 So the objective tonight is to answer the question, does God exist? The answer is yes. Thank you, good night. Just kidding. Okay, here we go. So there's two approaches to the God question. The first approach is called presuppositionalism. Presuppositionalism. So this deals with revealed theology, which happens to be my specialty, by the way, comparative theology. This is where we presuppose the existence of God. So God exists, but we seek to know Him more personally. We seek to have معرفة, more gnosis or episteme, whichever word you like, of Allah SWT. This is done through revelation. So like a Muslim and Christian debate, right? What's a Muslim and Christian going to debate about? They're not going to debate about, does God exist? They both presuppose the existence of God. God does exist, right? And most would say they worship the same God. So the answer, so the topic of that type of debate, is how does this God reveal Himself? Does He reveal Himself through Jesus Christ, through the Bible, through the New Testament? Or does God reveal Himself through the Quran and the prophecy given to our Master Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam? Is Jesus God? This is another topic that will be discussed at that type of debate. So that's one approach to God. The presuppositionalist approach. Another approach to God is the evidentialist approach. The evidentialist approach, evidentialism. So here we're looking for evidence for the existence of God. And we're going to use logic. We're going to use reason, philosophy and science. We're going to employ deductive or syllogistic arguments that are not strictly theological but may have strong theological implications. So here the Muslim and the Christian will actually join forces in order to find evidence or provide evidence for the atheist that God exists. So tonight I'm going to be looking primarily at the latter approach, the evidentialist approach. So we're going to put the polemics on hold a little bit and give our Christian friends a little rest. Insha'Allah to Allah tonight. So let's look at examples of syllogisms. This is a form of argument that is attributed to Aristotle. Aristotle said there are three things that affect the strength of an argument. He called them Lagos, Ethos and Pathos in Greek. Lagos means logic, right? Knowledge, the knowledge of an argument. And then he said Ethos, the strength of the character of the one making the argument, right? So someone like in Hadith we have looking at the acumen of people in the sanal of a Hadith is very important for them to have high religiosity, right? And then he said Pathos. Pathos means that you know how you read something, read a response. This is listener response. Is that person making that argument? Does he affect the audience? Does he affect them? Is it transformative, right? Oftentimes what we find with atheists is they don't have knowledge of the topic. They don't have good character because a lot of the things that they say is ad hominem attacks. But they have a lot of Pathos. They have a lot of charisma. They're good speakers. I'm thinking about someone like Christopher Hitchens. We'll get back to him, inshallah. So give you an example of a syllogistic argument. Very simple. Premise number one, all men are mortal. All men are mortal. Okay? Everyone following? Premise number two, George Washington was a man. Therefore our conclusion, which is inescapable and it follows logically that George Washington was a mortal, right? So our two premises, all men are mortal. George Washington was a man. It's solid. It's self-evident. You can call it axiomatic. Any sincere or sane person will concede these premises, right? Unless somebody says, well, George Washington was a jinn. Jinn or so mortal. He was a vampire. He can't die, right? A sane or sincere person will say this is a logical argument, no problems. Let's look at a different type of argument. Premise number one, the universe is ordered. Premise number two, this is either by chance or by design. Premise number three, this is not by chance. Therefore our conclusion, our inescapable conclusion is that this is by design. This is a logical argument. However, you might say my first premise, the universe is ordered, is not self-evident. I haven't proven that. So this is an example of what's known as a question begging argument, right? I haven't established my premises, right? I have to do that first. Also you can have an argument that flows logically but whose premises are axiomatically false. They're irrational. For example, premise number one, all donkeys can speak English. Premise number two, Gary is my pet donkey. Therefore my conclusion is Gary can speak English. This is a logical argument, but the argument is axiomatically untrue. Now if you look at the arguments of the four horsemen of the New Atheist movement, who are the four horsemen? Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Daniel Dennett, best-selling books, God is Not Great, The God Delusion and End of Faith. Their arguments against God, they primarily revolve around issues and social impact of religion. So religious people are bad so God does not exist. Look at Hitler. He was a Catholic. Look at these pedophile priests. Look at suicide bombers. Look at ISIS, right? God doesn't exist. So if we put their argument into a syllogism it would sound something like this. Premise number one, theists say God is good. Premise number two, God created man. Premise number three, man does evil. Man does non-good. Therefore God does not exist. This argument is illogical. Illogical. This is an example of what's known as a non-sequitur argument. It does not follow. So you have people like Bill Maher and Sam Harris, right? They go on TV. They're talking about ISIS, right? And they say, well, you know, ISIS, by the way, there are 2,000 people out of a religion of 1.5 billion, right? And you say you have ISIS and they're violent. Thus Islam is violent. I can use the same type of argument. And they say, look, five of the last 12 Nobel Peace Laureates, five of the last 12 Nobel Peace Laureates were Muslim, right? Therefore all Muslims are peaceful. Would he accept this argument? Would they accept this argument? Certainly they wouldn't. I can make another argument, a little more brazen. Look, Sam Harris, his mother is Jewish. That makes him ethnically Jewish, an atheist. But ethnically Jewish. Bill Maher, his mother is Jewish. That makes him ethnically Jewish. Therefore all ethnic Jews are bigoted and full of hate. Would they accept this argument? Of course they wouldn't accept this argument. You see these four horsemen, as I call them, they think if you turn all of the mosques, the synagogues, and churches into Starbucks, Chuck E. Cheese, and Hooters, we can just sort of all hold hands and sing Imagine by John Lennon. Right? And no religion, too. Right? Interesting. John Lennon, a Satanist. Have you seen the cover of the Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band? All these people look in the upper left. Alistair Crowley, the founder of the Church of Satan. Look it up. Don't take my word for it. Anyway, the classical atheists, the original gangsters of atheism, Freud, Russell, and Nietzsche. Nietzsche, who said God is dead. Freud, who said God is dad. Right? They, at least, were smart enough to know that if you take religion out of the equation, the world would fall into this nihilistic quagmire. You would have utter social and moral depravity. They understood that it was primarily religion that moralized people and that the purpose of religion was to make one better, more compassionate human being. As Voltaire said, if God did not exist, we would have to invent him. As Dostoevsky said, if there is no God, then everything is permitted. In other words, if you don't have any moral authority, then what's your moral anchor? Survival of the fittest? Do it thou wilt? Do you know what the moral anchor is? In the Abrahamic tradition, Rabbi Akiva, a second century rabbinical sage, was asked, what is the Torah? He recited three verses. Deuteronomy 6.4, Deuteronomy 6.5, Leviticus 19.18, God is one, love God, love your neighbor, love of God and love of humanity. The Prophet Isa A.S. was asked, Mark 12.29, what is the greatest commandment? He repeated these three commandments. Love God, God is one, Shema Israel, Adonai, Ilochanu, Adonai, Ehad, Qulhu Allahu Ahad, God is Ahad, God is one, love the Lord thy God and love your neighbor. This is the moral anchor. The Prophet Isa A.S. says, The first Hadith that children are usually taught in a traditional madrasa. Madrasa, right? Is mercy, how many times you mentioned mercy? The most merciful shows mercy to those who show mercy. Show mercy to those on earth and show you mercy. Our Khateeb today, may Allah bless him, he quoted a beautiful Hadith that I thought I'd quote for you from the Prophet Isa A.S. This was in Berkeley when he quoted this. The Khateeb is here, may Allah reward him. None of you will enter paradise until you truly believe, none of you will truly believe until you love one another. Shall I tell you of something that will increase your love? That peace amongst yourselves. Fakhruddin al-Razi, the great exegete from our tradition. He said, is to worship the creator and show mercy towards his creation. Now without this essential understanding of religion, morality becomes relative. Human beings become little more than cattle. Chunks of flesh and blood soulless, easily slaughtered, dispensable. Atheists are material reductionists. Thus speaking of social impact, no one has more blood on their hands than atheists. Let's talk about the big four, as I call them. Chairman Mao, Joseph Stalin, Paul Pot, Mussolini, over 100 million lives. 100 million. Hitler was a Catholic, no doubt about it. He killed 6 million Jews. I've done the math. Those men are 17 Hitlers. 