Sunday Quote: Stephen Hawking on the Big Bang - Apologetics 315

Again Brian over at Apologetics 315 has done us a great favor it providing the following quote by Stephen W. Hawking

"The odds against a universe like ours emerging out of something like the big bang are enormous... I think clearly there are religious implications whenever you start to discuss the origins of the universe."

- Stephen W. Hawking

Sunday Quote: Stephen Hawking on the Big Bang - Apologetics 315:

Who Did It? You Or God? - Part 2

Here is part 2 of this article.

Some people look at the fact that the Bible teaches us that God personally saves people from sin and death and immediately ask then why do we have people that reject Christ if they are given the best possible opportunities to become believers? I don't believe the Bible teaches that anyone misses out on believing in Jesus because God didn't do enough to make them believe. This idea is completely wrong. Check out these quote from Jesus:

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God." - John 3:16-21

"He said to him, 'If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.' " - Luke 16:31

When we reject the Gospel it's not because God did not do His part. Our failure is our own. However it is just as wrong to take credit for your faith if you do believe. No one believes unless they are dragged by the Father. No one does it on their own. It's not because you are smarter or better. God just chose to give you mercy. Look at what God, Through Paul, has to say:

As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. - Ephesians 2: 1-10

The Bible clearly says that faith in Christ is a gift. Salvation is a gift God gives an individual because He wants to give it not because He is obligated or the individual can earn it.

What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! For he says to Moses,
"I will have mercy on whom I have mercy,
and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion." It does not, therefore, depend on man's desire or effort, but on God's mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: "I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth." Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden. Roman 9:14-18

Notice, God is not saying that he capriciously rejects anyone.

For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment—to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ. Ephesians 1:4-10

The word translated "chose" in Greek is "exelexato" and it carries the meaning of making a choice without rejecting what wasn't chosen. We don't even have an English word that carries the same idea. II mean look at the word "decide". It's very epistemology means to kill the other options.

So how does God decide whom gets drawn into salvation and who doesn't? I don't know. the Bible does not say. God gives us a lot of information but this point He is keeping mysterious. The Bible does not tell us so I'm not even going to speculate. Some of the atheist that have brought this subject up to me get furious when Christians try to appeal to human free will to explain this. so I will just say what the Bible does say:

One of you will say to me: "Then why does God still blame us? For who resists his will?" But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? "Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, 'Why did you make me like this?' " Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?

What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction? What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory—even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles? As he says in Hosea:
"I will call them 'my people' who are not my people;
and I will call her 'my loved one' who is not my loved one," and,
"It will happen that in the very place where it was said to them,
'You are not my people,'
they will be called 'sons of the living God.' ^{" - Romans 9:19-26}

You, me, all of us are just clay pots in the hand of a master - God. I'm fine with that because I know God has a purpose He is working out. He's just. He really is all good - even when I don't see what He is doing as good. He has every right to do as He pleases because it's all His anyway.

Let's summarize. God is in complete control and although we don't have a completely free will to do what ever we want, like not sin, we are moral agents capable of making decisions that God holds us accountable for. We are all deserving of hell, but God is in His mercy has taken it upon Himself to save some of us for himself. He does it. He brings us to Christ and justifies us by Jesus' atoning sacrifice - it is not from us but despite us. However by nature of what we are - sinners - it's is our own fault when choose sin over God. I like the following scripture:

As Paul and Barnabas were leaving the synagogue, the people invited them to speak further about these things on the next Sabbath. When the congregation was dismissed, many of the Jews and devout converts to Judaism followed Paul and Barnabas, who talked with them and urged them to continue in the grace of God.

On the next Sabbath almost the whole city gathered to hear the word of the Lord. When the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy and talked abusively against what Paul was saying.

Then Paul and Barnabas answered them boldly: "We had to speak the word of God to you first. Since you reject it and do not consider yourselves worthy of eternal life, we now turn to the Gentiles. For this is what the Lord has commanded us:
" 'I have made you a light for the Gentiles,
that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.'"

When the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and honored the word of the Lord; and all who were appointed for eternal life believed. - Acts 13: 42-28

Look at what is being communicated. The people who rejected the Gospel did so because of their own selves - same as all of us even those who eventually accept Christ. But look at what is said about those who be came believers: "all who were appointed for eternal life believed". We do not elect ourselves. God does it. People sometimes reject the Gospel for years and then they get it. God does everything at the right time in the right way.

If you are reading this and you are not a believer than I ask you to consider the fact that you are not reading this by coincidence and consider that God is talking to you right now. Don't reject the call. Don't ignore it. Your part in your salvation is your response. God's already take the step of drawing you to Himself. You are reading this. Embrace the Gospel and you will be saved - Just believe that Jesus paid for your sins on the cross and the rose again three days later. Through Him you will be justified and fully become all you were meant to be. It's all about being what God designed you to be not pleasing ourselves.

God Said - Importance of Mathematics

Image via Wikipedia

God Said:

And then there was Light.

Above is what I once saw on a tee shirt when I was a student at University of California, Berkeley. I was immediately struck. As I looked at the equations I immediately grasped the significance of the message. These four equation sum up exactly what we know about light. These are the equations we use to describe almost everything about light. They are known as Maxwell's Equations. Maxwell was not the first one to come up with all of them, but he did realize that they summarize nearly everything about light. When I first learned about them, I learned them in their integral forms in my lower division physics courses. In upper division and in many text books you will see them in their vector calculus forms. Here is a chart I found on a great website.

Maxwell's Equations Integral form in the absence of magnetic or polarizable media: I. Gauss' law for electricity II. Gauss' law for magnetism III. Faraday's law of induction IV. Ampere's law Differential form Discussion	Index Maxwell's equations concepts
HyperPhysics***** Electricity and Magnetism R Nave	Go Back

I'm not going to get into what these equations are and what they mean in great detail but to point out how connected electricity and magnetism are. For example, a moving electric field (such as an electric charge down a wire) generates and magnetic field. And a changing magnetic field can be used to generate an electric current (i.e. a motor). These equations represent the base principles for all of our electric/magnetic theories and devices. They can be applied in every field of science I can think of. For example in geology, piezoelectric rocks can generate electric fields and current. In addition magnetic rocks are also dug out of the ground.

I found out in my studies that mathematics is the language of science. Without mathematics there is no point to doing science. We would not be able to communicate, quantify, qualify, or analyze anything. Some have even said that it is through mathematics that we truly get a glimpse into the mind of God. We get to understand through it's logic and order how God put the universe together. Think of the Fine-Tuning argument for the existence of God. Without mathematics we could not measure or even grasp the concepts of cosmological constant and how much on a "knife-edge" on which they sit. We would not be able to see the tight tolerances these quantities must be in order to see that these qualities of the universe are not coincidental. However, it's more than all that. Mathematics is beautiful. It's almost too difficult to put it into words the way it makes me feel thinking about how so much fits together. It's like looking into the infinite, grabbing a small, minuscule piece and understanding it. I love it.

No one can deny that math is the product of reasonable, logical, ordered minds. It's principles and qualities transcend us. We don't invent math as much as we discover it. Like morality, there is no basis to assume that humanity came up with it. It appears more and more obvious the higher you go in mathematics and sciences. It's so in-your-face in the theoretical edge, I don't understand why some mathematicians don't accept God. I mean it's like closing your eyes and hoping despite overwhelming evidence. I simply don't have enough faith to ignore the Fine-Tuning evidence nor the mathematics.

Another source.