![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/572\/2020\/08\/BigBang3.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Atheist and anti-theist\u00a0Bob Seidensticker<\/a>,\u00a0who was\u00a0\u201craised Presbyterian\u201d<\/a>,\u00a0runs the influential\u00a0Cross Examined<\/em><\/a>\u00a0blog. He asked me there,\u00a0on 8-11-18<\/a>:\u00a0\u201cI\u2019ve got 1000+ posts here attacking your worldview. You just going to let that stand? Or could you present a helpful new perspective that I\u2019ve ignored on one or two of those posts?\u201d<\/span>\u00a0He also made a general statement\u00a0on 6-22-17<\/a>:\u00a0\u201cChristians\u2019 arguments are easy to refute . . . I\u2019ve heard the good stuff, and it\u2019s not very good.\u201d\u00a0<\/span>He added\u00a0in the combox<\/a>:\u00a0\u201cIf I\u2019ve misunderstood the Christian position or Christian arguments, point that out. Show me where I\u2019ve mischaracterized them.\u201d\u00a0<\/span>Such confusion would indeed be\u00a0predictable<\/em>, seeing that Bob himself admitted\u00a0(2-13-16<\/a>):\u00a0\u201cMy study of the Bible has been haphazard, and I jump around based on whatever I\u2019m researching at the moment.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Bob (for the record) virtually\u00a0begged<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0pleaded<\/em>\u00a0with me to dialogue with him in May 2018, via email. But by\u00a010-3-18<\/a>,\u00a0following\u00a0massive, childish name-calling attacks<\/a>\u00a0against me,\u00a0 encouraged by Bob on his blog (just prior to his\u00a0banning<\/em>\u00a0me from it), his opinion was as follows:\u00a0\u201cDave Armstrong . . . made it clear that a thoughtful intellectual conversation wasn\u2019t his goal. . . . [I] have no interest in what he\u2019s writing about.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n And on 10-25-18, utterly oblivious to the ludicrous irony of\u00a0his<\/em>\u00a0making the statement, Bob\u00a0wrote in a combox<\/a>\u00a0on his blog:\u00a0\u201cSomeone who\u2019s not a little bit driven to investigate cognitive dissonance will just stay a Christian, fat \u2018n sassy and ignorant.\u201d\u00a0<\/span>Again,\u00a0Bob mocks some Christian in his combox on\u00a010-27-18<\/a>:\u00a0\u201cYou can\u2019t explain it to us, you can\u2019t defend it, you can\u2019t even defend it to yourself. Defend your position or shut up about it. It\u2019s clear you have nothing.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0And again\u00a0on the same day<\/a>:\u00a0\u201cIf you can\u2019t answer the question, man up and say so.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0And on\u00a010-26-18<\/a>:\u00a0\u201cyou refuse to defend it, after being asked over and over again.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0And\u00a0again<\/a>:\u00a0\u201cYou\u2019re<\/i>\u00a0the one playing games, equivocating, and being unable to answer the challenges.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Bob\u2019s cowardly hypocrisy knows no bounds. Again,\u00a0on 6-30-19<\/a>, he was chiding someone for something very much like he himself:\u00a0\u201cSpoken like a true weasel trying to run away from a previous argument. You know, you could just say, \u2018Let me retract my previous statement of X\u2019 or something like that.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0Yeah,\u00a0Bob<\/em>\u00a0could!\u00a0\u00a0He still hasn\u2019t yet uttered one peep in reply<\/a>\u00a0to \u2014 now \u2014 41 of my critiques of his atrocious reasoning.<\/p>\n Bible-Basher Bob\u2019s words will be in\u00a0blue<\/span>.\u00a0To find these posts, follow this link:\u00a0\u201cSeidensticker Folly #\u201d<\/a> or see all of them linked under his own section on my Atheism page<\/a>.<\/p>\n *****<\/p>\n Bob\u2019s article, \u201cGod Created the Universe From Nothing\u2014Or Did He?\u201d<\/a> (1-3-19) exhibits his usual profound ignorance of the Bible and complete inability to engage in cross-referencing. Bible-Basher Bob always knows better than anyone and everyone else, and is the Ultimate Bible Expert (so he himself would inform anyone within earshot): that is, until someone opposes<\/em> his reasoning: at which point he flees to the hills in terror. At least that is what he has always done with me<\/em>: now, 41 times (and I would bet the farm that this will be the 42nd time<\/em> he does that).<\/p>\n The Christian idea of creation\u00a0ex nihilo<\/em>, that God created the universe\u00a0from nothing<\/em>, is a doctrine within many denominations. The problem appears when Christians try to find it in the Genesis six-day creation story. It\u2019s not there.<\/span><\/p>\n Who\u2019s to say that the \u201csix days\u201d of creation in Genesis are to be taken literally<\/em>? At least as far back as St. Augustine<\/a> in the 5th century, Christians thought otherwise, and the majority of informed Christians do so today. Young earth creationists are a small minority, out of the mainstream. But many anti-theist atheists \u2014 true to form \u2014 keep considering them mainstream and the sum of Christianity (because so many of them<\/em> used to be fundamentalists).<\/p>\n Like\u00a0so many confidently stated doctrines, the Bible doesn\u2019t cooperate. Letting the Bible speak for itself exposes the unsupported claims.