This is related to part of yesterday's sermon on Genesis 1, where we contrasted the biblical view of creation from that of scientists who believe impersonal laws of nature explain the existence of the universe.
The atheist also uses assumptions about God’s laws for the world, but they differ from Christian assumptions. Typically, the atheist says that the laws are impersonal. What effect does this have on his thinking about the future of the universe? It typically means that an atheist thinks of the present system as going on indefinitely, without interruption.But if the laws actually were impersonal, they would not be laws at all. They might be anything. Irrationality lies at the bottom of this assumption. If “laws” come out of the void, why should we have any hope that they will in any respect match what the human mind can think or imagine? It is as if a plant on earth tried to grasp the thinking of a human being, or worse, the thinking of a martian. Why should we expect that the sun will rise tomorrow, just because we have seen it rise before? Maybe the laws governing human memory are changing on us, and our memory of the past is completely off base. Or, if our memory is okay, maybe the laws will change tomorrow. Maybe light will never return, or the face of a jack-o’-lantern will replace the sun! Once we abandon the idea of a personal, trustworthy God, little prevents our wildest nightmares from taking his place.The atheist must ignore this difficulty, and believe in spite of himself that he can grasp the laws.
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