Ankerberg Show

Dr. John Ankerberg: Welcome to our program. For centuries, people have wrestled with what are life's greatest questions: Does God really exist? And if He does, can we know Him through truth, science, and history? Today, we hear many voices in our culture insisting that truth is relative, science has made God unnecessary, and history cannot be trusted. University professors, media personalities, and social influencers often tell us that faith belongs in the realm of personal opinion, not objective reality.

But what if the evidence points in another direction? What if the universe itself reveals signs of design? What if the laws of science actually point beyond themselves to a Creator? And what if the historical evidence for Jesus Christ is far stronger than most people realize? My guest today is Dr. Frank Turek, co-author of the best-selling book, *I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist*, who has spent decades answering some of the toughest questions asked on university campuses around the world.

Together, we’re going to examine whether truth really exists, whether science and reason point to God, and whether the evidence for Jesus and His resurrection can stand up to historical scrutiny. If God exists and Christianity is true, that changes everything about who we are, why we are here, and where we are going. I invite you to join us for this edition of the *John Ankerberg Show*.

Welcome back. Let me ask you a question: Are you an atheist? I’ve got a fellow here that wrote a book, *I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist*. Do you know that you need faith to be an atheist? Actually, you don’t have enough faith. We’re going to talk about why, and one of the main arguments is the argument for design. Is the universe divinely designed?

In other words, when you talk about the laws of the universe, if they were changed just a little bit, would we have life on earth? No. If things were different that we’re going to talk about today—the fine-tuning of the universe—would we have life on earth today? No. I would like to make this a little simpler by saying here’s the philosophical argument. It’s called the teleological argument. Take your watch. If you found that laying in the bushes, would you just assume that the wind and the rain made that watch of yours with all of the fine instruments that are in there, or would you figure out that somebody actually worked on it very hard and designed it?

We’re talking about is our earth and our life, our very bodies, designed that way. It goes like this: Every design has a designer. Second, the universe has highly complex design. We’re going to tell you about that in a moment. If both of those two premises are true, the third one is true: Therefore, the universe had a designer. He had to be brilliant, as you’re going to find out. Who is that designer? We believe that it’s God—the theistic God of the Bible—and we’re going to talk about how you can know Him personally.

We’ve got a lot to cover here. As I looked through this, I thought, how can we do this for people that are not scientists? Your IQ is not 160. How can you understand this? I thought there’s one illustration that I really love, and maybe you actually saw the movie. It’s called *Apollo 13*, and it was done by Ron Howard. Remember little Opie on *Andy Griffith*? He turned out to be a movie producer, and he did *Apollo 13*.

I would like Frank today to use what happened on Apollo 13 that the entire world was watching—what happened to the three guys in that spacecraft, what happened, and the constants of the universe that we take for granted here on Earth started to change for those guys up there. I want him to tell you about this, and I want you to hear how they almost died. Frank, talk about Apollo 13 when it took off from its landing base. It took off perfectly. Everybody thought things were going just great. Houston was where the main guys were that were helping them and watching all the instruments and watching their flight path and were responsible for them going around the moon and coming all the way back to Earth and landing safely. But something happened.

Dr. Frank Turek: Apollo 13 was a mission that occurred in the spring of 1970. They had three astronauts, and it was headed by Jim Lovell. In about their third day, they're heading to the moon, and they hear a big bang. Initially, he thought it was one of his other astronauts just playing a joke on them by pulling a valve and making a big bang, but it wasn't a joke.

They found out later that oxygen tank number two on Apollo 13 had exploded, and it created a big problem because they would have to make water from their oxygen and hydrogen. They made it from that, and, of course, they needed oxygen to breathe. So they're actually heading toward the moon in almost a nearly catastrophic situation. They couldn't just turn around. They were supposed to go to the moon and land on the moon and walk on the moon, but as soon as they discovered oxygen tank number two had exploded, that mission turned into a rescue mission.

