Does God Exist?

Does God Exist?

"For, lo, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will bring again the captivity of my people Israel and Judah, saith the Lord: and I will cause them to return to the land that
I gave to their fathers, and they shall possess it."
Jeremiah 30v3

Does God Exist? How would you answer this question? Are you one who grew up believing in God and assume He exists? Or are you one who sees no evidence that God exists and so assumes He doesn't?

Can the existence of God be proved without any recourse to religion or religious books? Without blind faith? How could you go about proving the existence of God? If we call out to Him and say, "Please come talk to me, I want to know whether you exist." Would He do it? No.

You may be one who just has an inner feeling that God exists and you have no need to prove it. But what if someone asks you to prove it, and that person is someone you would dearly like to prove it to? Wouldn't it be nice to know proof is available and that you could actually provide it?

You may be one who doesn't know, but are willing to try to prove it one way or the other.

You may be a zealous atheist who would feel the thrill of victory if you could refute yet another attempt to prove the existence of God.

All of you should read this booklet, for everyone can really prove God exists once they know how.

Can Science Prove God?

Is there a way to scientifically prove God's existence? Let's take a brief look at the scientific method and see if science has any way to prove or disprove the existence of God. In the scientific method, scientists observe some phenomenon and form a conjecture, a theory, about how it works. This theory must predict the outcome of some experiment or observation. Then the scientist does the experiment or makes the observation many times. If the experiment or observation fails, the theory is proven false and the scientist must develop a new theory. The new theory must take into account the actual results of the previous observations and experiments. Then the scientist tries again. No scientific theory is worth anything if it doesn't contain predictions that might prove it false. What if the prediction is true? Does that prove the theory true? No, it just proves the theory is more usefull than the previous theory. The new theory must make new predictions that can be proven true or false by experiment and observation. Many scientific theories have succeeded time and again, only to be disproved in the end. Scientists have come to the conclusion that theories are not true or false, but more useful and less useful.

Well, what about the theory of gravitation? Isn't that proven constantly everywhere around the world and throughout the universe? We know gravity exists. Every time we drop something, every time we don't float away from our chair, we prove gravity exists. But the theory of gravitation seeks to describe the way gravity works. Sir Isaac Newton was the first to "correctly" describe the rules of gravitation (we still don't know how it actually works). His description of the laws of gravity and motion are one of the greatest feats of the human intellect. After many years of being "proven" correct, a young upstart named Albert Einstein proved Newton's laws false. Only a little false, under special conditions, but enough to revolutionize science. Newton's laws still hold for the vast majority in all practical circumstances.

The nice thing about gravity itself is that you can scientifically prove it exists any time you want, just by dropping something and observing whether or not it falls. What about God then? Is there some way to prove His existence at any time by observation, like dropping something proves gravity exists? Even though God is invisible and not perceivable through our senses, is there something about God, His attributes, that can show us any time we think about it that He exists? Or must we just assume He exists, as many do, or assume He doesn't exist, as many others do. We need to KNOW, and stop assuming, for whatever the answer is, it's of paramount importance in each of our lives.

There is a way

If you came to me and said, "Prove to me that gravity exists." I might laugh. But if I took you seriously, I would pick something up and drop it. There are some, so spoiled by philosophy, who would not accept that as proof, but most rational people, scientists included, would find such a demonstration quite acceptable. Remember, the scientist makes a prediction according to the theory and then observes if it's true. The prediction here is: "If I release this object, it will fall. The result is: it does fall. (Obviously, helium baloons are a special case that prove the prediction in an unexpected way.) Is there such a simple demonstration available; proof by observation, to prove God's existence?

Yes, there is! In fact there are many. Not quite as simple as snapping your fingers and having God appear like some genie, but convincing enough to satisfy most people. The demonstration of the existence of gravity is one. The existence of something to drop. The existence of somewhere for it to drop. The existence of the object dropped. And the existence of the one who dropped it and the mind that observed and interpreted the dropping. Just the observation that things exist, that there is a creation, is a proof of God. You can't have a creation without a creator. God is the great Creator. That is His job, it's what He does. The whole universe and all that's in it is a great testimony to and proof of the existence of God. But some scientists say that existance is inevitable, given the laws of the universe.

Creation is perfect and consistent

The creation is ordered and predictable. Things don't suddenly appear or disappear. Gravity doesn't suddenly turn off at unexpected times. A kilogram of iron doesn't become half a kilogram one day and two kilograms the next. Everything works perfectly and in total harmony. No matter how wild and violent and strange things may seem here on earth and out in the universe, everything follows universal laws. The world turns, we have night and day. Earth orbits the sun, we have the seasons. We don't have to worry about the sun not coming up tomorrow morning or winter lasting five years. Isn't it nice that everything that God created always works? Wouldn't it be nice if everything people create would always work? (Well, maybe not everything!) It strains the mind to try to imagine such a perfect universe arising by chance. (It strains the mind to try to imagine anything at all arising by chance.) Such perfection and consistency could only be the product of a great mind. This is another proof of the existence of a perfect and consistent God.

Astronomers have observed regions of the universe thousands of millions of light years away. They have never found any difference in the behavior of matter and energy anywhere in the universe, nor do they ever expect to. Things work consistently here, where we are, and they work consistently everywhere else. As far as can be determined, they've worked that way from the beginning and will always work that way. But scientists speculate that in the first few seconds of the existance of the universe it was wildly different.

