Chance: The Modern Myth – Creation or Chaos with R.C. Sproul

Devotional

Day 1: The Soft Pillow of Chance: When Myth Lulls Us to Sleep

Modern thought often clings to chance as a comforting explanation for the unexplainable, a "soft pillow" that numbs curiosity and shields us from wrestling with deeper truths. This myth disguises itself as science, offering false reassurance that randomness alone shapes reality. Yet chance cannot create, act, or sustain. It is a hollow substitute for divine intentionality, inviting intellectual and spiritual drowsiness. When we attribute life’s complexities to chance, we trade awe for apathy. The universe’s intricate design demands more than a shrug toward statistical odds. [04:32]

"In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." (Genesis 1:1, ESV)

Reflection: Where have you passively accepted "chance" as an explanation for suffering, beauty, or purpose? How might replacing chance with God’s sovereignty reshape your gratitude today?

Day 2: Ex Nihilo Nihil Fit: Why Nothing Cannot Create Everything

The ancient axiom still stands: from nothing, nothing comes. Yet modern myths insist the universe emerged from sheer randomness, a cosmic accident with no author. To claim chance created everything is to worship nothingness, granting it creative power it cannot possess. True science and faith both reject this contradiction. Creation testifies to a Creator, not a void. Every atom, law of physics, and heartbeat proclaims intentionality. To deny this is to embrace a fairy tale far less plausible than Genesis. [21:11]

"By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible." (Hebrews 11:3, ESV)

Reflection: What areas of your life feel chaotic or meaningless? How does the truth that God spoke order from chaos anchor your hope?

Day 3: Chance as Magic: When Science Borrows from Fairy Tales

Calling chance a "scientific law" is linguistic sleight of hand, turning a mathematical concept into a mystical force. Like a magician’s wand, modern thinkers wave "chance" to explain origins, morality, and meaning without invoking God. But chance cannot perform miracles. It is a placeholder for ignorance, not an answer. When science trades rigor for mythology, it abandons its mission. True inquiry seeks causes, not cop-outs. The universe’s precision mocks the idea of cosmic roulette. [07:43]

"For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible… all things were created through him and for him." (Colossians 1:16, ESV)

Reflection: Where have you seen culture treat chance as a magical explanation? How can you gently point others to the true Source of design this week?

Day 4: God or Chance: The Myth That Makes God Obsolete

Chance and God cannot coexist. Even a drop of randomness erodes divine sovereignty, reducing God to a passive observer. Yet Scripture leaves no room for such compromise. If God is Creator, every event unfolds under His gaze and governance. To claim "chance rules" is not just bad theology—it is a denial of reality. The universe’s order, from orbiting planets to DNA, shouts purpose. Faith does not fear science but rejects the myth that chance could ever dethrone the King. [09:14]

"Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created." (Revelation 4:11, ESV)

Reflection: Do you secretly believe some parts of your life are governed by chance? How would trusting God’s total sovereignty change your prayers today?

Day 5: A Milligram of Chance: The Tiny Myth That Topples Faith

Even a trace of chance corrupts. Like a single drop of poison, it spreads doubt in God’s goodness and control. Yet Scripture insists every hair, sparrow, and roll of the dice rests in His hand. To accept chance is to deny God’s omnipotence, however small the concession seems. Faith thrives not in certainty about how God works, but in certainty that He works. The cross demolishes chance—no random accident, but a planned rescue. Trust the Planner, not the odds. [11:03]

"Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father." (Matthew 10:29, ESV)

Reflection: What subtle doubts about God’s control do you need to confess? How can you actively celebrate His sovereignty in a confusing situation this week?

Sermon Summary

Ancient mythology still supplies the images people use without even noticing it, and its recurring themes help explain the literature of Western civilization. Modern arrogance, however, laughs at ancient myths while assuming that modern people have finally outgrown them. Mythology has some limited value, since it often records an earlier attempt to explain mysterious phenomena, but myth becomes dangerous when it obscures reality.

The grand myth of modern thought is chance. Chance has become a “soft pillow,” a comfortable place for minds to go to sleep rather than face the hard question of why anything exists at all. The claim that chance rules makes God an anachronism, but the issue is even more radical than that. The mere existence of chance as an acting force would make the sovereign Creator irrelevant. Sovereignty and chance cannot coexist as rival powers in the same universe.

