It is often assumed by atheists that the burden of proof is on Christians. You can’t just posit anything, they say, much less an undetectable omnipotent Creator who has existed from all eternity. You might as well say that the flying spaghetti monster created the world.
When it comes to a creator however, notice that Christians aren’t just positing anything, especially not something akin to an undetectable flying spaghetti monster. The Bible teaches “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” So there was a “beginning,” which is a time word, when physical matter also came into existence and thus space as well.
Interestingly enough the big bang cosmology also affirms that the universe had a beginning. The cosmos began when an infinitely dense singularity expanded into the space-time, material universe that we now inhabit. It did not happen on the time-line but began the time-line. It did not happen while the clock was ticking but started it ticking. It didn’t happen in space but it’s expansion created space. Prior to this the laws of physics didn’t exist, as they require the material universe in order to have something to govern.
So Christians aren't positing something that's undetectable or unfalsifiable. The Bible and the best science we have right now says that time, space, and matter (i.e. the universe) all had a beginning. We are positing that since time had a beginning, whatever brought it into existence is timeless. Since matter had a beginning, whatever brought it into existence is immaterial or spirit. Since space had a beginning whatever brought it into existence is omnipresent. An eternal, omnipresent, spirit – these are the attributes of the Christian God: "For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse (Romans 1:20 ESV). I would argue that the burden of proof is on those who would deny this God’s existence. The late Nasa scientist Robert Jastrow would seem to agree:
Astronomers now find they have painted themselves into a corner because they have proven, by their own methods, that the world began abruptly in an act of creation to which you can trace the seeds of every star, every planet, every living thing in this cosmos and on the earth. And they have found that all this happened as a product of forces they cannot hope to discover. That there are what I or anyone would call supernatural forces at work is now, I think, a scientifically proven fact.
At this moment it seems as though science will never be able to raise the curtain on the mystery of creation. For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.Flying spaghetti monster? I don’t think so, since spaghetti is part of the space-time universe. Calling it it an undetectable flying spaghetti monster is an oxymoron as spaghetti is delicious.
