Evidence

and Reality

3 Scientific and Logical ImplicationsBeginning, Design, and Goodness

We can consider evidence of the beginning of the Universe, design of the Universe, and design of life
and reality of goodness, morality, and meaning.
For the beginning of the Universe, we can consider the Law of Causality that everything that had a
beginning had a cause and cosmological and geological evidence. Philosophically, time had a beginning
because there were not an infinite number of days before today. That is, an infinite number of days has no
end, but today is the end day of history.
To describe these scientific evidences, the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which is also known as
the Law of Entropy, says the Universe is running down like a clock.1 Well, if it is running down, some thing
or someone must have round it up. We would have no energy left right now if the Universe was eternal.
Albert Einstein's Theory of General Relativity shows time, space, and matter are co-relative, arrived into
existence together, and had a beginning.2 Einstein knew this in 1916 then observational evidence began in
1919 when Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington observed a solar eclipse to make the first empirical test of
Einsteins theory: the measurement of light deflection by the Sun's gravitational field.3 The fact the Universe
is expanding, which Edwin Hubble detected in 1929 and predicted by Dutch astronomer Willem de Sitter in
1922, confirmed General Relativity and revealed everything arrived from a single point, a point actually of
infinite density, the singularity, of which is actually nothing.4 The cosmic background radiation afterglow
and remnant heat discovered by Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson in 1965 shows the Universe had a
beginning.5 Observations of recession velocities of galaxies, which indicated a cosmic beginning, were
verified with a theorem published by Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose in 1970.6 Over a ten-year span
following this development, Arvind Borde, Alan Guth, and Alexander Vilenkin theoretically proved any
expanding Universe requires an actual beginning of space and time.7 The Great Galaxy Seeds, discovered in
1992 using the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) satellite and announced by Nobel laureate George
Smoot, are the largest structures ever detected with the largest extending about ten billion light years or
sixty (60) billion trillion miles and are very fine temperature variations or ripples in the radiation afterglow
that allowed the galaxy to form an early Universe.8 The decay of radioactive elements into other elements
shows the world had a beginning. For example, radioactive uranium eventually turns into lead. This means if
all uranium atoms were infinitely old, they would all be lead by now, but they are not. So the Earth must
have had a beginning. Given all these evidence, the Universe had a beginning.
For the design of the Universe, we can consider teleological evidence of the Universe with over 402
Universe and 922 Milky Way Galaxy fine-tuned, life-enabling anthropic constants for biological life to be
possible.9 These constants are fine-tuned and balanced on a razors edge in order for life to exist, which
makes our place in the Cosmos designed for discovery and very unlikely. A change in the weak force, which
operates inside the nucleus of an atom, by as little as one part in 10100 would have resulted in a lifeprohibiting Universe.10 Likewise, a change in the cosmological constant, which is the space vacuum energy

1 Physicist Rudolf Julius Emanuel Clausius (born Rudolf Gottlieb; 18221888), On the Moving Force of Heat (1850).
2 Albert Einstein, Relativity: The Special and General Theory (1916), Albert Einstein Archives, <alberteinstein.info>.
3 Astrophysicist Arthur Stanley Eddington, The Expanding Universe (Cambridge: The University Press, 1952).
4 Cosmologist

Edwin Hubble, "A relation between distance and radial velocity among extra-galactic nebulae,"
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) 15 (3) (1929): 168173.
5 A.A. Penzias; R.W., Wilson (1965). "A Measurement of Excess Antenna," Astrophysical Journal 142: 419421.
6 Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose, The Singularities of Gravitational Collapse and Cosmology, Proceedings of the
Royal Society of London A 314 (27 January 1970), 529-548.
7 Cosmologists Arvind Borde, Alan H. Guth, and Alexander Vilenkin, Inflationary Spacetimes Are Incomplete in Past
Directions, Physical Review Letters 90 (18 April 2003), 151301.
8 Nobel laureate Physicist George Smoot and Keay Davidson, Wrinkles in Time (Harper Perennial, 1994).
9 Astrophysicist Guillermo Gonzalez and Analytic Philosopher Jay W. Richards, The Privileged Planet (Washington, DC:
Regnery, 2004). Astrophysicist Hugh Ross, RTB Design Compendium (2009) for Why the Universe Is the Way It Is,
Reasons to Believe, <reasons.org/links/hugh/research-notes>, note cumulative 917 scientific references.
10 John D. Morrow & Frank J. Tipler, The Anthropic Cosmological Principle (Oxford, NY: Oxford University Press, 1986).
bestfactualworldview.com

Continued on the back of this sheet.

