Is God Real?

 

Many people ask is God real or not? Does God exist? Is there evidence for God? What are the arguments for God’s existence? Is God alive or dead?

Maybe you have struggled with these questions in your mind. This is what this article is all about.

Interestingly, the Bible makes no argument for the existence of God. Instead, the Bible assumes God’s existence from the very first few words, “In the beginning, God…” The biblical writers did not feel a need, apparently, to offer arguments for the existence of God. To deny the existence of God is foolish (Psalm 14:1).

Yet, sadly, many in our day do deny the existence of God. Some deny His existence because they do not want to be accountable to God, and others because they have a difficult time understanding how God can exist and the world be so broken.

Even so, the Psalmist was right, theism is rational, and to deny God is not. In this post we will briefly visit many rational arguments for the existence of God.

When we consider the existence of God, we might wonder if belief in God is rational or some fairy tale to be put aside with the rise of modern science. But modern science raises more questions than it answers. Has the universe always existed? Will it continue to exist forever? Why does our universe and everything in our world follow mathematical laws? Where did these laws come from?

Could everything around us possibly be the result of random chance? Or was a reasoning, rational BEING behind it all?

Einstein once compared our understanding of the laws of the universe with a child wandering into a library with books in foreign languages:

“The child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books, a mysterious order, which it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of the human mind, even the greatest and most cultured, toward God. We see a universe marvelously arranged, obeying certain laws, but we understand the laws only dimly.”

In this article, we will investigate the existence of God. What is the probability of God’s existence? Is believing in God irrational? What evidence do we have for God’s existence? Let us explore!

Evidence

Whenever one mentions the Bible or some other religious text, a challenger objects: “Does God even exist?”.  From a child asking the question at bedtime to the atheist debating it in a pub, people have pondered the existence of God throughout the ages. In this article, I will attempt to answer the question “Does God Exist?” from a Christian worldview.

Ultimately, I believe that all men and women know that God is real. However, I believe that some just suppress the truth. I’ve had conversations with people who’ve admitted that they tried to force themselves to believe that God was not real. They fought hard to deny His existence and become an atheist. Ultimately, their attempt to suppress the idea of God failed.

You have to deny everything to claim that God does not exist. Not only do you have to deny everything, but you have to know everything to claim that as well. Here are 17 reasons why God is real.

Imaginary or not?

Is God simply a figment of our imaginations – a way to explain the unexplainable? Some atheists argue that God was created by man, not the opposite. However, such an argument is flawed. If God is imaginary, how does one explain the intricacy of the universe and all the creatures in our world? How does one explain how the universe began?

If God is imaginary, how does one explain our universe’s complex design? How does one explain the DNA code in every cell of every living thing? How does one explain the astounding intelligence observed in the design of the simplest cell to our magnificent universe? Where did our universal understanding of morality – our innate sense of right and wrong – come from?

Probability

All living things in our world – even the simplest cells – are incredibly complex. Every part of every cell and most parts of every living plant or animal must be in place for the cell or any other living thing to stay alive. This irreducible complexity points more strongly to the probability that God exists than to a gradual evolutionary path.

A physicist, Dr. Stephen Unwin, used the Bayesian theory of mathematics to calculate the probability of God’s existence, producing a figure of 67% (although he is personally 95% sure of God’s existence). He factored in elements such as universal recognition of goodness and even miracles as evidence of God’s existence countered by evil and natural disasters.

First, evil and earthquakes do not negate the existence of God. God created people with a moral compass but, as Calvin said, man has choice, and his actions stem from his own voluntary choosing. Natural disasters are the results of man’s sin, which brought a curse on humans (death) and on the earth itself. (Genesis 3:14-19)

If Dr. Unwin had not calculated evil against God’s existence, the probabilities would have been much higher. Nevertheless, the point is that even from mathematical calculations attempting to be as objective as possible, the probability of God’s existence is higher than the probability that there is no God.

