Proving God and Faith
- Tony Vance
- Apr 6, 2016
- 9 min read
Can we ‘prove’ God exists? Is God ‘provable’? These are legitimate and honest endeavors for anyone that is being honest with themselves. If there is a god; what is he like, what does he want, and can I know him. I’ll lay my cards on the table; I’m a theist, even more, I am a Christian-theist, firmly convinced that the God of the Biblical account is the one, true, and living God and Jesus was God incarnate. I think you should know my biases, as they may color my argument, and I wish not to apologize later. I will try to be as fair and balanced as any Christian can be, fully convinced of God’s existence.
There are various philosophical, logical, theological, and otherwise, arguments for God’s existence. I will be touching on many of these arguments, and hopefully objections some may have. In reality, there seems to be just 3 simple arguments that anyone can give, that seems to doubt the existence of God. They are; evil’s existence, not enough proof of God, and the scriptures (the Christian Bible, specifically) are unreliable or too old to trust. It always comes back to these arguments whether discussing this with a fly-by-night newly commissioned atheist-twitter-bulldog or a worthy opponent like Stephen Law. One must address these three issues, in your own mind (and heart), to be ‘fully’ persuaded God exists.
EVIL
The first is a classic argument, regurgitated often, and sadly sometimes less creative, which goes something like this: “If God is all-powerful and all-benevolent, evil would not exist.” Bam! Atheist win! Evil surely exists-watch the 6 o’clock news (does anyone do that anymore?) or check your latest social media feed. Evil is present everywhere, so God cannot be real. Okay, it can’t be that easy...isn’t it a little more complicated than that? First, define evil. I would argue that it is ‘evil’ to walk around with the hairdos that many young folks wear. But, come on, is that really ‘evil’? Evil is defined by one website (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/evil) as: “Morally bad or wrong; wicked.” Also, it defines it as, “Causing ruin, injury, or pain; harmful.” Immediately, we discover some presuppositional issues. First, what is moral? There has to be a standard, and I can presuppose mine and you can yours, but does that help? Evil is something we all recognize, don’t you think? I mean, the rape and inhuman treatment of some by those in power seems ‘evil’, right?
That brings us to the second definition, “Causing ruin, injury, or pain; harmful,” and this seems intuitively right. Causing harm, by mortal or god-that has to be evil, right? Well...seems as if I can have a ‘good’ reason to cause harm to my child, and it is not ‘evil’, but I am sure my child would have disagreed, at least at the moment. I remember looking into the eyes of my barely months-old daughter as a nurse inflicted excruciating pain (at least in a toddler’s mind) upon her, immunizing her against future dangers and harm she (my daughter-of course) had no clue existed and had no reason to believe these harms would be a danger. Yet, this ‘evil’ shot was a necessary ‘good’ for her future ‘good’, would you not agree? My favorite apologist explains it so, “We are not in a good position to assess the probability of whether God has morally sufficient reasons for the evils that occur. As finite persons, we are limited in time, space, intelligence, and insight. But the transcendent and sovereign God sees the end from the beginning and providentially orders history so that His purposes are ultimately achieved through human free decisions. In order to achieve His ends, God may have to put up with certain evils along the way. Evils which appear pointless to us within our limited framework may be seen to have been justly permitted within God’s wider framework.” (William Lane Craig-http://www.reasonablefaith.org/the-problem-of-evil#ixzz44VCBdHEU)
I am calling this one a wash, as I think it is hard to prove God can’t have a reason for evil or evil disproves God. I mean, think about it, we can show we can have legitimate reasons to do harm (‘evil’ if you will) to our own and it is not hard to imagine an all-knowing being could have sufficient reasons to allow some evil to happen to bring about some good. I think we can all come up with individual cases that seem especially evil and could serve no purpose, or good. I can’t argue that point, as my own doubts have surfaced on the occasion of a child struck with cancer or a natural disaster kills multitudes of people. On the other hand, there are numerous cases of true evil being turned to good purposes. The Bible even speaks of this when Joseph confronted his brothers, who years earlier had intended great harm, I would argue EVIL, to their own brother. Joseph said, Genesis 50:20 (KJV) “But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive.” Though it’s easy to say, it takes some measure of faith to accept.
PROOF
What constitutes proof? What would be sufficient ‘proof’ that God existed. My good friend Roger Browning over at ‘A Clear Lens’ just answered three questions relating to this, in a month long series of three articles. They address the idea “If God would...” and looked at three ways God could prove if He would; answer prayer, show Himself, and/or do something miraculous. Roger does/did a much better job addressing these issues than I ever could. Matter of fact, in the last article of the series he summed up the first two, succinctly, “That’s when I realized that everything you could ever need to believe in God is here before you. This is the point I laid out in the first post—you prayer is being answered, “humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.” (Jas 4:10). I dove further into this point in the next point when I wrote that although there are many arguments against God, God is more reasonable; “for since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities…have been clearly seen.” (Rom 1:20).” (Roger Browning, ‘If God Would : Show Off’ http://clearlens.org/2016/03/30/if-god-would-show-off/)
I would suggest you look at this series, as he summed up the last argument, “If you are struggling with accepting God, there are answers, justifications, and good solid reasons to believe. Prayer does work. God is showing himself. Indeed, God is showing off. The choice at this point is, will you believe or reject. Ultimately the choice is yours to choose, but do not make it blindly as if no evidence were ever presented. If God would… God has! Now what?” (Browning, ‘If God Would’). Proof is defined as, “The evidence or argument that compels the mind to accept an assertion as true.” (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/proof) Is there evidence to “compel” someone “to accept” that God exists? Sure, people believe it all the time, which is not to say that is an argument for its veracity, just that reasonable people believe that God exists. I would actually argue that it is more ‘reasonable’ to believe in God than a Multi-Verse scenario, but who argues that Hawkins and Dawkins are ‘unreasonable’ in their belief in their theories.
