The Evidence for God - In Science and Scripture

By Chris Singletary

A book that harmonizes scientific evidence and scriptural support for intelligent design as the creative mechanism for the universe and all life within it. It exposes the bias in science toward a materialistic answer while ignoring obvious evidence to the contrary. The bias is so strong in some areas of scientific study that poor hypothesis are

• Language: English
• Publisher: Middle of the Garden Ministries
• Release date: Mar 15, 2023
• ISBN: 9798218156831

Book preview

Chris Singletary

THE EVIDENCE FOR GOD

IN SCIENCE AND SCRIPTURE

First published by Middle of the Garden Ministries 2023

Copyright © 2023 by Chris Singletary

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

Chris Singletary asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

Chris Singletary has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party Internet Websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such Websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

In dedication to my Lord and savior Yeshua HaMashiach and my late wife who was my soulmate and best earthly friend.

Second edition

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Contents

Preface

A COSMOLOGICAL / PARTICLE PHYSICS OVERVIEW

THE BIG BANG

THE FINELY TUNED LAWS OF PHYSICS

THE LEGO® BLOCKS OF BARYON MATTER

BOSONS – POWER TO ENFORCE THE LAWS

BIOLOGICAL EVIDENCE FOR INTELLIGENT DESIGN

ORIGIN OF THE SPECIES

BIOCHEMISTRY’S LACK OF INFORMATION

LARGE CHANGES IN BODY PLANS

EXCESSIVE WAIT TIMES

DNA’S ORIGINAL INFORMATION

IRREDUCIBLE COMPLEXITY

THE MARVELS OF DNA AND NEW INFORMATION

LACK OF PALEONTOLOGICAL RECORDS

EMBRYOLOGY

THE SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCE FOR GOD

THE GENESIS RECREATION ACCOUNT

PROPHECY

PROPHETIC EVIDENCE #1

PROPHETIC EVIDENCE #2

PROPHETIC EVIDENCE #3

PROPHETIC EVIDENCE #4

PROPHETIC EVIDENCE #5

PROPHETIC EVIDENCE #6

PROPHETIC EVIDENCE #7

PROPHETIC EVIDENCE #8

PROPHETIC EVIDENCE #9

PROPHETIC EVIDENCE #10

PROPHETIC EVIDENCE #11

THE GODHEAD EXPLAINED

THE FATHER - GOD OF ALL

THE SON – THE LORD GOD

THE HOLY SPIRIT – GOD

THE AGE OF GRACE

WHY DO WE NOT SEE GOD?

FOR THOSE THAT SUFFER

GOODNESS NEEDS CONTRAST TO EVIL

SUFFERING AND EVIL IN THE WORLD LEADS US TO SEEK THE KINGDOM OF GOD

FIGHTING EVIL GIVES STRENGTH OF CHARACTER

OVERCOMING EVIL BRINGS GLORY TO GOD

IS THERE AN AFTERLIFE?

WHAT ARE YOU WAITING ON?

APPENDIX A

APPENDIX B

APPENDIX C

Preface

This book will explore the evidence for the existence of an Intelligent Designer of all creation. We will examine scientific evidence from physics, cosmology, paleontology, and biology as an indication that an Intelligent Designer exists. We will also look at Scripture to see if there is uniformity with good scientific understandings. Science and Scripture should agree if they were created by the same entity. The Evidence for God was written with Christian believers as the focus, but everyone should benefit from a scientific study if intelligent design is a legitimate hypothesis for creation. If it is then what are some good arguments for this existence from a scientific standpoint and does scripture also support both science and the existence of an intelligent designer?

Furthering this line of thought, if there is an Intelligent Designer who created intelligent beings, would it stand to reason that He would have a motive to do so beyond just the ability to do it? Does the Bible present compelling evidence of its origin from such a being? It is one thing to create non-aware animals. It is quite something else to create intelligence that can contemplate all of creation while looking for evidence of an intellect behind it all. We need to give this topic our utmost attention since our existence could be tied to that answer. If science proves His existence, and the scriptures prove His existence, then we must study eschatology for the answers to Why we are here? and Is there more to life than the here and now?

If we cannot answer these questions, then life might be a hollow shell of reality. Would it matter how we behave or what we do in life? If, however, the opposite is the case, then life may just be a dress rehearsal for what comes after. This is the most profound and important subject we will ever decide upon. Surely if there is an intelligent entity or God behind the creation of the universe, there would be ramifications that stem from that understanding. This question is more important than who we will marry, or on any other matter. Nothing in this material world is more important than the question of Is there a God? and if so, what His will for us might be. It could be a question that concerns all eternity for us; or are we just a thing of His creation bound to live a physical existence and just perish at the end of it?

