Why I Believe

That God Exists

 

Faith and Evidence

 

Sadly, some have been taught that the term “faith” or “belief” means some feeling that is contrary to reason or fact.  Actually, the Bible teaches that faith is the result of being convinced by evidence (Hebrews 11:1; Acts 17:2-3; John 20:30-31).  Galileo once wrote, “I do not feel obligated to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use”. [1]  Thus there is no antagonism between faith and reason (Isaiah 1:18), and we exercise faith in many other realms besides in reference to belief in God. “We believe that Socrates existed.  We believe this almost without a doubt.  In fact, most of what we believe we have never seen, heard, smelled, tasted or touched.  We believe the facts of history as if we had actually experienced them”. [2]  Thus, all men believe in many things that they have never seen.  Let us equally remember that the person who does not believe in God is also operating on a faith, the question is, which faith do the facts fit better?

 

God is more than an adequate first cause

 

“For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God” (Hebrews 3:4)

 

It is clear that matter is not eternal from the very fact that men attempt to assign an age to the universe.  If the universe is not eternal, then we have only two choices.  It came from nothing or was created by God, yet matter coming from nothing is a miracle, it is spontaneous generation, thus the choice that confronts us is which miracle to believe.  Either everything came from nothing, or an all-powerful God designed it and created it.  Remember, it is universally accepted and followed in every field of science, that no effect is ever quantitatively greater nor qualitatively superior to its cause.  An effect can be lower than its cause but never higher. 

 

·        The first cause of infinite complexity must be omniscient

·        The first cause of moral values must be moral

·        The first cause of spiritual values must be spiritual

·        The first cause of human responsibility must be volitional

·        The first cause of human integrity must be truthful

·        The first cause of love must be loving

·        The first cause of boundless energy must be omnipotent

·        The first cause of endless time must be eternal

·        The first cause of life must be living

 

Only an omnipotent Creator is an adequate first cause for all the observable effects in the universe.  [3]

 

Complexity and Design in the Universe

 

Long before William Paley (1743-1805) insisted that if someone found a watch in an empty field, he would rightly conclude that there had been a watchmaker because of the obvious design.  The same must be said for the design found in nature. God Himself has stated that the design and complexity demonstrated in the Creation is strong evidence of His existence:  “The heavens are telling of the glory of God; and their expanse is declaring the work of His hands” (Psalm 19:1).  Obviously, the physical heavens are not audibly telling us there is a God; rather their existence and design are making such a statement(Romans 1:20). When we talk about the design seen in the physical creation, we are not talking about simple patterns (like stones smoothed by a river), rather the universe is full of complex design, a design which demands a designer.  For example, each human brain contains the same amount of information as found in 20 million books.  “The greater the design, the greater the designer.  Beavers make log dams, but they have never constructed anything like Hoover Dam.  Likewise, a thousand monkeys sitting at typewriters would never write Hamlet.  Yet Shakespeare did it on the first try.  The more complex the design, the greater the intelligence required to produce it” (Geisler p. 20).     

 

Life on Earth is no Accident

 

The earth is rotating on its axis at 1,000 miles per hour at the equator, and moving around the Sun at 70,000 miles per hour, while the Sun and its solar system are moving through space at 600,000 miles per hour in an orbit so large it would take over 220 million years just to complete a single orbit.  Interestingly, however, as the Earth moves in its orbit around the Sun, it departs from a straight line by only one-ninth of an inch every eighteen miles.  If it departed by one-eighth of an inch, we would come so close to the Sun that we would be incinerated.  If we departed by one-tenth of an inch, we would find ourselves so far from the Sun that we would all freeze to death.  If the moon was only one-fifth closer to the Earth, the tides would be so enormous that twice a day they would reach 35-50 feet high over most of the Earth’s surface.  The temperature extremes on the Earth would be much more erratic, were it not for the fact that approximately four-fifths of the Earth is covered with water.  Water holds its temperature longer than a solid land mass and thus provides for the earth a natural heating and air-conditioning system.  Is it just a lucky break that humans and animals inhale oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide, while on the other hand, plants take in carbon dioxide and give off oxygen?   Would reason and logic assert that all these precise and exacting conditions which enable life to exist and survive on the earth are simply a matter of chance?  The earth is exactly the right distance from the Sun; exactly the right distance from the moon; has exactly the right diameter, atmospheric pressure, tilt, right amount of oceanic water, right weight and mass, and so on (Isaiah 45:18 “He is the God who formed the earth and made it, He established it and did not create it a waste place, but formed it to be inhabited”).

