 Okay. Let's take a moment to pray together. Yeah, thank you. I see all your messages in the chat. Let's pray and then we will get started. Can somebody lead us in prayer, please? Go ahead, Raaz. Sit. Sardar, we come to the throne of grace. Lord, thank you for this day you have given us a Lord. Lord, as Pastor Ashish is with us, Lord, and whatever he is going to teach us, Lord, Lord, give us wisdom and understanding so that we can understand whatever is being taught related to your world or Lord. Lord, the knowledge which we are getting, it should not go in vain, it should not be wasted, but it should be used effectively and mightily for your work and your kingdom expansion or Lord. All glory be to given to you, Lord. In Jesus' name we ask everything. Amen. Amen. Amen. Thank you. All right. Oh, that's Arti Kumar. Okay, I think I got it. Good morning. God bless. All right. So we're just going to quickly review what we did in our first week. And then we're going to proceed from there. So I'm going to go ahead and share the window. The lecture notes. Okay. So this was lesson one, which we just started a couple of weeks back. So we explained from looking at many scriptures what apology or apologetics is. Simply means to present an explanation or a defense of what we believe, a reason of what we believe. We respond to questions and ideas. And we saw that even the Lord Jesus in his ministry, he did respond to the questions that people came to him with. And people were amazed at the kinds of answers that he gave, especially when people came with the wrong motive to trap him. They tried to see if they could ask some questions that he may not be able to answer, but Jesus responded. And so, you know, we could say he was the greatest apologist, a master apologist. I mean, that's just just a term, maybe coins. We looked at Peter, his life though he was uneducated. He taught us Peter wrote in his episode that in 1st Peter 315 that we must be ready to give a reason for the hope that we have. So we must be ready to provide an answer to those who ask us about it. And we also saw that in Peter's case, though he was an uneducated man, he wasn't a highly scholarly person. But yet for him in his life in ministry, it was the supernatural power of God that proved to be the defense of what he was preaching. And so that's an underlying premise on which we are running this course. That is why we are going to do both reason and demonstrate. That means we are going to provide answers. We are going to explain things, but we're also going to let demonstrations of God's work and power be the greatest defense to what we believe. So we're going to do both. And we see this very clearly in the ministry of the apostle Paul. Paul, unlike differing from Peter, was a very educated man, highly educated. He studied under the best Jewish scholars in his day. He studied under Gameliel. So he was very educated, all of that. But yet, or I should say yet, but along with that, whenever he ministered as we look through his ministry, he reasoned and demonstrated. That means he explained, he provided a logical defense for what we believed. But he also demonstrated the power of God as a way to validate or back up what he was preaching and teaching. We spend a little bit of time understanding spiritual dynamics, meaning our own explanations and our own reasoning. While it is useful, we must understand that there's a spiritual dynamic involved. That means the devil is doing his work, trying to prevent people from seeing the light of the gospel. So there is demonic interference. There is also human response. There are people themselves, maybe hostile, maybe unbelieving, may choose not to believe. Their will is involved. And yet, at the same time, our responsibility should depend on the Holy Spirit. There is a work of the Holy Spirit who brings conviction. We have to live a life. Our life has to speak to the people. And we trust that as God deals with the heart, the head will follow the heart. That means when God deals with the heart and he brings about conviction, he brings about repentance, he brings about a change. Then even though there may be all these big unanswered questions, people will still believe because God is dealing with the heart. And we depend on the power of the gospel. In Paul wrote in Romans 1.16, the gospel is the power of God unto salvation. So just that simple gospel message is God's power that can result in people being sick. So that's kind of where we reached. And I just want to make a few comments here before we move forward. So this whole field of apologetics, and you will be studying this course on revival visitations, Moves of God, where you will study church history. And you will see that right from the beginning, the very beginning of the birth of the church on, apologetics had its place. Meaning people, Christians, people had to defend the faith from all the questioning and arguments and wrong ideas that prevailed in their times. So right from the beginning, you will find early church fathers and others who defended the faith. And in those early days, there were questions on the deity of Christ or the physical birth of Christ. And the fact that, you know, or about the triune God, the God of the