17 times over. Why? No God, no day of judgment. No incorruptible soul. Survival of the fittest. That's natural selection. In shari'a, we have rules of engagement in Islamic sacred law. Women and children are not targeted. This is considered to be tawatur. It is simply wrong. Even Abdullah ibn Qami'a, and Ghazwat Uhud, he thought he was the prophet, when he realized this is not the prophet, and he saw the prophet, he charged towards the prophet with his horse. A woman stood in front of him, Nusaybah bintuqab, radiallahu ta'ala anha, and he stopped dead in his tracks. A pagan Arab has the decency not to strike a woman on the battlefield. But you find these secular societies in the world, so-called first world that are dropping 1,000-pound bombs on innocent men, women, and children. Subhanallah. So if your rules of engagement are determined by what you feel benefits you and your people at a particular time, that's real politic. That's American foreign policy. Atheism and secular democracy. They lack principled morality. It gives birth to false flag operations. Like Nero. You know the emperor Nero? He set fire to his own city, Rome, and then he sat back playing on his fiddle as the city was burning. And he blamed the Christians. And then he would dip Christians in the hot wax, put them on steaks, and use them as street lamps. This is Nero, right? USS Maine, to give you a more contemporary example. Scientifically proven that this explosion came from inside the USS Maine itself. A total study was done on this in 2002. Remember the Maine to hell with Spain? This is what got us into the Spanish-American war. And this is how America took control of the Philippines. The false flag operation. The Gulf of Tonkin never happened. Lyndon Johnson goes on TV and he says, our boys are floating in the water. End quote. No, they weren't. Total lie. That's what got us in the Vietnam. 60,000 Americans killed. Vietnamese. Lack of principled morality. Right? Leads to little boy and fat man. You know who little boy and fat man are? These are the names that Truman gave the atomic bombs that killed 300,000 people on impact. 300,000 people. That's three football stadiums. That's four football stadiums. You know how many people died in all of the Ghazawat of the Prophet, in 23 years? They've done the math. He's done the math. How many people? Muslim and non-Muslim. All the military expeditions of the Prophet, 1118. 1018. About 700. 300 Muslims. You have 300,000 people on impact. Hey, that's good for us. Totally unnecessary. The Japanese economy was in shambles. There was an oil embargo placed on them by FDR years before. There's no way they're going to win the war. But we have human guinea pigs. Real politic. Real morality. Okay. Invasions of false countries. Invasions of countries under false pretenses. The theft of natural resources. In 2006, I read an article. Washington Post. It said 650,000 civilians in Iraq have been killed in October of 2006. Because this country is invaded under false pretenses. 650,000. That number is well, well into the millions. That's called a genocide. You know, interesting in the Quran does not accept atheism. It doesn't accept it. Everyone worships something. Allah SWT says, Have you seen the one who takes his hawah, his caprice as his god? People worship themselves. They're called believers. You know what a believer is, right? How many believers do I have out here? Hopefully no one here is a believer. A follower of Justin Bieber. That's what he calls them. God complex. What have my teacher said? Everyone has in their heart the seeds laying dormant ready to be watered if need be. Ready to be watered. The claim of the Firaun. I am your lord the most high laying dormant in the heart of every person. People worship money. Then Franklin. People worship their akal. There's a good book recommendation. Here comes the first book recommendation. It's called God and the New Atheism. My John Hot. H-A-U-G-H-T. H-A-U-G-H-T. He's a Jesuit. He's a Christian. He's a Catholic. He makes a good point. He says atheists believe everything can be explained with one answer. He calls it explanatory monism. All you need is the intellect. The intellect can answer everything. Just use your intellect. You can figure everything out. Very simplistic way. This is their method. Another is boiling water one day and you walk into the kitchen. She says I'm boiling water. That's great. What are you doing? I'm separating molecules. Beautiful. What are you doing? I'm making tea. Why? For you. Why? Because I love you. Right? This is what you can't get from science. This is what you can't get from atheism. Why? Why the universe? There's an interesting... William Chittick uses this in his book. He says, look, a scientist put him in front of the Mona Lisa. Tell him... Tell me about this painting. So a scientist will do radiocarbon 14 dating on the canvas. He'll say that this paint is from Florence from 1585. Whatever he's going to do. All this information. A lot of information. Great. But then put a child in front of that painting and the child is thinking what is the artist? What does the smile mean? What is the artist trying to tell me? Who has more insight into the mind of the painter? The scientist or the child? The child. Because the child is asking the more profound question of why? Dr. Lawrence Kraus, atheist, cosmologist, Arizona State University, says we can date the universe to four decimal places. 