Response to Soo Kiat: Existence of God

... for what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For His invisible attributes, namely His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. (Rom. 1:19-20)

This post is a response and refutation of the points made by Soo Kiat in his defence of his atheism, which was made in his comment in the post of mine on Homosexuals and Homosexual bigots, as follows:

- Finally, it is of course impossible to prove a negative, so I cannot prove that god does not exist, but that is trivially true of the most absurd claims, too. I cannot prove that there are no unicorns, either, but my belief that there are no unicorns is not on a par with the belief that unicorns exist. A belief can be justified or not, depending on the balance of evidence. My belief that there are no unicorns is justified by the fact that there is not a shred of evidence that they exist, with no observations either in life or in the fossil evidence. If someone does believe in the existence of unicorns, the burden of proof is on them to demonstrate it. That is my position with regard to god, too. There is no evidence. The physical world works according to laws of nature that do not require the intervention of a god. The creation of the world is not well explained by a pre-existing god, either, since that merely begs the question who created the creator. If you say the creator has always existed, or did not need any agency to bring him into being, then I can retort that the physical world can equally have always existed or did not require an external agency. There is simply no need to posit the god hypothesis, as it adds nothing to the explanation of the "genesis" of the universe except for an additional unnecessary stage, and is then redundant for all eternity. That is not blind faith. That is evidence-based reasoning. When evidence changes, my opinion changes, too. That is where I differ from most conservative religious people, who cling to the truth of their bibles, korans and torahs, even when the evidence from the world around them shows that their books are mistaken. The evolution debate is one such area. No serious biological scientist disputes Darwinian evolution, which has been proven beyond all reasonable doubt for decades, but some religions prefer to cling to an absurdly implausible alternative. That is blind faith. Deeply, wilfully blind.

I will answer these assertions made by Soo Kiat point by point.

Before I start, let me first state that I am defending the Christian faith. I am not interested even if you can prove the falsehood of all other faiths; they fend for themselves. In fact, if Christianity is true, all others are false (Jn. 14:6), so I am not interested in defending them. As such, my apologetic method has and always will be presuppositional (Clarkan as opposed to Van Tillian), and upon this basis I will proceed.

Firstly, Soo Kiat maintinas that there is no evidence for the existence of God, and maintans that the burden of proof is on the theist/Christian to prove it. However, that assertion of his is wrong. What does he mean by evidence? The Scripture has already stated that God Himself has revealed Himself to all Man through General Revelation, which is known through the fact of Creation (Rom. 1:19-20) and through the conscience in each individual (Rom. 2:15). Absolutely nobody can say that there is no evidence for God, because their very existence as people and their conscience proves it. They are just like the person who deny that air exists while they are breathing, or the person who denies that there is a soul even though there is fundamentally no physical reason why any healthy person without any blood clot anywhere should die as compared to another person of the same age and build. Yes, the reason given is usually heart attack, but for a healthy person, that just describes the symptom not the cause.

Now, Soo Kiat denies the fact of Creation and the need of a Creator, and I will tackle that later. However, I would first like to ask what kind of evidences would he require to prove the existence of God. Most people who state that there is no evidence typically cannot be convinced otherwise; in other words, their minds are closed to that possibility. If they seen an apparition, they would reason it away as hallucination. If they see a miraculous healing, oh well, the person was not sick in the first place. If peoples' lives were transformed, that would be exaplained away via psychology. What then can persuade such peoeple? Most of the time, none! As it is written,

And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled only to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. (2 Cor. 4:3-4)

Satan has blinded their eyes, and they would not see. It is not a case of a lack of evidence (which I will show later), but a case of rebellion and willful unbelief, arising from the depraved hearts of sinful Man (Rom. 3:10-18).

Soo Kiat's example of the existence of a unicorn (probably derived from philosophical textbooks because I have seen that one before too) is fallacious when applied to the Christian faith. That is because evidence is aplenty for the Christian faith, just because someone refuses to accept the evidence is not proof that there is no evidence! It is analogous to the person who (using the unicorn analogy), when presented with a unicorn explans it away as being a white mutated goat!

Secondly, Soo Kiat states that "the physical world works acording to laws of nature". So where did the physical laws come from? There is an argument called the cosmological argument which states that there must be a God since the physical laws and our planetary conditions are perfectly suited for life. I don't like the argument myself but the fact remains that you can't just state that the physical world works according to natural laws, as if that proved that God doesn't exist. If God is the one who ordained those laws, then there is nothing which can be proved, as if God exists = natural laws doesn't. This kind of false dichotomy between laws of nature and God is just ridiculous.

