Know It All

Arguing with someone who knows it all and someone who does not know what he is talking about is essentially the same thing. The guy who “know it all” really doesn’t but he doesn’t know that he does not know. The guy who doesn’t know just doesn’t know. So any discussion with either party is bound to end in futility.

That is probably why it is so difficult to debate an atheist or an evolutionist. They usually think that they know it all, when in fact they do not. So any argument to evidence is lost on them. One example is the “old saw” of entropy. That is usually the response when I bring it up.

“Oh that old saw? Everybody knows” (did I tell you?) “that an open system with unlimited energy can overcome the problems of entropy.”

He has to have a larger “system” than the universe, since entropy is in effect all over it and the “unlimited” energy does not exist. Now he has two problems instead of the one, making three.

And furthermore, when has increasing the energy in a system increased its organization? If I place a stick of dynamite in a stack of bricks and detonate it, the result is less order than before. (More entropy) Would substituting an atomic bomb for the dynamite produce the Civic Center? Nope, Just a more disorderly mess. Now we have four problems. But I digress.

My granddaughter was correcting us on the word “flustrated.” “It is FRUStrated,” she informed us. But if you mix flustered and frustrated, you get flustrated. That is how I feel when discussing facts and evidence with athe-lutionists. You can make a lot of sense when you combine words.

From the Big Bang on, we encounter arguments that are based on ignorance. “We don’t know what, or how the what “banged,” but it did, and here we are.” “We don’t know how everything came to be out of the explosion, but here we are.” “We do not know why the universe is expanding and accelerating, so there must be something that we do not know about that is making it happen, like dark matter.” “We do not know how life actually started, but here we are.” “We do not know what made the DNA change to produce the changes, but here we are.” “We do not know why some of the ‘changes’ were preserved, while others were not, but here we are.”

Here we are. The explanation for every step in evolution is prefaced with, “We do not know...but.” So how can we debate the merits of the position? Just for the record, once we posit a supernatural creation, everything makes perfect sense and correlates with all known “natural” laws. There are some things that we cannot explain, but our belief is not based on being able to solve all of the puzzles.

The evolutionist and atheist accuse believers of attributing everything to the “God in the box.” Actually, it is the God NOT in the box. They have to explain everything based on what is in the universe (box) while we are convinced that the box and all that is within it was made by God from outside. We don’t appeal to God when we cannot explain something, we appeal to Him to explain everything.

Paul explained it in Colossians 1:17: “And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.” “Before all things” puts Him outside the box. (“In the beginning, God already was.) And “...by Him...” we have the explanation for “...all things.” 

Which brings us back to our thesis. Most of the time, the one who “knows it all,” doesn’t and in fact often knows nothing. They are just reciting responses, as with the entropy example. This is not to glorify our knowledge and acumen. But since we know the Answer it is much more attractive to face the unknown than without Him.

This knowledge is not our own. It was given to us. Peter outlined it for us in his second book, 1:19.
So we have the prophetic word made more sure, to which you do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star arises in your hearts.

We take no pride in knowing. But we can take pride in the knowledge that has been revealed to us. Francis Schaeffer wrote about The God Who Is There. Schaeffer followed it up with He Is There, and He Is Not Silent. That is how we can know.

John 14:31  and John 17:23  both repeat the phrase, “...that the world may know.” God sent His Son to give His message to men. We have examined the veracity of His claims (RAMP) in several posts.

Jesus’ claim is both that He came from God, and that He can take us to God. Since there is no other way, it is important to KNOW what we need to know. “We don’t know,” will not yield a suitable path nor conclusion to our quest.

I know.