Thinking Out Loud with Alan Shlemon - The Miracles of Materialism

Episode Date: September 3, 2019

Alan explains how the atheist’s materialistic worldview makes several miracle claims to explain reality. Download the mp3...

Atheists have long derided Christians for believing in miracles. They're impossible, they say. Jesus can't turn water into wine, and Moses can't part the Red Sea. The Bible makes ridiculous claims about impossible events. They cannot be true. But the reality is that atheists need to look no further than their own worldview, materialism, to find miracle claims. their own worldview, materialism, define miracle claims. Now, this worldview can be defined as the view that entails that matter is all there is. Okay? So, on this worldview, there are no souls, there's no angels, there's no God, there's no cosmic intelligence, nothing immaterial exists.

And if something does exist, it's physical and it's made up of matter. Now, once this position is understood, it becomes evident that the atheist's materialistic worldview makes several miracle claims in order for them to explain reality. Okay, so I just want to discuss three of these miracle claims. Here's the first one. It would be a miracle for the universe to come from nothing. You see, as the law of conservation of mass states, matter cannot be created nor destroyed. Now, despite this well-known law, atheists believe that all of space and time and matter came into existence from nothing and by no one. Now, the question is

obvious, which is, how can this be possible? Right? I mean, if you have nothing to begin with, then you'll have nothing in the process and nothing in the end. From nothing, nothing comes. Now, despite this, what I would argue is a commonsensical idea, notable MIT physicist Lawrence Krauss titled his book, A Universe from Nothing. Now, that's bold, right? Because how could you get even one atom, let alone a planet or the entire universe from nothing? There's no material to begin with. There's no time to do any work. And there's no one to do the working.

Nothing would yield an eternity of nothing. And according to the atheist worldview of materialism, however, miracles are apparently possible, because the absence of something created the presence of everything. And not only did matter appear out of nowhere, but it managed to fabricate a universe that creates and sustains human life without the help of anyone. In other words, that means nothing made something and no one made someone. It's the ultimate free lunch. But creating the universe is actually only the first problem. Because here's the second miracle claim of materialism. It would be this. Materialism would have to, it would be a miracle for the information in DNA

to arise without any intelligence. You see, every time you come across information, you reasonably conclude that it came from someone, right? For example, books are written by authors and paintings are painted by painters. And so if it contains information, it never arises on its own. In fact, it's our universal experience is that information always comes from an intelligent agent, right? So DNA is an information storage medium in your cells that contains the design blueprints for every part of your body. And what happens is the data is passed on to miniature factories that create your cells and tissues and organs. And the capacity of DNA to store information rivals any man-made medium. And according to biologist Michael Denton, he says this,

quote, Now that blows the capacity of any hard drive or thumb drive that you might have, right? In fact, Bill Gates, the co-founder of the software giant Microsoft, once wrote this, quote, And of course, Gates' analogy is telling, because software programs are written by intelligent agents known as programmers. No program, not even the smallest smartphone app, ever programmed itself. Every software application requires a mind to write its code.

And yet, according to the worldview of materialism, there is no God and therefore no intelligence or mind. And all the information and all the design code found in DNA came from no person, God, or intelligence. It arose from an entirely mindless and chance process. And this is truly miraculous. And here's the third miracle claim of materialism. It would be a miracle for humans to develop free will. Now, remember that the atheist worldview of materialism says that matter is all there is. So, in other words, humans don't have a soul. They don't have an immaterial part of

who they are, right? We're composed merely of physical tissue. But if that atheist description is correct, then it would be impossible for humans to have free will. And that's because physical objects, no matter how complex they are, don't have the capacity for free will. A billiard ball, for example, can't change direction on its own. It doesn't have free will. Its movement is dependent upon the forces of physics. Now, something more physically complex, like a stapler, has the same limitation. And the same would also be true of a car, which, by the way, is far more complex. And notice that increasing the complexity of a physical object doesn't increase the capacity for free will. And that's why a human who is magnitudes more complex

can't have free will either, because he is also just a physical object. Free will, however, is a quality that everyone experiences, right? And there would have to be an immaterial sort of part of humans, a center of consciousness, for there to be a place where free will can exist. And since materialism asserts that there is nothing immaterial, human beings can't, even in principle, have free will. And that's why it would be a miracle for humans to develop it, if the materialistic worldview of atheism is true. You see, these miracles of materialism are more miraculous than any biblical story. And that's because atheism demands they be possible, despite the materialistic worldview being impotent to do any such thing. And if the biblical worldview is true, however, then there

is a God who created the universe and its laws. And miracles would be possible because he could bend or suspend those laws. Like, for example, heal a leper? Piece of cake. Turn water into wine? No problem. Part the Red Sea? Child's play. All things are possible with God.