Why I am a Christian (3)

The Dimensions, Properties, Proportions and Situation of the Earth Appear Wisely Chosen

In 2012, I jotted down all the reasons I could think of why I am a Christian. I came up with 26. I then placed them under the categories of cosmological/astrobiological, existential/philosophical, theological, Christological, scriptural and personal/experiential.

The first four reasons (to do with the origins of the universe, the fine tuning of the universe, the life-favouring properties of the Earth and the improbable appearance of organic matter on Earth) are cosmological or astrobiological in nature and they contribute to my understanding as to why I think that my belief in a creator is credible and not unreasonable. 

So this is the third of 26 reasons I am a Christian; the dimensions, properties, proportions and situation of the Earth appear to have been wisely chosen. If there was even a little variation to what we have on Earth, intelligent life as we know it would not be possible at all.

Ever since human beings have realised they live on a spinning planet and looked up to the heavens at other moving spheres they have wondered if we are alone in the universe. Could intelligent life or even microscopic, unicellular life have appeared anywhere else?

Relatively recently, the Kepler telescope has discovered planets in other solar systems and has been able to work out if, due to their size, their distance from their star and their probable elemental constitution, they are the type of planets that might be able to support life. At the 221st meeting of the American Astronomical Society in California earlier this month astronomers speculated that perhaps one in six stars hosts an Earth-sized planet in close orbit. 

I have no more idea whether extraterrestrial life exists than anyone else. But the conditions necessary for complex life forms like human beings appear to be many and varied. Our Earth seems uncannily well suited to provide for us a good home. 

Seven different factors, each very precisely just right, favour the emergence and sustenance of life on Earth. (Bill Bryson, in his excellent book A Short History of Nearly Everything says there are in fact 40 factors but I’m sticking at 7!)

Firstly, our distance from the Sun (about 150 million kilometres or 8 light-minutes away) happens to be just right. Our nearest neighbour towards the sun, Venus, (about 41 million kilometres closer) has a surface temperature of about 450 degrees C. Our nearest neighbour away from the sun, Mars, plunges to -140 degrees C at its coldest. Bill Bryson comments that if the Earth were just 5% nearer the Sun or 15% further away from it, we would no longer be situated in a habitable zone. These are very small distances astronomically speaking. A shade closer to our star (in cosmological terms) and the oceans would boil. A little further away and our good Earth would be an inhospitable ball of rock and ice.

As Goldilocks noted, one bowl of porridge was too hot, one was too cold but one was just right. The Earth’s properties being just right for life, (and not just in the area of surface temperature) it has what some have called the Goldilocks effect.

Secondly, the Earth happens to spin round just the right sort of star. Smaller stars do not have the strength necessary to power life on a planet like Earth. And, though it may seem odd, bigger stars burn their fuel much more quickly. But stars like the Sun have enough hydrogen and helium to last about ten billion years so we’re not even half way through yet. Astronomer Dr. Guillermo Gonzalez and Philosopher of Science Dr. Jay Richards have said it would take a star with the highly unusual properties of our Sun; the right mass, the right light, the right age, the right distance, the right orbit, the right galaxy, the right location in the galaxy - to nurture living organisms on a circling planet. 

Thirdly, the size of the Earth is just right to support a life-sustaining atmosphere. By contrast, the Moon, for example, is too small a sphere so its weaker gravitational attraction fails to hold any gases to its surface. Having an atmosphere is absolutely vital to us, way beyond supplying us with breathable air. It evens out temperature scales between night and day (one reason why the scale is so wide-ranging on Mars is that its atmosphere is much thinner), it warms the surface of the planet through the greenhouse effect, it filters out harmful solar radiation and it burns up all but the largest (and rarest) asteroids heading our way.

Fourthly, our Earth has just the right mix of key elements in just the right quantities, especially an abundance of liquid water at the surface. By contrast Venus, for example, is largely sulphurous at the surface and with a dense atmosphere of carbon dioxide and clouds of sulphuric acid. Only 0.05% of the earth’s crust is carbon but that’s enough – in fact, just enough. Life is not possible without carbon but even slightly too much of it is a very bad thing – that’s why Venus has a runaway greenhouse effect and an atmosphere hot enough to melt lead.