Bible, and so on. And people had to explain or defend the faith. And in AD, around AD 300, you will see that that was one of the reasons why there was the Council of Nikea called by the Roman Emperor. I'm not getting his name. Anyway, who called that Charlemagne, who called that Council of Nikea, and during that time they wrote down what we refer to as a Nicene Creed. To state it very clear in a concise manner, this is what we believe. So the Creed was written as a way of defense of keeping the people aligned to the core beliefs and this core teachings of the Bible and so on. So we see throughout church history, people had to defend the faith. The only thing is there is a difference. What is the difference? The difference is the kind of questions that we face today are different from historical questions. Today, the questions are probably more scientific because of course, scientific information has increased tremendously over the last 2000 years. So today, the challenges to the Christian faith or the questioning towards the Christian faith is more scientific, the scientific community. I'm not saying every scientist is an unbeliever or is a questioner. No, but I'm just saying the questions that come from the scientific community are based on things that they see or they ask and so on. So while the core beliefs of what we believe has not changed, the questions that we have to respond to today are different from the kind of questions people at other times had to defend faith or respond to. So we have to constantly keep learning. We have to be constantly equipping ourselves to be able to respond to the kinds of questions we face today. Just to read by the philosophical, scientific, theological and the spiritual supernatural. That means our defense, we're going to try to provide answers from a, you know, a comprehensive from all four areas. So we will talk about philosophical, we'll talk about scientific, theological and then of course, the spiritual is what you'll be learning throughout your time in the Bible college and how to pray for people, administer to people and expect God to work supernaturally. So our defense should, you know, should address all these four major spaces from which people come to us with questions. So let's get into the next chapter as about the existence of God. So does God exist? What's the universe created? Still basic questions. How do we know God exists? How do we know the, this, this universe or some people use it to metaverse to talk about multiple universes. How do we know that exists? I mean, sorry, how do we know that was created? How do you know God exists? How do you know the universe was created? What is the biblical response? And both, and we will also talk about a philosophical and also a scientific answer towards these broad questions. Now, we begin first of all by seeing who God is in the Bible, the God of the Bible, the Bible presents God as the eternal self-existent creator. So if you look at Isaiah 40 verse 28, have you not known, have you not heard the everlasting God? So he's the everlasting God. The creator of the ends of the earth, neither faints nor is weary. That means there's no end to his energy, his power. His understanding is unsearchable. There is no end to his understanding. So we see three things here, three attributes of God. He's infinite in time. He's everlasting. He's infinite in power. That is his strength or energy, energy never varies out. He's infinite in understanding. That is his intelligence or wisdom or ability to design and so on. So who is God? Or what are the important attributes of God in the context of what we're talking about creation? God is infinite in time, power and understanding. That means time really is immaterial to God. It doesn't matter. He is eternal. He's outside of the realm of time. Time as we know it is very different to God. So we may talk in terms of light years or we may talk in terms of seconds, minutes, hours, light years. God is outside of time. And that's why in order to help us understand how he considers time, the Bible uses different language or metaphor. The Bible says, for instance, God is Alpha and Omega. He's the beginning and the end. That means he's at the start and he's already at the finish. Now that's something it's so hard for us to comprehend. How could somebody be at the start and at the finish at the same time? But that's God. He is the everlasting or the eternal one. He said, I am who I am. He's the self-existent God. He doesn't depend on anyone else for his life, energy or strength. And to him, a day is like a thousand years, a thousand years is like one day. That means he's basically saying, your time as far as Earth is concerned doesn't matter to me. It's nothing to me. So whenever we think about God, we have to step outside of time in our thought process. Secondly, he's infinite in power, limitless in energy. So we try to comprehend energy. We try to quantify energy, but God is infinite in power and strength in energy. And so also is his understanding. Now, we are human beings. We are finite. So it's really the finite trying to understand the infinite. And that obviously is a challenge. So there are limitations at our end, not on God's side, in trying to