Ask Lee... About The Creator's Identity

By Lee Strobel
9.27.06

Thanks to everyone who submitted a question! CLICK HERE to pose a question for a future newsletter. Though we can’t answer them all, we’ll select the ones that seem to have the broadest appeal – or are the most intriguing!

Q. Even though your book The Case for a Creator shows solid facts that there is a divine Creator that made us all – as well as the whole universe – how can I show to non-believers that this divine Creator is the Christian God? How can I show in a scientific or philosophical way that it’s not the God of another religion?

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A. Whoa – good question! The scientific evidence, as well as logical inferences that can be drawn from it, provides excellent clues concerning the identity of the Creator.

As William Lane Craig spells out in my interview with him in The Case for a Creator, the evidence from cosmology demonstrates that the cause of the universe must be an uncaused, beginningless, timeless, immaterial, personal being endowed with freedom of will and enormous power. In the area of physics, the evidence shows that the Creator is intelligent and has continued to be involved with his creation after the moment he brought the universe into being.

The evidence of astronomy, showing that the Creator was incredibly precise in creating a livable habitat for the creatures he designed, logically implies that he has care and concern for them. Also, there is evidence that the Creator has built at least one purpose into his creatures – to explore the world he has designed, and therefore to perhaps discover him through it.

Not only do biochemistry and the existence of biological information affirm the Creator’s activity after the universe was created, but they also show he’s incredibly creative. Evidence for human consciousness helps establish that the Creator is rational, gives us a basis for understanding his omnipresence, and even suggests that life after death is credible.

This is not a picture of the god of deism, who supposedly formed the universe but then abandoned it. The abundant evidence for the Creator’s continued activity in the universe after the initial creation event discredits deism as a credible possibility.

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Pantheism, the idea that the Creator and universe are co-existent, also falls short of accounting for the evidence, because it cannot explain how the universe came into existence. After all, if the pantheistic god didn’t exist prior to the physical universe, then it would not be capable of bringing the universe into being.

Also, the scientific principle of Ockham’s razor shaves away the multiple gods of polytheism, leaving us with a single Creator. In addition, the personal nature of the Creator argues against the impersonal divine force that’s the center of New Age religions.

In sharp contrast, however, the scientific data are uncannily consistent with the God whose identity is spelled out in the pages of the Bible. In other words, the scientific evidence and logical inferences from it show that the Creator is unique, uncaused and timeless, immaterial, personal, possessing freedom of will, intelligent and rational, enormously powerful, creative, caring, omnipresent, has given humankind purpose, and provides for life after death. All of that is true of the Christian God.

As the apostle Paul wrote two millennia ago: “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made [that is, his creation], so that men are without excuse.”

So the evidence rules out the gods of deism, polytheism, and pantheism. The qualities of the Creator are consistent with Christianity, but also with Judaism and Islam. Why choose Christianity? Because when we go beyond the scientific evidence and begin to consider the historical evidence, we can see convincing facts that establish the essential reliability of the New Testament, demonstrate the fulfillment of ancient prophecies in the life of Jesus against all odds, and support Jesus’ resurrection as being an actual event that occurred in time and space. Indeed, his return from the dead is an unprecedented and supernatural feat that authenticates his claim to being the one-and-only Son of God.

To me, the range, the variety, the depth, and the breathtaking persuasive power of the evidence from both science and history affirm the credibility of Christianity to the degree that my doubts were simply washed away.

Now, before you object that I’m not sufficiently setting forth the evidence behind each of the qualities of the Creator that I’ve cited above, let me stress that all of this is backed up in detail in The Case for a Creator. I’d have to write a whole book to repeat it here and, well, I’ve already done that!