Fifthly, our Earth has just the right foundation at its core; a vast iron centre. The ferric interior of our planet gives the Earth a magnetic field arising from convection currents in the liquid outer core. Without our magnetic field, our atmosphere would slowly erode altogether through solar wind (sudden and massive bursts of energy from the Sun’s atmosphere). As Chris Wickham writes: “The only thing stopping Earth having a lifeless environment like Mars is the magnetic field that shields us from deadly solar radiation."

Those pretty Northern Lights we admire in the Arctic Circle are in fact a massive solar radiation attack in which our magnetic shield is saving us from being fried alive in our beds.

Sixthly, our Earth has just the right conditions on its crust; plate tectonics. Our planet’s surface is constantly shifting. The outer crust is made up of vast slabs of land that move towards and away from each other. There is a growing conviction among planetary scientists that plate tectonics are necessary for life because they replenish the nutrition that primitive life depends on and recycle carbon around the planet. Not only that, but plate tectonics, over many, many years, elevate landmasses and produce mountainous regions. This is vital to us because if the land on our planet were uniformly flat, it would all be submerged under about 4 kilometers of sea.

Seventhly, our Earth has a Moon; the largest in the solar system in relation to its host planet. The Moon is just right in terms of size and distance from Earth to stabilize our planet’s axial tilt so avoiding significant, rapid and life-threatening climate changes. The absence of a moon for Mars has been the other main cause of fluctuations in temperature spanning 180 degrees C.  Our Moon is big enough and close enough to command tidal flows around our coasts but not so big or so near that it completely engulfs our landmasses with tsunami-like tides every time it passes above us.

Of course, some argue that this view is the wrong way round and that life has simply adapted and tuned itself to the conditions available on earth. But if that were true wouldn't we have discovered abundant life elsewhere in space?

In short, I marvel that our planet pulsates with life because it is, in every way, just right for life to thrive. We take for granted how well life flourishes on Earth. But if any of the features listed above were a fraction different from the way they are, life as we know it would not be possible here. Like the instantaneous creation of everything from nothing (Reason 1) and the incredibly precise physics necessary for it all to happen (Reason 2) it all appears to have been carefully arranged.

For this is what the Lord says—
he who created the heavens, he is God;
he who fashioned and made the earth,
he founded it; he did not create it to be empty,
but formed it to be inhabited—
he says: “I am the Lord, and there is no other."

(Isaiah 45.18)

On its own, Reason 3 would certainly never be anywhere near enough to convince me that God exists, let alone that Christianity is true.

As former Professor of Mathematical Physics at the University of Cambridge (and Anglican clergyman) John Polkinghorne put it: “A big, fundamental question, like belief in God (or disbelief), is not settled by a single argument. It’s too complicated for that. What one has to do is to consider lots of different issues and see whether or not the answers one gets add up to a total picture that makes sense.”

I agree. I have 26 reasons that incline me to believe that it is true and that he does exist. This is only number 3.

But, though it is an improbable marvel that any planet with exactly the right conditions for flourishing life exists at all, the greater wonder by far is how even the very simplest life forms could just create themselves from nonliving components. We're back to probabilities in numbers with lots and lots and lots of zeroes. That’s what I’ll muse about in two weeks’ time.

Why I am a Christian (2)

The Fine Tuning of the Universe Suggests High Level Engineering, not Complete Randomness

In 2012, I jotted down all the reasons I could think of why I am a Christian. I came up with 26. I then placed them under the categories of cosmological, existential/philosophical, theological, Christological, scriptural and personal/experiential.

The first four reasons (to do with the origins of the universe, the fine tuning of the universe, the life-favouring properties of the Earth and the improbable appearance of organic matter on Earth) are cosmological in nature and they contribute to my understanding as to why I think that my belief in a creator is credible and not unreasonable. 

So this is the second of 26 reasons I am a Christian; the fine tuning of the universe points to high level engineering, not complete randomness.