3 Scientific and Logical ImplicationsBeginning, Design, and Goodness

density that affects the Universe expansion rate, by as little as one part in 10120 would have rendered a lifeprohibiting Universe.11 To put these numbers in perspective, compare these numbers with the estimated
total number of 1080 hydrogen atoms in the Observable Universe, which makes about seventy-four percent
(74%) of all atoms by mass.12 Just gazing up at the Moon, the moon-forming event meticulously transformed
the older Earth from a formless and empty blob into a place where life can thrive with just-right surface
gravity, surface temperature, atmospheric composition, atmospheric pressure, crustal iron abundance,
tectonics, volcanism, rotation rate, stable rotation axis, and degree of tilt.13 In addition, moons are typically
tiny compared to their planets. Earths Moon, however, is the exception as it is huge being fifty (50) times
more massive relative to its planets mass than any other Solar System moon.14
For the design of life, we can consider life has been observed to arise only from existing life;15
consists of thousands and even millions of volumes of empirically detectable specified complexity or
information;16 changes cyclically and only within a limited range;17 is irreducibly complex as life is built
suddenly;18 is molecularly isolated between basic types as there is no ancestral progression at the molecular
level;19 and leaves a fossil record of fully formed creatures that appear suddenly, do not change, and then
disappear suddenly.20
Many cosmological scientists now concede the Universe and time had a beginning. So, if whatever
begins to exist has a cause and the Universe began to exist, then the Universe must have a cause. Moreover,
since every design had a designer and the Universe has highly complex design, therefore the Universe had a
Designer. Now what kind of cause, what kind of being could cause a Universe to arrive into existence out of
nothing? Well, it must itself be uncaused because it cannot have an infinite regress of causes. Since the First
Cause created time, space, matter, and energy, it must be self-existent, timeless or eternal, non-spatial or
space-less, and immaterial or spirit. In other words, the First Cause is infinite. It must be unimaginably
powerful to create the entire Universe out of nothing, by fiat. It must be supremely intelligent to design the
Universe with incredible precision. It must be personal to choose to convert a state of nothingness into the
time-space-material Universe. Since it is infinite and an infinite being lacks nothing from which to
distinguish it from another in some way, there must be just one Supernatural Cause or Creator. So, we have
an uncaused, self-existent, timeless or eternal, non-spatial or space-less, immaterial or spirit, powerful,
intelligent, personal, and one of a kind Causal Agent or Creator.
Our reactions to personal unfair treatment reveal a fundamental sense of right and wrong or Moral
Law impressed on our hearts or conscience. We intuitively know rape, murder, the Holocaust, baby torture,
or any other evil are wrong. This Moral Law must have a source higher than us because it is a prescription
that is on the hearts of all people. Since prescriptions always have prescribers, as they do not arise from
nothing, the Moral Law Prescriber must exist.
These evidence and uncaused First Cause and unmoved Prime Mover characteristics and attributes
beg the question, If there is no Creator, then why is there something instead of nothing? Consequently,
these characteristics and attributes offer a good initiation for the description of the Supreme Being. The
beginning of the Universe, design of the Universe, design of life, and Moral Law points powerfully towards
the existence of the transcendent Creator who operates beyond matter, energy, space, and time. Since the
Supreme Being exist who created the Universe out of nothing by fiat, authoritative command, or will
without even a magic trick involving props such as a hat, rabbit, or mirror, perhaps miracles are possible.

11 Eli Michael, How physically plausible is the cosmological constant? University of Colorado (1999), Boulder.
12 Astrophysicist John Gribbin, In Search of the Big Bang: Quantum Physics and Cosmology (Bantam Books, 1986).
13 Astrophysicist C. R. Benn, The Moon and the Origin of Life, Earth, Moon, and Planets 85-86 (2001): 5.25-5.29.
14 Astrophysicist Hugh Ross, Navigating Genesis (Covina, CA: Reasons to Believe, 2014), 39.
15 Chemist Louis Pasteur, Papers on the Germ Theory (Pasteur Institute: 1878-1880), <pasteur.fr/en>.
16 William A. Dembski & Sean McDowell, Understanding Intelligent Design (OR: Harvest House Publishers, 2008), 131.
17 Biologist Jonathan Wells, Icons of Evolution: Science or Myth? (Washington, D.C.: Regnery, 2000), 159-175.
18 Biochemist Michael Behe, Darwins Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution (NY: Touchstone, 1996).
19 Biochemist Michael Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis (Bethesda, MD: Adler & Adler, 1985), 285.
20 Paleontologist Stephen J. Gould, Evolutions Erratic Pace, Natural History 86 (1977): 13-14.