Basic Assumptions #1: In the Beginning

What if the basic assumptions of Christianity aren’t foolish, but actually provide a better explanation of the reality we experience? Beginning with Genesis 1:1, this sermon examines whether the universe had a beginning and contrasts the Christian belief in an eternal God who created a temporal universe with worldviews that treat nature or the universe as eternal. Ultimately, the message challenges listeners to engage both faith and intellect, recognizing that Christianity can be thoughtfully examined and defended rather than simply accepted without understanding. 

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As you can see from the slide, we're starting a new series this morning entitled Basic Assumptions. Is Christianity stupid? The idea of a basic assumption is that basic means the starting point of something, or the foundation of something, and an assumption is a statement that we would assume to be true, an idea or a fact that we take for granted before we we even consider anything else. So an assumption is, is the idea that we suppose to be true beforehand. Now every worldview has basic assumptions. There isn't anybody that doesn't start out with basic assumptions about reality. No one has pre-established proven facts when they start out looking at how they view reality. In the past 2 or 300 years, the basic assumptions of Christianity have been heavily ridiculed. And so we're going to look at the idea. Is that reasonable to think Christianity is a stupid idea? For example, Freud considered Christianity to be a childish illusion, a neurotic relic that needed to be replaced by rational, the rational operations of the intellect. In other words, Christianity. Stupid. Karl Marx saw Christianity is a tool that was used by the powerful and the oppressor to oppress, to to comfort those that they're oppressing. They. He saw that Christianity as a convenient little myth that oppressors use to placate and to comfort those who they were oppressing. So that's where we get that phrase from Marx. That religion is the opium of the masses. Is Christianity a childish, stupid, yet comforting illusion, like a drug used to ease the pain of a loveless, godless reality. Or do the basic assumptions of Christianity really fit reality? Then? Did the basic assumptions of Christianity really fit reality better than the assumptions of the Christian critics of Christianity? Now, why is that important? Why is it important to be able to have a strong intellectual defense of our faith? Well, I would say the most important reason why we should have a strong intellectual defense of our faith is because of the commandment to love God. The commandment to love God. And Matthew says that we are to love God with all our mind. Oh, excuse me, with all our with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our mind. In order to love God fully, we have to engage our mind into an intellectual defense of the reality and the basic assumptions that are given to us through the Bible about God. To love God fully, we must love him not just with our emotions, not just with our will, but also with our intellect, with our minds. First, that first Thessalonians, chapter five, verse 21 says, test everything and hold to what is good. So how do the basic assumptions of Christianity hold up to the assumptions of their rivals? We're going to be that's the question we're going to be examining throughout this series. We're going to be comparing the basic assumptions of Christianity to the basic assumptions of the rivals of Christianity. And we're going to ask the question, which of those assumptions best hold up when you compare them to reality? Let me start out with an example of a basic assumption that I think we all hold to. The assumption is that we exist, I exist, do I exist? Do you exist? We assume. We start out with a basic assumption that we exist. So let me test to make sure that all of us agree with that basic assumption. Is there anyone here this morning that doesn't exist if you don't exist? Raise your hand. Oh, you got one. We got one non-existent person here this morning. Chloe. My favorite, my favorite nonexistent person. Okay, you're going to be our, token. Nonexistent. And I say that half jokingly, but there are huge portions of the world population that think existence is an illusion. That that personal, individual existence is an illusion. The idea that that we exist as individuals. You know, is a basic assumption of Christianity. Is it stupid to believe that we exist? Well, large portions of the people believe that. Is that is that it is a delusion. Most of eastern religions, particularly Buddhism, think that the idea that we are individual, self-existent persons is the delusion that creates all of the disharmony in the world. And the core idea of Buddhism is to escape the illusion of personal existence and come to realize that we don't have a definitive beginning or end or personhood, that we're all part of the cosmic hold. The reality for Buddhists is that the the individual person is an illusion, and the truth is that we're all, part of a whole and in which there is no individual distinction. Many secular naturalists also believe that self-consciousness or self-awareness, or our awareness of ourselves is in itself an illusion. Since we only have one non-existent person here this morning. We'll we'll start out with the majority assumption that we all exist. Is that okay? Are we going to change over to an existing person this morning? Oh, good. Okay, so we're all existing here this morning. We're all existing here to this morning. And we all are assuming that we exist now. So if we start out with that first basic assumption that I exist, that the question becomes, why do I exist? What brought me into existence? And the easiest answer was my parents. But what caused my