Christian quotes

“To be an atheist requires an infinitely greater measure of faith than to receive all the great truths which atheism would deny.”

“What can be more foolish than to think that all this rare fabric of heaven and earth could come by chance, when all the skill of art is not able to make an oyster!”  Jeremy Taylor

“The atheist can’t find God for the same reason that a thief can’t find a police officer.”

“Atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning.” – C.S. Lewis

“There is observable order or design in the world that cannot be attributed to the object itself; this observable order argues for an intelligent being who established this order; this being is God (The Teleological Argument, proponents- Aquinas).” H. Wayne House

Atheists who converted to Christianity, Theism, or Deism.

Kirk Cameron – Kirk Cameron likes to call himself “a recovering atheist.” He once believed that he was too smart to believe in fairy tales. One day he was invited to attend church with a family and everything changed. During the sermon he felt guilty over sin and he was amazed by the awesome love and compassion of God found in Jesus Christ. After the service, he was bombarded by many questions in his mind such as, where did we come from? Is there really a God in heaven? After weeks of struggling with questions, Kirk Cameron bowed his head and asked for forgiveness for his pride. He opened his eyes and he felt an overwhelming sense of peace unlike anything he has ever experienced. He knew from that moment on that God was real and Jesus Christ died for his sins.

Antony Flew – At one point in time, Andrew Flew was the world’s most famous atheist. Anthony Flew changed his mind about God because of recent discoveries in biology and the integrated complexity argument.

Does a God exist?

When someone asks this question, it is usually because the person has been pondering the world, nature and the universe and has wondered – How did all this get here? Or some kind of suffering has occurred in their life and they are wondering if anyone cares, especially a higher power.  And if there is a higher power, why did not that higher power prevent the suffering from happening.

In the 21st century, the philosophy of the day is scientism, which is the belief or thinking that science alone can yield knowledge. Yet the COVID pandemic has broken that belief system by pointing to the fact that science is not the source of knowledge, but simply the observation of nature and thus, based on observation of changing data, knowledge gained from science is not static but mutable. Hence the changing laws and evolving restrictions based on new observations of data.  Scientism is not the way to God.

Yet still, people want scientific evidence of the existence of God, a scientific or observable, evidence.  Here are four examples of evidences for the existence of God:

1) Creation

One only has to look inside and outside of themselves, at the complexities of the human body to the vastness of the universe, of things known and unknown, to ponder and wonder: “Could all of THIS be random? Is there not intelligence behind it?” Just as the computer I am typing on did not just come to be through happenstance but took many minds, engineering and creativeness, and years of technological advances by the creativity of humans, to be the computer that I have today, so there is evidence of the existence of God by looking at the intelligent design of creation. From the beauty of its landscape to the intricacies of the human eye.

The Bible points to the fact that creation is evidence that there is a God:

Psalm 19:1 tells us that the heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims His handiwork.

Romans 1:19-20, Because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse,

2) Conscience

The conscience of a person is evidence that there is a God of higher justice that exists. In Romans 2, Paul writes about how the Jews were given God’s Word and Law to teach them the difference between right and wrong and to be judged accordingly.  However, the Gentiles did not have that law.  But they did have a conscience, an unwritten law, for which also taught them the difference between right and wrong.  It is a moral compass that everyone is born with. A pursuit of and for justice and when one goes against that conscience, they stand guilty and in shame for breaking that law.

Where did this conscience come from? What or who writes this moral code on our hearts to be able to discern from right and wrong? This is evidence that points to the existence of Being that is above the human plane of existence – a Creator.

3) Rationality

A rational person, employing their analytic mind, must grapple with the uniqueness of the Bible. No other religious text is like it.  It claims to be the very Word of God, breathed out, or inspiring, over 40 different authors over a time period of 1500 years, and yet cohesive, unified and in agreement.

There is nothing else like it. Prophecy written 100s to 1000s of years before, come true, and EVERY ONE happens precisely when God said they would.