I have also added a few chapters at the end of this book in order that the reader has additional support for the arguments presented. If all the obstacles have been removed for understanding that we live in a universe created by a higher being, and that there are ramifications for that understanding, the additional chapters support a further commitment to the evidence presented.

A COSMOLOGICAL / PARTICLE PHYSICS OVERVIEW

When I look at the macroscopic universe using images from the Hubble space telescope, I am amazed. The universe is beyond vast. More than a century ago, astronomers thought our galaxy was all there was to the Universe. It was all that they could see in their small optical devices, so they were very limited in their understanding of the cosmos. Thanks to the Hubble telescope in space and other large, land-based telescopes, we have seen other galaxies and have some amazing pictures of them.

Hubble Deep Field Camera Image of the Galaxies from the early universe

In the image above, we are seeing galaxies from the ancient past when the universe was just a few billion years old. It has taken light billions of years to get here from there, so we see them as they were and not as they are. The small, red dots in the picture are galaxies at the very edge of the observable universe.

Astronomers have seen the existence of a super massive black hole at the center of our galaxy, which provides the gravity to attract the Milky Way’s stars around it. It is named Sagittarius A star because of its location in the Sagittarius constellation. If you are not aware of what a black hole is, it is a region of space that has so much mass, the gravity it produces has collapsed its matter into a singularity and not even light can escape its pull. In many cases, a black hole is what is left after a massive star has used up its fuel and died since the stars nuclear reactions can no longer keep the mass from collapsing. Sagittarius A is very hard to view because of the amount of dust and gas in this region called the zone of galactic obscuration (ZGO)[i]. A few decades ago, black hole stars where only a hypothesis of astrophysics, but now we even have pictures of some. In the image below, all you can see of it is its accretion disk as light circles it. Light cannot escape the grip of its gravity as it warps space and time around it.

A Super Massive Black Hole in the M87 Galaxy

Today we know that our galaxy, the Milky Way, has more than 200 billion stars and is but one of hundreds of billions of galaxies. The Milky Way is in a cluster of galaxies known as the Virgo Super Cluster, which is itself part of an even broader cluster group called the Laniakea,[iii] which spans more than 520 million light-years across. Throughout the last century, we have also come to understand through astronomy that we live in a spiral arm of the Milky Way galaxy, which as I mentioned, contains billions of stars; our sun just being one of them.

The Milky Way’s size is about 100,000 light-years across. It is estimated that the age of our galaxy is around 13.1 billion years old, and its mass is around 1.28[.9] x 10^12 solar masses.[iv] A solar mass is the size of our sun, which is equal to about 330,000 earths or 1.989 x 10^30 kilograms. It has been calculated to have a current inflow rate of .53 solar masses per year with an outflow rate of .16 solar mases during the same period. This means it is collecting more dust and gas than it is losing it. This could change, however, and therefore it is just listed at its estimated present rates.

Our Place in the Milky Way Galaxy

Our closest neighboring galaxy is Andromeda, which is about 2.5 million light-years from us and the first confirmed galaxy outside of our own by Edwin Hubble in 1925. We can see it as a smudge with the naked eye or more detailed in a telescope of only modest magnification. Andromeda is twice as large as our own Milky Way at about 200,000 light-years across. It is approaching us and will one day (projected to be about 4.5 billion years from now), merge with the Milky Way to become one galaxy.

The Andromeda Galaxy

Very impressive, but there are much larger galaxies in the universe, like IC1101, which is the largest galaxy we can see. IC1101 is approximately 6 million light-years across! Light, comprised of photons, the fastest known particles in the universe, are traveling at about 299,792,458[viii] meters or 186,282 miles every second. Light can circle the earth around its 24,901-mile equatorial circumference, approximately 7.48 times in a second. In contrast, a photon from one edge of IC1101 takes 6 million years to get to the other side! IC1101 contains over a trillion stars and is about 1 billion light-years from our own Milky Way galaxy. It is also not a spiral galaxy like the Milky Way or Andromeda, but a supergiant elliptical galaxy.