parents to exist? And for that, you have to regress back to the first man and woman that ever lived. And then why did they exist? And ultimately, you have to continue back to what we would call the beginning. Today, we want to go back to the very first and basic assumption of the Christian faith. And the question, where did we come from? Now, when we're answering that question, that question goes with four other questions that every other worldview must answer. Here are the four questions that all perspectives about life must answer. Those four questions are. And we'll be starting out this morning by looking at part of the answer to the question of where did we come from? But from where do we come from? Then we ask the question, why are we here? And the third question is what is the right thing to do? And the fourth question is where are we going? These are the basic questions that every worldview must answer. Today we're going to begin with the first question where did we come from? And we're going to spend three weeks on that question. There's three questions we're going to be answering under the question where did we come from? The first one that we're going to be looking at this morning is did the universe have a beginning? Question number two is how did the universe begin? And question number three what comes first matter or information. So we'll be looking at those three questions over the next three weeks. And then we'll proceed on to question two. Why are we here. And the fourth week and so on. Today, in looking at the question, did the universe have a beginning? The message is entitled in the beginning. And we'll be looking at Genesis chapter one, verse one. Heavenly father, Lord, we just come before you and Lord. When we stop to ponder whether or not the universe had a beginning, so many other ideas is dependent upon how we answer that question. Your existence is dependent upon how we answer that question. Our accountability and what we're accountable to is dependent upon that question. Did the universe have a beginning? And so, Lord, as we we examine that question this morning. May we not only just see it in light of itself, but all of the implications that it has in terms of how we answer that question? Bless us, Lord, as we yield our minds to loving you this morning through the examining the basic assumptions of our faith, in Christ's name we pray. Amen. Genesis chapter one, verse one says this in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the Hebrew word for beginning there is reshef. And what it means is something that comes into existence that didn't exist before, something that was non-existent, that comes into existence. And so we're talking here about the beginning of the universe, the beginning of time and space, the beginning of energy and matter. And so we see here that the Bible says the universe has a beginning, and that beginning came out of nonexistence. The nonexistence of of time, space and matter and energy. There are two basic views of whether or not the universe had a beginning. We have the two competing assumptions here. The biblical assumption is what we just read. In the beginning, God created the heaven and earth, and the competing assumption is that the universe didn't have a beginning, that it's self-existent and it wasn't created. So one sees the universe as a eternal constant, and the other one sees the universe as a beginning. Now there's two large categories of people who think that the universe is continuous, that itself existent, that it never had a beginning, that it wasn't created. And those would be those that are secular naturalists and those who are religious naturalists. Both those groups believe that the universe is eternal. The universe didn't have a beginning, as is eternal and self-existent, and it wasn't created. Our is a belief that both of those groups hold to. And we'll be talking a little bit more about that in a minute. Those who hold to the basic assumptions that the universe is eternal, our most scientists hold to that view. And most people in the eastern world or eastern religions hold of that view. And also the Mormons hold to that view of an infinite regress of the universe. What difference does it make what we think about the universe, whether or not it began or has always existed? What difference does that make to us? Well, if the universe is eternal, there's no need to ask the question where did the universe come from? Right? If the universe is what's eternal, the idea of where things started is beyond our conceptual grasp to even be able to answer. And therefore, we're not tied to the pesky little idea of God. Because if the universe had a beginning, if this causal reality that we're in was caused by something outside the universe, then we're faced with the idea of the the existence of God. But if we can just say the universe is eternal, then we don't have to ask the question, who? How did the universe come into existence? What caused the universe to deny the existence of God? Must. One must deny the beginning of the universe. The first divide between atheist and theism is the question of whether the universe had a beginning. Is it stupid for us to believe or to suppose, as the Bible tells us, to suppose that the universe had a beginning? Now, there's a funny thing about the scientific community. And that funny thing is, they're always changing their assumptions, with no apparent loss of credibility. The phrase the scientists believe for most people mean it's a fact. It's a funny thing that when you say it's scientific, most people think that you're saying since it's scientific, it's a fact. Well, one of the clear, characteristics of science over the last millennium is that it's always changing. It's always having coming to a new and different perspective. It's always having a new opinion of the evidence. So it's kind of