EVIDENCE FOR GOD’S EXISTENCE
Have you ever had a conversation with an individual who completely denied the Bible and the existence of God, and you had no idea how to show them evidence that God does in fact exist?
Well, instead of standing there like a bump on a log, you can now have something to say.
A wonderful thing about God is that He did not confine the evidence for His existence to the Bible. Even if we were to lay the Bible aside for a moment, there is still enough viable truth that indeed proves and points to the existence of God. We are confident that God has not only displayed Himself in the Bible, but through many other verifiable evidences in life. Below, you will find two of the many arguments that are found outside of the Bible that logically lead to the conclusion; God exists.
Cosmological Argument
The Cosmological Argument is a strong argument that infers God’s existence from the existence of the universe (or cosmos). This argument is easily used in a conversation and is easily understood. This argument is based on something commonly known as “the law of cause and effect.” The argument goes like this:
· Every effect has a cause
· The universe is an effect
· Therefore, the universe had a cause
You see, everything that is happening around you on a daily basis is an effect that has an underlying cause. For example, let’s say that your car runs out of gas. That’s an effect. And the cause would be that you did not fill it up with gas when you should have. Every effect has a cause.
Another truth we know about the cause and effect principle is that nothing can cause its own existence. For example, the sunglasses on my head have not always existed, nor did they cause themselves to come into existence. If someone were to believe differently, it would not only be unreasonable, but it would make them look crazy.
Along this line of reasoning, the universe is an effect. In other words, we know it had a beginning. So, what is the cause behind the universe? To put it another way, who caused the universe to come into existence?
Thomas Aquinas had a version of the Cosmological Argument, called the Argument from Motion. He stated that things in motion could not have brought themselves into motion, but must be caused to move. There cannot be an infinite regression of movers. Therefore, there must be an Unmoved Mover. This Unmoved Mover is God.
Moral Argument
The Moral Argument begins with the fact that all people recognize some moral code (that some things are right, and some things are wrong). Every time we argue over right and wrong, we appeal to a higher law that we assume everyone is aware of, holds to, and is not free to randomly change. Right and wrong implies a higher standard or law, and law requires a lawgiver.
Without God, morality becomes just a matter of personal taste, similar to statements like, "Broccoli tastes good." Well, broccoli tastes good to some people, but not to others. It is not a matter of objective truth, but a subjective matter of taste.
This means that a statement like "killing innocent children is wrong" becomes an expression of taste, such as, "I don't like killing innocent children." But if you were to travel the world, asking this question to every person you encountered, the majority would undoubtedly agree that killing innocent children is wrong. This is because we, as mankind, have a conscience that has been given to us by God that allows us to generally decide between right and wrong (see Romans 2:15).
Thus, without God, there is no absolute right or wrong that imposes itself on our conscience. Without God, there are no objective moral values. If it’s wrong to you, it might not be wrong to me! But we all know that this is ridiculous. There is right and there is wrong. There is NO way around it.
Further Things to Consider
Here are a few more arrows you can keep in your quiver when talking about the existence of the Creator. Commit these points to memory and you will be able to effectively throw a wrench in the thinking of a skeptic.
An Inherent Belief in God*
If you look at every culture, religion, and society that has existed during man’s time on Earth, each one has some sort of innate belief in a Creator. Even the most primitive tribes have some kind of concept of a Supreme Being who created the Earth. Few, if any, people have gone from birth to death believing there wasn’t a God out there. Most people who don’t believe in God had to convince themselves; that concept wasn’t natural to them.
The most logical explanation for this is that human beings are born with a unique knowledge and desire to seek God.
The Eye*
Among the thousands of parts within the human body, the eye is one of the most complex and fascinating.
When we look at an object, light passes through the lens and hits the retina, where it is converted by light-sensitive cells into “pictures” that the brain then examines and interprets. This process happens almost instantaneously (a few picoseconds, or millionths of one millionths of a second) in the 127 million rods and cones within each eye.
Evolutionary theory claims that the eye’s mechanisms gradually developed over time, but that is fundamentally impossible. The reason is a concept called irreducible complexity. In short, an irreducibly complex system needs all of its parts at the same time to function. If even one of those components isn’t there, it cannot function.
In this case, every part of the eye—the cornea, iris, pupil, lens, muscles, rods, and cones—along with the nerves, brain, and many other parts are necessary for the eye to function.
For the eye to have evolved, each of those parts would need to have formed incrementally over time until the eye was able to function. But, logically, what are the chances that all of these individual parts would come together in such a way that it would create a fully functional eye? It’s impossible! That’s why the eye, and other irreducibly complex systems must have been created by God.
In one second of sight, the human optical system—the eye, the optic nerve, and the brain—performs a number of actions that would require 100 years of nonstop computer time on the Cray Supercomputer (one of the largest, most advanced computers in the world) to accomplish.
How did this intricate system come to be? Let me see . . . God! Wait, let me think about it . . . God! Hold on, I need to pray about it . . . God!
These facts and arguments are beneficial to strengthen your faith and help draw other’s to Christ. Make sure you commit them to memory and break them out when the need arises!
*This material is adapted from Ralph O. Muncaster, 101 Reasons You Can Believe, (Eugene, Ore.: Harvest House Publishers, 2004), p. 31. (Note: Ralph O. Muncaster’s book was an invaluable resource during the writing of this manual, which you’ll see as you read through this chapter, and is a good book to have in your library too.)
*Adapted from Muncaster, 101 Reasons You Can Believe, 89-90.