About

Big Apple Chapel is a New Testament based church in New York City, modeled after the pattern of the early church, with a strong emphasis on following Christ as a community of His disciples.

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  • Sunday - 10:30 am
  • 520 8th Ave, 16th floor
    New York, NY
  • phone: +1 (973) 837-1041
 

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Created or Self-Caused?

2009-12-06

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“There are no absolutes” is a self-defeating proposition.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Lk 1:4 that you may know the certainty of those things in which you were instructed.

 

1. Truth is not determined by belief, feeling, experience (eye-witness filters faulty) nor majority opinion,  but Truth is that which best explains all the facts, discovered at the convergence of  authenticated Revelation, Reason, and Reality (accord with “natural” laws).

Scientific proof: Hypothesis considered reasonably accurate by empirical data that is: observable, repeatable, in a controlled environment.
Legal/Historical proof: consideration of facts (beyond a reasonable doubt) from: eyewitnesses, evidence, reason.     History starts ~3000BC 

 

2.  Jn 4:24 God is Spirit Do we live in a material or immaterial world? Can you dissect a body to find a word, thought, or paragraph?

The only way a finite being can know infinite Truth is if an infinite being reveals it to them. Is there any record/proof?
You’d have to be Omniscient to “know” that God doesn’t exist. No honest atheists, only “ignorant” agnostics.

 

3.Ps 139:13 For You did form my inward parts, You did knit me together in my mother’s womb RSV
Anything that exists is created or eternal. Evidence for a non-eternal universe would include:

a. the reasoning of philosophers that all things must have a cause (Cosmological argument) Mortimer Adler (How to Think about God) 
b. and a watch must have a designer (Teleological);  (cf Ontological – existence greater than non-existence)
c. the reality that the abundance of hydrogen in the cosmos (stars combust hydrogen to helium),
d. the faster speed of more distant stars (Big Bang), (GeraldSchroeder.com 7 Days)
e. the first and second observable laws of thermodynamics    (1st Conservation of matter; 2nd entropy),
    …point to an self-existing Cause, and start us seeking for some supernaturally authenticated revelation of a Creator

 

4. Heb 1:1 God…spokeA Creator with the power to create a purposeful universe, would have the power to communicate and preserve that communication, so that His creation could understand that purpose. (Especially if held accountable to it.) NT 10/1000yrs vs 24000/100-300yrs

 

5. Monkeys can’t type  “All that glitters is” 1*106 monkeys; 864000 sec/dayX10; 8.6*1011key/day; 3.15*1014 key/yr (div into 30n)
1st word 304®810000;=1 sec | 2nd word 3010®5.91*1014; 6.8*102=2 days | 4 words in a row 3020®3.5*1029;= 1.11*1015yrs  DNA 10600
13.75*106 yrs  Environment that could have formed an amino acid link would have destroyed it the next second.  

 

6. Science can be Unscientific  ‘We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door. Richard Lewontin, Billions and billions of demons, The New York Review, p. 31, 9 Jan 1997 AIG

 

7. Floods, Arks,  Fossils, Trilobites, Octopi, Overthrusts, Dinosaurs, Dating and Wooly Mammoths Gen 7:19… all the high hills were covered

How do you fossilize a jellyfish? Noah’s Ark: a Feasibility Study answersingenesis.org/creation/v19/i2/animals.asp 1.7 miles  522boxcars 16k species/240ea=67cars
135x15x3 miles http://www.pathlights.com/ce_encyclopedia/Encyclopedia/12fos08.htm  cf Matterhorn    See www.icr.org            
http://www.christiananswers.net/q-aig/aig-c007.html In Australia, some wood was clearly buried in the lava flow that formed the basalt, as can be seen from the charring. The wood was “dated” by radiocarbon (14C) analysis at about 45,000 years old, but the basalt was “dated” by potassium-argon method at 45 million years old![19]  cf. Mount Saint Helen; Moon 10k 2m 28b 1.5” move; 3” dust
Unprovable/Disproven assumptions have to be made such as: http://www.pathlights.com/ce_encyclopedia/Encyclopedia/Cre-Ev-Enc-TOC.htm
a. The starting conditions are known (eg, that there was no daughter isotope present at the start, or that we know how much was there). b. Decay rates have always been constant. c. Systems were closed or isolated so that no parent or daughter isotopes were lost or added.

 

8. Accurate information about “what happens on the other side” must be based upon authenticated Revelation. John 3:13 No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven. 14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15  that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. 16  For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life…21 (cf Jn 1:12  But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name). ESSENCE of BELIEF: Christ’s death is a satisfactory substitute payment for one’s sins. (Rm 5:8)

 

Questions for Reflection/Discussion/Response:
1. Can someone believe in Christ as Savior without believing in Him as Creator? Can one believe in heaven with buying inerrancy?
2. Why are people so quick to put their faith is unproven, unreasonable, “scientific” theories (life came from an eternal exploding dot)? 
3. If both science and religion are “untrustworthy” how can we know what’s true? Is it possible to just ignore it all?  (World view)
4. What difference does it make in someone’s life if the God of the Scriptures is indeed the Creator of the universe and humanity?