The archeological evidence that keeps being discovered continues to confirm the authenticity of the Scriptures.  There is very, very little copy error when ancient copies are compared against one another with more modern copies (less than .5% errors which does not impact meaning). This is after comparing over 25,000 known copies.  If you look at other ancient texts, such as Homer’s Iliad, you will see quite a bit of differentiation caused by copy errors when comparing the 1700 copies that are available.  The oldest copy of Homer’s Iliad that has been found is 400 years after he wrote it.  The earliest Gospel of John that has been discovered is less than 50 years after the original.

Applying rational thinking, one must consider this, and much more, of the overwhelming evidence of the historicity of the Bible, of what the Bible contains and talks about, and of the historicity of Jesus and His claims.  You cannot ignore the facts.  And if the Bible is historically accurate as leading experts agree that it is, then it must be taken seriously as evidence for God.

4) Human experience

It would be one thing if one person, or even a few persons, claim that a God exists and is active in world affairs. But most statisticians estimate that over 2.3 billion people worldwide subscribe to the Judeo-Christian belief that a God does exist and is involved in a personal way in people’s lives. The human experience of people’s testimonies of this God, of their willingness to change their lives because of this God, of their willingness to lay down their lives in martyrdom for this God, is overwhelming. Ultimately, human experience could be one of the strongest types of evidence of the existence of God.  As the lead singer of U2, Bono, once said, “The idea that the entire course of civilization for over half of the globe could have its fate changed and turned upside-down by a nutcase [referring to the title some have given Jesus who claimed to be the Son of God], for me, that’s farfetched.”  In other words, it is one thing to say that 100, or even a 1000 people, are delusional about the existence of God, but when you think about over 2.3 billion people claiming this belief, and billions more of other faiths and religions subscribing to a monotheistic God, that is something else entirely different.

Rational or irrational?

Logic determines whether something is rational or irrational. Rational thought considers the universal laws of logic like cause and effect (this happened because of that) or non-contradiction (a spider cannot be alive and dead at the same time).

Yes! Belief in God is rational, and atheists know this deep down, but they have suppressed this understanding (Romans 1:19-20). If they agree that God exists, then they know they are responsible for their sin, and that is terrifying to them.

Atheists irrationally convince themselves God does not exist, so they do not have to accept that human life is valuable, that they are responsible for their actions, and that they must follow a universal moral code. The funny thing is that most atheists do believe all three of these things, but without any rational logic to back them up.

An atheist struggles with laws of logic: how could these universal, unchanging laws exist in a world formed by chance? How can the concept of rationality even exist – how can we reason rationally – without being created that way by a rational God?

If He does not exist

Let us suppose for a moment that God did not exist. What would that mean to the human experience?  The answers to the deepest longing of our hearts would go unanswered:

Purpose – Why am I here? Meaning – Why is there suffering or why am I suffering?  Origin – How did all this get here?  Accountability – Who am I accountable to?  Morality – What is right or wrong and who determines it?  Time – Was there a beginning?  Is there an end? And what happens after I die?

As the writer of Ecclesiastes pointed out, life under the sun and apart from God is in vain – it is meaningless.

How many gods are there?

Someone may ask if there is a God, is there more than one?

Hindus believe that there are millions of gods. This would be an example of a polytheistic religion.  Many of the ancient civilizations also ascribed to polytheistic beliefs, such as the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans. These gods all represented certain aspects of the human experience or objects in nature, such as fertility, death, and the sun.

For much of world history, the Jews stood alone in their claim of monotheism, or the belief of One God.  The Jewish Shema, found in Deuteronomy, is their creed that expresses this: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.” Deuteronomy 6:4

Though many may ascribe created things or people as being gods, the Bible clearly condemns such thinking. God spoke through Moses in the ten commandments, where He said:

Exodus 20:2-6, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before Me. “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.”

