{"id":97158,"date":"2026-08-08T16:57:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-08T21:57:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/?p=97158"},"modified":"2026-08-08T16:57:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T21:57:11","slug":"the-evidence-of-nature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/the-evidence-of-nature\/","title":{"rendered":"The Evidence of Nature"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\tby Elton Trueblood,\u00a0The Logic of Belief<\/em>, p. 158-159
\nvia\u00a0Sentry Magazine<\/em>, Vol. 22, No. 1, March 1996\n

“The chief strength of atheistic naturalism has lain in the notion that the material world needs no explanation, external to itself, that it is, indeed, a perpetual motion machine, which had no beginning and will have no end. But when we take the Second Law of Thermodynamics seriously, we can no longer hold to this doctrine. The universe as we know it, by the aid of modern science, could not have originated without the action of a creative Source of energy outside itself, and it cannot be maintained without it. But a creative Source of energy outside the natural order is God.”<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Elton Trueblood,\u00a0The Logic of Belief, p. 158-159 via\u00a0Sentry Magazine, Vol. 22, No. 1, March 1996 “The chief strength of atheistic naturalism has lain in the notion that the material world needs no explanation, external to itself, that it is, indeed, a perpetual motion machine, which had no beginning and will have no end. But…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[201],"tags":[184,80,1582],"class_list":["post-97158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-notes","tag-atheism","tag-evolution","tag-naturalism"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":90499,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/naturalism-is-an-illogical-faith\/","url_meta":{"origin":97158,"position":0},"title":"Naturalism Is an Illogical Faith","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"September 15, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"by Terry Wane Benton Although naturalists claim to base their naturalist worldview on science, they actually do not and cannot do so. This is so because science is limited to the study of the natural world. Science tells us what the world is made of and how and why it\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":89380,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/genesis-challenges-naturalism\/","url_meta":{"origin":97158,"position":1},"title":"Genesis Challenges Naturalism","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"August 12, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"by Terry Wane Benton The opening chapters of this revelation to Moses defied the premises of naturalism and superstitious paganism. Genesis announced to the Israelites who saw the Red Sea open for them and close on the Egyptians that the same God was the One who originally created the heavens,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":69918,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/you-believe-the-bible-hilarious\/","url_meta":{"origin":97158,"position":2},"title":"You Believe the Bible? Hilarious!","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"September 26, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"by Terry Wane Benton They looked at me as if I was some odd, foolish, and gullible person who got conned into believing a fairytale. Because of my studies, I look back at them with pity and sadness, and they don't realize that they were the ones conned into believing\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":57758,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/creation-and-resurrection\/","url_meta":{"origin":97158,"position":3},"title":"Creation and Resurrection","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 9, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"by Matthew W. Bassford The primary objection to the resurrection accounts of the Bible is philosophical. It is based on the theory of naturalism. This theory holds that all events have causes rooted in the natural laws of the universe. In the universe, dead people don't naturally come back to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/universe-192x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":56135,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/the-evolutionists-creation-story-inspired-by-naturalism\/","url_meta":{"origin":97158,"position":4},"title":"The Evolutionist’s Creation Story, Inspired by Naturalism","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"November 24, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"by Abraham Smith Naturalism:\u00a0A theory denying that an event or object has a supernatural significance. Once upon a time billions of years ago, everything that has ever been came from a little ball called the cosmic egg. At that time it was heated to trillions of degrees. It was so\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":89411,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/materialistic-naturalism-is-there-anything-beyond\/","url_meta":{"origin":97158,"position":5},"title":"Materialistic Naturalism: Is There Anything Beyond?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"August 13, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"by Terry Wane Benton Many are those today who sincerely believe that only the things we see and observe now with our senses are real. They won't allow for God and angels or demons unless they can test them with the \"scientific method,\" which just so happens to be limited\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97158\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}