The Universe Must Have Had an Intelligent Cause

Cosmic evolution, the origin of matter from non-matter, will be addressed first. It will be shown that the universe requires a cause because it had a beginning and that its cause must be both beyond nature and intelligent.

There are five lines of evidence that the universe is not eternal but had a beginning. These five lines of evidence can be remembered with the acronym SURGE.

S—Second Law of Thermodynamics

The principles of thermodynamics are "regarded as inviolable and are applied constantly to engineering and the sciences." The first law of thermodynamics is a "fundamental physical principle stating that the total amount of energy in the universe is constant and cannot change". In other words, the amount of energy stays the same—it is not being created or destroyed. The second law states that "entropy in a closed system either remains constant (if the system is in equilibrium) or increases" as time proceeds. This fixed amount of energy is becoming more unusable because the amount of disorder, or entropy, is increasing. Eventually, it will hit maximum entropy, and at that point, nothing can change anymore— everything will have run down. If the universe is a closed system (and it is), and it‘s "running down",‖ it cannot be eternal and therefore had a beginning which requires a cause. British astrophysicist Arthur Eddington said,

The Law that entropy increases—the Second Law of Thermodynamics—holds, I think, the supreme position among the laws of Nature… if your theory is found to be against the Second Law of Thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation.

U—Universe is Expanding

The Steady State theory was a popular view in the first half of the 20th century. It held that ―the universe is always expanding but maintaining a constant average density because matter was ―being continuously created to form new stars and galaxies at the same rate that old ones become unobservable In other words, the universe was thought to be eternal.

However, popular opinion changed in the 1920s when Edwin Hubble, working at Mt. Wilson Observatory, observed that the further a galaxy is from earth, the faster it seemed to be moving away. The idea of an expanding universe was born. This theory would later become commonly known as the Big Bang theory. Since we know that the universe is expanding, if we extrapolate this expansion backwards in time, we come to a singularity—a beginning.

R—Radiation From the Big Bang

In 1965, two Bell Labs scientists, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson, were attempting to bounce radio waves off of balloon satellites. They noticed that they received a faint radiation signal regardless of where they pointed the antenna. What they discovered was the radiation afterglow of the Big Bang itself. American astronomer and physicist Robert Jastrow said of this radiation:

No explanation other than the Big Bang has been found for the fireball radiation. The clincher, which has convinced almost the last doubting Thomas, is that the radiation discovered by Penzias and Wilson has exactly the pattern of wavelengths expected for the light and heat produced in a great explosion. Supporters of the Steady State theory have tried desperately to find an alternative explanation, but they have failed.

G—Great Galaxy Seeds

Scientists theorized that if the Big Bang had occurred, there should be ripples or variations in this cosmic background radiation. In 1992, NASA‘s Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) found these ripples. Hailed by Stephen Hawking as the discovery of the century, if not all time, these ripples were what allowed matter to form into galaxies (which is why they are also referred to as Galaxy Seeds)

The ripples show that the explosion and expansion of the universe was precisely tweaked to cause just enough matter to congregate to allow galaxy formation, but not enough to cause the universe to collapse back on itself. Any slight variation one way or the other, and none of us would be here to tell about it. In fact, the ripples are so exact (down to one part in one hundred thousand) that Smoot called them the machining marks from the creation of the universe and the fingerprints of the maker.

E—Einstein‘s General Relativity

Einstein postulated in his General Theory of Relativity that space, matter and time are co-related and interdependent (there cannot be one without the others). What this means is that if matter came into existence through a singularity like the Big Bang, then so did space and even time itself. In 2011, NASA‘s Gravity Probe B provided empirical confirmation that Einstein‘s theory is correct.

The Cause of the Universe Must Be Supernatural (Beyond Nature)

These five lines of evidence prove the universe is not eternal, but had a beginning. Since causality states that everything that has a beginning has an adequate cause, there must be an adequate cause of the universe, either natural or unnatural. But the cause of the natural world cannot be by nature (it cannot be self-caused). Therefore, the cause of the universe must be supernatural (beyond nature). It is this line of reasoning that influenced agnostic astronomer Robert Jastrow to admit: That there are what I or anyone would call supernatural forces at work is now, I think, a scientifically proven fact.

The Cause Must Also Be Intelligent

There are three lines of evidence that the cause of the universe is intelligent.

First, creation from nothing implies that creation was willed into existence. The universe once did not exist—and it did not ever have to exist. But since it did come to exist it shows that somebody with a mind and will decided to cause it to exist.

Second, we know the cause is intelligent by looking at what was created. The universe reveals advanced planning of a great mind. Not only is life complex (to be discussed shortly) but it appears that the universe was fine-tuned for human life from the beginning—commonly called the anthropic principle. Jastrow, speaking about this principle said,

The anthropic principle is the most interesting development next to the proof of the creation, and it is even more interesting because it seems to say that science itself has proven, as a hard fact, that this universe was made, was designed, for man to live in. It [the universe] is a very theistic result.

Third, an intelligence of great superiority is indicated by what Einstein called the harmony of natural law:

The harmony of natural law… reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection.

American astronomer former atheist Allan Sandage adds:

The world is too complicated in all of its parts to be due to chance alone. I am convinced that the existence of life on earth with all its order in each of its organisms is simply too well put together… The more one learns of biochemistry, the more unbelievable it becomes unless there is some kind of organizing principle an architect

The Naturalistic Cosmic Evolution Explanation Is Inadequate

The evidence points to our universe having a beginning, originating from a supernatural cause (outside of nature), and having a cause that is intelligent. Any model which contradicts these points (such as a self-caused universe, uncaused universe, or a purely naturalist cosmic evolutionary model) does so at the peril of science. This is the first strike for evolution. But it gets worse. The origin of the universe is the first in a cumulative series of challenges for evolution. Next is the origin of first life.

Taken from:

Proof Evolution Is False by Shawn Nelson

© 2014 by Shawn Nelson