Explaining God

Have you ever asked yourself who is God or what is God? God is supreme above all things. He is the Creator and Ruler of the universe. We will never be able to comprehend the great depths of who God is. From the Bible we know that God is necessary for the creation of all things. God is a purposeful, personal, omnipotent, omnipresent, and an omniscient Being. God is one Being in three divine Persons. The Father, Son, and the Holy Sprit. God has revealed Himself in science and also in history.

But, who created Him?

God is the only self-existent being. No one created God. God exists outside of time, space, and matter. He is the only eternal being. He is the uncaused cause of the universe.

His power

If there is an all-powerful God, where and how did He get that power?

This question is similar to where did God come from?  Or how did God come to be?

If all things need a cause, then something caused God to be or to become all powerful, or so the argument goes. Nothing comes from nothing, so how did something come from nothing if there was nothing and then there was an all-powerful God?

This line of reasoning assumes that God came from something and that something made Him powerful.  But God was not created. He simply was and has always been. He has always existed. How do we know? Because something exists. Creation. And since nothing can exist without something causing it to exist, there had to be something in existence always. That something is the eternal, everlasting, and all-powerful God, uncreated and unchanging. He has always been powerful because He has not changed.

Psalm 90:2, “Before the mountains were brought forth, Or ever You had formed the earth and the world, Even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God.”

Hebrews 11:3, “By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.”

Location

If there is a God, where does He live?  Where is He? Can we see Him?

In terms of His reigning presence as Majesty and Lord over all, God is in heaven sitting in His holy throne. (Ps 33, 13-14, 47:8)

But the Bible teaches that God is everywhere present, or Omnipresent (2 Chronicles 2:6). This means that He is as much in heaven as He is in your bedroom, out in the woods, in the city and even in Hell (though it should be noted that though God is present in Hell, it is only His wrathful presence, compared to His gracious presence with His church).

Additionally, since the New Covenant through Christ, God also lives in His children.  As the Apostle Paul writes:

“Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?” 1 Corinthians 3:16

Books

• How To Know God Exists: Scientific Proof Of God – Ray Comfort
• Moral Argument for the Existence of God – C. S. Lewis
• Can Science Explain Everything? (Questioning Faith) – John C. Lennox
• The Existence and Attributes of God: Volumes 1 & 2 – Stephen Charnock
• The Comprehensive Guide to Science and Faith: Exploring the Ultimate Questions About Life and the Cosmos – William A. Dembski
• I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist – Frank Turek
• Does God Exist? – R.C. Sproul
• Famous Atheists: Their Senseless Arguments and How to Answer Them – Ray Comfort
• Making Sense of Who God Is – Wayne Grudem

Morality argument

We know that God is real because there is a moral standard and if there is a moral standard, then there is a transcendent moral Truth Giver. The moral argument has a few variations in the way it is articulated. The kernel of the argument dates back only to Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), so it is one of the “newer” arguments in this post.

The simplest form of the argument is that since it is obvious that there is a “perfect moral ideal” then we should assume that that ideal had an origin, and the only rational origin for such an idea is God. Putting it into even more basic terms; since there is a such thing as objective morality (murder, for example, is never a virtue in any society or culture), then that objective moral standard (and our sense of duty to it) must come from outside of our experience, from God.

People challenge this argument by challenging the presupposition that there is an objective moral standard, or to argue that God is not necessary; that finite minds and the societies they make up are able to contemplate moral standards for the common good. Of course, this is undermined even by the word good. Where did the concept of good come from and how do we distinguish good from evil.

This is a particularly compelling argument, especially when we are confronted with unquestioned evil. Many, even among those who argue against the existence of God, would argue that Hitler was objectively evil. This admission of objective morality points to the God, the one who established those moral categories in our hearts.

Many atheists and agnostics make the mistake of thinking that Christians are saying that they have no morals, which is not true. The argument is where do morals come from? Without God everything is just someone’s subjective opinion. If someone says that something is wrong because they don’t like it, then why is that the standard? For example, if someones says that rape is wrong because the victim doesn’t like it, why is that the standard? Why is something right and why is something wrong?

