The Existence of God

The existence of the universe is such a powerful proof of the existence of God that only a fool could and would deny that fact. Most people capable of reading and discerning are well aware of the multiple levels of “proof” for the existence of God.

The Bible presupposes the existence of God. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Genesis 1:1.

While the First Cause does not automatically point to the God of the Bible, with a little thought it quickly becomes apparent that it can be no other. For example, there can be only one Greatest Conceivable Being. This fact eliminates all religions that are not monotheistic.

The Bible teaches that God can be known through faith, the result of which is a revelation from God to us about Himself. Even those fools who purport to live by reason alone soon succumb to the need for faith to support their own arguments. This is a result of the fall in which sin limits our ability to rationally understand anything. 

The Atheist View of Humanity

Atheist view – “All in all? You're just another brick in the wall.”

Pink Floyd

Bertrand Russell confirms this belief. “That man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of Man's achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins – all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain, that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand. Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul's habitation henceforth be safely built.”

On atheism, there can be no other view of humanity.

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Christian view – You're a child of the King; a brother/sister of Jesus; created in the image of the Creator of the universe. “You are the special creation of a good and all-powerful God. You are created in His image, with capacities to think, feel, and worship that set you above all other life forms. You differ from the animals not simply in degree but in kind. Not only is your kind unique, but you are unique among your kind.” 

Randy Alcorn.

Because of Creator God you are loved.

Because of Creator God you were born into His love.

Because of Creator God you were born to know His love.

Because of Creator God you were born to enjoy His love for you.

Jesus

The Joy of Disappearing

Therese of Lisieux is recorded as saying - "Jesus, accomplished for me in an instant what I had been unable to do in a life-time. I forgot myself and henceforth I was happy."

This woman discovered what God has been attempting to tell us from the beginning of time. Moments of joy are not found in self-satisfaction, but in self-forgetfulness. Humility is not trying to think less of oneself, but thinking of oneself less often. To observe those atheists who gaze at the universe, both macro and micro, and who then think highly of themselves for having done so is to watch pathology in motion.

The joy that we are rightly drawn to in times of momentous contemplation is meant to draw our attention to something far greater. The heavens declare the glory of God, and the universe proclaims His handiwork.” Psalm 19:1

Those who think humans too small and planet earth too insignificant to point to God have made the classic mistake of human nature.

It is not about us.

The universe, both macro and micro is meant to draw our attention to a Creator. Christians have learned that the point is not to make us small, but to show how incomprehensibly great is our God. 

Just Think About It!

If you're wondering about whether Creator God exists, well, good. That's all God asks you to do.

"For this is what the Lord says - He who created the material universe, He is God; He who fashioned and made the earth, He founded it; He did not create it to be empty, like all the other heavenly bodies, but formed it in such a way that it would be inhabited - He says: “I am the Lord, and there is no other. I have not spoken in secret, from somewhere in the outer reaches of darkness; I have not said to people, ‘Seek me in vain.’ I, the Lord, speak the truth; I declare what is right.” Isaiah 45:18,19

Just think about it with an open mind. Do that, and Creator God will begin to open your mind to the truth of His existence. In reality our Creator has made it nearly impossible to not think about Him.

As stated above, He has given us a material universe that proclaims day and night the reality of His existence. For if God did not exist, nothing would exist. Matter as we know, cannot create itself.

No process that is required for our universe to exist, and for life upon this planet to exist has ever – EVER – been observed, tested or verified via the scientific method.

. matter is not eternal

. matter cannot create itself

Either matter is eternal (and it's not) or the immaterial Creator of matter is eternal. It's one or the other and it's not the former.

Just think about it!

Does God Lie?

 . When God says that the universe was brought into being via His Word, can we Christians trust that?

. When the Bible describes forming and filling the earth in six days, can we Christians know what that means?

