Cosmology - A Case for Intelligent Design

Why is there something rather nothing? How come the universe exists? We does the earth exist? Why are we here? Again, why is there something rather than nothing? This is a question people have been trying to answer for thousands of years. Many today would suggest that the universe is just a brute fact. But a many others suggests it's here because it was intelligently designed. Over the course of three blogs, we'll look at cosmology, the detection of design, and teleology. Let's begin with cosmology.

The first argument for intelligent design is the cosmological argument. Simply put, the cosmological argument is the argument for causation. Professor and apologist, William Lane Craig has championed this defense in three parts: “Whatever begins to exist has a cause. The universe began to exist. Therefore the universe has a cause.”[1] In other words, there must be a first cause.  However, this is Professor of Physics Edward Tryton’s conclusion, “Our universe is simply one of those things which happen from time to time.”[2] Tryton may bet on chance being the cause of the universe, but the argument for cause has been defended for over 750 years. Saint Thomas Aquinas, c.1225-74, laid out his famous “Five Ways,” which shows five proofs for creation to have a creator.[3] This creator must have intelligence to create something of such complexity. One of Aquinas’ “Five Ways” is the reality of change.[4] The world is constantly changing, and everything that changes is being changed by something else. But this change is not exhaustive, “…this change cannot go on forever.” Aquinas reasons that “…secondary things which change cannot change unless they are changed by a first cause, in the same way as a stick cannot move unless it is moved by the hand.”[5] The modern cosmological argument is everything depends upon something else. This is seen from the small things (a twig) to the biggest things (the universe). The universe is dependent on something else to exist. Therefore this dependence is on an intelligent designer. [6]

However, Darwinist’s will contend that this idea of an ID is projecting “God in the gaps.”[7] This means that if there aren’t answers scientifically, proponents of ID are saying “God did it! That’s the end of it.” Proponents are not seeking the answer of “who”, but “how?” Famed author and professor at Oxford, Richard Dawkins believes that ID is purely an alternative to science.[8] In Lee Strobel’s book, A Case for a Creator, he examines the coherence of intelligent design. Part of his research involved a conversation with William Lane Craig. Craig suggests there are two main arenas for proof: mathematics and science.[9]

According to mathematics, it is impossible to have an infinite past. The early scholars, both Christian and Muslim, deemed the universe must have a beginning. “They pointed out that absurdities would result” if you had an actual “infinite number of things,” Craig expounds.[10] “Since an infinite past would involve an actually infinite number of events, then the past simply can’t be infinite.”[11] The reality is that we can imagine the concept of infinity, but it is not reality. Therefore there must be a beginning, because an infinite number of events in the past are not possible.[12]

Science has enforced the mathematical proof. In the 1920’s the mathematician Alexander Friedman and astronomer George Lamaitre developed new models based on Einstein’s theory of relativity.[13] The determination was that the universe was expanding, but this meant that there was a beginning point. It was Astronomer Fred Hoyle who gave this beginning the name “the Big Bang.”[14]

There are three main lines of evidence to support Big Bang cosmology.  First is Edwin Hubble’s “law of red shifts.”[15] He posited the red light coming from other galaxies was redder than it should be, because the galaxies were moving away from us. Second, George Gamow estimated the temperature at the moment of the bang would be just above absolute zero.[16] By accident in 1965, the universe’s background radiation was discovered. Its temperature was only 3.7 degrees above absolute zero. Last is the beginning of light elements. “Heavy elements, like carbon and iron, are synthesized” inside of stars and then “…exploded through supernovae into space.”[17] Craig compares that to the light elements, such as deuterium and helium, which cannot be created in stars. It would take a super furnace burning billions of degrees to create.[18]

This singular moment of creation could not be by chance. It was not a Russian roulette of chaos. According to Craig, “Instead, it appears to have been fine-tuned for the existence of intelligent life with a complexity and precision that literally defies human comprehension.”[19] It was a “singularity.” Singularity is a moment of zero size. That moment is a space of infinite mass and infinite high temperature. That is starting point of it all.[20]

In my next blogs I will write in more detail about the teleological argument for intelligent design. Blog #2: Detection of Design. Blog #3: Teleology: A Case for ID.

Here is some suggested reading: Darwin's Black Box by Michael Behe, From Darwin to DNA by William A Dembski, The Fingerprint of God by Hugh Ross.

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[1] Lee Strobel, A Case for a Creator (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan), 98.

[2] Ibid., 117.

[3] Alister McGrath, Science & Religion (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers), 92.

[4] Ibid., 93.

[5] Ibid., 96.

[6]Ibid., 95-97.

[7] Zacharias, 116.

[8] Ibid.

[9] Strobel, 93-123.

[10] Ibid., 102.

[11] Ibid.

[12] Ibid., 102-104.

[13] Ibid., 105.

[14] Ibid.

[15] Hugh Ross, The Fingerprint of God (Orange, California: Promise Publishing), 56-57.

[16] Ibid., 105.

[17] Ibid.

[18] Ibid., 105-106.

[19] Ibid., 106-107.

[20] Ross, 64.