comprehend and understand everything because we are finite and we are trying to understand what is infinite or infinite. Now, when we talk about people who oppose the truth, there are two kinds of people. There are the atheists who flat out deny the existence of God. They just say, there is no God. There is agnostic beliefs that it's, I don't know for sure, basically. So I don't know. Their position is I don't know and I don't think we can know. So they're not flat out saying there is no God. But they're just saying, look, I don't know. And it's not possible to know. So let's leave it alone. They're non-committer. So that we, you know, they're both these kinds of people, and we will need to respond to that. This is a little quote from Alex McFarland. And some of the books and references are going to give in at the end of each chapter. He says, God is big enough to handle our questions and God is not intimidated by the depth of our scrutiny. So, you know, we don't, we shouldn't be afraid of letting people ask questions or try to scrutinize what we believe. That's most welcome. Now, to the atheist, when you really think about it, the atheist is making a statement of absolute certainty. When an atheist says there is no God, the implication is you've actually searched the whole universe. You've gone everywhere, every possible space, and you have determined that there is no God. Which is not true because nobody has searched the entire universe or we don't even know that the universe is beyond our known universe. You know, we don't know what's all there. So the very fact that the atheist says there is no God, he is claiming omniscience or saying, I know everything. That's why I have searched and examined, and I have concluded that there is no God, but there's no basis to that statement, really. It's an assertion without proper examination. To the agnostic who says you can't be sure, so that statement itself is being presented to us as an absolute. That means you are telling us to take in absolute terms your statement of uncertainty. So, the statement is you can't be sure, but you need to take the statement as though it was sure. It's a contradictory statement. So, for an agnostic to say, well, you can't be sure, the agnostic should be open to the truth and be willing to receive evidence or proof or argument or reasoning that could help somebody be sure. We cannot take that statement that we don't know for sure as a final statement or a final position in itself. That would not be right. So, just by their own argument, we can talk to an agnostic and say, look, if you can assert that this statement you cannot be sure is a sure statement, then that statement itself is no longer valid. So, therefore, if you want to take your statement as valid, then you've got to be open to reasoning and argument that can help somebody make a decision. So, having said that, we're now going to look at, you know, what does the Bible say about God, which is a theological presentation, and then we will get into some philosophical responses to it in the next chapter, and then we will get into some scientific examination in chapters that come. So, from a biblical theological perspective, what should we respond? What can we tell people about Creator God? Well, this is what the Bible says, that the Bible presents God as an infinite being, as we saw, an infinite time, infinite in power and infinite in wisdom. He's an infinite being who always existed and he is self-existent. So, some people will ask the question, you know, who made God? Well, nobody needed to make God because he's self-existent. He always was, and he always will be. He's not dependent on anyone for his existence. Psalm 90 verse 2 says, Before the mountains were brought forth, From everlasting to everlasting, you are God. From everlasting to everlasting, meaning beyond time, outside of time, you are God. Time is nothing. From everlasting to everlasting, you are God. It's about his understanding. The Bible says, look, he counts the stars. He knows them all by name. His understanding is infinite. His power is so great. So, he's infinite in his power. He's infinite in his understanding. He's infinite in time. We're just reiterating what we already said. In Isaiah 40, you know, the prophet Isaiah speaks, he says, Who will you like in God? What can you compare him with? See, for us to understand something, we always relate it to something in our natural world. So, that's a big problem because God is so infinite. Now, what in our natural world can represent God or can explain God or express God to us? So, what can you compare God with? Or what would you like in him to? Then he says, you know, look up. Who's created all these things? This host, but it's God who did it by the greatness of his might and the strength of his power. That means this immense universe. The stars, the planets and other planetary bodies. Who created it? God did it by the greatness of his might. And this is the everlasting God, the creator at the ends of the earth. So, it's God who created all these things. So, the Bible is presenting to us this eternal, self-existent, infinite being who created all things, who brought everything into existence. So, yes, it's presenting this to us. And