. When science says that the material cosmos is 14 billion years old – give or take - and that it came into being from literally nothing material, without a cause, can we trust that?
. When science says that matter, in some form, has always existed, can we trust that?
. When science says that matter created itself, can we trust that?
. When science says, almost as a statement of fact, that our universe is one of an infinite number of universes (for which there is zero evidence), can we trust that?

Bottom line, it's pretty hard to reconcile both the scientific and Biblical accounts of Creation. It doesn't appear that the findings of science are wrong regarding the age of the universe. Yet, as Francis Crick noted, and as scientists studying both the macro and micro universe are forced to concede, “We have to keep reminding ourselves that what we're seeing is not designed.”

The thing is, IF God is saying the universe is much younger than 14 billion years old, wouldn't that make God a liar? Science and a literal reading of the Bible can't both be right – can they?

Some have tried to accommodate these two conclusions by saying that just as God created Adam and Eve as mature individuals, He also created a mature universe. Light only appears to have been travelling for billions of years.

That's not impossible, but again, wouldn't THAT make God a liar, or at least deceptive in how He deals with us?

I suggest the latter. And I also suggest that there is nothing wrong with Him doing that. As Pascal said, “God has given us just enough evidence of His existence that those who are being drawn to Him will be able to find Him, AND He has given us just enough evidence so that those who are rejecting God will not be able to find Him accidentally.”

As many an atheist has truthfully told me, “I couldn't become a Christian even if I wanted to.”

We know from Scripture that God is going to send to His enemies “a great delusion.” Now, that particular verse is dealing specifically with the anti-Christ. But I think those who are fighting against God are experiencing a delusion on many, many levels. Jesus Himself says that many people can't understand His teaching because “their ears have been kept from hearing and their eyes have been kept from seeing.” He's talking about their inability to discern spiritual truths (2 Corinthians 4:4). It's what I”m talking about when I say atheists are spiritually dull of mind and slow of thought. It's like they're colour blind and can't see a little piece of red plastic lying in the green grass. Atheists just can't get it.

The thing about this is,

IF God created a universe that looks 14 billion years old when it isn't, it isn't a lie as long as He has also given us the actual truth, right there in His Word.

IF God has made it look like life came from non life, if it only looks as though humans are the end result of an impossibly complicated series of mutations over eons, it isn't a lie if He's given us the truth right there in His Word.

IF God has kept those who are going to reject Him from seeing or hearing the truth of what is right there before them, how can they blame Him? They don't want anything to do with Him anyway.

Like Chris Hitchens said, “For me to be in heaven would be hell.” So God gave him what he wanted. Is that wrong? Besides, there is nothing, literally nothing beside God Himself that can open our spiritual eyes so that any of us can believe in the reality of Creator God (John 6:44). Our corrupt nature precludes a decision that “In the beginning, God created the universe.”

As Jesus said to those who were rejecting Him, “Even if I rise from the dead, you won't believe.” 

Objective Laws of Logic, Mathematics and Morality

That is the kind of universe that we inhabit. The laws of logic, mathematics and morality are not invented. Rather, they are discovered.

“There exists independently of the human mind, a raw and immutable mathematical reality.”

Alain Connes – “Chair of Analysis and Geometry at the College de France”

Plato held that these laws were timeless and unchanging. In fact, he said they were “more real” than the things we perceive with our senses.” Plato understood that goodness and beauty exist and makeup reality. Certainly these laws are not something the way cars or buildings or even an atom is something. But they are not nothing either. In fact, these laws are necessary for our visible reality to exist. But where did this reality originate?

“Mathematicians should have the courage of their most profound convictions, and thus affirm that mathematical forms indeed have an existence that is independent of the mind considering them.” 

Rene Thom

If mathematical entities do exist, they have to exist necessarily from all eternity. That should not surprise since mathematics, morality and logic are part of the character of Creator God, who is an immaterial, eternal Being.

“Mathematical entities are as real and mind-independent as Mount Everest. It's almost as though the physical world is built out of mathematics.”

