Let's Be Reasonable!

Rev 1:8  "I am the Alpha and the Omega," says the Lord God, "who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty."

Rev 1:18  and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades.

Rev 21:6  And he said to me, "It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.

Rev 22:13  I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end."

I choose the above verses to show how the Bible clearly teaches that Jesus is eternal.  We could add Joh 1:1  In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Joh 1:2  He was in the beginning with God. Joh 1:3  All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.  John connects all these verses back to Genesis 1:1 and to the Triune God himself.

What is sadly interesting is that when we quote such verses and make such points the atheists, who are by definition naturalists, accuse us of making a religious statement; something that they would never do supposedly.  Except this is just another hypocritical, self-deceiving assumption of those who hate God.  For example here is what Carl Sagan, perhaps one of the most well know atheists, said of the universe, “the cosmos is all that is, or ever was, or ever will be.”   Now that sounds almost identical to the verses above from Revelation.  The atheists assume that when we say it about Christ we are being religious; when a naturalist says it he is being scientific.  But it doesn’t take a high school degree to see how illogical such thinking is.

We are often criticized for using God as the “God of the gaps”.  By which they mean we use God to explain things we don’t understand.  For instance, how did the universe come into existence?  God created it.  They would say but that is a statement of faith by which we have no proof and so they look for physical proof and deny anything so “spiritual” or religious.  But it should be obvious that Sagan is using something to gap his ignorance as well.

I would contend that the statements of Carl Sagan and those of that ilk are exactly the same as the ones in Revelation, except much more illogical.  They are saying that the universe is either eternal or came from nothing.  So either the universe is a god that is unthinking and uncaring; that it is just matter; or they are trying to get us to believe that nothing produced something.  Either way, this is a “religious” statement in that you are expressing a belief.  Carl Sagan wasn’t at the beginning of anything and so to make such a statement is a wild guess at best.  But it is absurd since any rational person knows that unconscious matter cannot be eternal; it had to come from something and certainly nothing cannot produce something.  Such statements can never be more than a guess since no one was at the beginning; not one other than the One who created everything!  If a Christian suggested this they would be dismissed at once as a lunatic.  Yet similar “lunatics” are allowed to teach our children such nonsense. 

How much more logical is it to assume that someone who existed before anything else and with wisdom and power beyond anything we have created it?  Fundamentally it is the same reasoning of Carl Sagan only much more reasonable.  And, in fact, the Bible tells us that all men know this to be true but sin causes them to reject it,

Rom 1:18  For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. Rom 1:19  For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Rom 1:20  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 1:21  For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Rom 1:22  Claiming to be wise, they became fools.

Carl Sagan like all of us before God saved us was a fool who thought himself wise.  Unfortunately for him, he knows better now but it is too late; he’s dead.  May we learn to think through the foolishness of this world and teach our children how to think and pray that God will shine his light and wisdom in our hearts.  2Co 4:4  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.

Just before his death, knowing that he was dying, Ted Koppel asked Sagan if he had any pearls of wisdom for the human race.  “We live on a hunk of rock and metal that circles a humdrum star that is one of 400 billion other stars that make up the Milky Way Galaxy, which is one of billions of other galaxies, which make up a universe, which may be one of a very large number, perhaps an infinite number, of other universes.  That is a perspective on human life and our culture that is well worth pondering.”  He also wrote, “Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark.  In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.”  This is why all of this matters and we must make the effort to show how the Bible answers these questions and objections.  This is about the person of God, not about science.  You won’t answer to science!  Such thinking leaves mankind without hope and without the salvation we so desperately need.  It is hardly a “pearl of wisdom” but it is the best a mind in darkness can come up with.