Nothing Can Happen by Chance

Ultimately with R.C. Sproul

Ligonier Ministries

Christianity, Religion & Spirituality

4.9 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 22 September 2025

⏱️ 5 minutes

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Summary

The universe could not have come into existence "by chance" because chance does not have the power to do anything. Today, R.C. Sproul exposes the mythology that is assumed by many critics who reject God as the source of the world's existence.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	The vast majority of critics today who deny the creation of this world by a self-existent
0:07.0	eternal God appeal to some kind of beginning to all of reality that comes from nothing.
0:26.6	And when you say to me that the universe was created by chance, you've taken a perfectly good word to describe mathematical possibilities and now informed it with magical power. What are the chances that anything can happen by chance?
0:45.3	Nothing can happen by chance.
0:49.3	Because chance cannot do anything. I once had a discussion with a professor at Harvard who said
1:01.6	to me the universe was created by chance. And I pushed him a little bit on this, used a coin
1:08.5	to illustrate the problem. I said if I have a 50 cent piece and flip it up in the air,
1:14.6	what are the chances that it comes up heads? And he says 50-50. I said, okay, how much influence
1:21.6	does chance exert on the flip of the coin? He said, what do you mean? I said, well, the way it comes up heads or tails is determined by how much pressure is
1:33.3	exerted on it, what the density of the atmosphere is, how many revolutions it takes, you
1:37.3	know, and so on, whether you catch it here, here, or here, and whether after you catch it,
1:40.3	you turn it over or don't turn it over.
1:42.3	I said, those are all the variables.
1:51.0	How much influence this chance had? And he still didn't get it. I said, well, look, if you're using the term chance to talk about mathematical possibilities, it's a perfectly useful term.
2:00.4	The term chance is a meaningful word. But when we ascribe
2:05.9	to chance a power to do something, we are saying the chance is something. Now, what is it?
2:17.4	To come up tails or heads. is something. Now what is it?
2:19.2	To come up tails or heads.
2:22.8	And he still looked at me and I said, wait a minute.
2:25.7	I said, chance cannot do anything because chance is not anything. For something to act, it must first, what, be? And chance is not a thing.
2:42.4	It's no thing. It's nothing. And when you say to me that the universe was created by chance,
2:50.8	you were saying the same thing as saying the universe was created by chance, you were saying the same thing as saying
	...

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