funny that we would think that just because something is scientific, it's considered to be a fact when there's almost a certainty that what is considered factual today will be at least question and modified in a short period of time, as people continue to research reality and try to fit the their understanding of the facts into reality. Let's take the question of did the universe have a beginning? Up until the second half of the 20th century, the majority of scientists said that the universe was eternal. And most scientists still prefer that view. But the reality has come crashing in on them. In the 1960s, the dominant cosmic cosmological view was called the steady state theory, which is the cosmos is always existed, and it's all that there is and all that there ever has been, that there is no entity outside the universe. The universe is a closed system. There is no God. There is no explanation for its beginning because it doesn't have a beginning. Well, a pesky thing came along, and that's called reality. When Hubble put up a big old telescope on Mount Wilson and started looking out into the expanse of the universe, some things started contradicting the idea that the universe didn't have a beginning. And when Einstein started playing around with his theory of gravity, everything started. And I won't go into the details, but everything started moving towards the evidence that the universe, it was not eternal, but it had a beginning. In fact, scientists now say we know the universe began at some point. Does that mean that the scientific community said, oh, I guess the, the, the Christian assumption that the universe had a beginning was right all along. We should apologize to our poor Christian friends for telling them they're stupid all this time. Now that we've come to agree with them on their first basic assumption, I don't think you can expect that to happen anytime soon. But the the idea that was posited by scientists most recently was the idea of the Big Bang theory that all of the matter in the universe was congealed into a little speck and and it exploded into the expanding universe that we now see here. And of course, there were two unanswered questions from that. Where did that speck of material come from? And where did the force strong enough to blow it up? And a greater a force greater than the gravity created by all the matter in the universe? Where did that force come from to blow it up? But despite these unasked answered questions, the Big Bang theory became the dominant, cosmology of our time until recently. The problem with the Big Bang theory is in itself began not to fit what was observed in reality, and I won't go into great detail there. But just to say that, as the universe was starting to be examined and they examined the known size compared to the speed of light, it started creating problems with even the Big Bang Theory. And the Big Bang Theory has recently been replaced by 50 some different versions of what's called the inflation universe theories. And so they're working with those models now to try to explain the origins of the universe. Now, the one interesting thing that has continued to frequently repeat itself is that whenever the scientists, the scientists can say, whoops, we were wrong and yet get away with it without any loss of credibility. Christianity can never, and we can never say, whoops, we are wrong without losing all of our credibility. Our basic assumptions are based on this idea that the God who is true has revealed to us the nature of reality, and we've discovered that nature through his revelation. So we can never say, whoops, we were wrong. Because if we say we are wrong, we're we have to admit we're wrong about the very basis of how we come to know what is true. How is it that that ideas that are continuously contradicted by reality are superior to ideas that have endured the test of time? That's a question I'd like you to ponder. How is it that even Christianity can survive over time, if its basic assumptions are so flawed? The theme this morning, again, is the universe had a beginning, and point. Number one is this existence is the relationship between the temporal and the eternal. Looking at verse one again, we see this relationship in the beginning. God the eternal, created the heavens and earth, the temporal. Every worldview has a relationship between the eternal and the temporal. The Christian basic assumption is that it is God who is eternal, and it is creation that is temporal. Therefore, all of creation, including us, is dependent upon God, because God is the source of its existence. Our existence is dependent upon God, and therefore we are subordinate to God. Now that's an idea that sinful man chased against the idea that because of our existence, having dependent been dependent upon God, we naturally are in a position of subordinates to God. In every worldview, there is a relationship between what is considered eternal and what is considered temporal. What has a beginning and what has always existed? Obviously, whatever is temporal in every worldview is dependent upon and subordinate to whatever is eternal. And what difference does that make? Well, let me give you an example of the worldview of radical environmentalist. Now, before I go forward, I just say we all should. One of the ways that Christians have been defined, because we don't agree with a radical environmentalist point of view, is that we're we're against protecting the environment. There couldn't be anything further from the truth. We are called to the environment. And and so there is no such thing as anti environmental people. There's just biblical environmentalist and non-biblical environmentalists. Radical environmentalists believe that Mother Nature is eternal. They believe that the universe is eternal. Mother nature is eternal, and everything has preceded all the parts