What do I mean when I talk about "fine tuning" in the universe? I mean, according to the calculations of people who are clever enough to work these things out, that the cosmic physics from the very earliest moments after the Big Bang to the present day have to be incredibly precise to work at all.

For example, at the dawn of time there had to be a very, very precisely exact balance between the outward thrust of the exploding universe and the gravitational force that pulls it together.

Professor Paul Davies of Arizona State University has stated that the correlation of outward thrust and gravitational pull needed to be "accurate to a staggering one part in 10 to the power of 60. That is to say, had the explosion differed in strength at the outset by only one part in 10, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000 [there are sixty zeros after the ten] the universe we now perceive would not exist. To give some meaning to these numbers, suppose you wanted to fire a bullet at a one-inch target on the other side of the observable universe, twenty billion light years away. Your aim would have to be accurate to that same one part in 10 to the power of 60."

That's a freakishly good shot, especially blindfolded. 

Furthermore, the density of the infant universe also had to be calibrated to an almost unimaginable exactitude.

Consider this quotation from Professor Stephen Hawking of Cambridge University: "If the density of the universe one second after the Big Bang had been greater by one part in 1, 000, 000, 000, 000 [a thousand billion], the universe would have recollapsed after ten years. On the other hand, if the density of the universe at that time had been less by the same amount, the universe would have been essentially empty since it was about ten years old. How is it that the density of the universe was chosen with such precision? Perhaps there is some reason why the universe has exactly the right density."

But it’s not just at the start of time that the sums absolutely had to add up. They had to be exactly right as time went on as well. Professor Michael Poole, of Kings College London, further underlined the incredible fine tuning needed for a viable universe by stating that gravity has to have the exact force it does have if stars (and therefore complex elements necessary for life) were ever to be created at all.

"Out of the Big Bang there came mostly the lightest gases, hydrogen and helium. These needed to be fused together to cook up the heavier elements like carbon, nitrogen and oxygen which are the building blocks of life. The high temperature, high pressure conditions found in the interior of stars provide the ovens for doing this. Some stars then blow up when they are old, scattering these heavier elements into space, eventually making up our bodies. But how do stars form in the first place? Through gravity compressing a cloud of gas, heating it in the process and igniting the nuclear fusion fires. Make gravity any weaker, and the stars will not ignite. Make it any stronger, and the stars will be so massive they will burn too fast and long-lived stars like the Sun will not exist."

So the exact force of the outward thrust of the Big Bang, the exact density of matter in the universe and the exact strength of gravitational pull are three examples of some ultra-precise maths that have to be absolutely correct for any universe to (1) come into being and (2) continue to expand and develop.

I do not have the training or expertise to either confirm or challenge these assertions. I am a layman, not a scientist. I read them as an interested amateur - and frankly I am awed by what I read.

For some curious reason, the physics and mathematics of the creation of our universe are very, very exact and without that precision we would have no universe, no stars, no matter, no life, no anything.

In fact, there are at least six fundamental constants in the universe that are essential for carbon based life. Radio astronomer (and Nobel Laureate for Physics 1974) Antony Hewish claims that the required degree of accuracy of just one of these six constants is equivalent to getting the mix of flour and sugar right to within one grain of sugar in a cake ten times the mass of the sun.

And yet, like my first reason for being a Christian, nothing I have said thus far proves anything. But doesn't it make you pause and ask big, big questions? Can we really be products of a randomly ordered universe with no intelligence behind it at all?

All in all, I think Hawking's question "How is it that the density of the universe was so precisely chosen?" needs a better answer than "Well, someone won the rollover lottery three times in a row and amazingly it was us." If a value is "chosen" to quote Professor Hawking, I naturally want to ask "How was it chosen?" and also "Did someone choose it and if so, who?"

I do not read the Bible the same way I read a science textbook - they are two different forms of literature. In the same way, a book of poems, a public information notice, a dictionary, a crime novel, a tabloid newspaper, a tweet and a car maintenance handbook are different means of communication that should be approached and interpreted in different ways.