then saying, look, how, with what can you compare? How do we communicate this infinite being in natural terms, in finite terms? How can we communicate that? Right? So, or you could put it like this. It's going to take an infinite mind, which we don't have, to fully understand an infinite God. Otherwise, it's going to be impossible to do that, to fully understand God. The second thing the Bible is presenting to us, a theological response to who God in creation is. The Bible says God created everything. And through him, all things were made. And we'll talk about this later as well. The heavens, the earth. The heavens referring to all the, what we refer to as space, all of these universe. And the earth, the planet on which we live, and all the host of them, God did it. And he did it in six days. In six days, the Lord made the heavens and the earth and all that is in them. So, this is what the Bible is telling us. And the visible and visible, everything got started in him. Everything got started in him. And he was there before any of it came into existence. So, God was there in the beginning. Before anything came into existence, God was. And then he is the one who brought everything into existence. The third thing, I'll give time for questions. I'll finish this and we'll take questions. The third thing is that, let me just keep this in front of me. Okay. So, the third thing we see in scripture, as far as God in creation is, they've been God created. He created everything in its mature form and he entrusted it to man. So, in the creative act of God, God created everything in its mature form. That means time, power and intelligence, time, energy and design came together in an instant. So, what we would say would take millions of billions of years. For God, it took an instant. What we would say would require huge, huge, huge, huge amounts of energy or power for God. It was all released in an instant. And for what we would say is a design process that just evolved over time, maybe millions and billions of years, God, it took an instant to express it. So, in the creative act of God, first thing is, he created things in a mature form. The second thing, and I should have put the scriptures here, is that he entrusted it to man. The earth, he entrusted to man. So, that is Psalm 115 and verse 16. It says, the heavens belong to God, but the earth he has given to the children of man. Psalm 150. I'm just turning there to make sure I gave you the right verse. Psalm 115 verse, what did I say? Yes, verse 16. So, I should include that here. The heavens are the lords, but the earth he has given to the children of man. Psalm 115 and verse 16. So, the earth he entrusted to man. And in the creative act of God, another thing is this, God set in place what we refer to as a creative process. Meaning, and you see this in Genesis chapter 1, that every seed had within it the capacity to produce a plant, animals, birds, including man, human beings, everything that God put on the earth. In his design, he embedded a creative process or a, you know, a less useful creative process or a reproductive process. So, in his creation, his design was such that for time to come, the design would just be reproduced. It would just keep on happening. So, three things we are saying here. God created everything in mature form. God entrusted it to man, the things on the earth. He entrusted the earth to man. And thirdly, in the creative act of God, there was a continuous process that was put into place so that from the moment of creation, coming into existence, things could continue to take place. So, the creative act of God was not just an act that ended, but it's an act that continued a process. So, today, you know, plants reproduce, animals reproduce, birds reproduce, humans reproduce. It's continuing. The process is continuing. And it all began the creative act of God. Number four, God gives evidence to his existence by his creation. So, God is saying, you know, I'm here and... Sorry, I'm here and this is my way of letting you know that I am here. Romans chapter 1 verses 19 to 22. Could somebody read this for us, please? Because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse. Because although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Prophecing to be wise, they became fools. So, see how beautifully the Apostle Paul writes this. Thank you, John. See how beautifully he writes this. He says, you know, what we need to know about God is actually manifest in them. He's referring to his creation. It's manifest to us. God has shown it to us. So what we need to know about God, it is revealed to us. God has shown it to us. Where and how, he says, then he points to creation. Since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes are clearly seen. You know, so some people say, how did you know there is a God? Paul is telling us, see, what you want to know about God is manifest. It's revealed to you. God is revealing his existence to you and me. God has shown it. God is not hiding it. He's showing it. Where? Creation. He says, the creation of the world, his invisible attributes are clearly seen. So God is spirit. Yes, we can't see God. Yes. But what you cannot see about God, you can see it in creation, being