of Mother Nature happened to be temporal, but Mother Nature herself is eternal, and that we therefore are the product of Mother Nature. That man therefore should view himself as subordinate to nature. The biblical assumption is that God created the universe, and he created man as the the height of his creation, and that as the height of his creation, he gave the the earth to be stewarded by man and his care of of what God had created. And so as we view man as the height of God's creation, and that man therefore is above the environment and is responsible to take good care of the natural world. So we see these two different worldviews collide, and what we would think is a totally irrational idea. When Peta says, for example, that chicken farmers who raised chickens to slaughter them so we can eat. When Peter likens that to the Holocaust, when Peta likens the slaughtering of chickens to the slaughtering of Jews in World War Two, we go, that is nuts. And the reason why we think that's nuts is because we have a different worldview than they do. If we saw the world the way they saw the world, we wouldn't think it was crazy. And let me try to argue it from their point of view. If Mother Nature is eternal, and if we are all equally the product of Mother Nature, and there is no special status or standing for mankind, but we're just another expression of what Mother Nature produced through random processes, then why would we have any right to do to force our will on these poor chickens? Why would we, if we don't have any special status, have the right to raise and slaughter chickens for our own benefit? That's the way somebody from Peta would see it. And he would. They would see the chickens as having equal rights under nature, as us. So you see that the question of where do we come from have broad ranging philosophical and religious effects. The answer to the question, where did we come from? Affects the whole idea of who we are and what is our place in the world. We all had a beginning. Our relationship to the fact that we're temporal is our relationship to what we think is eternal. If we think Mother Nature is eternal, we are then therefore subordinate to Mother Nature. But if we think that God is the Eternal One, and he's out side of and exterior to nature, and he created us to have stewardship over nature, then we think of ourselves as above nature and responsible to do a good job of managing the natural world. Again this morning our theme is the universe had a beginning point. Number one is existence is the relationship between the temporal and the eternal. And point number two is this everyone believes something is eternal. Everyone believes something is eternal. Looking at verse one again, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. God created the heavens and the earth. We believe that God is eternal. We since God created the heavens and the earth, since the time and space and matter and energy had a beginning. We see the cause that caused all the subsequent causes to be a prime cause. That itself did not have a cause. In order for us to understand the nature of God, we have to understand it separate from the nature of all of the rest of reality that we experience. Everything in reality that we experience is causal. Causal. What brought these chairs into existence is a long chain of cause and effect. But what started that whole chain of cause and effect itself could not have a cause or whatever caused it would be the prime mover or the prime cause. So God is this eternal one that started all things. And as people ask us the question, well, where did God come from? And we can't really answer that question. No one can answer the question, where did the eternal come from? And everyone believes in something that is the eternal. Those who reject the idea that God is eternal, don't reject the idea that something is eternal. Let me show you these three symbols. These are the three symbols that basically would capture all the different views about the nature of reality. The first one is naturalism. And naturalism is a secular idea that that that there's a circle around the universe, there's a circle around all matter, all time, all space, all energy. And there's nothing outside of that, that there's nothing. There is no God. There is nothing outside of that. And that the universe itself is eternal. Spiritual naturalism is the eastern idea that's similar to naturalism, except for it has spiritual stuff inside the circle. But there's no spiritual stuff like it would be like the star, the Star Wars idea of the force, that there's this spiritual element inside of nature, but not outside of nature. And it's just an energy that you tap into that you try to attain your will through it. But there's nothing that transcends nature. There's nothing outside of nature that it can explain nature and that nature is eternal supernaturalism, symbolized here by the infinity swoosh which symbolizes God, pictures the idea that God is in and through nature, but he's also above and beyond nature, and that he exists separate from nature. And he caused the cosmos cosmological reality. He has always existed, but he himself is eternal. So those are the three possible views of the nature of reality. So you really have two possibilities. Either nature and all that is in nature is eternal or nature. And all that is in nature has had a beginning as a result of an act of creation. If nature is all that there is, and then you have the the pesky little problem of trying to explain how unintelligent forces created such an intelligent design within the universe. If, if, if somehow we have to be explained, if my hands have to be explained, if my eyes have to be explained, if my thoughts have to be explained through random, unintelligent forces, that just doesn't fit anything with our our our our our our our relationship to