The reason why is if you're sitting there and you've got so many days left to go up to the moon and land and then get up again and go around the moon and come back, you need a certain amount of days. Those oxygen tanks only had a certain number of hours in them. They looked out the window and they could see a gas going out into space. They didn't know at first what it was, but all of a sudden Houston said, "We have a problem."

So what they had to do was keep heading toward the moon, sling around the moon in order to come home. The problem was it created a cascade of catastrophic situations. The constants of the universe started changing inside their capsule. This argument that we're talking about right now is an argument that says conditions here on Earth have to be precise in order for us to live.

What we were trying to do in Apollo 13, like all space missions, is keep those constants the same on the ship so people could live. Obviously, gravity is weaker, but they still had to have oxygen, and they still had to have carbon dioxide filtered out and all this. The problem was on Apollo 13, with oxygen tank number two exploding, they weren't going to be able to do that, or they had to figure out a workaround.

I thought the movie was done very well, but what happened was oxygen. Here on Earth, it's 21% of what you're breathing. If it were 15%, we'd all suffocate. If it were 25%, spontaneous fires would break out. So the oxygen level here on Earth is just right. It seems to be a designed value. In other words, it’s got to be exactly that, or otherwise, we wouldn't live.

They have a problem with oxygen on Apollo 13. Then they have a problem with carbon dioxide because they're breathing out carbon dioxide, and they had filters to try and take that CO2 out of it. The accident created a problem, and they had to do a workaround where they actually used duct tape and some hoses to create these new filters to filter out CO2 on the spaceship.

As you see in the movie, they have to do all this crazy stuff with hoses and duct tape and everything to try and figure it out. They said duct tape is terrific; don't leave home without it. It even worked. But here's the thing: they were trying to duplicate what we think is just ordinary stuff. We never think about the atmosphere around us, how precise it is.

They had to duplicate what we have here, and we never think about it. If they didn't have the exact constants, the laws of the universe there that we've got here, they would have died. They had to artificially make those constants or those values be what they needed them to be. If they had too much carbon dioxide, they would die, and so they had to filter the carbon dioxide out as the oxygen was going out. Carbon dioxide was coming up.

It's true here on Earth. Here, the Creator, the Designer, has created a situation where we breathe out carbon dioxide, but trees love it. They take it in, so it filters it out of our system so it stays in the right range. Here on Earth, if you have too much carbon dioxide, you have a runaway greenhouse effect. If you have too little, then you don't get enough heat. So it's got to be just right.

It had to be just right on Apollo 13. The reason we're talking about this is because there are aspects about our universe, our solar system, and our Earth that are just right. If they were any different, none of us would exist. The universe wouldn't exist. If the sun was tilted just one degree one way or the other, the fact is it would either burn us up or we'd freeze.

If the moon was just a little degree one way or the other, that would be a problem, or if it was a different size. If Jupiter wasn't there, we would have been bombarded with meteors and other things coming from space that it absorbs. We are protected just right. They've examined over a thousand different planets, our scientists, and they haven't found any planet that has the atmosphere that Earth has.

When you're streaming through space as Apollo 13 was doing, they had to somehow figure out how could we do a workaround because our systems are down, to keep the narrow window of life-permitting conditions on this ship so we can get home in four days. That's what they had to do. The whole world started to watch.

The other thing they had to do, this has to do with our atmosphere. Our atmosphere has a certain amount of transparency to it, but not too much transparency. But that atmosphere also creates a problem for a spaceship coming back to Earth. It helps deflect meteors and other space junk coming toward us because you have to be at a very narrow window, just a few degrees of angle, coming into our atmosphere in order to get through it.

If you come in too steep or too shallow, you're either going to skip off or you're going to burn up. Their problem was as their space capsule got colder and colder, looking through the windows, they had a hard time looking through that atmospheric transparency that they were looking for in order to have a guide of how to get back to the right spot on Earth to land.