Roger Penrose

To look for the cause of the universe is to look for God. A wondrous reality in which we live, is that when we are exploring moral good, or the laws of logic, or the laws of mathematics or the laws of nature, when we examine a flower petal, an insect wing or the human genetic code, we are in fact exploring parts and portions of the very character of God Himself.

“God is a mathematician.” 

astronomer James Jeans

I'm not suggesting that moral goods are good because God thinks them, or even commands them. Laws of mathematics or logic do not exist because God thinks them. Moral goods exist, mathematical laws and the laws of logic exist because a logical, orderly and morally perfect God exists. Nietzsche was absolutely correct. Without God, there is no moral standard by which we must abide. He could have said, without God, a mathematically precise, life-supporting, moral and logical universe would not exist.

“Not only do mathematical entities seem to be out there – eternal, objective, immutable – they also appear to be sovereign over the physical universe. How else can we account for the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the natural sciences?”

Eugene Wigner

The good that we ought to do are not based upon arbitrary or capricious commands, for the good that we ought to do flows directly from the character of the Being and existence of God Himself. Because God is morally good, only those thoughts and behaviours that cohere with God's nature can be called, good. This is what makes morality objective.

Because God is omnipotent, only a universe created by Him will hold together and have its existence according to the laws of logic and physics that we have discovered.

“You can recognize truth by its beauty and simplicity. When you get it right, it is obvious that its right. If, in Galileo's phrase, the book of nature is written in the language of mathematics this could only be because the natural would itself is inherently mathematical.” 

Richard Feyman

Of course atheists by the score, think it preposterous that logic, morality and mathematical laws should exist independent of the human mind. 

But think about it! Wouldn't it be dishonest to pretend those laws aren't real if they are indispensable to our scientific understanding of the contingent world? Of course we don't observe these laws directly, but we need them to explain what we do see. It seems to me that we have the same kind of reason for believing these laws exist as we have for believing in Dark Matter or Higgs Bossen.

And if we believe these eternal laws exist, we must believe that Creator God exists because Creator God is the only logical explanation for the existence of these laws.

What kind of person would reject this obvious conclusion?

Back Asswards Yet Again

It's just so sad, depressing even, to watch atheists consistently, constantly fail to comprehend the realities of life. It's mind numbing to observe such a relentless stream of ignorance.

I ran into another example yesterday. An atheist was mocking Christians for:

“How arrogant of Christians to think that a planet, let alone a universe was created just for people.”

Actually, I’d have to agree - If that is what Christians believed and If that is what the Bible taught. Neither assumption is correct. The problem is, almost everything that atheists say or think shows their lack of understanding about the Bible and about their Creator. The Bible, which Jesus taught is a revelation from God, to us, about God and His plan for the cosmos, teaches the following:

#1. The Cosmos was not created for us. It was created for God / Jesus.

#2. We, humans, were not created for us and for our pleasure. We were created for God / Jesus.

#3. God does not love us because we’re good. God loves us because He is good.

#4. God does not love us because we have value. We have value because God loves us.

 “For by Him all things were created, things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible; all things were created by Him and for Him.”

Colossians 1:16

The statement by that and other atheists shows a fundamental failure to understand what the universe is about. That is one of the common reasons why they become atheists in the first place. They refuse to accept the obvious reality of their world.

The existence of the universe is not about us. Rather, it is God's means of communicating to us the reality of His existence and His greatness.

The universe is evidence of God's existence. The enormity of this exquisitely finely tuned universe should jerk our minds to the reality of something infinitely beyond ourselves.

The universe has nothing to say about the significance of man, and everything to declare the greatness of God.

We were made small and the universe conceivably infinite to describe the omnipotence of our Creator. We were placed in this secure, even obscure corner of the universe to enjoy our Creator; to be struck silent with awe at His greatness, wisdom, beauty and power. We were made to worship our Creator for it is in worship that we become fully alive.

