Granted that the universe contains both persons (such as you and me) and impersonal structures (such as matter, motion, chance, time, space, and physical laws), which is fundamental? Did the impersonal (atoms, chance) bring about the personal (sentient beings)? Or did someone Personal bring about both other persons and the impersonal? Did mind create matter, or did matter create minds?

Consequences

If the impersonal is primary, then there is no consciousness, no wisdom, and no will in the ultimate origin of things. This means that reason itself is an unintended accidental consequence of matter. So is morality. So is beauty. Friendship, love, and beauty are all of no ultimate consequence, for they are reducible to blind, uncaring process.

If the personal is primary, then the universe was made with an intentional design, plan, and rationality. Friendship and love are not only profound human experiences, but fundamental ingredients of the whole world order.

A Person made the universe with morality, creativity, love, justice, reason. This Person made Reality and approves or disapproves of our submission or rebellion to His design.

I. The Creator is the Absolute Person

The major religions of the world, in their most typical forms, are either pantheistic (Hinduism, Taoism) or polytheistic (animism, some forms of Hinduism, Shinto, and the traditional religions of Greece, Rome, Egypt, etc.).

Pantheism has an absolute, but not a personal absolute.

Polytheism has personal gods, but none of these is absolute. Indeed, although most religions tend to emphasize either pantheistic absolutism or personal nonabsolutism, we can usually find both elements beneath the surface.

• Pantheism – Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Animism, Spiritism, Scientism
  Absolute ✓
  Personal X
• Polytheism – Hinduism, Shinto, paganism
  Absolute X
  Personal ✓
• Monotheism
  Absolute ✓
  Personal ✓

For some reason, when people are looking for an absolute, they gravitate towards the impersonal. “When scientists seek the causes of things, they almost always assume that the personal elements in the universe can be explained by the impersonal (matter, laws, motion), rather than the other way around. And when scientists seek for absolutes—for example, the “origin of the universe”—they seek for an “elementary particle,” a universal law (“theory of everything”), an initial motion (the “big bang”), or a combination of these.”

Yet to many well-educated scientists, the primacy of the impersonal goes without saying. It is, as it were, their presupposition. They adopt it not on the basis of evidence (for what evidence could prove the negative proposition that there is no God?), but by an irrational faith.

The only even remotely plausible explanation of this situation is the one given in the Bible: that though God’s existence is clearly revealed to all (Rom. 1:18–20), rebellious mankind seeks to suppress that revelation and thus to operate on the assumption that the God of Scripture does not exist. Is this not the most likely reason for the almost universal, but irrational, preference for impersonalism over personalism?

Sidebar: What of the monotheism of Judaism and Islam? Because Islam and Judaism have embraced a solitary person-God, Allah and Hashem fall short of the All-Personal God of Scripture.

Now this doesn’t prove God. Instead, it shows that what the biblical worldview assumes is the most powerful, plausible and probable explanation of reality. It also stands out as a unique worldview: absolute personality.

II. Arguments “for”/ from God

Again, these arguments have built into them the assumption that God exists. They do not assume that atheism is the starting point or that agnosticism is the neutral ground. They assume God’s existence, but then marshal these arguments as powerful reasons to vindicate that belief.

a) The Moral Argument

Every human, and every culture, has a conscience, and a set of moral values. Even when these differ, what is inescapable is the human sense of “oughtness”. Some things are right, some are wrong, some are praised, some are blamed.

The source of moral authority is either absolute personality or impersonal forces. How can impersonal forces produce moral obligations?

“Moral standards, therefore, presuppose absolute moral standards, which in turn presuppose the existence of an absolute personality. In other words, they presuppose the existence of God. But what God?” Once again, which religion offers the absolute personality?

b) The Knowledge Argument

Frame: “How is it possible that the human mind correlates so well with the structure of the world that people can make sense of the world? There must be a rational structure in the world that mirrors (or is mirrored by) the rational structure of the human mind.

If the world developed by pure chance, it would be highly unlikely that human experience would mirror the reality of the world in the way that we usually assume it does.”

Why should the world be structured for reason and logical observation?

Furthermore, why do humans have language that does not simply name the world, but expresses reasons and values? Language is deeply connected to rationality. Animals can be trained to recognise labels and commands “food, eat, walk, sit”, but only humans can express predications: “The cow is brown” “The sunset is beautiful” “The man is evil”.

Again, not “knowledge therefore God”, but “God, therefore knowledge, reason and language.”

c) The Design Argument

Creation has everywhere the appearance of design, which means it was made with purpose.

Sophisticated structures, irreducible complexity, language encoded into DNA, molecular machines, the structure of the human brain, the immensity of creation, the finely-tuned laws of the universe.

Purpose and design are features of personality.

• (1) Gravitational force constant
• (2) Electromagnetic force constant
• (3) Strong nuclear force constant
• (4) Weak nuclear force constant
• (5) Cosmological constant
• (6) Initial distribution of mass energy
• (7) Ratio of masses for protons and electrons
• (8) Velocity of light
• (9) Mass excess of neutron over proton
• (10) Steady plate tectonics with right kind of geological interior
• (11) Right amount of water in crust
• (12) Large moon with right rotation period
• (13) Proper concentration of sulphur
• (14) Right planetary mass
• (15) Near inner edge of circumstellar habitable zone
• (16) Low-eccentricity orbit outside spin-orbit and giant planet resonances
• (17) A few, large Jupiter-mass planetary neighbours in large circular orbits
• (18) Outside spiral arm of galaxy
• (19) Near co-rotation circle of galaxy, in circular orbit around galactic center
• (20) Within the galactic habitable zone
• (21) During the cosmic habitable age

d) The Cause Argument

A finite universe requires an infinite cause. Aquinas argued from motion, causation and contingency.

Motion requires an “unmoved mover”, every effect requires a cause, but it is necessary to have an uncaused cause, all things are contingent, but not everything can be contingent; somewhere there must be something that exists necessarily.”

To say that the universe is causeless is irrational. But the person trying to say that is using reason to argue for it! You cannot use reason and deny it at the same time.

“For there is no way to prove rationally (apart, of course, from divine revelation) that any particular event in the world is causeless. And if some event was causeless, how could it have happened?”

e) The Existence Argument

The existence or ‘ontological’ argument was suggested by Anselm. It’s debated if it proves something or nothing.

Let’s take the idea of a Perfect Being. A perfect being would have everything, right? Power, love, beauty, honour, joy, goodness all in perfect quality and quantity. Now, one of the things that a perfect being must have is existence. Imagine on the one hand a perfect being who is imaginary and does not exist, and a perfect being who does exist. Which one is more perfect? Therefore, a Perfect being who lacks existence is not actually perfect. In fact, he becomes nonsense, like a square triangle. Therefore, if a Perfect Being exists, He must exist.

III. The ultimate presuppositional question of the heart:

“Assume, for the sake of argument, the God of the Bible existed. An All-powerful, All-personal, loving and holy God who made a way for you to know Him and love Him. If such a God existed, would you serve Him?”

Most likely answer: No. This shows the issue is not one of evidence of existence, but of submission to authority. Not “I can’t believe” but “I won’t submit”.

Less likely answer: Yes. “If so, why don’t you seek Him?”