reality. Whenever we see anything that has the fingerprint of a creator on it or creation, we don't think it just exploded and came into existence. Which idea fits our experience better? That the universe is eternal and organized itself, or that there is an intelligence behind the order that we see in our common sense world. We live in a causal environment. We see cause and effect everywhere. Is it stupid for us to think that something caused the universe is existence besides the universe itself? Is that really a stupid idea? I'll leave that question up to you. Is it smarter to think that a causal universe. Was itself intentionally caused by one who is far smarter than we are? None of us can even begin with our intelligence to duplicate life, much less the complexities of life. So is it foolish to think that something smarter than we are is the cause of the majesty of what we see around us? You know, it's been tough on cosmologists because having to deal with the evidence that the universe has a beginning, that it was caused has been difficult for them to try to solve that problem without becoming supernatural. And yet they have come up with some creative solutions to try to explain the beginning of the universe, without the implication that there's something that transcends the universe that created it. Stephen Hawking, for example, in his work Wormhole Theory, Stephen Hawking, has the idea that, yes, the universe has a beginning. How do we explain the beginning of the universe? Well, there must be this mysterious wormhole through which another universe outside of our universe seeded and created this universe. Well, I've solved the problem. It's a wormhole of existence. There's an existence beyond our universe that caused our universe. And that existence beyond our universe is eternal. And it caused the existence of our, our temporal universe here. Well, of course, that's a real object of faith, wouldn't you say? It's an unseen channel for with an unseen preexistent other universe that may have been caused by a succession of other universes, none of which we have any access to, and it yet still causes the problem of infinite regress. The problem of infinite regress is if there was a universe that caused this universe, where did that come from? And with the problem of infinite regress, you feel this at some point have to say I exist. Where did I come from? If I exist, there can't be this infinite regress of causal forces. There has to be something different from me because I am temporal. That caused me to come into existence to begin with. There has to be because I exist, there has to be God. Now how we view God is a whole different story. Those are some other basic assumptions, but my existence. Philosophically and logically necessitates the existence of a prime mover that he himself was not created. The universe had a beginning. The existence is the relationship between the temporal and the eternal. Everyone believes in something eternal. Again, the four questions we're going to be looking at over the next week's are these. Where did we come from? Why are we here? What is the right thing to do and where are we going? This morning we began with the question, did the universe have a beginning? And answering the question, where did we come from? Next week we're going to ask the question, how did the universe begin? Christians have always believed this basic assumption that the universe had a beginning. Now that it has become the basic assumption of science also. Should we expect the scientific community to admit that we're we've been right all along. We should not expect that, because the reason the large, the the the main reason why the existence of God is philosophically rejected doesn't have anything to do with the evidence. It has to do with the implications of the existence of God. Prideful men do not want to be subordinate to a person who has a will of his own. We do not want to be subordinate as sinful men to and dependent upon two A God with mind, will, and emotion of his own, a personal God that created us. So we do what we can to try to explain away his existence. One of the interesting proofs of his existence is how smart men are, that they're so smart that they can create a rational proof of God's nonexistence in itself as evidence of God's existence. Because you have to be pretty darn smart to try to take all that we can see and say that it came about through processes that are themselves unintelligent. It's pretty tricky. Deal. Let's pray together here today, recognizing that since we had a beginning, and that our beginning came from God, that we. Oh, God. Our gratitude. Heavenly father. Lord, we come before you this morning, and. Lord. Father, I know that these these next several weeks are going to be more on the cerebral side and less on the emotional side, but I think it's important for us in this, in this, in this climate, to prepare ourselves to stand firm and have a intellectual understanding of why we believe what we believe. Lord, the truth is, and all of my experience, that whenever I'm talking to somebody who thinks it's stupid to believe in you, when I ask the question, well, what do you believe and why do you believe it? People out there aren't prepared to answer that question. They they seek for us to answer that question, but they can't answer it themselves. And, Lord, it is very difficult, Lord, for somebody to tell tell a person why they believe that, all that is ordered was created by non order. So Lord, let's go forward. Let us go forth in confidence, knowing that what we believe is not indefensible. We don't need to just say, I take it by faith that we can have intellectual understandings of why it is the smartest thing to believe. Give us a confidence, Lord, that we are well defended by reality when we believe your word to be true. In Christ's name we pray. Amen.