Today’s New Reason To Believe

Too many Christians, living as functional Unitarians, fail to recognize the Trinity’s relevance to their Christian faith and life. The Trinity doctrine is crucial because it reveals What and Who God is (one God in three persons), and this insight allows Christians, though in an obviously limited way, to view the inner working of God’s nature and personhood.

Furthermore, the Trinity doctrine brings together in a coherent manner the great truths about God’s historical, redemptive actions (completed in and through the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit). For example, (1) the Father (the first person of the Trinity) sends the Son into the world to offer a propitiatory sacrifice on the cross; that is, a sacrifice that both appeases the Father’s just wrath against sin and extends the Father’s love and mercy by allowing repentant sinners to escape divine judgment. (2) The Incarnate Son (the second person of the Trinity) is able to provide this atonement because he is both God and man. The God-man conquers death, sin, and hell through his glorious resurrection from the dead. (3) The Holy Spirit (the third person of the Trinity) is directly responsible for the repentant sinner’s new birth in Christ through regeneration, and the believer’s life journey of sanctification. The three divine members of the Trinity make the entire plan of redemption possible.

Redemption, therefore, in historic Christianity is initiated by the Father (Galatians 4:4), accomplished through the Son (1 Peter 3:18), and is applied by the Holy Spirit (Titus 3:5). The doctrine of the Trinity is important because there is no salvation apart from the Triune God. And the more we reflect upon God’s Triune nature, the more we can learn to love and appreciate God for Who and What he truly has revealed himself to be.

For more on the historic Christian doctrine of the Trinity, see “How Can God Be Three and One?” in Kenneth Samples’ book Without a Doubt: Answering the 20 Toughest Faith Questions.

The rare Earth doctrine, the conclusion that Earth has many unique features that enable it to support life and, in particular, advanced life, is well established within the scientific community. The discovery of about 250 extrasolar planets, combined with spacecraft missions to explore the outer solar system, likewise is beginning to establish the rare solar system doctrine. Now, a new doctrine is emerging to complement the others—the rare Milky Way Galaxy doctrine.

Many features of a galaxy must be fine-tuned for life to be possible within it. Several are listed and described in The Creator and the Cosmos, pages 176-79, and 188-89. And a team of French astronomers has just added another. They discovered that among spiral galaxies (life is possible only in a spiral galaxy) the Andromeda Galaxy is typical, whereas the Milky Way Galaxy (MWG) is exceptional.

The MWG is exceptional in that it has escaped any major merging event with other galaxies over at least the last ten billion years. Not so for the Andromeda Galaxy. As a team led by the South African astronomer David Block (an RTB volunteer) recently demonstrated, the huge warp in the spiral arms of the Andromeda Galaxy was caused by a not-so-small galaxy passing through its center about 210 million years ago.

Major merging events can disturb the structure of a spiral galaxy for a billion years or more. A lack of such events over the history of a planetary system and during the billion years or so before the formation of that planetary system is necessary for the eventual support of advanced life in that system. Yet, for life to be possible within a planetary system its spiral galaxy cannot be totally without merging events. The relatively frequent accretion of dwarf galaxies by a spiral galaxy is critical for preserving the long-term spiral structure.

For advanced life to become a possibility within a spiral galaxy, the galaxy must absorb dwarf galaxies that are large enough to preserve the spiral structure, but not so large as to significantly disturb or disrupt the spiral structure. Also, the rate at which it absorbs dwarf galaxies must be frequent enough to preserve the spiral structure, but not so frequent as to significantly distort it. All these just-rights are found in the MWG. Astronomers know of no other galaxy that manifests all the qualities that advanced life demands. The rarity of the MWG in its capacity to support advanced life comprises one more argument in favor of a supernatural, superintelligent Being designing the universe for the benefit of life, and for human beings in particular.

Worldview Thinking

Air date: 7-24-07
Dave Rogstad and Kenneth Samples

• Discoveries
  • Worldview Thinking
    • Resource
      • A World of Difference: Putting Christian Truth-Claims to the Worldview Test, by Kenneth R. Samples
    • Resources on predestination
      • Saved By Grace, by Anthony Hoekema
      • Chosen But Free, by Norman Geisler
      • Beyond the Cosmos, 2^nd Edition, by Hugh Ross
    • Resource on Gnosticism
      • Judas and the Gospel of Jesus :Have We Missed the Truth about Christianity? by N. T. Wright
• Call-in questions
  • Ed from Des Moines, IA:
    • Has anyone investigated the accuracy of the Gnostic bible as compared to the cannon of the Bible as we know it?
  • Todd from Dallas, TX:
    • What is RTB’s stance on general revelation and salvation?
  • Michael from Salem, OR:
    • What are RTB’s thoughts on predestination?
      • Michael recommends a new book, The Case for the Real Jesus: A Journalist Investigates Current Attacks on the Identity of Christ, by Lee Strobel
  • Roger from Portland, ME:
    • Will “the theory of everything” explain why the universe is so finely tuned?
  • Joe from Bismark ND:
    • Is God an authoritarian or just a friend?