understood by the things that are made. That is his creation. Even his eternal power in Godhead. So basically, the statement is so powerful. He's saying, God is clearly seen in his creation. So if you and I pause and look at creation and we examine creation, what the Bible is challenging us is, everything you're seeing in creation is pointing you to God. And so we are without excuse. He says, you're without excuse. Nobody can say, I didn't know there was a God. And we will see later on, as we get into the philosophical side of things and in the scientific side of things, the amazing intelligence that is there in creation, you can't explain it away. You can't just say, well, it just happened by accident or it just evolved all of this. All of this evolved over time. The intelligence that is there is just too good to say it was an accident. It is too immense, too great. What the Bible is telling us is these attributes of God, the wisdom, the power, the greatness of God is shown to us clearly in creation. But the problem is that though they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God. They were not thankful, they were foolish in their thoughts and in their hearts. So what's happening here is 21 and 22. This is our problem. We are making a deliberate intentional choice not to recognize God, but instead we are pursuing our own foolish thoughts, claiming to be wise we're actually becoming foolish. That's the bottom line, the underlying problem. So God has given evidence to His existence through His creation. So creation is like this huge signpost staring us in the face. Whether you look up into the sky, you look down into the earth, or you look around into nature, the creation around us, everywhere is God's signpost. But the question is, would we see it and then glorify God as God, or would we intentionally choose to say otherwise and deny God and go our own way? That's the choice each one of us make. Many other scriptures, Psalm 19, we are familiar with this. The heavens declare the glory of God. The firmament shows this immense universe, the sky, the space is speaking to us day after day. They are speaking night after night. They are revealing knowledge. So you think about this. The vast expanse of the universe is speaking to us. It's revealing knowledge to us. And you can hear this everywhere. And what are they speaking? They are declaring the glory of God. They are pointing to the greatness of God. So when you look out into the universe, and speaking generally about humanity, the human kind, of course, we are exploding. We are studying the vast expanse of the universe, trying to get more understanding, which is good. By blessing all of this is declaring God's glory. So the more we begin to understand about it, the more we should be able to stand amazed at the glory of God. Or when you look at us, ourselves as human beings, you know, Thomas is saying, I am fitfully and wonderfully made. So just by looking at ourselves, we realize that there is a maker who has so wonderfully designed us. And so our design is pointing to a wonderful maker, a marvelous worker. So he said, look, I can't help but say that you've created me marvelously. And so to deny, to look at all of these, and then to say there is no God, the Bible only just says, look, that's being foolish. The fool has said in his heart, there is no God. So from a theological perspective, the Bible is saying the creator is giving evidence of his existence through his creation. So when the atheist says there is no God, he's saying, I'm choosing to deny the evidence presented to me that's all around me. I'm choosing not to look at that. Basically, it's like a fulfillment of verse 21 and 22 of Romans 1. I'm seeing creation all around me, but I am choosing to disregard that as an evidence. But that's the very evidence God is presenting to you and me. The same thing, the agnostic. He says, well, I can't be sure. Well, then our question is, are you sure there is nature? Are you sure there is creation? I mean, you can't say I can't be sure about people. They're all around you. You can't say I'm not sure about animals and birds. They're all around you. So why can't you be sure about the creator, the cause for all of that? So the atheist is willing to deny the absolute evidence presented. The agnostic is looking at the evidence and saying, well, I'm not sure. And so to both of them, we have a question on what basis would you deny? So, you know, this is just a little quote here from Bertrand Russell. He claimed to say this, that when I see God, I will ask him, why did you give so little evidence of your existence? And that's a baseless question, because the fact is all of creation is God's evidence to us. So that's the theological presentation, meaning this is what the Bible says to us when we ask in the question, how do we know there is a God? And where did all of this creation come from? All these things we see around us, where did it come from? So we will come back to these questions later on. And when we talk about science and faith in science, you know, if science was to disregard God, then the questions we need to ask is, can a man live without God? There would be no moral law, there would be no meaning, there would