But it is interesting to me that the Bible does not merely claim that God created the heavens and the earth by commanding that light should appear (Genesis 1.1), it affirms that he progressively developed his work (Genesis 1.2-27) and asserts that he goes on sustaining it, holding it all together for his pleasure and by his will (Colossians 1.16-17). To me, that is a basic working model that makes some sense of the highly improbable maths.

In my view, what scientists have learned about the fine tuning of the universe does not do away with the necessity of creative intelligence that the Bible affirms. On the contrary, it seems to me that without allowing for the possibility of intelligent supervision over our universe the coincidences are much too great. Insisting it all just happened on its own pushes improbability comfortably into the territory of wishful thinking.

How did it all happen without God? Professor Paul Davies again (he is not a Christian incidentally), for all his brilliance, seems out ideas: “It is hard to resist the impression that the present structure of the universe, apparently so sensitive to minor alterations in numbers, has been rather carefully thought out. The seemingly miraculous concurrence of these numerical values must remain the most compelling evidence for cosmic design.”

And finally, in A Brief History of Time, Stephen Hawking (he’s not a Christian either) wrote “It would be very difficult to explain why the universe should have begun in this way, except as an act of a God who intended to create beings like us.”

Ahem... 

I agree. 

Yet, on their own, these awesome discoveries would be insufficient to convince me that Christianity is true. (I would have to be very closed-minded if it didn’t at least set me thinking tough). The fact is I have 26 reasons that taken together lead me to that conclusion. This is just the second of them. I’ll be back in two weeks’ time with something a little more down to earth.

Immeasurably More (Ephesians 3.20-21)

Introduction

Well, happy New Year to you all if I haven’t had the opportunity to wish you one already. I hope you’ve had a good Christmas break.

I remember when one of our children was small, I think it must have been Nathan, we were blowing up balloons together for a birthday party. And I was quite impressed that, even with his little lungs, (he would have been 6 or 7), he was able to blow into the balloon and inflate it… a bit.

After two little puffs, he’d proudly hold up this rather wimpy looking balloon perhaps the size of a large grapefruit and say “Look daddy, I’ve finished this one, can you tie the knot for me?”

These were pretty good quality balloons and I was easily able to inflate them to the size of basketballs. So I’d take his balloon, encourage him, and say “Well, that’s great – but let’s see how much bigger this one can go, shall we?” And I was usually able to blow 5 or 6 long breaths into it and make it much bigger.

You see, Nathan had inflated his balloon - but it wasn’t full. There was ample capacity for more – much more.

Christians, like balloons, come in all shapes and sizes. You’ve noticed, haven’t you? Some are quite large and round (especially just after Christmas). Some are long and thin. Some never get off the ground. Some are always up in the air. Some are quite flexible and can tie themselves up in knots. And some, like me perhaps, are just full of hot air…

Balloons of course have different capacities for containing air – and Christians too, the Bible tells us, have different graces and gifts apportioned to us in different measures.

It is not true to say that all Christians have exactly the same sort of Spirit-filled life, we don’t.

But, like Nathan and his balloon, however full we might think we are filled, most of us have a capacity for more.

The Bible talks about growing in grace – so you can have more grace. We could all have a greater measure of faith, more love and more power, increased expectation…

How hungry are you for an experience of God that is above and beyond what you have so far known? Or can you say that you are satisfied with your spiritual life as it is? Are you content that you’ve got it all, that you’ve made it?

Paul, writing to the Christians in Ephesus, pauses in chapter 3 to pray. And in his prayer he asks God to strengthen them, from the abundant storehouse of his glorious riches. He prays that they will be absolutely firmly grounded in love. And he prays that they will have spiritual power to really grasp and fully know the love of Christ and that they will be filled to the measure [that means replete, saturated, overflowing, bursting with] all the fullness of God.

Unless that is already your experience of the Christian life, let me tell you this morning that there’s more!

And Paul goes on to say it in Ephesians 3.20-21; “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.”

I want to speak out three realities from these verses this morning and here they are.

Reality number 1: God is able to do much, much more than anything we could expect or even dream of.

Reality number 2: God’s sovereign power is already actively at work within us and among us.

Reality number 3: The glory of God, supremely revealed in Christ, must be reflected in the church in every generation, including our own.