Creation stands at the center of the conflict. Genesis begins with the assertion that God created the heavens and the earth, and the decisive question is not first how or when creation happened, but whether it happened at all. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam differ at many points, yet all stand or fall at this basic claim: God is the sufficient and efficient cause of the universe.

Chance is often used as an alternative to creation, but the word is being asked to do what it cannot do. Mathematical chance can describe possibilities, as when a coin has a fifty-fifty possibility of landing heads or tails. Yet chance has no power over the coin. Pressure, motion, atmosphere, revolutions, and other actual causes determine what happens. Chance describes limited knowledge or mathematical probability; it is not an X-factor that makes events occur.

The assertion that the universe was created by chance therefore turns chance into magic. For something to act, it must first be. Chance is not a thing. It is no-thing. To say that chance created the universe is to say that nothing created the universe. The old axiom remains plain and unavoidable: ex nihilo nihil fit. Out of nothing, nothing comes.

The myth of chance promises the opposite. It claims that out of nothing, something comes, indeed that out of nothing everything comes. Such a universe is a rabbit out of a hat without a hat, without a rabbit, and without a magician. The denial of creation is therefore not merely a theological problem. It threatens the very rational foundation of science by abandoning the demand for a real cause.

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Key Takeaways

1. Chance cannot act because it is nothing. Chance can name a probability, but it cannot possess power, intention, or causal force. An event requires actual conditions and actual causes, even when those causes remain unknown or too complex to calculate. The attempt to make chance a creator gives “no-thing” the job of explaining everything. [19:47]
2. Creation is the decisive question. The debate cannot finally be settled merely by arguments over dates, mechanisms, or the length of creation days. The deeper issue is whether reality depends upon an eternal, self-existent Creator at all. Once creation is denied, the entire Christian account of God and the world is placed on the line. [12:36]
3. Modern thought has its own mythology. Ancient people tried to account for mysteries with the intellectual tools available to them, and modern people do the same. The difference is not that one age has myths and another does not, but whether an age recognizes where its myths have hidden themselves. Intellectual humility begins by asking which assumptions have become a soft pillow. [03:02]
4. Nothing cannot produce something. The axiom ex nihilo nihil fit is not sophisticated jargon but plain common sense. If there ever were absolutely nothing, then nothing could ever exist now. The claim that everything arose from nothing does not solve the problem of origins; it simply renames the problem and calls it science.

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Youtube Chapters

[00:00] - Welcome
[00:33] - Why Ancient Mythology Still Matters
[01:02] - Bultmann and Demythologizing the Bible
[02:23] - The Myths Hidden in Modern Thought
[04:32] - Chance as the Grand Modern Myth
[06:50] - The Soft Pillow of Chance
[08:27] - Chance, God, and Scientific Reality
[11:53] - Creation as the Central Question
[14:01] - Chance as an Alternative to Creation
[17:16] - What Can Happen by Chance?
[19:07] - Chance Is No-Thing
[21:11] - Out of Nothing, Nothing Comes
[22:22] - The Rabbit Without a Magician

Bible Study Guide

Bible Reading

Genesis 1:1
“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” [13:08]

Hebrews 11:3
“By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.”

Romans 1:20
“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.”

Observation questions

In Genesis 1:1, what is presented as the first and most basic claim about the universe? [13:08]
According to Hebrews 11:3, what does faith understand about the origin of the visible world?
In Romans 1:20, what aspects of God are said to be made known through what He has made?
What distinction is made between chance as a way of describing mathematical possibility and chance as a force that causes something to happen? [18:49]

Interpretation questions

Why does the question of whether God created matter more than disagreements about the timing or process of creation? How does Genesis 1:1 shape the Christian understanding of everything else? [13:12]
Hebrews 11:3 connects faith with understanding creation. How can faith be more than blind belief when considering the existence and order of the world?
Romans 1:20 says creation reveals God’s eternal power and divine nature. What does this suggest about why people may still resist acknowledging God as Creator?
Why does calling chance the cause of the universe confuse a description of probability with an actual cause? What real causes are involved when a coin lands heads or tails? [18:24]

