God of the Universe

Copyright © 2015 L. Charles Arnold, Jr.

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Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™ All rights reserved.

Scripture taken from the Amplified Bible, Copyright © 1954, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

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ISBN: 978-1-4908-9426-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-9427-0 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-9428-7 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015916781

WestBow Press rev. date: 10/02/2015

Contents

Preface

Author’s Background

Chapter 1 Christianity vs. The World

Chapter 2 Logic of the World vs. Logic of God

Chapter 3 The World View of God vs. the God of the Bible

Chapter 4 Scientific, Mathematical and Logical Support For God As the Intelligent Creator

Chapter 5 God Identified

Chapter 6 A Statistical Argument for Jesus as God

Chapter 7 A Changed Life in Jesus the Christ

Chapter 8 Why are there Different Types of Christians?

Chapter 9 How to Get Right with God

Chapter 10 The World Attitude vs. God’s Commandments

Chapter 11 The Christian Attitude

Chapter 12 What does the Bible say about the Trinity?

Bibliography

I

thank my wife Blaine L. Arnold for her love, patience, advice and support as I spent considerable free time working on this book. I thank Anne and Gary Collins, who volunteered to read and edit my book and provided some valuable feedback. I thank my parents, Chuck and Darlene Arnold for their love and support over the years.

Preface

Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for. By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.

Hebrews 11:1-3 NIV

Author’s Background

I was raised in the Episcopal Church and had church knowledge about Jesus, but I did not understand the need to accept Jesus Christ as my savior. I attended a Military High School for two and one half years and then transferred to a Roman Catholic High School for my last year. I truly accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior and with my whole heart in July 1972. I was 18 years old.

I grew in my faith during my college years. I attended an Engineering school in Indiana for one year. There, I bought my first Bible - a Revised Standard Version, which I still have today. I read it and literally fell in love with what I was reading.

From 1973-1975, I attended a Junior College. I studied Mathematics (Calculus, Analytical Geometry and Differential Equations), Physics, Chemistry, Computer Programming and Ancient World History my first year. My second year studies were all liberal arts classes such as philosophy, psychology, sociology and anthropology. In the anthropology class I studied different people groups, their culture and religions. This included Christianity. I also studied other groups like the Mormons and the Jehovah’s Witnesses whose theology is not consistent with the theology that I believe to be true. In 1974 I was challenged to read the Bible through from Genesis to Revelation in a year. I did so and continued this challenge until 1996 when I took a 10 year break. While I was at this Junior College I was involved with a college group with connections to a local Christian Church Denomination. They had a Christian Coffee House in a nearby town. In this Coffee House I and a woman were approached by a man that I knew in junior high. He had gained a reputation for various non-Christian activities. Before either I or the woman could say anything, he said that he hated Christians, God and Jesus Christ and did not want to talk about the Bible. We did not know what to say in response to his comment. He proclaimed to me and a young woman whom I was with that he hated Christians, God and Jesus Christ and did not want to talk about the Bible. I realized at this time that reading the Bible was not enough; I needed some formal evangelical training.

During this period I was a member of a Free Methodist Church. The Pastor who had graduated from Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, KY and his wife encouraged me to apply for admission to Asbury College (now University) for the 1975-1977 school years. I graduated in 1977 with a Bachelors Degree in Biblical Studies with an emphasis in New Testament Greek. I received a well rounded education in New and Old Testament Studies and exegetical interpretation. I also began to learn to deal with some issues from my childhood. I was not accepted by friends and acquaintances except on their terms and not for whom I was. I was bullied by all for reasons I did not understand. I did not fit in on any level anywhere. I was always on the outside looking in and I still am to this day. I have learned to accept this and to be me no matter what others say or think.

At Asbury, the one thing that I learned that has been with me ever since was the significance of the Greek Phrase εγώ ειμί (ego eimi) as used in John 8:58 which means literally ‘I I am’ and is interpreted as meaning ‘I myself am’ which is the Greek Version of the Hebrew Name Yahweh or Jehovah from Exodus Chapter 3.