Matter and energy prove God

That young upstart mentioned earlier, Albert Einstein, showed that matter and energy are interchangeable. He described their relationship in what is probably the most famous equation in the world: E=mc2. One of the most basic laws of the universe is that matter and energy cannot be either created or destroyed. Matter can be changed from one kind to another and so can energy. Matter can be changed to energy and energy to matter. But in no case is there ever a loss or gain in the total amount. Yet science has also found that the universe has not always existed. The universe is expanding and thousands of millions of years ago it all seems to have started at one point. Where did all the matter and energy come from?

There Was a Beginning

One of the great discoveries of science is that there was no past eternity of matter and energy. According to many cosmologists, all matter and energy suddenly appeared at some time in the remote past. They call that occurrence "The Big Bang". Other theories have been proposed but so far haven't withstood the tests of science. According to the Big Bang theory, the whole universe began as a tiny unimaginably compressed ball of matter and energy. It exploded and is still expanding after tens of thousands of millions of years. If this is true, where did this tiny ball of matter and energy come from?

Some cosmologists theorize that such a thing must happen inevitibly. The paradox of the great law that says matter and energy cannot be created and the observations that prove there has been no past eternity of matter and energy point inexorably to a great Creator God.

Life proves God

What we can see of the universe through our telescopes is simple compared to the life on earth and all its forms and interactions. Leaving aside the environmental upsets caused by human exploitation, living creatures and ecosystems on this earth are beautifully functional and balanced. Yes, things go wrong occasionally, living things and whole communities of living things get sick. But even then, there is a healing capacity designed into every living creature and every ecosystem. Yes, designed in! Have you watched many nature shows on TV? Even though the whole focus is on evolution, you might be surprised to count the number of times the word design is used. God is the master Designer and life giver.

Down through history, people have dreamed of creating life. Occasionally you will read of some scientific discovery that is said to be a major step toward creating life in the laboratory. How many major steps are needed? When scientists still have no idea what life is, how can they tell if it's a major step or just incidental? What is life? Obviously, creatures from the largest Blue Whale and Giant Sequoia to the smallest microbe have things in common that define what we call life. But there is some controversy among scientists concerning viruses. Recently, a new disease producer has been discovered that is just a protein. A part of living things to be sure, but not alive itself. Where is the line between living and nonliving drawn? Only God knows. God is the great life giver. Only He knows what life is and only He can produce life. But what if life is only a natural chemical process following known physical laws? Would that disprove the existance of God?

Science tries to answer

Now these proofs and others of God's existence would satisfy most people, but many scientists have hypothetical explanations that don't require God. Though they have never produced life in the laboratory and have never seen it spontaneously appear, they believe as an article of faith that given the proper circumstances and enough time, life must appear. They say that the reason the universe is so perfectly formed and balanced is that if it were not, we wouldn't be here to observe and speculate on it. Perhaps, they say, infinitely many universes have arisen that weren"t able to produce intelligent life and so no one observed them. They even postulate laws that require the spontaneous creation of the tiny ball of matter and energy that started the Big Bang from nothing; that the universe created itself.

Science has no answer

But these are not really answers, they are just attempts to explain the unexplainable. What they overlook in all this is something without which all their speculations are worthless. It is also the greatest proof of the existence of God; the one which no one can dispute. That is the existence of physical law. Everything talked about in this booklet follows laws. Gravity follows law. That law was described by Newton and later modified by Einstein. Puny man may not yet perfectly describe that law, but it undeniably exists. It never changes, though human descriptions of it may change. The whole universe follows the law of gravitation and myriad other laws. From the smallest subatomic particle to the largest galaxy, laws are followed perfectly and for all time.

Living things follow laws; from the laws of chemistry inside the living cells to the laws of inter-species interactions in a large ecosystem. Not one of these laws ever changes or wavers. No scientist has ever created or destroyed or even slightly modified the actual operation of a physical law. No scientist would even know how to go about changing a law. Not one of these laws ever contends with another; all the laws of the universe are in perfect balance and harmony. Because all of the laws work together so perfectly, some scientists feel strongly that there may be a single universal law from which all other laws are derived. If this is someday found to be true, where did that law come from? Even when cosmologists speculate regarding the creation of the universe from the Big Bang, they develop speculative laws and then extrapolate from those speculative laws. Where did all these laws come from if not from the mind of the great Lawgiver, the mighty Creator of all matter, energy, law, and order? Even if it is ultimately discovered that the universe had to arise from nothing, that life had to arise from nonliving, those would be laws. The uncountable, perfectly balanced, harmonious multitude of laws just cannot spring from nothing! And if they all spring from one great law, that law cannot spring from nothing. There is no other answer, God the great law giver does exist!

Now that the existence of God has been indisputably proven, what does that mean to you and to your future? Don't you think you should find out if the Great Creator God who created the whole universe has any interest in you? Does He have a plan for you? Does He have things He wants you to do and are there things He wants to do for you? The answers to these questions are in the Holy Bible. The Bible has been much misunderstood and characterized by some as the meaningless ramblings of a minor tribe of people who lived in the Middle East thousands of years ago. Yet the Bible is owned by more people in the world than any other book. Why this strange paradox? To find the answers to these questions and many others, look for our coming article, The Proof of the Bible.

Copyright © 1996, Rutis
from: http://www.teleport.com/~ucgptld/godexists.html

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