be no hope, and there would be no recovery. If you rule God out of our life, of our existence. Okay, so now we're going to get into philosophical arguments. I will pause here. So we've done the theological arguments so far, or the theological response to the question, is there a God? How did these things come into existence? The Bible is telling us about God and about these things. Now, we're going to get into the philosophical side, but let me just pause here for a moment and just make sure that we are all together. Any questions that people want to ask? Everyone's so far with me. Okay, any questions? Go. All right. So let's move forward. Feel free to ask questions anytime. So let's get into, now, how would we give a response to this question? Is there a God? How did creation come? And now we're looking at a philosophical response to it. So the earlier section was a theological response. That's what the Bible says. Okay. But some people miss okay. Without quoting chapter and verse, can you reason with me? Okay. We can reason with you without chapter and verse. Let's look at it. Number one, cause and effect. So this is philosophical. That means just general thoughts about how life happens. Cause and effect. That means we know, generally speaking, for anything to happen, there has to be a cause, right? They cannot be in effect without a cause. So just, you know, you can think of many examples and, you know, simple examples. A ball comes flying into where you are. Then immediately, you know, the ball could not have just come on its own. There had to be a cause for that. So maybe somebody threw the ball or maybe kids were playing outside and somebody hit the ball and it came across, right? So if somebody said, no, no, no, the ball just came out of nowhere. It just came. You would not, you and I would not believe that because there had to be a cause for that to happen, for the ball to come flying in to the room. So similarly, when we talk about this world around us, the world in which we live in the universe, it had to have a beginning. And for it to have a beginning, there had to be a cause behind it. So the universe had a beginning. It started some point. And for that beginning to have happened, there had to be a cause. It could not have happened by itself. So the cause and effect argument. Therefore, when we extend that, we say, look, creation speaks of a creator. Just as design speaks of a designer. So and again, a simple example here would be, you know, if you take any product, any object, for example, if I take my cell phone and if I say, well, you know, the cell phone, which has hardware and software and has so much of intelligence in it. If I were to tell somebody that this cell phone just came together by chance over billions of years, somehow matter came together. And there is this thing called software and there's this thing called hardware. And all these lines of code just assembled themselves into this piece of hardware over billions of years. And here you have this wonderful piece called the phone. And not only like, not only this, but like this, many thousands of other pieces and variations of what happened, it all happened by chance. Nobody would believe that. Let's say something's wrong with you. But you just say that because we know even a simple phone, mobile phone, has a lot of design and intelligence in it. You know, for the for the pieces of hardware to all come together like this and assemble like this for the software in it to function the way it does. That design means somebody designed it. So a design speaks of a designer. Creation speaks of a creator. So just a philosophical argument. A design cannot happen without a designer. It's an impossibility, impossible. So creation, which has both hardware and software if you want to call it that, it has both the physical material, but there is also a lot of intelligence in it. Speaking of a creator. So second philosophical argument, just a thought process. The third philosophical argument is that there is this whole sense, this whole part aspect of morality and rationality. That means life around us is not just about matter. There is more than materiality around us. There is something more than materiality. There is more than matter. There is what we call as morality. And there is what is called we call as rationality. So if we say that matter just happened by chance, there was a lot of going back in time. There was a lot of energy that came together and gave it price to matter. And there's only matter. Then where did morality and rationality come from? It's the big question. How did matter develop the ability for morality, which is a sense of right and wrong, good and bad? And how did matter develop rationality, the ability to think, reason, perceive things, logic? How did that come about? The intelligence to matter. So if it was only materiality, how did material things acquire morality and rationality? Very big question. And then of course we can point to supernatural phenomena. I'll speak about it right after the break. So let's pause here. We'll go for a break. Are you all following me? Is it okay? All right. So let's go for a break. We'll come back and pick up from here and take this forward. Thank you.