With regards to the question of who creates the Creator, this is a question of semantics. The (ultimate) Creator by definition cannot be created, otherwise whoever created that creator is the ultimate Creator. The attempted retort that the natural world have always existed or did not reqire an external agency shows a lack of understanding of both science (physics) and philosophy. First of all, even to grant the eternal existence of the universe would then make the universe into god (pantheism), so that doesn't prove that God doesn't exist, only the true Christian God. However, that cannot be the case. Scientifically, there is a law of physics called the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which disproves of an eternal universe since work can only be done when there are regions of disparity (of whatever kind). This law would entail that the ultimate end of all things is nothingness, and therefore the universe must have an origin in time with low entropy. Philosophically, if the universe was eternal, then in order to get to the present one must go through an infinite number of time frames. However, such a thing is impossible since infinity can never be reached as finite time can never complete the infinite time frames necessary. It is no wonder that to embrace an eternal universe, one has to discount the entire material world as an illusion, which is what Hinduism has done. (This also disproves pantheism, by the way)

Now, there two criteria will not apply to God. Scientifically, God is outside space and time, so the Second Law of Thermodynamics cannot apply to Him. Philosophically, we as finite beings live in a finite universe in a finite time frame. God who is infinite can experience an infinite time frame, and He reveals Himself to us via finite ways. It is entirely possible for the Infinite to experience and express Himself finitely, but not the other way around. Therefore, the philosphical problem cannot be answered by us as finite beings, but by God as the infinite Creator.

As such, I would like to challenge Soo Kiat and all other physicalists/materialists to prove that reality is even possible without a God. Without God, the reality of the material world is impossible, as Science and Philosophy has shown. Just to preempt opposition, the postulation of a multiverse does not solve the problem; besides being almost immposible to falsify or prove, it only shifts the time frame of Creation back, not to make it eternal. Therefore, far from being a 'useless hypothesis', God is the only explanation of why anything even exists. Even if Evolution and the Big Bang theory is correct, that would not answer why the existence of matter, reality and time can even begin to be possible.

Now, let's go to the issue of Evolution. Soo Kiat maintains that evolution is an undeniable fact, and that "no serious biological scientist disputes Darinian evolution". This is a totally erroneous statement. I will assume that Soo Kiat here means Evolution in general, since there are many competing theories of Evolution (Neo-Darwinian, Punctuated Equilibrium etc.). Nevertheless, this is a ricidulous statement to make. If by that statement, you mean that no scientist disputes (neo)-Darwinian evolution, then he is definitely wrong. Dr. Jonathan Sarfati is one such counter-example, not to mention Dr. Kurt Wise who studied under the late Harvard scientist Stephan Jay Gould. Of course, what most mainstream evolutionists mean by that statement is that no scientist who is serious will dispute Darwinian evolution. But this is a ridiculously circular statement. How do you know that a scientist is serious? Because he/she embraced (neo)-Dariwinian evolution. Why does a scientist embrace (neo)-Darwinian evolution? Because he is serious.

If Soo Kiat and others would like to talk about the evidences for and aginst evolution, I would be most happy to oblige. Just for the information, I have obtained a BSc. (Hons) in Life Sciences, and so far, I have not learned anything which proves Darwinian Evolution, just a bunch of just-so theories stories.

So where does this leave you? As it is, atheism and evolutionism are based on blind faith. Deeply, willfully blind. For anyone to deny the existence of God when it is evident just prove the depravity of the human heart in being further hardened and blinded in their depravity. Only the Lord God can change the heart, and I will sincerely pray that He will do so and grant to you, Soo Kiat, the repentance that comes from faith. As it is, do not disobey the voice of your conscience who is presently condemning you because you have suppressed the truth of God in unrighteousness (Rom. 1:18) and have been given over to homosexuality becuase you have continually rejected Him (Rom. 1:26-27). Rather, repent of your sins and turn to Christ alone, who can save your from your own depraved nature and a life of sin.

PS: The using of my scientific qualification is not meant to appeal to authority, but as a pre-emption against all these 'scientific' evolution supporters who always think or at least hint that thoe who reject Evolution do not know anything about Science/ Biology/ Life science.