13.7256 billion years. That's great. But why? Why the universe? This is something you get from revelation. This is something you get from Scripture. Read Chris Hedges. Three more book recommendations. American Fascism. Great book. Number two, I don't believe in atheists. Number three, when atheism becomes religion. Here's a preview from Amazon. Hedges claims that those who have placed blind faith in the morally neutral disciplines, morally neutral disciplines of reason and science create idols in their own image. A sin for either side of the spectrum. He makes a case against religious and secular fundamentalism which seeks to divide the world into those worthy of moral and intellectual consideration and those who should be condemned, silenced and eradicated. He characterizes the new atheists as those who attack religion to advance the worst of global capitalism, intolerance and imperial projects. Okay. And this leads me to my first argument to the existence of God. This is called the moral argument for the existence of God. Here's the thesis. In the absence of God, there would be no objective moral values, no higher moral authority. There would be sociocultural relativism. Right and wrong would be determined by a dominant group. There would be it would be totally subjective and that is violent. If my society feels that our morals and values perpetuate our group, why should we consider your morals and values? Let me quote to you Richard Dawkins. Quote, there is no good nor evil. There is no good nor evil. We are machines to propagate DNA. On atheism, you cannot be immoral. You cannot be immoral. There is no real with a capital R right or wrong, just a societal construct. Science can't prove morality. You can't prove me. That murder is wrong through the scientific method. You can't prove morality. The religion of scientism, if you want to call it that, where the intellect is worshiped, cannot prove certain things. Thank you very much. Like morality, science can't prove metaphysical events. Can science prove that Washington crossed the Delaware? No, not through the scientific method. Why? Because you can't reproduce that event. It's in the past. Science can't prove love, emotions. Science can't prove math. It presupposes math. If you say science proves math, then you argue in a circle. Science doesn't know what consciousness is. What is consciousness? Chemicals mixing in your brain. But what is memory? What is thought? What is imagination? There are no answer for these things. These are metaphysical. Science can't prove everything. So we have to move past explanatory monism. Science cannot give us morality. It is fundamentally immoral. I'm not saying atheists are immoral. Don't get the wrong idea. There are many atheists that are very, very moral. But there is nothing in science that compels anyone to be moral. Let me say it again. There is nothing in science that compels anyone to be moral. You can't extract charity and justice and selflessness and compassion from a double helix, from a chromosome, from a test tube. Those things are extracted from Scripture. On atheism, we're all just animals. A slightly more evolved primate second cousin to the chimp. Animals don't have moral duties. So why should we? Most atheists would actually concede that we have moral duties. If you're sitting on a beach and there's a kid drowning, it's your moral obligation to try to save that kid. But why? Why put yourself in harm's way? Did we evolve to put ourselves in harm's way? Where does this altruism come from? Show me the gene. Speaking of evolution, to go from a primeval ape to a human being takes trillions of transitional forms, trillions of mutations in transitional forms to go from a dinosaur to a bird, a whale, to a cow. Trillions. It's interesting Darwin and the Origin of Species in 1863 says we're going to find them eventually. We're going to find all these trillions of transitional forms from ape to human being. What have we found? What does the fossil record show? Trillions? No. Billions? No. Millions? Yeah, no. Thousands? No. Hundreds? Come on. 100? No. A dozen? No. Six or seven? Maybe. And they're probably extinct apes. That they say, oh, these are the trillions of transitional forms. Okay, interesting. And here's something more interesting called Darwin's doubt. Darwin actually said if I believe that my brain actually came from monkeys, why should I even trust my brain in the first place? Why should I trust my intellect? How do I know that in a thousand years my ancestors aren't going to look back at me and say look how stupid those Homo sapiens were in 2014. Look what they thought. Just like we look at apes today in the zoo who are taking fleas out of their heads and they see it at the window, that's how they're going to be looking at us. Right? Why should I even trust my intellect if it came from a monkey? And they say, well, 98% of our DNA is the same as a chimpanzee. We have 98% identical DNA. Well, there's a 2% difference. And in that 2% there's something called intellectus. There's something called intellect. This is our differential according to Aristotle. This is what makes this difference. This is the meaning of Khalaqa Allahu Adama Muhammad Al Ghazali, that God created man in his own image, meaning with intellect. This is what makes this difference. Not necessarily our physical bodies an eagle can spot a fish underwater. I can't do that. Put me in a room with a gorilla, I'm done. But I want to see a chimpanzee play a violin, build a skyscraper, do some trigonometry. But it's not all about the intellect. It's about being a moral person, an ethical person. O Kamaqala alaihi salatu wa salam I was only sent to perfect your character. Wa innaka la ala khuluqin azeem verily verily you dominate magnificent character. This is a true human being. This is a civilized human being. Good and evil has no referent if God doesn't exist. Unless we redefine good and say