And I’m going to take them in reverse order.

1. To God Be the Glory…

Reality number 3, that the glory of God revealed in Christ must be reflected in the church in every generation, including our own, means this: our top priority, our principal calling, is to magnify and exalt the greatness, the supremacy, the holiness and majesty and wisdom of God.

It’s not about us. It’s all about him. It’s all for him and he deserves it all.

What is “glory”? Have you ever stopped to think about that? It’s not an easy word to define is it?

We use the word in sports headlines. “England chase World Cup glory…” But we all know it’s going to end depressingly in the quarter finals on penalties.  

We use the word in nature. “The glory of the English countryside…” But we know really that for much of the year we’ll have to experience it battling to stay warm to the sound of driving rain lashing down on an umbrella.

Everywhere we use the word “glory” we devalue it except when we talk about God. So when the Bible says “To God be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus” it’s not talking about average sportsmen or hills and dales under heavy grey skies. It’s talking about a different order of things altogether.

The writer and pastor John Piper says “the glory of God is the beauty and brightness of his infinite perfections.” Think about that. The beauty… and brightness… of his infinite… perfections.

When I was in primary school, there was a big sensation the pop charts. He dressed in shiny clothes and he had an exciting name. People idolised him. He was a superstar. His name was written in lights; Gary Glitter.

But within five years of his peak nobody was buying his records anymore. Nobody was talking about him at all. He was all but forgotten. He attempted a comeback and flopped. It turns out he wore a chest wig and dyed his hair. Twenty years later, he was in a jail as a convicted sex offender. His fame lasted less than one generation and even that was a sham.

But even the genuine greats of human history, even the most admirable of men and women who have ever lived, even cultural icons who have left their mark, even the great and the good buried in Westminster Abbey, are as dust compared with the sheer greatness and grandeur of God’s glory.

I saw in the news that there was a meteor shower over the UK just before dawn on Friday. When you look up at the sky at night and see a shooting star it’s briefly entertaining; a fraction of a second and it’s gone. That’s what the glory of the very greatest men and women who have ever lived is like.

By comparison, the glory of God in Christ is like… the sun. You have to be warned against looking at it. Just as the sun’s light can blind you, so God’s glory is awesome beyond our capacity to bear it. For generation after generation, the intense radiance of God’s glory never fades.

About 750 years before Christ, Isaiah briefly saw the glory of God, and the manifestation of his holiness. The foundations of the place he was in trembled at the sound of the angel voices, and the room was filled with smoke and he called out in terror; “That’s it! I have looked God in the face! I’m finished!”

It’s the church’s job to reflect the countless facets of glory of God revealed in Christ in every generation, including our own.

Think about, for example,

• his absolute holiness
• his limitless goodness
• his manifold wisdom
• his unchanging faithfulness
• his saving grace
• his Father heart
• his immeasurable kindness
• Let there be an admiration for, and an echo of, God’s glory in All Saints’ this year. To him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations. 

2. The Power of God is Among Us

Reality number 2. God’s mighty power is already at work within us. It means this: the same mighty power that spoke creation into existence from nothing, the same immense power that raised a corpse from death; the power to love the unloveable and forgive the unforgivable is right here.

We’re talking about:

• power that transforms the foulest sinners into the finest saints
• power that transforms the sulkiest foes into the sweetest friends
• power to that transforms tears of sorrow to shouts of joy

The Bible says that that power is at work among us. It’s in this place today.

Jesus once got into a discussion with a group of religious people called the Sadducees. These people rejected most of the Old Testament, they didn’t believe in the supernatural and they denied the resurrection. And Jesus said to them, “You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God.”

According to Jesus, people go wrong in life if they are unfamiliar with God’s word. That is why we have chosen a verse for 2013 that says “Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path.”

The more acquainted with the Scriptures we are, the clearer our direction through life will be. That is also why we are reading the essential Bible together this year. Let’s saturate our minds with God’s thoughts and familiarise ourselves with words of truth.

But according to Jesus, people also go wrong in life if they do not experience God’s power.