The disparity between us and the universe is a working metaphor regarding the disparity between us and God. The point is not to diminish us, but to cause us to glorify God. For it is when we are glorifying our Creator that we find lasting joy and peace in the world.

“The heavens declare the glory of Creator God.”

What kind of a person would ignore this fact?

Why Is There Something?

Now atheists, at least the educated ones know that matter has not, does not and cannot exist eternally, infinitely. The existence of matter; the coming into being of matter is time bound. Therefore, educated atheists know that we have two options:
. Either matter is eternal (not) or
. The immaterial Cause of matter is eternal.

All atheists, both the educated and the "brute beasts" as G.K. described, will spend the rest of history trying to prove that there is a third option.

In the meantime, knowing they're down to one option that refutes their blind faith, atheists are forced to say with as straight a face as possible, At one point there was nothing, and then for no reason, nothing magically expanded, and then there was everything, and then a bunch of everything magically rearranged itself for no reason whatsoever into living self-replicating bits and with lots and lots of time plus impossible luck - here we are.” The absurdity is so profound that centuries from now, if humans are still around, I’m certain that they’ll be laughing at the credulity of 21st century secular humans.

Fools Call It Magic!

“The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hand. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.” Psalm 19:1-5

Instead of thinking that life can be explained via materialism, the people that fools derisively call bronze-age goat herders have explained, 4,000 years ago that studying nature and considering how matter came into existence can actually lead us to discover the Creator of matter and energy.

And really, anyone who has given "origins" serious thought without allowing a secular bias to override their ability to follow the evidence will come to the same and obvious conclusion.

. Our mathematically precise universe has been created in such a manner that it becomes clear we were meant to discover the origins of our universe.

. We have been placed in the best place in the universe for just such discoveries, making it obvious that we were meant to discover the origins of our universe.

. Human existence has come at the absolute best time in the history of the universe for making these discoveries, just as though we were meant to discover the origins of our universe.

And that is why Paul says in Romans Chapter 1 that NO ONE is without excuse in knowing that God exists:

“Since what may be known about God is plain to them because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities - His eternal power (omnipotent, omniscience, omnipresent) and divine nature (Immaterial, Eternal, Spiritual, Personal) - have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made.”


As the song we sing in Church says,
“God of wonders beyond our Galaxy
You are Holy, Holy
The universe declares your majesty
You are Holy, Holy”

Intimidated By Prayer

Jesus said, "Believe Me: I Am in my Father and My Father is in Me. If you can't believe that because they're simply My words, then believe what you see — these works - these signs - these miracles. The person who trusts Me will not only do what I'm doing but even greater things, because I, on My way to the Father, am giving you the same work to do that I've been doing. You can count on it. From now on, whatever you request along the lines of who I Am and what I am doing, I'll do it. That's how the Father will be seen for who He is in the Son. I mean it. Whatever you request in this way, I'll do.

This is what I want you to do: Ask the Father for whatever is in keeping with the things I've revealed to you. Ask in My name, according to My will, and He'll most certainly give it to you. Your joy will be a river overflowing its banks!"
John 14: 11-14; 16:23-24

I realised several years ago, that for a long time I’d pray about this or that but not really expect God to do anything. In many cases He didn’t do anything and it was for the reasons that Jesus gives above. Then something changed. I matured in my faith. I grew in my relationship with God. I got in the groove. My will began to mesh with God’s will. I began to love what God loves and hate what God hates and want what God wants for His people and all of a sudden God began to move in people’s lives in the ways that I was asking Him to move. That’s sometimes a terribly scary thing.

The Creator of the universe allows us - no, He invites us - no, more than that, He demands of us that we partner with Him in building His kingdom.

To see that happen in response to prayer is almost overwhelming. The reality of it makes me want to hide my face. God says that He moves in response to our request that others come to know Him, love Him and worship Him. This creates a huge responsibility to care for others, to love others, to want God’s will for others, to not neglect others in our prayers.

At times I find that very intimidating.