<\/span><\/p>\n Right. Bob knows more than Bible scholars, no matter how many years of their lives they have devoted to studying the Bible. This is a question apart from whether the teachings of the Bible are accepted<\/em> or not. A person can be an expert on what something actually teaches, whether it is true or not, or even fictional or not. Say, for example, a scholar studied Homer\u2019s Iliad<\/em> for 50 years. Maybe he was even the world\u2019s leading expert on it. Would it make sense for Bob (who skimmed it years ago) to blithely assume that he understood better than the scholar, the contents of the book? Of course not. But Bob does this with the Bible, and Christian scholars and apologists all the time. It\u2019s the height of self-important arrogance.<\/p>\n The first verse of the Bible says, \u201cIn the beginning God created the heavens and the earth\u201d (Genesis 1:1, NIV). It doesn\u2019t say that God created out of nothing, and only the lack of specified materials that God worked with supports creation\u00a0ex nihilo<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n Look more closely at the word\u00a0created<\/em>\u00a0(the Hebrew word\u00a0bara<\/em>). This word is used<\/span>\u00a055 times<\/a>\u00a0in the Old Testament. Most instances are translated as \u201ccreate,\u201d but not all, and few could be read as \u201ccreate from nothing.\u201d For example, it\u2019s \u201cmake<\/em>\u00a0a signpost\u201d in Ezekiel 21:19 and \u201ccreate<\/em>\u00a0in me a pure heart\u201d in Psalm 51:10, which are obviously talking about forming out of existing material. The<\/span>\u00a0NET Bible agrees<\/a>: \u201cThe verb does not necessarily describe creation out of nothing\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0. it often stresses forming anew, reforming, renewing.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Okay, now that Bob has had his fun, let\u2019s see what the Bible actually teaches about this. There are many verses in support of creatio ex nihilo<\/em>: passages that, according to Bob, don\u2019t exist in the Bible. I found almost all of them way back in 1981, when I was just starting out in apologetics. Here they are:<\/span><\/p>\n Psalms 33:6<\/strong>\u00a0(RSV) By the word of the LORD [i.e., not by existing matter] the heavens were made,\u00a0and all their host by the breath of his mouth.<\/span><\/p>\n Isaiah 44:24 <\/strong>. . . \u201c<\/b>I am the LORD, who made all things<\/em> . . . \u201c<\/span><\/p>\n Wisdom 1:14<\/strong>\u00a0For he\u00a0<\/b>created\u00a0all things<\/em> that they might exist, . . .\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n John 1:3\u00a0<\/b>all things were made through him, and without him was not anything<\/em> made that was made.<\/span><\/p>\n Romans 11:36<\/strong>\u00a0For from him and through him and to him are all things<\/em>. . . .<\/span><\/p>\n 1 Corinthians 8:6\u00a0<\/b>yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things<\/em> and through whom we exist.<\/span><\/p>\n Ephesians 3:9<\/strong> . . .\u00a0God who created all things<\/em>;<\/span><\/p>\n Colossians 1:16\u00a0<\/b>for in him all things<\/em> were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities \u2014 all things were created through him and for him.<\/span><\/p>\n Hebrews 2:10<\/strong> . . .\u00a0he, for whom and by whom all things<\/em> exist . . .<\/span><\/p>\n 2 Peter 3:5<\/strong> . . .\u00a0by the word of God [i.e., not by existing matter]\u00a0heavens existed long ago . . .\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Revelation 4:11<\/strong>\u00a0\u201c. . .\u00a0our Lord and God, . . . didst create all things<\/em>,\u00a0and by thy will<\/em> they existed and were created.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Bob stated:<\/span> \u201conly the lack of specified materials that God worked with supports creation\u00a0ex nihilo<\/em>.\u201d Okay, so such \u201cmaterials\u201d would be included in the category of \u201cthings\u201d would they not? So if God created all \u201cthings\u201d then He must have created ex nihilo<\/em> because no thing (nothing) existed initially if there was no thing that He did not create. How much clearer could it be made? After all, \u201cnothing\u201d according to Merriam-Webster<\/em> online<\/a>, means \u201cnot any thing:\u00a0<\/strong>no thing.\u201d Therefore, creating \u201call things\u201d means the same thing as \u201ccreating from nothing\u201d; i.e., creation ex nihilo<\/em>.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n So that\u2019s what the Bible teaches: eleven passages for Bob to ponder before he zealously writes up his next hit-piece on the Bible. And of course modern Big Bang cosmology agrees with this. Christian philosopher William Lane Craig sums up the current state of knowledge in his paper, \u201cCreation\u00a0ex nihilo<\/em>: Theology and Science\u201d<\/a>:<\/span><\/p>\n An initial cosmological singularity therefore forms a past temporal extremity to the universe. We cannot continue physical reasoning, or even the concept of spacetime, through such an extremity. For this reason most cosmologists think of the initial singularity as the beginning of the universe. On this view the big bang represents the creation event; the creation not only of all the matter and energy in the universe, but also of spacetime itself.