In fact, knowing God’s word and knowing his power go together. You will never be filled with the power of the Holy Spirit if you haven’t soaked in God’s word.

How do I know that? Well, when Jesus returned from his 40 days of testing in the desert, Luke 4.14 specifically says he did so “in the power of the Spirit.” He had taken the devil on - and won decisively - by speaking out truth from Scripture. Every time he was attacked he answered, “It is written” and he affirmed God’s word. Jesus was filled of the Holy Spirit because he was full of the God’s word.

Tragically, like the Sadducees, I’ve known Christians who are ignorant of both the Scriptures and the power of God.

Don’t be lulled into thinking, because you’re baptized, or because you’re an Anglican, or because you never miss church, or because of some other formal qualification, that you’ve got everything you need.

In 1961, the minister at Westminster Chapel, Martin Lloyd-Jones, preached a sermon that really startled his congregation.

Some people had told him they had no need of being filled with the power of the Holy Spirit because (they said) they had already received everything they needed when they were converted many years before.

And Lloyd-Jones got a bit cross. “Got it all?” he said. “Got it all? Well, if you have ‘got it all’, I simply ask in the name of God, why are you as you are? If you have ‘got it all’, why are you so unlike the New Testament Christians? Got it all? Got it at your conversion? Well, where is it, I ask?”

Don’t be a “got it all” Christian. Be an “immeasurably more…” Christian!

In May 1738, an utterly disillusioned man who had also been thoroughly ineffective, not to say miserable, as an Anglican minister walked into a gathering in Aldersgate Street, London, in which someone was reading Martin Luther's introduction to the Epistle to the Romans. Something significant happened. That encounter changed the history of England.

The man was John Wesley of course and he later wrote about that experience. “I felt my heart strangely warmed,” he said. “I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.”

The whole nation came under God’s hand of blessing. A mighty revival broke out throughout the land.

Pubs emptied and chapels filled up. There were many signs and wonders. Hundreds of thousands of men and women were converted. (And the Church of England opposed it by the way).

Wesley travelled 250,000 miles (that’s more than the distance between the Earth and the moon!) and preached more than 40,000 sermons. He formed discipleship groups, he planted churches, he commissioned preachers, he administered relief charities and he opened schools and orphanages. He published many books earning at least £20,000 (a huge sum of money in those days). But he actually gave away £30,000. He lived very simply and died practically penniless. But under God he changed our nation armed with nothing but the simple gospel.

The power that is at work among us…

3. Immeasurably More…

And so to reality number 1; God is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine means this: however hard you strain to visualise the sheer span and dimensions of God’s bounteous supply of blessings, you will never get close.

He is able to far, far exceed anything you could dream of.

Our translation has the words “immeasurably more”. The King James Version used to translate it as “exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think.” So God is able to do not just more, not just abundantly more, but exceedingly abundantly more. Are you ambitious for God’s glory to shine as never before in our church and in our land?

We’re going to be talking about key ministries at All Saints’ in the next four or five weeks.

Next Sunday Kathryn will be explaining why we invest so much in our youth. It’s a strategic decision we’ve made. It’s really exciting that we are sending out about a dozen of them as our missionaries at Easter to build a house for a homeless family in Mexico. I believe that there’s more, immeasurably more, to come.

Then Jan will be speaking in two weeks’ time about whole families. The PCC has given Jan the go ahead to recruit a team and start a new ministry after Easter called Messy Church. Don’t let the title put you off, it’s a nationwide movement and God’s anointing is on it. This may be one of the keys that unlocks unchurched families coming to Christ. I believe that there’s more, immeasurably more, to come.

God’s hand has been on our Connect ministry amongst retired people. We have never attracted as many to the lunch club as we do now. The Holy Spirit is moving and we want to go where God is blessing and join in. Sylvia is going to speak about our plans for that in three weeks’ time. I believe that there’s more, immeasurably more, to come.

We are not going to slacken off in our ambition to let every home around this church know that there is a vibrant Christian community in their midst.

We want to continue to resource evangelism and mission in other churches situated in poorer areas than ours. And I’ll be sharing some of the exciting news from further afield in four weeks’ time.