Size Comparisons of Galaxies

In total, there are more stars in all the galaxies of the universe than all the grains of sand on every beach in the world. If grains of sand were separated by distance like stars are, there would be roughly six miles between each grain. The understanding of this stretches beyond the imagination. How can we even imagine the size of celestial objects, the quantity, or the splendor of all the universe? What amazing wonders have we still not seen?

It is not just the galaxies that are so impressive but what they contain as well. While I have mentioned black hole stars, neutron stars are also incredibly remarkable. They do not quite have the mass to become a black hole under their gravity, but it has been calculated that they are so dense that just a teaspoon of a neutron star from the surface would weigh 10^17kg/m^3[ix] or about 900 times the mass of the great pyramid of Giza![x] From neutron stars, magnetars, pulsars, and even black holes, the universe in all its splendor is nothing short of unimaginable. Was this just a random chance to have come into existence or was there a Creator who brought everything into being?

Perhaps just as profound are the discoveries we have found when we examine the infinitesimal scale of matter, beyond the proton and neutron to quarks. Perhaps we can eventually discover even more fundamental particles than quarks to the theorized vibrating strings that make up our existence. The smallest calculable size of physical reality is all the way down to the quantum Plank length in scale (1.616 255(18) × 10-35 meters).

In 450 BC, Democritus, a Greek philosopher, introduced the idea of the atom, however it was John Dalton an English chemist, physicist, and meteorologist who in 1800, proved its existence. Physicists at this time thought that atoms were the basic building blocks in nature. Then physicists found out that inside the atom were yet smaller blocks of protons, neutrons, and electrons. It wasn’t until 1968 that we discovered experimentally at the Stanford linear accelerator center that protons were made of yet smaller particles called quarks.[xi] The size of these subatomic particles of baryon matter are so small they become almost incomprehensible. A quark is roughly 2,000 times smaller than a proton and 60,000 times smaller than an atom.[xii] It takes two up quarks and one down quark to make a proton, and two down quarks and one up quark to make a neutron. We shall talk more of this later, but I wanted you to comprehend how small they are. The very same building blocks are used for all matter that exists. Quarks are presently thought to be fundamental matter particles; however, it is hypothesized that there are even smaller objects inside quarks that are just vibrating strings operating in ten or more dimensions and operating at the plank length. This may never be testable, so it will remain just a hypothesis for now. It is amazing how we have thought we have finally hit the basic building blocks of matter only to find out there are more smaller and even more fundamental blocks below.

An adult human body is made up of around 7 octillion atoms (7,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 or 7x10²⁷). Now imagine how many quarks there are that make up each proton and each neutron in your body. This is many more times the number of atoms. Our imagination simply cannot comprehend this staggering number of particles operating in our lives, much less the universe in its entirety.

Physicists have studied the cosmic background radiation left over from the big bang in the start of creation. This event will be an essential element in understanding evidence for intelligent design. In the early part of the twentieth century, the static understanding of the universe was prevalent in astronomy, but later abandoned due to compelling evidence to the contrary and in favor of a beginning to the universe. Many astronomers wanted to reject a beginning of the universe. Why? Because if it came into being, it meant there was nothing before and why would that be an issue? Because something that comes from nothing is a hallmark of an intelligence involved in the creation. If there is nothing, and then there is something, then how would it have gotten there? Can you name one other thing in the world that spontaneously created itself?

THE BIG BANG

WHERE DID IT ALL COME FROM?

Astronomer Edward Hubble (November 20, 1889–September 28, 1953) proved that an expansion of the universe was ongoing by presenting evidence of the red shifting of light from the distant galaxies around us. By examining the red shifted light frequency coming from galaxies both close and far away from us, it has been determined that it is space that is expanding. The expansion of all of space is inflating like blowing up a universe-sized balloon. All the galaxies that are attached to the inside of that balloon are rushing through space away from almost everything else. You can show this inflation property to yourself by putting several black dots on a rubber party balloon with a magic marker and then blowing into it. As it expands, you can see the dots are moving away from each other.

Within galaxy clusters, there are some that will merge by reason of the gravitational forces of each galaxy, but generally everything is expanding outward on a path away from everything else around it. While the start of the universe was called the Big Bang, that really is not a good term for the event. There was no bang in the big bang. There is no air in space, only vacuum, and sound waves cannot propagate in a vacuum. The big bang did not explode into being like what happens when a bomb goes off either. It was a big inflation instead. We can deduce that if everything is going away from us, then at one time in the ancient past, everything was much closer together and denser. This is evidence of a beginning of the universe and one in which it is