God Issues Today: "Where's the Beef?"

Author, educator and commentator Dr. James Denison has been pastor of Park Cities Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas since June, 1998. Prior to that, he was pastor at churches in Atlanta, Georgia, as well as Midland (at First Baptist) and Mansfield, Texas.

Today's Good Morning America tells us that diets high in red meat increase our risk for heart attack, cancer, Alzheimer's, and stomach ulcers. This news comes just after I polished off an excellent dinner of beef tenderloin at Dallas Baptist University's inspiring Tom Landry Dinner last night. Hot dogs are especially bad for us, I learn three days after consuming one at the Christian Book Expo. Is beef eaten at a Christian event exempt? Janet had a hot dog yesterday, but says it was kosher. Does that help?

A friend of mine suffers from heart disease and is on a restricted diet. He says it's simple: If it tastes good, spit it out. We live in a fallen world. Surrounded by so much nonsensical chaos and suffering, it's easy to see why some people claim that there is no God. Or if he exists and is responsible for this universe, they don't want to know him. Such is the position of Christopher Hitchens, the best-selling author and atheist. Yesterday we began a series of essays in response to the debate held at the Christian Book Expo on Saturday with Mr. Hitchens and four apologists, including myself.

If you were going to defend the existence of God, where would you begin? Most Christians think first of the visible world-where did it come from? If you say that life began as a cell floating in a pool of water, I want to know the origin of the cell and the water. If you claim that the universe began as a Big Bang some 14 billion years ago, I want to know where the Big Bang came from. If there is creation, there must be a Creator. So goes the "cosmological" argument (from "cosmos," Greek for "world").

Not so fast, our critics counter. Can we prove that every effect requires a cause? If so, who caused God? If he is "uncaused," then not everything that exists had a prior cause. Why can this not be true of the universe as well? What if the universe exists as a cycle rather than a straight line? Perhaps a Big Bang creates an expanding universe which eventually contracts and collapses, creating another Big Bang. Can we prove it's not so?

Other defenders of God's existence point to the design within the universe. (This is called the "teleological" argument, from the Greek word for "design.") The classic version was suggested by William Paley (died 1805), who asked us to imagine a man out for a walk when he stumbles upon a rock. He's not surprised to find a rock on the ground-such things happen. But then he finds a watch on the road. No one would think that the hands, gears, numbers, and so on just randomly happened, so he assumes that the watch was created by a watchmaker. Isn't the world infinitely more complex than a watch? Of course. Does this settle the issue? Not entirely. Let's continue tomorrow.

Note: Many of you have asked where you can view a video of Saturday's debate. Christian Book Expo officials tell us that it will be posted on "Tangle" (formerly GodTube) in the next few days. I am grateful for your interest.