I want you to know that we are focused on exalting God’s glory here and further afield.

I believe, by the grace of God, and with Spirit-filled people, and with passionate serving, we’ll prevail and grow.

We are hoping and praying for a 5-10% increase in giving this year to ensure that all these ministries and others can flourish. In fact, we’re not just hoping for it, the PCC has budgeted for it. That is ambitious. Some would say reckless.

I believe, by the grace of God, and with Spirit-filled people, and with radical generosity, we can do it - and have money to spare.

These are very challenging times spiritually. These are also very testing times economically. But God is able to do immeasurably more than all we can ask or imagine.

Ending

Remember that story about Nathan and the balloon? How full are you?

Simon Ponsonby of Saint Aldate’s Oxford says, “To be filled with the Holy Spirit leaves no room to be filled with anything else.” So let’s clear out everything that is taking up the space in our lives that the Holy Spirit alone should be occupying.

The Scottish evangelist to South Africa, Andrew Murray, used to suggest three simple steps to being filled with the Holy Spirit (in fact he had four, but I’m abbreviating it).

So let me leave you with this as we begin this New Year 2013.

Step 1 – say, “I must be filled.” Step 2 – say, “I may be filled.” Step 3 – say, “I shall be filled.”

Step 1 – “I must be filled.” Why must you? Because it’s God’s command. The Bible says “Go on being continually filled with the Holy Spirit.” So it’s imperative. God doesn’t say “If you want...” “I must be filled.”

Step 2 – “I may be filled.” Some people doubt that God’s word is really for them. Listen, the promise of Scripture is for all believers. Jesus said, “How much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?” God doesn’t say “This is only for leaders or the outstandingly holy.” “I may be filled.”

Step 3 – “I shall be filled.” Some people say, “Well, I’ll just put it off a couple of weeks and get round to it when I’m ready.” Listen, you won’t. You’ll never be ready. Jesus says, “All those who are thirsty, come.” The Lord is moving now.

Let’s stand to pray…

Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 6th January 2013

Why I am a Christian (1)

The Origins of the Universe Hint at the Work of a Creator

Weary of reading the barrage of predictable, patronising and often ill-informed comments every time I scroll through the "Have Your Say" or "Comment is Free" section on any Christianity-related BBC or Guardian web posting, I decided at the end of 2012 to jot down the reasons why I am a Christian. 

I came up with 26 reasons why I find Christianity believable. I then tried to arrange the different reasons under the categories of cosmological, existential and philosophical, theological, Christological, scriptural and personal or experiential. 

It occurred to me that probably none of my 26 reasons, on its own, would convince me that Christianity must be true. There are counterarguments that you can find for each one and they're not that hard to locate on the Internet. But together the 26 reasons build a case which satisfies my curious mind and makes sense of my felt spiritual experience.

The first four reasons (to do with the origins of existence, the fine tuning of the universe, the improbably life-favouring properties of the Earth and the appearance of life from non organic matter) are cosmological and astrobiological in nature and they underpin my understanding as to why I think that my belief in a creator is not unreasonable. And that's where it starts for me.

I do not treat any of my 26 reasons as "proofs."

It can be proved that 2+2=4, that the Earth is not flat and that I am genetically related to my children. However, I do not believe anyone - even I myself - can categorically prove that I really love my wife Kathie. But I know I do. Nor can I empirically prove that a Van Gogh masterpiece has any artistic merit - though I know it has.

In the same way, I do not think anyone can prove - or disprove - that God exists. It's just not that sort of knowledge. People have to consider the evidence without prejudice and draw honest conclusions from what they observe and experience.

Sadly, I think that this is what too many people fail to do. I find that many, believers and sceptics alike, behave tribally, defending their tribe whether it's right or wrong and attacking the opposition even when they plainly have a point. Like an exchange in the British Parliament's House of Commons it generates more heat than light and descends to caricature and trading insults instead of actually debating the matter in hand.

Anyway, this is the first of 26 reasons I am a Christian. That's one new post every two weeks for a year.