that it's something that makes your life more pleasurable. That's what good is. And of course this is dangerous. Your pleasure might be somebody's torture. What if you take pleasure from killing children and burying them in your backyard? On atheism, that's not immoral. Because atheism science does not deal with morality. That's not immoral. That's not wrong. That's just not socially acceptable. Like breaking wind in public. But what if it was socially acceptable? Not breaking wind in public. Killing children and burying them. What if it was socially acceptable? On what grounds does Richard Dawkins condemn child exploitation or rape if that society finds it acceptable and conducive to their perpetuation? On what grounds? Can he say this is morally wrong? It's revelation that gives us the Ten Commandments, the Noah Hiddock Laws, moral imperatives. Al-Ma'ruf. Al-Ma'ruf means things that are known. Whether you believe they come from revelation directly or whether they're infused to use Aquinas's term on our very souls. We just know them. They're on our souls. Something the atheists denies the existence of. We have objective moral values. Don't murder. Don't steal. Don't commit adultery. Respect your parents. Don't oppress. Speak the truth. Let's go back to ancient Athens where pederasty was commonplace. Pederasty. If you don't know what it is, look it up. Socrates walked into the gymnasium. You know what gymnasium means in Greek? A place of naked boys. And he bragged. I walked in. They were wrestling. They were oiled up. I wasn't even aroused. This is what he says. This is ethos for the ancient Athenians. Right? This is their ethics. This is their culture. Simply what the majority was doing. But in Sparta, another Greek city state, if you do that, they're going to kill you. That's a capital offense. If a Jew walked into Athens at that time, a Jew, he could condemn it because he has moral principled, objective morality because he has a scripture. But an atheist could say, well, that's their culture. They rape children. That's their culture. Or he can say, no, this is wrong. And then we press the atheist. How is it wrong? It's just wrong. Why? Who told you that? It's just wrong. Why? Show me the gene. Show me the test tube. Where does he get his morality from? Not from a test tube. They have the problem of evil. Theists, believers in God, they have the problem of evil, theodicy. Atheists have the problem of good. This is what William Demsky calls it. The problem of good. Because Dawkins says every single human interaction is because they want to prolong their species or they want reciprocal advantage. I scratch your back, you're going to scratch mine. Because at the end of the day, we're all apes. Direct quote from Richard Dawkins. Planet of the apes. So, give a simple example. Why would I offer my seat to an old woman on the train? Do I want to prolong my species? Do I want her to tip me or something? Give me a dollar. Do I want something from her? Take advantage of her? No. Why would I give blood to people? And no one's around to see it. Just anonymously, I donate blood. Why would I do that? Is this how I evolve? Am I trying to perpetuate my species? Am I trying to get some sort of mutual advantage from somebody? That's why Mother Teresa is an atheistic moral enigma for the atheist. Hugging lepers. A model of sacrifice, charity and altruism. And that's why they went after her. That's why Hitchens has this book. She was all about money. He calls it with apologies, the missionary position. That's the name of his book. Mother Teresa. She was all about money. Because she's an enigma. Someone who's selfless. Teaching. Why would someone evolve to be like that? Very strange. So that's the moral argument. Let that one marinate for a little bit. Let's move to another argument. It's called the cosmological argument. This is an argument that's espoused by Abou Hamal al-Ghazali in Tehafut al-Falasifah. It's advocated by William Lane Craig, a modern proponent. He wrote a book called The Kalam Cosmological Argument. It's another book I recommend for you. The Kalam Cosmological Argument. So here's the argument. Premise number one. Whatever begins to exist has a cause. Premise number two. The universe began to exist. Therefore, the universe has a cause. Now this is not strictly theological, but has theological implications. I'll say it again. Premise number one. Whatever begins to exist has a cause. Premise number two. The universe began to exist. Premise number three. The universe has a cause. The universe has a cause. Now there's a rule in classical metaphysics. Ex nihilo nihil fit which means from nothing comes nothing. From nothing comes nothing. Now most atheists, whether they're cosmologists or physicists or biologists like Richard Dawkins, Lawrence Krauss, Stephen Hawking, Quentin Smith, Daniel Dennett, Roger Penrose, they say that the universe, the cosmos, came from nothing. This is true. We believe in kreatio ex nihilo. Creation from nothing. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala created from nothing. God caused it. But they say it's uncaused. That the universe is uncaused from nothing. Unprovoked, it popped into existence from literary nowhere. From nowhere, uncaused. Quentin Smith, University of Western Michigan, he says, he's an atheist. The universe came from nothing by nothing for nothing. Let's say it again. The universe came from nothing, by nothing for nothing. That's a metaphysical claim. That's a metaphysical claim. That's not a naturalist claim. That's a metaphysical claim. Daniel Dennett, he said, it's like the universe picked itself up by its bootstraps. Can you pick yourself up by your bootstraps? If you did that, I would say it's a miracle. This is a break of natural law. It's a miracle. It's a metaphysical claim. Right? Very interesting. How can something come from nothing uncaused? Is that science? Theist Frank Turek, he wrote a book called I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist. Believing that something can come from nothing is worse than magic. He said, pull a rabbit out of my hat. Right? That's going from something to something. But to take a universe out of nothing is a big supernatural metaphysical claim. Stephen Hawking says the universe can spontaneously create itself out of nothing. That's not naturalism. That's a suprarational statement. That's a religious statement. What is nothing? Nothing is what stones dream about. This is Aristotle. What do stones dream about? Nothing. That's nothing. Not simply empty space. I do this trick with my kids. I say, is there anything in my hands? They say, no. And then I go, oh. There's something there. Right? But even if I go like this there's nothing there. But is there really nothing there? In that show, let's make a deal. Would you like door number one or door number two? Door number one, they open it. Oh, it's nothing. Is that what I'm talking about when I say nothing? No. Nothing is the absolute absence of being. Right? So, Stephen Hawking says this. This is what he used to say. He says at the subatomic level the subatomic level in the quantum vacuum right? Quantum physics. Nobody really understands quantum physics. In the quantum vacuum you have a proton that comes in and out of existence and says this is something from nothing. A proton coming in and out of existence. The light quantum, the photon. Right? The problem with this is that the quantum vacuum is certainly not nothing. It is a sea of fluctuating energy. It's highly volatile. It's very unstable. Now the latest from Hawking is this. He says if you extrapolate the universe backwards. Right? Because the universe is expanding isotropically. It's expanding evenly. Isotropically. We know this from recent discoveries. 1929. The red shift of galaxies called Hubble's law. Right? That universes are running away from each other. If they were coming closer it would be blue. But it's red on the spectrum. Right? According to the Doppler effect. Microwave background radiation was discovered in 1965 by Penzias and Wilson. The afterglow of the Big Bang. So this is called the Hardle-Hawking Standard Model. Sometimes it's called the Friedman-Lamontree Standard Model. Big Bang cosmology. Right? So Stephen Hawking is saying if you extrapolate the universe backwards backwards you come to a point of singularity. Okay? No problem. Point of singularity. But then he says what is this point of singularity? It is an infinitesimally small black hole. A small infinitesimally small black hole. You see this is how he side steps infinite regression. Because in a black hole there's no time. There's no time. You know infinite regression? What came first? The chicken or the egg? The egg. But a chicken laid the egg. The chicken. The chicken came out of an egg. An egg. But a chicken laid an egg. I don't know. Right? How do you get out of infinite regression? No time in this black hole. The problem with this is that a black hole is the resulting state of a solar explosion. It's not an initial condition. It is matter. And matter requires motion. And motion requires time. So we might ask what is before the black hole? The black hole is certainly not nothing. It is something. Where did the singularity come from? Now Lawrence Krause he wrote a book called A Universe Out of Nothing. Arizona State. Four more cosmologists. Atheists. Like I said, the universe is 13.7256 billion years old. This nexus known as space time. The space time continuum. It came into being at the big bang. In fact, space time and matter came into being. Right? This is called cosmogenesis. But how did it do it? By itself. It created itself. This is a faith claim. This is a metaphysical claim. What if I told you I created myself? I'm making a supernatural claim about myself. This is what they're saying about the universe. You see, the only way to avoid infinite regress is to go metaphysical. Is to go supernatural. Is to ultimately go theological. So here's my conclusions about the cosmological argument. Only a non-contingent being. In other words, one who is not subject to causality. One who is not subject to infinite regress he is eternal. Also, the one who is necessarily spaceless, timeless and immaterial. Because he created space time and matter. He's also extremely powerful and extremely intelligent. He created a universe. Can bring a universe into being from nothing. But then they'll say, well who caused God? Who caused God? Right? It's God's very nature to be pre-eternal. Remember the first premise? God begins to exist as a cause. God never began to exist. If we start asking that question then