Gene Kranz, the director at Houston, I think he said this was a successful failure. There was one guy—"Guys," this is when they were really down and they thought there's no hope for these guys—he says, "No, this is going to be our biggest day. This is going to be our best day, our finest day. Get to work." The gist of it was failure is not an option.

We've got to get these guys back, which means we've got to figure out all these parameters. Their instruments were down. Navigationally, they were trying to make sure they're coming in at the right angle by looking out the window and seeing where the sun is. They had to do this all manually. It strains credulity to think that all of these narrow parameters about our solar system, about our Earth, even about our universe, are just where they need to be so we could exist here on Earth.

The sun had to stay in the right spot; it couldn't be jazzed around at that point because they needed it right in the spot. They needed the Earth; they knew how it rotated, they knew where it was at. They had to hit the right spot. There was also a hurricane that was developing in the Caribbean where they were about to come down.

There's a lot of things going on, and they had to calculate this without instruments because the instruments froze up. They didn't have enough juice; they didn't have enough electricity basically there. So they're doing all of this, and to me, what it showed was we've got this, and we never even think about the fact that we've got everything just right here.

We don't have to worry about breathing. We don't have to worry about carbon dioxide. We don't have to worry about how much gravity. Why don't we just float right off into the air because we're standing here on the Earth? No, the gravity is just right. If it was too much, it could push us right in there and make us mush. The fact is it's just right.

But those guys had to worry about all of that. The constants weren't like they were on Earth. They had to make them. They had to develop them so that they could exist. They had to design them. What happened? First of all, they went through a period where they're in radio silence; they couldn't communicate. As they're coming back in, even the Pope got involved and said, "We need to pray. We need to pray these astronauts get back." The whole world's watching this. The President also said that, President Nixon at the time.

We need to pray that they get back, and when they came into the radio silence period, they didn't come out when they should have. Everyone's going, "Did they make it? Did they burn up?" It went longer than four minutes, which they've never had that kind of a delay on a reentry before. Finally, one of the guys spoke up and said, "We're here."

They had another thing they had to have. They had to have two sets of parachutes come out. They didn't know if they got burned up coming in or were frozen. So they weren't out of the woods when they said, "Hey, we made it through the atmosphere." The reason we're telling them all of this is just to use an illustration of how fine-tuned the constants—constants are the laws of the universe—that allow us to exist just right here on the planet Earth.

How many constants do we have? Well, there are dozens about the universe, there are hundreds about our solar system. Let me just give you one about our universe that will help us realize the kind of precision we're talking about here. The gravitational force is fine-tuned compared to the strong nuclear force to one in 10 to the 40th power.

What's one in 10 to the 40th power? That's one with 40 zeros following it. One in one with 40 zeros following it. You say, "Frank, I can't get my head around that number." Okay, let me give you an illustration to try and give us a concept of how precise this is. Take the entire North American continent from Central America all the way to Greenland and stack it in dimes all the way to the moon.

That's 238,000 miles. Then do that on a billion other North American continents. Stack them in dimes 238,000 miles to the moon. Then take all those piles of dimes, put them in one humongous pile, mark one dime red, mix it up, blindfold a friend, throw them on the pile, tell them to pick one dime at random. The chance he would pick that one marked red dime is one chance in 10 to the 40th power.

Is he going to pick that red dime? No. You'd have to be a complete idiot to say, "I'm going to bet that he's going to pick that one red dime." No, he's not. That's the kind of precision for just one of dozens of parameters about our universe. If that were any different, we wouldn't be here. This is why even atheists like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens used to say this is the hardest argument to answer if you're an atheist.

How do you answer this fine-tuned precision that we find all around us? I'll just give you one more, and that is the fact is take your own human body. You have trillions of cells in your body. Every one of those cells has a DNA cell in it. It's got a billion little buckets that are tied to a stem, all kinds of machines in every one of those cells of your body that are working on that DNA.

