You’ve asked that question.  We all have.  And you have probably fumbled over answering  it to your friends with little or no faith.  December 10th, Dr. Frank Turek will address this question live at the campus of IMPACT 360 or live from the comfort of your ipad on Ustream. Dr. Frank Turek is a dynamic speaker and award-winning author or coauthor of three books. As the President of CrossExamined.org, Mr. Turek impacts young and old alike at colleges, high schools and churches with hard yet entertaining evidence for Christianity. He hosts a hour long TV program each week called I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist and has appeared on many TV and radio programs including: The O’Reilly Factor, Hannity and Colmes, Faith under Fire, Politically Incorrect and Focus on the Family. Mr. Turek will be a special guest speaker at IMPACT 360 on December 10.

The following excerpts are from Mr. Turek’s recent post at CrossExamined.org.

Does causality apply outside of space and time? 

During a radio debate I had with an atheist recently, I pointed out that the universe had a beginning and thus needs a cause.  He responded by claiming that since there was no space or time prior to the creation event we shouldn’t appeal to the law of causality to claim that the creation event was caused.

Atheists who make this claim are saying that there is no efficient cause of the universe because it didn’t take place in space or time. Let’s look at that argument in a syllogism.

– The law of causality only applies to physical things in space-time.
– The creation of the universe did not occur in space-time (it was the creation of space-time).
– Therefore the law of causality does not apply to the creation of the universe.

This argument doesn’t work because the first premise is false. Notice that there is no physical relationship between the premises and the conclusion of the argument above (or any argument).  Also notice that the premises are not objects in space-time.  Yet, there is a causal relationship between the premises and the conclusion.  In other words, true premises cause valid conclusions.

If this atheist argument were sound, then no argument could be sound.  Why?  Because if the law of causality only applied to physical things, then no argument would work because premises and conclusions are not physical things.  For any argument to work—including arguments against God—the law of causality must apply to the immaterial realm because the components of arguments are immaterial… Any denial of the law of causality uses the law of causality.