is not the human who made it. The seed is not the water that grew it. So there must be something beyond the universe that created it. 

Since space, time, and matter are all things that are a part of the universe they too have to be separate from the thing that caused the universe to come into being. So we need something that is spaceless, existing outside of space, we need something that is timeless, existing outside of time, and we need something immaterial, which exists outside of the material world. 

But wait, we need one more thing, intelligence. There has to be a mind behind the work to create something that has natural laws that work in a coherent and observable ways. So the cause of the universe has to be spaceless, timeless, immaterial, and intelligent. 

So what fits all four?

Well the God of the Bible claims all three about himself: For spacelessness we’re told in Isaiah 57:15, “For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite.” David understood that space did not confine God when he wrote in Psalm 139: 7-10, “Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? 8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! 9 If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, 10 even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me.”

For timelessness, were told of Jesus in Colossians 1:16-17, “16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. 17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” The Lord says of himself in Revelation 1:8, “I am the Alpha and the Omega … who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.” 

For immaterialessness, Jesus states in John 4:24, “God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” Paul sums up all three of these attributes when he writes in 1st Timothy 1:17, “To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.”

For intelligence God reveals this to Job, “Dress for action like a man; I will question you, and you make it known to me. 4  ‘Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. 5 Who determined its measurements—surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? 6 On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone …(38:2-6)” For four chapters God challenges Job’s intellect by seeing if Job understands the deeper things of the, at the time, unobservable world. Job’s response is, “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. 3  ‘Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’ Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. 4 ‘Hear, and I will speak; I will question you, and you make it known to me.’ 5 I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; 6 therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes. (42:2-6)” This intelligence aspect is something we’ll get more into more next week.

Our conclusion then follows: The cause of the universe is the timeless, spaceless, immaterial, and intelligent biblical God. If premise three is true, then the conclusion is also true. That the universe exists because God made it to exist.

Just in this one argument we have already excluded the humanistic beliefs of naturalism/atheism, and religious beliefs such as Hinduism, and Buddhism.

So how would this look in a conversation? When about half of the Americans you meet do not know if God exists? Well, it might sound something like this. 

“What are you spiritual beliefs?” 

“Well I believe there’s a god, but I don’t know if he/she/or it exists."

“Well there’s this argument for God’s existence called the Kalam Argument. It comes from an Islamic scholar back in the medieval period. It has three premises: Everything that begins to exist has a cause, the universe began to exist, the universe had a cause.”

“Ok.”

“Would you agree that everything that begins to exist had something to cause it? Like you, you had two parents that caused you to be born. The grass had water and sunshine, the car had an engineer.”

“Yeah, I would agree with that.”

“Ok, the universe had a cause, do you believe that?”

“Yeah, I mean, science says there was the Big Bang.”

“Right, so if everything that beings to exist has a cause, and the the universe began to exist, it must have a cause too, right?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“So we need to find out what that cause was, but if the make up of the universe is time, space, and matter, then the thing that caused it all, has to be the opposite of that.

“What do you mean?”

“The cause of the universe has to be timeless, spaceless, and immaterial.” 

“Ok, I’m following.”

“What’s that sound like to you?”

“Kind of sounds like a god.”

“Right, so our conclusion is, that it is a god who caused the universe. And what’s interesting is that the God of the Bible claims all three. Can I show you some verses where it talks about each of these?”

“Sure.”

And that’s where we begin the conversation as we lead our conversation partner to the cross of Jesus.

At first, these arguments can seem overwhelming, but when we take our time to think through them and to put them in our own words, we can see they’re very simple: Everything that begins to exist has a cause, the universe began to exist, the universe had a cause. After we think through these premises, the conclusion must end with a concept of God, and when we get deeper into it, the biblical God is the only one who claims all that is needed for the creation of the universe. 

So my challenge for you this week is to take these premises and to work through the notes until you’re able to share them without the use of them. If you think that it’s too much or that you don’t have the ability, my question for you is how much are the eternal destinies of the people you care about worth to you? Can you challenge yourself for their sake? That if they were to ask, that you could give them an answer that points them to Jesus, would you be willing to make the effort to be ready for that opportunity?

Let us be a people who are going to be ready to give a defense for the reason why we believe, that we might honor Jesus, and to do so intelligently. Amen.