we question the very existence of the universe. Why? Let's say I'm standing in a line and there's a brother in front of me and I tell the brother, I really want to give you a hug and the brother says, ask the guy behind you. So hey, can I give him a hug? He says, ask the guy behind me. Hey, can I give him a hug? He says, ask the guy behind me. Can I give him a hug? Ask the guy behind me. And this goes on ad infinitum. Right? Ad infinitum. Me giving the guy a hug represents the big bang, the universe. Will I ever give him a hug? No. Because you cannot traverse an actual infinitude. You cannot traverse an actual infinitude. If you ask the question, who created God? Then you haven't solved infinite regression. What is an actual infinitude? In mathematics, it's represented by the Hebrew alif. The Hebrew alif. What is an actual infinitude? A number that transcends and contains all natural numbers and cannot be increased by one. An actual infinitude cannot be found in nature. And Abu Yusuf al-Kindi has a certain analogy he uses. Zeno has one. Zeno's paradox, Achilles Hortus, Hilbert's hotel, mathematicians have different analogies they use to demonstrate the impossibility of having an actual infinitude in nature. We have a theoretical infinitude also which is the lazy 8. Right? A theoretical infinitude can be traversed within finite space. We do it all the time. I'll say it again. A theoretical infinitude can be traversed within finite space. My hand is above the table. How many times can I cut this distance in half? In theory, an infinite number of times. Half, half, half, half. Will I ever get to an actual infinitude? No. I won't get to an actual infinitude. Because you can never get to an actual infinitude by adding successive numbers together. Finite numbers together. Who caused God? Another God. Who caused him? Another God. This doesn't get us past infinite regression because we have a universe. An actual infinitude cannot be traversed. Right? If the universe is eternal then in the past with God's creating gods, creating gods and then the universe, how do we get to today? Because we can't traverse an actual infinitude and get to today. But we are here today. So infinite regression dies at the door of the eternal. This is the only way one can deal with infinite regression. It's a supernatural postulation. Metaphysical answer. Interestingly Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, the verses in the Quran in which Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is described as fatiru samawati wal-ard. Fatara means to split apart, to break something apart. Badi'u samawati wal-ard. Badi'u, bada'a means to originate something the primal cause of something Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is the primal cause. God created the universe out of nothing. That is your Lord There is no God but He He is the creator of everything space, time, matter, energy all of these created by Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Okay. Last argument It's called the teleological argument and then we'll open it up for questions and comments, inshallah. So this argument has it was used by Aristotle and Plato, the teleological argument it's the most challenging according to Hitchens for the atheists. There's two versions of it. The first version is the traditional argument which argues for biological complexity. Look at the human eye look at the human brain look at the systems within the human being you know architects looked at the insects when they wanted to build the Eiffel Tower people looked at the wings of birds when they wanted to build airplanes Anthony Flew who was 50 years an atheist at Cambridge University suddenly came to believe in God after 50 years he debated C.S. Lewis and suddenly he said you know the human cell and that's not evolution that's design and now I believe in God he's a deist, he's not a Christian he's not a Muslim, he's not a Jew but he believes in God interestingly the two greatest scientists of all time were Unitarian deists Sir Isaac Newton Albert Einstein these people believe in God not believing in God was out of the question now there's another type of theological argument this is sort of the cutting edge version of it and this argues for cosmic design due to fine tuning so you know the watchmaker analogy this is first used by William Paley in 1802 right dates back to Cicero walking on the beach you find a watch you pick it up you notice it's craftsmanship so what can you conclude that this just formed itself by chance atoms came together and made this incredible little watch right well let's say that you're an astronaut and you're on the dark side of the moon and you find a transformer they made a movie about this right so you have three options why is that there number one out of necessity does it have to be there no the moon functions without the transformer is it chance so these atoms they just happen to form this incredible piece of machinery there's a chance but probably not right or it's designed even if you don't know who put it there the best explanation is that it was designed you don't have to have an explanation for the best explanation but you know it's designed right so look at the earth itself the distance from the moon and sun if we're a little bit closer a little bit