Application questions

Where does the idea of “chance” most commonly appear in everyday speech—success, suffering, relationships, health, or opportunities? How might recognizing God’s sovereign care change the way those situations are described and faced?
The belief that chance explains everything can become a “soft pillow” that keeps people from asking hard questions about God, meaning, and purpose. What assumptions have become comfortable enough that they may keep a person from seeking truth honestly? [06:50]
When facing an event that seems random or confusing, what helps a believer remember that limited human knowledge is not the same as the absence of God’s rule?
Genesis 1:1 begins with God as Creator rather than with human beings, problems, or achievements. How could beginning the day with God’s authority over all things reshape anxiety, planning, and priorities?
Romans 1:20 teaches that creation points to God. What is one part of the created world that regularly stirs wonder or gratitude? How could that observation become an occasion for worship rather than merely a passing thought?
“Out of nothing, nothing comes” presses the question of ultimate cause. How does confidence that God is the Creator strengthen a believer when conversations, media, or educational settings treat faith as unnecessary or outdated? [21:11]

Sermon Clips

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. It’s no-thing. It’s nothing, and when you say to me that the universe was created by chance, you are saying the same thing as saying the universe was created by nothing. And you’ve taken a perfectly good word to describe mathematical possibilities and now informed it with magical power, giving it ontological status, giving it power to do something when it is not anything.” [00:19:33]

What he means fundamentally is that the idea of chance coexisting in a universe ruled by a sovereign God is an idea—or two ideas—that are mutually exclusive. If God is sovereign, there can be no such thing as chance. If chance rules, there really cannot be a sovereign God, and the name, or the word “God” becomes an anachronism that has no place in modern vocabulary. [00:09:44]

But the vast majority of critics today who deny the creation of this world by a self-existent eternal God appeal to some time of beginning to all of reality that comes from nothing. It’s the rabbit out of the hat without a hat, without a rabbit, without a magician. It’s worse than magic. It’s pure mythology. [00:22:24]

See, now chance doesn’t have to rule for God to be an anachronism. All chance has to do to make God irrelevant, to banish God from serious thought—all it has to do is exist. It doesn’t have to rule, doesn’t have to be very strong. All it takes is an ounce of it or a milligram of it. All it has to do is exist at all, and God is not only an anachronism, God is finished. [00:10:31]

The very first assertion that is made in the Old Testament on page one: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” We may argue for decades about how the creation took place, when it took place, and so on, but the even more fundamental question of all is if it took place. Is there such a thing as creation? [00:13:02]

Now the soft pillow is this: out of chance everything comes, which is saying, “Out of nothing, something comes. Out of nothing everything comes.” And that is the principal idea that is used as a substitute for creation. [00:21:44]

Now if there’s any glaring myth that has wormed its way into modern life and worldview thinking, even penetrating some of the finest institutions of academia and of scientific investigation—it is the grand myth of chance. I believe that chance is the great myth of twentieth century thought. [00:04:14]

the basic axioms of science and of philosophy is the axiom “ex nihilo nihil fit”—out of nothing, nothing comes. It’s simple language, folks. It means you can’t get something from nothing. [00:20:54]

If there is such a thing as chance that has become a scientific law, then we do have an unbridgeable chasm between science and theology and something is going to have to give. Now where this idea of chance becomes so central to the conflict between science and faith is principally at the point of the doctrine of creation. [00:11:23]

And where chance functions mythologically is chiefly with respect as a substitute or alternative for creation. It is a concept that is appealed to relentlessly to save the phenomena of the universe without an appeal to theology. That’s why some people welcome the entrance of chance into the world of scientific thought. [00:14:09]

I’m saying if there ever was a time where scientists and theologians need to join hands and stand shoulder to shoulder against a common enemy of truth and a common enemy of reality, it’s against the function of this concept in modern cosmology. [00:08:27]

He is saying that this concept of chance not only serves as myth in modern cosmology, but it also serves as magic, undercutting the science of science. And my concern, which I’m going to elaborate upon, is not only for the danger of this concept in provoking problems for theology, but even more deeply am I concerned about what this does for science. [00:07:49]

Now, as valuable as mythology may be, particularly in terms of historical reference and literary reference, the problem with mythology is that it tends to obscure reality, and we make the distinction between myth and reality precisely because we believe that myths do not describe real states of affairs. [00:03:45]

There’s the three greatest religions of the world today at least agree that the God who is sovereign is the Creator. We differ about the character of God. We differ about the purposes of God, and so on, but one thing stands in agreement is that there is a God who ultimately is the sufficient and efficient cause for the entire universe. [00:13:41]

If this mythology were not taken so seriously today, we could be amused by it, but what’s at stake again, I repeat, is not just theology but science itself, as I hope we will see in our next session. [00:22:58]

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