Day 17 – the atheist’s 1st rebuttal: an eternal universe
There may be some theoretical chance that wind and rain erosion could produce the faces of the four presidents on the side of a mountain, but it is still far more probable to assume that an intelligent sculptor created Mount Rushmore. –NORMAN GEISLER
The first way atheists try to counter the Argument from Design is to claim that the universe had no beginning, that it “always was and always will be” and thus would require no Creator. An eternal universe, they assert, negates the need for God. So when I argue that nature’s design reveals the Designer’s existence, the atheist is not fazed. Such design, he counters, has been a part of the universe forever.
This is certainly plausible, but is it likely? Think with me again of the watch, bicycle, dollhouse, radio, and fudge brownies. We could claim that these items had no maker if we assumed they were a fragment of an eternal item of the same character. We could assume that our watch was merely a part of the Eternal Watch, the bicycle came from the Great Bicycle, the radio was a subset of the Grand Radio, the dollhouse was a fragment of the Universal Mansion, and the brownie was a square off the Infinite Planar Cookie Sheet. We could propose these theories because they are possible, but can we really take them seriously? Do they make sense to us? Do they have the ring of truth to them? No, they do not. Something is not to be considered likely just because that something is possible.
Daily Quotation
Norman Geisler, False Gods of Our Time (Eugene, Ore.: Harvest House, 1985), 52.
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