The scientists now with the microscopes that can look into that, they're realizing there's a whole city of machines that are all working on that—irreducibly complex machines, so complex that they can't believe it. That's what we've got, and the question is: where do we get it? It talks for an intelligent designer. That didn't happen by chance; there's no way that could happen by chance.

Let me add this: when people say how do you know that God exists, I think here's the quickest answer: I know God exists by His effects. If there's a creation, that's the effect, and I’m reasoning back to a cause, a Creator. If there's design, that's the effect, like design of the universe, design of life. That's the effect; I’m reasoning back to a designer.

If there's a moral law written on my heart, that's the effect; I’m reasoning back to a moral lawgiver. If there's evidence a man predicted and accomplished his own resurrection from the dead, that's the effect; I’m reasoning back to a cause. Who could predict and accomplish a resurrection from the dead? Only somebody like God. This is what scientists do; they reason from effect back to cause.

When you look at all the effects all around you, including yourself, you have to have an adequate cause for that effect. Natural laws themselves are effects, and yet atheists will say natural laws did all this. No, natural laws themselves need to be caused by something. Who caused the natural laws, and why are they so persistent and consistent? Because there's a mind out there that brought all of this into existence and is sustaining all of it.

His attributes are expressed in the beauty of creation, the design of creation, the beauty of you, the design of you. It's expressed in the moral law written on your heart, which, by the way, we've all violated, and that's why we need a Savior. He loves us so much; He wants us to know Him personally, but we've got a problem. We've got a sin problem, and He sent His Son to take care of that sin problem, and He's offering a gift to them.

Well, we have this moral law written on our hearts that we haven't lived up to, and that moral law shows us that we're guilty. If God is just, and He is—He's infinitely just—He has to punish us, otherwise He wouldn't be infinitely just. But since He's also infinitely loving, He doesn't want to punish us. So He comes and takes our punishment upon Himself, and that's what Christianity is all about.

It's grace, that God just forgives you of your sin if you trust in Him. If you don't want to trust in Him, God will respect that, but He won't force you into heaven against your will. If you don't want God now, you're not going to want Him in eternity. So God presents Himself to you and says, "I'll take your punishment upon Myself," but I'm not going to force you into that relationship.

If you don't want it, you don't need to take it. You'll be quarantined in a place called hell because you don't want to be with me for eternity. But if you do want to be with me for all eternity, then trust in my sacrifice. Paul says this in Romans chapter 3, verse 26, that God remains just and is the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. He remains just because He punishes sin—He's the one that takes the punishment—but He also justifies us sinners.

So if you want to have your sins forgiven and be with Jesus and your loved ones who have accepted Jesus forever, pray this: "Father, I'm a sinner. I've done wrong by Your standards and even my own. I can't save myself. Come into my life, take my punishment upon Yourself. I'm trusting in You for that, and give me now a newfound love for You so I can tell others about the free gift You've provided for me. Jesus provides it for me. I repent, I accept Him as my Lord and Savior. Amen."

Dr. John Ankerberg: Thank you, Frank. Folks, next week our program's going to be: Is the New Testament historically reliable? Because after you get through what we've already talked about, you say, "Yeah, but you haven't got accurate information about Jesus." It's covered in his book, but the fact is that I want you to think about what you've heard today, and I hope that you'll join us next week when we talk about why we believe the New Testament is historically correct, accurate, more so than any other thing that we've got in past history, okay? So join us then, but stay tuned right now because I have a personal word for you in just a moment.

Thank you for listening to the *John Ankerberg Show*. We’re a listener-supported ministry, and your gifts help us continue to share the gospel with millions of people worldwide. To learn more about our resources or to support our mission, visit jashow.org or please call us at 1-800-805-3030. If you’re in Canada, please visit jashow.ca or call us at 1-866-746-5803. Or you can subscribe to us on YouTube. Your support makes a difference in spreading God’s word.