Does God Exist?
(Of course, He does)
The Evidence found within
Everyone everywhere has a deep intuition or innate awareness of God within them. Even without any external evidence or logical proof, all of us are aware of our inner sense of God. Somehow, we know that He is our creator, and we are his creatures. Our awareness of God manifests in different ways, such as through feelings of awe, gratitude, and reverence for nature. Sometimes we are blessed with a spiritual infilling of the Holy Spirit in times of transcendence or mysticism when we are absorbed in union with the Lord. Paul writes that everyone knows this truth, but because of people’s wickedness, many suppress what God has made plain to them.
Romans 1:18-21
18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.
21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened
Paul goes further to say in Romans 1:25, that the wicked have “exchanged the truth about God for a lie”
This suppression is even found in the Old Testament, where the psalmist writes in Ps 14:1 & 53:1 The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, their deeds are vile; there is no one who does good.
The reason why people deny God’s existence can only stem from two possibilities, a) the direct result of sin or b) being deceived by another person.
In contrast to this denial, within the believer’s heart, this inner sense of God’s existence grows stronger in us daily. We can even nurture and grow our innate awareness of God through prayer, meditating, and contemplating his word. Through this, we grow spiritually by connecting with our inner sense of God as we seek a deeper relationship with Him.
However, the nature and validity of our innate awareness of God are still rejected by atheists. They argue that rather than our “innate awareness” being a universal human experience that points to the reality of the divine, they argue that it’s nothing more than a subjective and culturally conditioned phenomenon that reflects our psychological and social needs and biases. Dressing their argument with fine intellectual garb of the age, their outcry is simply “The fool says in his heart, there is no God”
Regardless, it’s clear that humanity's inner sense of God has played a significant role in shaping our spiritual and cultural history and continues to inspire and guide Christian believers and Church communities today.
The Evidence found without, Scripture and Nature
When we read the Bible, we see that it asserts that God exists, and describes various attributes of Him such as omniscience (knows all), omnipotence (all-powerful), and omnibenevolence (Good beyond limits). The first verse of the Bible begins by proclaiming what God has done, rather than offering evidence for his existence. Gen 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The Bible describes God as the creator of the universe, and other books tell us about His interventions and interactions with humanity. From beginning to end the Bible is all about God and his ongoing relationship with humanity, from creation, through fall, redemption, and ultimately to the establishment of his Kingdom when he makes all things new.
In creation or nature, if we pause for a moment and look, we see evidence in everything of God’s handiwork and his fingertips at work. Even in the very smallest of things, when we look closely enough we see the intricacies, complexities, and wonderments of details that scream out, God created this, He designed it all.
The testimonies to God’s existence are everywhere, King David writes in Psalm 19:1-2 The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge
Psalm 8:3-5 When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them? You have made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honour.
Paul also wrote in Romans 1:20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.
Who among us hasn’t looked up at the skies on a cloudless night and marvelled at their beauty, enormity, and majesty?
In terms of nature, the complexity and order of the universe point to the existence of an intelligent designer, and therefore to God. For example, the fine-tuning of the physical constants and the design that can’t be denied in biological organisms and DNA itself is evidence of God's existence. Everything around us is evidence of God that irrefutably denies the happenstance of chance and randomness that atheists claim as the origins of the universe.
When we look at the evidence found in the bible and nature, everything proves that God exists and that He is as described, omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent.
By simply looking at the evidence, we are reassured that our beliefs are not based on blind hope in an absence of evidence, but rather they are bolstered by the cornucopia of evidence from God’s Word and His works that give us confidence in our faith.
Other traditional proofs for God’s existence include:
The cosmological argument.
Every known thing in the universe has a cause. Therefore, by reason, the universe itself must also have a cause, and the cause of such a great universe can only be God.
The teleological argument (“Telos” is Greek meaning end or purpose)
Focuses on the evidence of harmony, order, and design that is witnessed in the universe, and argues that its design gives evidence of an intelligent purpose. Since the universe appears to be designed with a purpose, there must be an intelligent and purposeful God who created it to function the way that it does.
The ontological argument (Ont, Greek meaning being. Ontology seeks the classification and explanation of beings)
The argument begins with the premise that God is a being “greater than which nothing can be imagined”. It then argues that the characteristic of existence must belong to such a being, since it is greater to exist than not to exist.
The moral argument.
Begins with humanity’s sense of right and wrong, and our need for justice to be done. It then argues that there must be a God who is the source of right and wrong and who will someday dispense justice on all people.
All these arguments are based on facts about creation itself, the universe, and everything that is found in it. These true facts are proofs of what believers already know; God exists.
Have a great day, and God bless,
Trev.