Monday Minutes With Pastor Chris McCool (August 1, 2022)

*I apologize for last week; I was unable to post due to all the activity surrounding the imminent arrival of my first grandson. He is here, and healthy, and thank you for all the prayers!

As I scanned over the latest posts on Facebook, I ran across this post by Elder Michael Ivey regarding the issue of whether God created the universe, or whether the universe somehow just “spontaneously combusted”. I found Bro. Mike’s arguments to be very convincing, and wanted to share it with you today.

May the Lord bless you is my prayer!

In Christ,

Elder Chris McCool, Pastor

Eternal Matter or Creation, which makes more sense?

By Michael Ivey

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. …….. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.” John 1:1-14

Logic implies one of two possibilities explain the existence of the material universe: 1. There is no creation inasmuch as matter is eternal; or 2. Matter was created by a higher power who is self-exisiting and eternal and therefore is not subject to the laws of physics which govern material existence.

These propositions are mutually exclusive. As a function of simple logic both cannot be true. Furthermore, all other possible explanations for the existence of matter are contained in these two propositions. Thus, matter is either itself eternal or else was in some way created by a pre-existing (eternal) being.

To believe the first proposition one must overcome the logical difficulty that science has not proven matter is eternal. Furthermore, to date the scientific method has been unable to supply an experimental process by which it might test whether or not matter is eternal. Therefore, believing the first proposition demands we accept an unproven, and likely unproveable theory. To do so one must employ unsubstantiated faith; which is to say, believing proposition 1 requires engaging in a logically groundless leap-of-faith.

The second proposition deals with the issue of unproven theory by invoking substantiated faith based on the reality of Jesus’s resurrection from the dead; from which we can reasonably infer He possesses eternal life and has dominion over the laws of physics. It also allows us to believe by substantiated faith the first proposition will be proven to be untrue and the second proposition will be unquestioningly proven to be true when Jesus comes again.

So the choice is to practice unsubstantiated faith in an unproven and likely unprovable theory; which is illogical on its face, and doubly so if a competing theory has some promise of being proven. Or, by faith which asserts the historical record of Jesus resurrection as empirical, substantive evidence, we can believe in the self-existing, eternal, Creator God; Who, when Jesus comes again, will undeniably prove to all humanity He is the Creator and that matter is not eternal.