In my first post I suggested that the content of the Big Bang theory combined with the fine tuning of the universe for life is evidence for the Christian God. I admit I need other arguments or premises to establish that claim. But the Big bang theory provides evidence that there was a beginning. An absolute beginning. There are theories about an oscillating universe or a multiverse. But from what I have read those don't solve the problem of an absolute beginning. Those situations involve expansion. An expanding universe or one that involves an expansionary phase eventually had to have a beginning. That much seems to have been proven.

We could posit multiverses going back as far as we want, for instance. But eventually we would have to reach an absolute beginning. And from what I have learned such multiverses would also have to be fine tuned in some way.

So those theories don't solve the problem. For centuries philosophers said that "nothing comes from nothing". According to the standard BB model nothing existed prior to that singular event. That is an absolute nothing - though we can;'t really conceive of that.

Nothing at all. Nothing can do nothing. It has no power to cause anything.So at this point we need a Cause. That Cause must be such as to have no beginning. It must be an uncaused cause. A self existent cause. And it must have be a non physical cause. Not a part of the universe or of space time. So supernatural. Something that is outside of anything that had a beginning.

This Cause must be self existent , super intelligent and super powerful. Look at the Universe. It is immense and displays power, complexity and fine tuning. So the Cause must be personal. It must have willed and planned that other personal beings come into existence. Ourselves.

We are like the Cause in that we have intelligence and can will to do.

We - though a part of the natural universe - love and appreciate beauty and know to recognize good. Therefore the Personal Cause must be Good.

The Personal Cause must desire to communicate with us because it - He - populated a part of the universe with being like ourselves who have the capacity to love, to communicate, to will, and to know goodness.

In addition we have Christ being crucified and buried in a sealed and guarded grave. Sealed and guarded because those in authority
- the religious rulers on the one hand and the political ruler son the other - had their own authority at stake if it could be credibly said that Christ rose again.

Christ's followers were scared to death that the same horrible fate would befall them. In any event they did not expect that Christ would rise again. Later they claimed they saw Him and maintained this claim even in the face of death itself. They could not have stolen the body because it goes against nature to maintain a lie in the face of death. But for something they thought was true they would be willing to die. they would know if they were lying when they said saw and ate with the risen Lord.

What evidence do I have that God raised Christ from the tomb?

Let me try a legal argument.

Suppose a person needs to have his left arm amputated The surgeon removes the right arm by mistake. What does the man need to prove at court? Nothing. The fact that the surgeon controlled everything and the man's right arm was removed is enough.The facts speak for themselves.

So with the resurrection. Christ was dead and in a sealed tomb all alone. So who raised Him - God - the facts speak for themselves.

Blessings!

Follows is from http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/5608/pg5608.html

In London in the 1800s two legal guilds owned a church. The pastor wrote a story that pretended to put the case for resurrection on trial.This gave him a chance to closely reason the case for it.

"Suppose a man should tell you, that he was come from the dead, you would be apt to suspect his evidence. But what would you suspect? That he was not alive when you heard him, saw him, felt him, and conversed with him? You could not suspect this, without giving up all your senses and acting in this case as you act in no other. Here then you would question, whether the man had ever been dead? But would you say, that it is incapable of being made plain by human testimony, that this or that man died a year ago? It can't be said. Evidence in this case is admitted in all courts perpetually
Consider it the other way. Suppose you saw a man publicly executed, his body afterwards was wounded by the executioner, and carried and laid in the grave; that after this you should be told, that the man was come to life again; what would you suspect in this case? Not that the man had never been dead; for that you saw yourself: but you would suspect whether he was now alive. But would you say this case excluded all human testimony and that men could not possibly discern , whether one with whom they conversed familiarly was alive or no? Upon what ground could you say this? A man rising from the grave is an object of sense, and can give the same evidence of his being alive, as any other man in the world can give. So that a resurrection considered only as a fact to be proved by evidence, is a plain case; it requires no greater ability in the witnesses, than that they be able to distinguish between a man dead, and a man alive: a point in which I believe every man living thinks himself a judge."

The point is that the claim has to considered on the evidence not on a prior presupposition "dead men stay dead." Thinking Christians are such because they have thought through the evidence - as the pastor who wrote the story was doing.

Larry