 

Cressy Morrison, a past president of the New York Academy of Science and an evolutionist wrote, “We have found that the world is in the right place---We find that the sun is the one among thousands which could make our sort of life possible on earth, its size, density, temperature and the character of its rays all must be right, and are right.  We find that the gases of our atmosphere are adjusted to each other and that very slight change would be fatal”. [4]

 

The Evidence within Man Himself

 

Many years ago Augustine noted, “Men go abroad to wonder at the height of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long course of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars; and they pass by themselves without wondering”  (Reason & Revelation, June 1995, p. 44).   One of the greatest evidences to the existence of God is no farther than our own body and our own unique nature.  David said, “I will give thanks to Thee, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:14).  If the DNA from a single human cell were removed from the nucleus and unraveled, it would be approximately six feet long, and would contain over a billion biochemical steps.  If transcribed into English, the DNA in a single human cell would fill a 1,000-volume set of encyclopedias approximately 600 pages each.  The information content of a single human cell is one trillion letters, which is equivalent to every letter in every book contained in the world’s largest library.  Atheistic philosopher, Paul Ricci, has suggested that “Although many have difficulty understanding the tremendous order and complexity of functions of the human body…there is no obvious designer” (Fundamentals of Critical Thinking, p. 191).

 

The Intellectual Nature of Man

 

If evolution is true, then as with all other things on this planet, the human brain evolved by chance, yet how much confidence can we have in a brain that is the product of genetic mutation and random/purposeless/mindless chance?  How can we be sure that we are making any sense, or even asking the right questions?   Only on the foundation that we are the product of God’s wisdom and creative power can we have any confidence in our ability and confidence to understand anything (Genesis 1:26).

 

The Moral and Spiritual Nature of Man

 

While man isn’t perfect (Romans 3:23), every human being does have an inherent sense of morals (Ephesians 6:1; Romans 1:32; Titus 1:12; 1 Corinthians 5:1; Romans 2:23-24).   Even atheists cannot escape from using the terminology of morality, such as the terms “right, wrong, should, ought, good”.  Neither can one live in this world as if there is no God.  Various writers have rightly concluded that if God does not exist, then everything is allowed, and anything goes.  “The hypocrisy of this….however, is revealed by the fact that the propagators of such an idea really mean that ‘everything is permitted’ for them alone.  They do not mean that the theft of their property, the rape of their wives, and the slitting of their throats is permitted!” (Reason & Revelation, p. 53).   If morality is man-authorized, it is utterly impossible to argue for any singular system of ethics to which one could consistently urge his fellows to follow.  Rather, the ethical system of every human being is equally valid, and one could never charge that another human being is “wrong”.  Without God being our Creator and making us in His image(Genesis 1:26), how do we explain the common moral convictions of the vast majority that such things as murder, rape, and adultery are wrong?  Are these things only wrong because society says they are wrong?

 

Morality is not subjective, because everyone draws the line somewhere, even the atheist.  Morality does not describe what is, but instead, what ought to be.  One writer noted, “Moral laws…are not simply a description of the way men behave, and are not known by observing what men do.  If they were, our idea of morality would surely be different.  Instead, they tell us what men ought to do.  Thus any moral ought comes from beyond the natural universe.  You cannot explain it by anything that happens in the universe” (When Skeptics Ask, Geisler/Brooks, p. 23).  Men may argue that right and wrong do not exist, but even the atheist acts like they do, and indeed takes it very seriously.  “We find that even those who say that there is no moral order expect to be treated with fairness, courtesy, and dignity.  Everyone expects others to follow some moral codes, even those who try to deny them…moral law is an undeniable fact” (Geisler p. 24).  To be consistent, the atheist must concede that:  It doesn’t matter if all abortions are legal or illegal, whether the environment is preserved or pillaged, whether a species is hunted to extinction or protected.  In fact, the atheist must concede that every modern hot-topic, such as drugs, teen pregnancy, racism, discrimination, AIDS, the holocaust, sexual harassment, and so on, is a completely irrelevant topic.  In contrast, I believe God exists because His revelation when applied, not only solves every one of these problems, but it equally solves all of man’s spiritual problems as well.

 

Mark Dunagan/Beaverton Church of Christ/503-644-9017

www.beavertonchurchofchrist.net/mdunagan@easystreet.com

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