From 1977 to 1981 I spent time working various jobs while trying to figure out what to do next in my life. I often had the opportunity to discuss scripture and the controversy between creationism and Darwinian evolution. In 1982-1983 I enrolled in Eastern Illinois University in Charleston, Illinois where I completed a BA in Mathematics Education. I learned a lot about Probability and Statistics, computer programming, Geometry and educational concepts.

In 1984 I moved to South Carolina to pursue a career in Mathematics Education. I taught for three years. I attended the University of South Carolina in Columbia, SC in 1987, but was unable to complete the Masters degree that I was pursuing. In 1988 I attended a tech school in Columbia to study computer programming. I did well and in 1989 I worked as a computer programmer for three months. That didn’t work out. In 1990 I applied for a job with the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control. I was hired into a position where I learned to interpret regulations, evaluate laboratory data from analyzed samples of soil, water and chemical waste and I learned how to provide customer service to people who needed to dispose of waste materials in a proper and legal manner. I also learned how to collect all types of environmental samples.

How does this apply to this book? Well, during my life I have spoken to many who belong to various different Christian Denominations and others whose beliefs were not based on the truths of the Old Testament and New Testament as is accepted by various Conservative Christian Denominations. Each of these belief systems has a perception of who Jesus the Christ is and why they believe what they believe. Using my education and past experiences I intend to show a connection between the Christian Belief System, Mathematics and Devine Logic as it pertains to the Trinity: God the Father, God the Son (Jesus Christ) and God the Holy Spirit in creation and the reality of who Jesus Christ really is.

1

Christianity vs. The World

The world today seems to be increasingly at odds with those who believe in the Bible of Christianity and Judaism as God’s Truth and the completed written word of God. Those who will not accept the Bible will not accept the possibility that there is a real and personal God who directly communicates with us on this planet earth. To accept the Bible is to admit that you are not the center of the universe and that you are accountable not only for your actions but also your thoughts. People, in an effort to justify themselves, would prefer to redefine God to meet their needs and chosen beliefs. This has been going on since the time of the great dispersion after the destruction of the Tower of Babel. Flavius Josephus wrote about this event in his historical account in Antiquities of the Jews Book 1 Chapter IV Paragraphs 2 & 3.

Paragraph 2

Now it was Nimrod who excited them to such an affront and contempt of God. He was the grandson of Ham, the son of Noah, - a bold man, and of great strength of hand. He persuaded them not to ascribe it to God, as if it was through this means they were happy, but to believe that it was their own courage which procured that happiness. He also gradually changed the government into tyranny, - seeing no other way of turning men from the fear of God, but to bring them into a constant dependence upon his power. He also said he would be revenged on God, if he should have a mind to drown the world again; for that he would ‘build a tower too high for the waters to be able to reach!’ and that he would avenge himself on God for destroying their forefathers!

Paragraph 3

"Now the multitude were very ready to follow the determination of Nimrod, and to esteem it a piece of cowardice to submit to God; and they built a tower, neither ‘sparing any pains nor being in any degree negligent about the work; and, by reason of the multitude of hands employed in it, it grew very high, sooner than anyone could expect; but the thickness of it was so great, and it was so strongly built, that thereby its great height seemed, upon the view, to be less than it really was. It was built of burnt brick, cemented together with mortar, made of bitumen, that it might not be liable to admit water. When God saw that they acted so madly, he did not resolve to destroy them utterly, since they were not grown wiser by the destruction of the former sinners; but he caused a tumult among them; and causing that, through the multitude of those languages, they should not be able to understand one another. The place wherein they built the tower is now called Babylon; because of the confusion of that language which they readily understood before; for the Hebrews mean by the word Babel, Confusion. The Sibyl also makes mention of this tower, and of the confusion of the language, when she says thus: - ‘When all were of one language, some of them built a high tower, as if they would thereby ascend up to heaven; but the gods sent storms of wind and overthrew the tower, and gave everyone his peculiar language; and for this reason it was that the city was called Babylon.’ But as to