\u00a0[11]<\/span><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n The term \u201cBig Bang,\u201d originally a derisive expression coined by Fred Hoyle to characterize the beginning of the universe predicted by the Friedman-Lema\u00eetre model, is thus potentially misleading, since the expansion cannot be visualized from the outside (there being no \u201coutside,\u201d just as there is no \u201cbefore\u201d with respect to the Big Bang).<\/span><\/p>\n The standard Big Bang model, as the Friedman-Lema\u00eetre model came to be called, thus describes a universe which is not eternal in the past, but which came into being a finite time ago. Moreover, \u2013and this deserves underscoring\u2013the origin it posits is an absolute origin\u00a0ex nihilo<\/em>. For not only all matter and energy, but space and time themselves come into being at the initial cosmological singularity. As John Barrow and Frank Tipler emphasize, \u201cAt this singularity, space and time came into existence; literally nothing existed before the singularity, so, if the Universe originated at such a singularity, we would truly have a creation\u00a0ex nihilo.<\/em>\u201d\u00a0[12]<\/span>\u00a0On the standard model the universe originates\u00a0ex nihilo<\/em>\u00a0in the sense that at the initial singularity it is true that\u00a0There is no earlier space-time point\u00a0<\/em>or it is false that\u00a0Something existed prior to the singularity.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n Beginningless Models<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n Although advances in astrophysical cosmology have forced various revisions in the standard model\u00a0[13]<\/span>, nothing has called into question its fundamental prediction of the finitude of the past and the beginning of the universe. Indeed, as James Sinclair has shown, the history of 20th century cosmogony has seen a parade of failed theories trying to avert the absolute beginning predicted by the standard model.\u00a0[14]<\/span>\u00a0These beginningless models have been repeatedly shown either to be physically untenable or to imply the very beginning of the universe which they sought to avoid. Meanwhile, a series of remarkable singularity theorems has increasingly tightened the loop around empirically tenable cosmogonic models by showing that under more and more generalized conditions, a beginning is inevitable. In 2003 Arvind Borde, Alan Guth, and Alexander Vilenkin were able to show that any universe which is, on average, in a state of cosmic expansion throughout its history cannot be infinite in the past but must have a beginning.\u00a0[15]<\/span>\u00a0In 2012 Vilenkin showed that cosmogonic models which do not fall under this single condition fail on other grounds to avert the beginning of the universe. Vilenkin concluded, \u201cThere are no models at this time that provide a satisfactory model for a universe without a beginning.\u201d\u00a0[16]<\/span>\u00a0In an article in the online journal\u00a0Inference<\/em>\u00a0published in the fall of 2015 Vilenkin strengthened that conclusion: \u201cWe have no viable models of an eternal universe. The BGV theorem gives reason to believe that such models simply cannot be constructed.\u201d\u00a0[17] . . .\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Given the metaphysical impossibility of the universe\u2019s coming into being from nothing, belief in a supernatural Creator is eminently reasonable. At the very least we can say confidently that the person who believes in the doctrine of\u00a0creatio ex nihilo<\/em>\u00a0will not find himself contradicted by the empirical evidence of contemporary cosmology but on the contrary fully in line with it.<\/span><\/p>\n Footnotes<\/em><\/p>\n 11 P. C. W. Davies, \u201cSpacetime Singularities in Cosmology,\u201d in\u00a0The Study of Time III,\u00a0<\/em>ed. J. T. Fraser (New York: Springer Verlag, 1978), 78-79.<\/p>\n 12\u00a0John Barrow and Frank Tipler,\u00a0The Anthropic Cosmological Principle\u00a0<\/em>(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), 442.<\/p>\n 13\u00a0Principally the addition of an early inflationary era and an accelerating expansion.<\/p>\n 14\u00a0William Lane Craig and James Sinclair, \u201cThe\u00a0Kalam<\/em>\u00a0Cosmological Argument,\u201d in\u00a0The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology<\/em>, ed. Wm. L. Craig and J. P. Moreland (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009), pp. 101-201; idem, \u201cOn Non-Singular Spacetimes and the Beginning of the Universe,\u201d in\u00a0Scientific Approaches to the Philosophy of Religion<\/em>, ed. Yujin Nagasawa, Palgrave Frontiers in Philosophy of Religion (London: Macmillan, 2012), pp. 95-142.<\/p>\n 15\u00a0A. Borde, A. Guth, A. Vilenkin, \u201cInflationary Spacetimes Are Incomplete in Past Directions,\u201d<\/a>Physical Review Letters<\/em>\u00a090 (2003): 151301.<\/p>\n 16\u00a0Alexander Vilenkin, \u201cDid the universe have a beginning?\u201d<\/a>\u00a0 [You Tube]\u00a0Cf.<\/em>\u00a0Audrey Mithani and Alexander Vilenkin, \u201cDid the universe have a beginning?\u201d arXiv:1204.4658v1 [hep-th] 20 Apr 2012, p. 1, where they state: \u201cNone of these scenarios can actually be past-eternal.\u201d<\/p>\n\u201cIn the beginning\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0.\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/h4>\n
\n