farther there's no life on planet earth if the days were a little bit longer life would cease to exist on earth if the access of the earth 23.5 degrees was slightly off there would be no life on earth if the atmosphere changed a little bit solar flares would swallow us up we would burn to a crisp there would be no life on earth Jupiter is in a perfect place with perfect mass it's a solar cosmic vacuum cleaner all of these asteroids and comets that come to earth they're pulled towards Jupiter and it saves us Subhanallah the solar system itself is like a watch you know Sir Isaac Newton he noticed that the planets they orbit around the sun in the same direction and they're on the same plane and he said this is design now the atheist will say oh that's what the theist does whenever he doesn't understand something he puts God in the gap to God of the gaps whenever a theist a believer doesn't understand something he says oh that's God God of the gaps but we understand how a watch works it doesn't negate it's designer we understand how the solar system works now it doesn't negate it's been designed it doesn't work now almost all atheists conclude that the universe is fine tuned for the existence of intelligent life and fine tuned is a neutral term it's not strictly theological how is it fine tuned you see there are certain constants and quantities constants and quantities of the four fundamental forces of nature that have to fall within an incredibly narrow range what are the four fundamental forces of nature gravity electromagnetism weak nuclear force strong nuclear force all of them in the point of singularity so let's look we'll come back to this idea let's look at our syllogism premise number one the fine tuning of the universe is due to either physical necessity which almost all atheists reject because you can have a universe with different constants and quantities and you'll have a universe with a chance and that's what atheists say yes it's chance or it's by design premise number two it's not due to physical necessity or chance therefore it is due to design by design we mean a specified complexity specified created tailored with unimaginable intelligence in pinpoint exquisite precision we'll let you know how that is big he says there are 50 such constants and quantities present in the big bang that must be fine tuned in this way and their ratios to one another must also be fine tuned to allow for life permitting universe the numbers become incomprehensible now give me some examples just to give you an idea of the numbers the number of seconds in the history of the universe is 10 to the 17th the number of seconds in the history of the universe is 10 to the 17th 10 with 17 zeros after it the number of sub-atomic particles in the universe according to William Dempsky is 10 to the 80 okay now atomic weak force operates in the nucleus of an atom an alteration of one part out of 10 to the 100th one part out of 10 to the 100th would render life unsustainable in the universe this is the incredible precision of the universe so let me put down perspective for you let's say I have a dart I have a single dart and in front of me there are a number of people 10 to the 100th which is impossible right that's a lot of people but say they're standing in front of me one of them has a target on his chest I throw the dart and it hits a target that's just one of these fundamental forces that have to line up if gravity was changed by one part out of 10 to the 40th there is no life in the universe the atheists say this is just chance we got lucky the constants and quantities fell within this very very very small life permitting range let me give you another analogy the lottery analogy let's say that I have a huge cosmic hat a huge cosmic hat and I have 10 to the 40 number of white balls that I put into this cosmic hat I give you one of these balls these white balls and you write your initials on it and I say okay I'm going to put this back into the hat okay then I'm going to draw out a ball at random if it's a white ball without your initials nothing happens nothing happens but if we draw out the ball with your initials we kill you right anything I'm feeling a little saucy let's do it what is 10 to the 40th 10 with 40 zeros impossible go ahead do it ah look what's your initial reaction it was rigged that was rigged you fooled me it was designed right look at the cosmic landscape possible universes there are 10 to the 500 possible universes with different values of the constants consistent with the laws of nature 10 to the 500 the portion of these universes that can permit life is infinitesibly small the range is incredibly minuscule what is life life is an organism's ability to take in food process it grow and develop and reproduce after it's kind and I'll end with this inshallah ta'ala Alvin Platinga is a professor at Notre Dame gives another analogy imagine you have these large dials like combination log dials a million of them and they all go up to a thousand and he says if you can get the right combination a million that go up to a thousand will give you a billion dollars that is more likely than a life permitting universe that is more likely than a life permitting universe so the result is Allahumma Jude that's how I'm ending it inshallah ta'ala jizakul akhiran