I think that the origins of our universe (indeed, the very fact that there was a beginning to our universe) raise big questions because they point to the work of an originator - a Creator. "In the beginning..."

Oxford Professor of Mathematics John Lennox writes about his aunt baking a birthday cake. Though, he says, you can analyse the ingredients and quantify the temperature they must have been heated to in order to deliver the end product, you can't prove that John's aunt made it, or for what occasion, just by examining its properties. What you do know is that it is there. And the fact that it is there at all points inevitably to the existence of a baker.

As the age-old philosophical conundrum has it, why is there something rather than nothing?

My first reason for being a Christian is that the universe is there at all and that it came into existence from nothing. If everything that comes into existence has a cause, what caused the creation of the elements, trillions of spinning planets, our beautiful world, vast burning stars, mighty galaxies that are light years wide in span, dark matter, mass, light and energy? From nothing?

Rationalist scientists and atheist philosophers like Fred Hoyle and Bertrand Russell in the early 20th century, no doubt driven by atheist presuppositions (or perhaps just lazily adopting Aristotle's philosophy) denied our cosmos had a beginning, stating that it was just always there. According to this view, there was no need for a creator at all because everything always existed. This was the standard orthodoxy for sceptics.

But in 1929 all that changed. Edwin Hubble's observation of red shift when studying the light from far away galaxies pointed conclusively to the reality of an expanding universe. First proposed by Belgian Catholic priest and cosmologist Georges Lemaitre, Hubble confirmed the theory beyond doubt. 

By calculating the rate of expansion, cosmologists and mathematicians were then able to trace the origins of our universe to about 13.75 billion years ago. The Big Bang. No longer was anyone saying that the universe just always existed. Hubble proved that it must have had a beginning. This cosmological model is now undisputed by scholars. It is about as factually certain as the assertion that the Earth is spherical and travels round the Sun.

Lemaitre and Hubble established that the universe had a starting point and physicists since then have agreed that the raw materials for everything that exists were... nothing. Everything that is - trillions upon trillions of stars and planets spinning in perfectly symmetrical patterns in trillions upon trillions of vast galactic systems just appeared, by themselves, ex-nihilo, from nothing. As if by magic...

I think it is fair to say that this scientifically established consensus not only fails to rule out, in itself, a wise and powerful eternal creator, it practically calls out for one.

Of course, all this could have all just happened all by itself; the ultimate case of spontaneous combustion. But how? Why would all existing matter; an unimaginable mass of stuff and mind-boggling levels of energy just appear in an instant, without cause, from nothing at all, all by itself?

It's like the arrival in your driveway of an elegant limousine that had no designer, no manufacturer, and has no driver or fuel. It just isn't plausible.

Stephen Hawking and others have attempted to account for the incredibly precise physics necessary for our universe to exist by appealing to the concept of a "multiverse." According to this idea, our universe, unique among an infinite number of other universes, just happened to have all the right laws of physics to create it and sustain it.

Suffice to say that the multiverse theory does not come from long calculations chalked up on a university blackboard. It is thrashing about in the dark. It is nothing more than a hopeful guess, bereft of any evidence, indeed without any possibility of evidence since any proof could only exist outside our ability to test it.

This is the poverty of the kind of option you're left with if you have an a priori assumption of the impossibility of a creator God. This is the best that the most brilliant human minds on the planet can come up with.

It is philosophical desperation; the kind that must allow for the possibility, indeed - since there has to be an infinite number of universes – the kind that must insist on the certainty, of another universe somewhere populated by flying pasta trolls and candy floss teapots orbiting the planet of the fairies.

John Lennox's birthday cake is still waiting for an explanation of who baked it, who it was baked for and why. All we can really do is look at each other, shrug our shoulders and admit that it is there. And then enjoy eating it.

The fact remains that I am still waiting for an intellectually satisfying explanation as to why it is more logical, not less, that our vast, mysterious, complex and astonishingly beautiful universe came into being from nothing, all by itself, and not by the will of an all-powerful creator who is outside of time and has no beginning and no end.

That's why "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" (Genesis 1.1) sounds like a decent starting point to me.

And that's the first reason why I am a Christian.