freed and detached himself from the idea of God" (Moreland & Nielsen, 13). If there is no God, there is no mystery. But for the believer, God provides purpose and meaning and hope to one's life, indeed, even the foundation for morality.
Despite all the inquiry, all the finger pointing, all the debate, one fact remains. "Neither side has been able to eliminate the other's belief by logically convincing and converting them, though both sides have occasionally tried to eliminate its opponents by less rational means, such as intimidation, torture, and murder" (Moreland & Nielsen, 13).
As Moreland admits, God's existence cannot be proved with "mathematical certainty" (35). However, Moreland argues the existence of the universe with respect to God's hand in time. The number of mathematical and biological constants, he maintains, are too great and too infinitely precise to permit an otherwise unforced "Big Bang" to have set everything into motion. The heart of his philosophical position is this: "God created the universe from nothing a finite time ago" (Moreland & Nielsen 36-37).
If you come to a beginning, then the past is finite and my argument is settled. That would be the first event. If you had never come to a beginning, then the past is actually infinite; and as you go back in your mind, you never in principle could exhaust the events of the past. It would be impossible to traverse the past going backward in your mind (Moreland & Nielsen 37).
To support this premise, Moreland contends, without a first event, there could be no second, or third, or fourth, and so on. Infinity, plus or minus any number, is still infinity. One cannot get a foothold in a bottomless pit. The universe must have a definite starting point--a Big Bang--"generated by a situation that was immutable, unchanging, timeless, and free" (37). This is none other than God.
Moreland also explains that at least two areas of science su...