The Benefits of Believing in a Creator

Photo by Tengyart on Unsplash

The previous post began a lengthy series on the reformation of Christianity. In this series I am not arguing for the truth of the Christian faith as I’ve done in previous posts, but instead I am focusing on why I believe it is better to believe it than not. This is the first of about fourteen reasons (there may be more).

Here I defend the proposition that it is better to believe the universe was created by a benevolent and powerful God than to believe the universe is uncreated.

Most philosophers and ordinary people throughout history have believed in some form or beginning for the universe. The age of science that emerged in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries produced an anomaly in this belief. Einstein’s view and many others in the past couple of hundred years who rejected the Western ideas of a created cosmos believed in an eternal or steady-state universe. Even Einstein was persuaded eventually by the evidence presented by astronomer Edwin Hubble and the use of his own equations by the priest Lemaitre that there was a beginning. Fred Hoyle, a staunch anti-theist dismissed the idea of an explosive beginning, calling it a “big bang.” He spent much of his later life attempting to prove a steady state universe.

Not all who believe in a beginning believe that it was intended or that it was the action of a good God. Buddha…