So, is there evidence for the existence of God? I think there are ‘good’ arguments for the existence of God. I think the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus points us to the fact that He was God in the flesh, proven by the very miracle described by eye witnesses. Paul stated as much to an earlier assembly of believers, Romans 1:4 (NLT) “and he was shown to be the Son of God when he was raised from the dead by the power of the Holy Spirit. He is Jesus Christ our Lord.” There have been numerous logical, moral, and evidential arguments, defended by apologists of greater skill and credentials than me. Yet, we must recognize that the existence of God is far beyond our ability to grasp the measurable components of His presence, yet they are observable. They are observable as a part of faith, Christians must admit, too. It seems we’ve come to a draw again.
BIBLE
The last argument often leveled is something along the lines of the unreliability of scripture. The argument is best described as so, “So let me say this very clearly: the vast majority of non-Christians (and some Christians!) don’t regard the Bible as historically reliable”( Chris Hallquist ‘Why atheists don’t think the Bible is historically reliable ‘ http://www.patheos.com/blogs/hallq/2012/07/why-atheists-dont-think-the-bibl-is-historically-reliable/#sthash.EWj9QmmD.dpuf) Not “historically reliable” is what is claimed. Yet, the writer offers no contradictions with “history” that the Bible seems to be unreliable about. In addition to this claim on this site, another atheist ‘scholar’ offers this critique of the Bible, “Furthermore, the Bible is an unreliable authority because of its harmful teachings (e.g., Mk. 16:18, where believers are taught to handle snakes, drink poison, and rely on faith healing instead of medical science).” (Joseph C. Sommer ‘A Brief Summary of Why the Bible Is Unreliable’ http://humanismbyjoe.co/a-brief-summary-of-why-the-bible-is-unreliable/) Now, I’ll admit, there is a sect in my neck-of-the-woods, which such nonsense was practiced, and sometimes still is. We (us ‘normal’ Christians) just treated them like our crazy Uncle Bob, gotta love them but you just don’t have to agree that the “aliens are coming to get us and microwaves are their weapons.”
I think the Bible is the most ‘real’ book in the world. I mean where else do you read the giant killer becomes the adulterer (David) or the great and mighty hero of the faith, who at first despised and hated the new sect, became the driving force to lay the earliest seeds of its expansion (Saul/Paul). The Bible, no matter your belief of its ‘reliability’, has much to say about human relationships, motivations, attitudes, and true heart conditions. I mean, I must agree there are some stuff in there, like, “love your enemies” (Luke 6:27), that get on me in my worst days…geez! In reality, there are many other passages that deal with science, history, and other verifiable things-which are clearly described that can’t be falsified. It would be hard to argue that the Bible is at least very accurate on many topics; the importance of family, the evil that exists in men’s hearts, and the way to make relationships work.
Infallibility of scripture is a very contentious issue, even within Christian circles. It is also very clear that there is not another ancient document in all of antiquity with the amount of copies and manuscripts like the Bible. We can be relatively sure of much of what was written, even if we have no way of ‘proving’ what the original authors said or seen what they said they saw. If most ancient documents of Alexander the Great or Caesar (any of them-to be clear) were scrutinized like scripture, history books all over the world would be eradicated of most history. Jesus spoke of scripture’s value (of course He was referring to the Old Testament at the time), John 5:39 (HCSB) “You pore over the Scriptures because you think you have eternal life in them, yet they testify about Me.” We can be sure that the Bible we hold today, was very much like the one in 325 AD, or even earlier. Yet, how do you ‘prove’ the Bible is true? It is again something that often is a matter of faith, so…well, I guess we are at the impasse.
CONCLUSION
I wish I could convince everybody that God existed, Jesus was truly God in the flesh, and His Word is something anyone can glean valuable insight from. I recall almost 20 years ago now, conversations I had with my daughter, in her preschool years. Her mind was active, inquisitive, and always learning, and yet, I never spent one second convincing her of God’s existence, not one second. We talked about prayer, how Jesus was God, and even how Jesus died and rose again, but needing ‘proof’ that God exists was never an issue, and thankfully to this day she has no doubts, at least about His existence. I’m pretty convinced that the reality of God is not something we are argued into, though it is something we should point people to, a reality of the true and living God. No, I think it is not hard to believe in God. I think it takes much more of mental gymnastics to believe there is NOTHING.
I think it is much less an intellectual endeavor than we Christians often admit, though we are not leaving our brains at the Church door. Logically it is not impossible that there is a God, a Maximally-Great-Being, this has been shown time and time again. Obviously if God exists, rising from the dead was not such a ‘miracle’, for God. We can trust what the Bible says because Jesus endorsed much of it, and He was God, if He truly rose from the dead. Yet, I must be honest, this is taken mostly on faith, but that is how it is supposed to be, it seems, Hebrews 11:3 (KJV) “Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.” Matter-of-fact, the writer went on to say, Hebrews 11:6 (ASV) “And without faith it is impossible to be well-pleasing unto him; for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that seek after him.” Yeah, it is about faith…I admit.