The standard can’t come from something that changes so it can’t come from the law. It has to come from something that remains constant. There has to be a universal truth. As a Christian/theist I can say that lying is wrong because God is not a liar. An atheist can’t say that lying is wrong without jumping into my theistic worldview. Our conscience tells us when we do something wrong and the reason for that is, God is real and He has implemented His law in our hearts

Romans 2:14-15, “for when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do the things in the law, these, although not having the law, are a law to themselves, who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and between themselves their thoughts accusing or else excusing them)”

Teleological argument

This argument can be illustrated in the story of where my automatic watch came from. As you may know, an automatic (self-winding) watch is a mechanical wonder, full of gears and weights and jewels. It is precise and needs no battery – the movement of one’s wrist keeps it wound.

One day, as I was walking on the beach, the sand began to swirl in the wind. The earth around my feet was also moving, probably due to geologic forces. The elements and materials (metals from rocks, glass from sand, etc.) began to come together. After a good while of random swirling the watch began to take shape, and when the process was complete, my finished watch was ready to wear, set to the right time and all.

Of course, such a story is nonsense, and any rational reader would see it as fanciful story- telling. And the reason that it is such obvious nonsense is because everything about a watch points to a designer. Someone collected the materials, formed and shaped and manufactured the parts, and assembled it according to a design.

The teleological argument, put most simply, is that design demands a designer. When we observe nature, which is billions of times more complex than the most advanced wrist watch, we can see that things have design, which is evidence of a designer.

Detractors of this argue that given enough time, order can develop out of disorder; thus, giving the appearance of design. This falls flat though, as the illustration above would demonstrate. Would billions of years be enough time for a watch to form, come together and display the correct time?

Creation screams that there is a Creator. If you find a cell phone on the ground, I guarantee that your first thought is not going to be wow it magically appeared there. Your first thought is going to be that someone dropped their phone. It didn’t just get there on its own. The universe reveals that there is a God. This leads me to my next point, but before I start, I know that some people are going to say, “well how about the Big Bang theory?”

My response is that, science and everything in life teaches us that something can never come from nothing. There has to be a catalyst. It is intellectual suicide to believe it can. How did your house get there? Someone built it. Look all around you right now. Everything that you are looking at, was made by someone. The universe did not get here on its own. Stretch your arms out in front of you. Without moving them and without anyone moving your arms, will they move from that position? The answer to this question, is no!

Jeremiah 51:15, “He has made the earth by His power; He has established the world by His wisdom, And stretched out the heaven by His understanding.”

DNA

We all will agree that DNA is complex. In this area, Evolution fails to provide answers. DNA was clearly created by an intelligent source, an intelligent writer of the code.

DNA does not, by itself, prove God’s existence. Yet, DNA clearly shows that life has design, and using one of the most persuasive arguments in this post – teleological argument – we can argue that the evidence of design in DNA. Since DNA shows design, there must be a designer. And that designer is God.

The complexity of DNA, the building blocks of all life, shatters belief in random mutation. Ever since the human genome was decoded two decades ago, most microbiology researchers now understand that the most basic cell is infinitely more complex than previously thought.

Each chromosome contains tens of thousands of genes, and researchers have discovered a sophisticated “software:” a code that directs DNA’s functions. This higher control system is responsible for the development of a single fertilized egg cell into more than 200 cell types that form the human body. These control tags, known as the epigenome, tell our genes when, where, and how they are to be expressed in each of our sixty trillion cells.

The breathtakingly-complex genome/epigenome system points to life designed by a brilliant Creator. It underscores the empirical problems with Darwinian theory with its mindless, undirected processes.

Eternity in our hearts

All the things that this world has to offer will never truly satisfy us. In our hearts, we know that there is more to life than this. We know that there is a life after this. We all have a sense of a “higher power.”

Fulfilled prophecy

Fulfilled prophecy shows that there is a God and He is the author of the Bible. There were so many prophecies of Jesus that were written hundreds of years before His time, like Psalm 22; Isaiah 53:10; Isaiah 7:14; Zechariah 12:10; and more. There is no way that anyone can deny these passages that were written way before Jesus’ time. Also, there are prophecies that are being fulfilled before our eyes.

The Bible

An amazing reason to believe in God is the truth of His Word – the Bible. God reveals Himself through His Word. The Bible has been heavily scrutinized for hundreds of years. If there was a huge fallacy that proved it was false, don’t you think people would have found it by now? Prophecies, nature, science, and archaeological facts are all in the Scriptures.

When we follow His Word, obeying His commands and claiming His promises, we see wonderful results. We see His transforming work in our lives, healing our spirits, souls, minds, and bodies and bringing true joy and peace. We see prayers answered in amazing ways. We see communities transformed through the impact of His love and Spirit. We walk in personal relationship with the God who created the universe yet engages in every aspect of our lives.

Many one-time skeptics came to belief in God through reading the Bible. The Bible has been well preserved for over 2000 years: we have over 5,500 manuscript copies, many of which date to within 125 years of the original writing, all of which amazingly agree with the other copies with the exception of a few minor aberrations. As new archeological and literary evidence is unearthed, we see increased evidence of the Bible’s historical accuracy. Archeology has never proven the Bible wrong.

Everything in the Bible points to God’s existence, from Genesis to Revelation, however, one astounding fact is the multitude of prophecies that have come true and been historically verified. For instance, God named the Persian king Cyrus (the Great) by name decades before he was born! God said through the prophet Isaiah that He would use him (Isaiah 44:28, 45:1-7) to rebuild the temple. About 100 years later, Cyrus conquered Babylon, set the Jews free from captivity, and granted them permission to return home and rebuild the temple at his expense! (2 Chronicles 36:22-23; Ezra 1:1-11)

Prophecies written centuries before Jesus’ birth came true in His birth, life, miracles, death, and resurrection (Isaiah 7:14, Micah 5:2, Isaiah 9:1-2, Isaiah 35:5-6, Isaiah 53, Zechariah 11:12-13, Psalm 22:16, 18). God’s existence is a presupposition in the Bible; however, Romans 1:18-32 and 2:14-16 point out that God’s eternal power and divine nature can be understood through everything God created and through the moral law written on everyone’s hearts. Yet people suppressed this truth and did not honor or give thanks to God; as a result, they became foolish in their thinking.

Jesus reveals God to us

God reveals Himself through Jesus Christ. Jesus is God in the flesh. There are many eyewitness accounts of Jesus and His death, burial, and resurrection. Jesus performed many miracles in front of many people and Scripture prophesied about Christ.

Throughout history, God revealed Himself through nature, but also speaking directly to some people, communicating through angels, and most often speaking through prophets. But in Jesus, God revealed Himself fully. Jesus said, “Anyone who has seen Me has seen the Father.” (John 14:9)

Jesus revealed God’s holiness, His infinite love, His creative, miracle-working power, His standards for living, His plan of salvation, and His plan to carry the Good News to all people on earth. Jesus spoke God’s words, carried out God’s work, expressed the emotions of God, and lived a spotless life as only God can do.

John 1:1-4, 14 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men… And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.”

We don’t argue what is not real

God is real because you don’t argue what is not real. Think about it for a second. Does anyone argue about the existence of the Easter bunny? No! Does anyone argue about the existence of the fictional Santa Claus that climbs people’s chimneys? No! Why is that? The reason is that you know Santa is not real. It’s not that people don’t think that God is real. People hate God, so they suppress the truth in unrighteousness.

The famous atheist Richard Dawkins can be seen in a video on Youtube saying, “mock and ridicule Christians” to a crowd of militant atheists. If God is not real, why would thousands of people come out to hear an atheist speak?

If God is not, real why do atheists debate Christians for hours? Why are there atheist churches? Why are atheists always mocking Christians and God? You have to admit that if something is not real, you don’t do these things. These things clearly show that they know He is real, but they want nothing to do with Him.

Love

Where did love come from? It certainly did not develop from blind chaos. God is love (1 John 4:16). “We love Him because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19). Love could not exist without God. “God shows His love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). God pursues us; He longs for a relationship with us.

When Jesus walked this earth, He was the personification of love. He was gentle with the weak, He healed out of compassion, even when it meant not having time to eat. He gave Himself to a horrible death on the cross out of His love for mankind – to provide salvation for all who would believe in Him.

Think about that! The God who created the universe and our amazing and intricate DNA desires a relationship with us. We can know God and experience Him in our lives.

How do we have the ability to love someone? Why is love so powerful? These are questions that no one can answer, except the Lord. The reason that you can love others is because God loved you first.

How do we know without a shadow of doubt that God is real and active in our lives? After examining and considering the evidence for the existence of God, one must then consider the Word of God and what He has to say to humanity. Considering the Word against the experience of our lives, do we agree with it?  And if so, what will we do with it?

The Bible teaches that people will not come to faith unless their hearts are prepared to receive Christ and respond in such a way to the Word of God. Those who have come to faith will tell you that their spiritual eyes were opened to the truth of God’s Word and they responded.

The clearest evidence for the existence of God are the people of God and their testimony of transformation, from the college student in the dorm room, to the prisoner in the cell, to the drunk at the bar: God’s work, and the evidence of Him moving, is best witnessed in everyday people who have been convinced of their need to be in an active and living relationship with Him.

Belief versus faith

Believing that God exists isn’t the same as placing one’s faith in God. You can believe that God exists without having faith in Him. The Bible says, “the demons also believe, and tremble” (James 2:19). The demons know without any doubt that God exists, but they are in abject rebellion against God, and they shudder, knowing their future punishment. The same can be said about many people.

We are saved by faith in Jesus Christ (Galatians 2:16). Faith includes belief, but also trust and confidence in God. It involves a relationship with God, not just an abstract belief that God is out there somewhere. “Faith is the divinely given conviction of things unseen” (Homer Kent).

Faith

There are many arguments we could use to support the existence of God. Some of these ideas are better than others. At the end of the day, we know that God is real, not on the strength of the rational arguments we put forth, but on the way God has revealed Himself in nature and in a special way through his Word, the Bible.

That stated, Christianity is a rational world view. Apologetic arguments prove at least that. And we know that it is more than rational, it is true. We can see God’s work in creating the universe. God’s existence is the most rational explanation for the original cause behind everything. And the vast, infinitely complex design we observe in nature (through the scientific method, for example) speaks to an infinitely wise Creator.

We don’t hang our theological hats on apologetic arguments, but they can be helpful to demonstrate the rational Christian understanding of God. Where we hang our hats is the Bible. And the Bible, while making no arguments for the existence of God, begins and ends with the existence of God. In the beginning God.

Is there tangible evidence for the existence of God? Yes. Can we know without a doubt that God is real and active in the world as the Bible describes Him to be?  Yes, we can look at the evidence around us and the testimonies of the people who believe, but ultimately this takes a measure of faith. But let us be assured by Jesus’ words to his disciple Thomas that when Thomas doubted His resurrected unless he saw Him with his own eyes and felt the wounds of the crucifixion, Jesus said to him:

“Thomas, because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” John 20:29

Hebrews 11:6, “But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.”

Conclusion

Since God exists, how does that impact our beliefs and life?

We trust in Christ through faith – not “blind faith” – but faith, nevertheless. It actually takes more faith to not believe in God – to believe that everything around us happened by chance, that non-living matter suddenly became a living cell, or that one kind of creature can spontaneously change into a different kind.

If you want the real story, read the Bible. Learn about God’s great love for you. Experience a relationship with Him by receiving Him as your Lord and Savior. Once you begin walking in relationship with your Creator, then you will have no doubt He is real!