THE CASE FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD

 A few weeks ago, I interviewed Rolf, a work colleagues, and asked him if he believe in God. This was Rolf’s response, “We are the result of evolution, human beings evolve from hundreds of thousands of years ago.” Furthermore, Rolf expressed that he believes in evolution because, it is the most reasonable theory in physics, which disprove the existence of God.

Perhaps you are like Rolf, and you do not believe in God, and you think that those who believe in God have adopted a faith that is without any evidence or solid reason for them to trust in God. This idea cannot be further from the truth because, Christianity is based on truth which can be examined, and the evidence is adequate for you to know and trust in the existence of God.

Although, God is invisible, however, there is sufficient evidence to believe in the God described in the scriptures. He, therefore, revealed himself through creation, conscience, and Christ. God is not an abstract force, but a person, you can know. I would like to explore three evidences for the existence of God.

THE ORIGIN OF THE UNIVERSE

The Bing Bang theory is the scientific evidence for the origin of the universe and those who hold to this view are confident of itsevidence and rejects the biblical account of the existence of God.

The question is, how can we know if God exist? I will be arguing from the biblical Christian view to prove that God exist. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” (Genesis 1:1-2). According to the Bible, God is the creator of everything, and he is infinitely powerful and eternal. He is the first cause of everything and there is nothing beyond him. As we have just heard from the passage, the Bible authoritativelyintroduces his readers to the infinite, eternal God, who is spoke the universe into existence.

In contrast to the Bible, the Big Bang theory states that out of nothing, the universe exploded into being. Interestingly, the Big Bang theory disregards a fundamental principle in science called the law of causality. The law of causality states that every event that requires a cause is produced by someone or something, therefore, the big bang contradicts this rule.

Additionally, according to the Big Bang theory, time and space originated at the moment of the Big Bang. This suggests that an eternal cause, existing beyond time and space, initiated the beginning of the universe. Let us try to unpack the limitations of science. For instance, a nutrition scientist will tell us about the number of calories on a cake. The chemists will be able to reveal the elements involved and their bonding, the physicists cananalyse the fundamental particles of the cake. And themathematicians can provide sets of equations to describe the behaviour of those particles. These different scientists can tell us what is in the cake, but what they can’t tell us, is who made the cake? The same is true for science; it can tell you the complexity of the created order, but it cannot tell you who created the world, except the one who created the world that can reveal himself. (Lennox, 2007, p40). According to Christian scripture, an eternal being created the universe by speaking it into existence, while science has limitations and can only partially explain the universe's complexity. Therefore, it is reasonable to believe that God exists.

THE MORAL ARGUMENT

As we have just explored in my first point, God revealed himself through creation and secondly through the human conscience. We Christians believe that God is the source of creation, and he is amoral being and therefore God is the source of morality and truth. In Christian theology, God's law is inseparable from His nature, and because humans are created in God's image, they inherently possess moral values and spiritual attributes. Romans 2:14 explains that everyone has God's moral law written in their hearts, acting as an internal witness to God's presence.

The conscience has functioned as a standard for all humans to be able to differentiate between good and bad. And there is a personal obligation to abide to objective morality even when no one is watching. Atheist philosophers have proposed moral theories independent of God. Nietzsche, the German philosopherof the eighteen hundreds said that because God does not exist, there can be no moral facts. In fact, Nietzsche is agreeing that God is the source of morality, if only he believes in the existence of God.

Immanuel Kant, a prominent philosopher from the nineteenth century, believed that rational thought forms the foundation of moral principles. This idea from Kant is flawed, because what he is saying is that all immorality is irrational. We can see how these views have influenced our culture, thinking that morality is possible without God.

In my interview with Rolf, I pressed him on the issue of morality,interestingly, Rolf believe that morality is a social construct and that it varies from culture to culture which means morality is relative. Can we honestly say, morality is relative and that it isbased on a person’s culture? Those who believe in moral relativism misunderstood the difference between absolute moralsand changing perceptions of the facts. In the book, ‘I Don’t have Enough Faith to be an Atheist’ by Geisler and Turek, they cited an illustration from C. S. Lewis. Lewis noted that although witches were convicted of murder in the 1700s, this is not the case today.

To the moral relativist, society has evolved and the modern world do not condemned witches. Therefore, morality is based on culture and time. Let us look at the confusion of changing perceptions of the facts from this example, which does not undermine absolute morality. The truth is the moral principle has not changed that murder is wrong but the perception of witches as those who murder people by their curses have changed. Thoughour perception of witches and the factual understanding of witches as murderers have changed, the moral fact that murder is always wrong. (Turek, 2004, p183).

God's law is inseparable from God's own nature, making God the ultimate foundation of morality. We can conclude that becausemorality is objective and it is not relative, therefore God exists.

THE HISTORICAL EVIDENCE

We have discovered that God revealed himself through creation and conscience, but he also revealed himself through Christ. The scientific evolutionary account of the origin of the universe happened at the big bang in which atoms and molecules accidentally brought the universe into existence. But the Christian scriptures tell us that, God spoke the universe into being. And in John the Word is God’s Son, Jesus Christ and he is co-eternal with God and he created the universe. (John 1:1-2). According to John 1:14, which states, "The Word became flesh," Jesus Christ reveals God to us, and he proved his divinity through his word and works. The existence of God revealed in Jesus is proven from historical facts from the scriptures.

And the trustworthiness of the historical accounts about Jesus Christ depends on how reliable the New Testament is, and its credibility can be demonstrated through robust research and eyewitness accounts. The New Testament was completed within forty years of Jesus’ death and resurrection, and with rigorous textual criticism, makes it is the single best document of the first century compared to secular documents such as Homer and Tacitus. Given that historical accounts of Jesus are considered trustworthy, we can trust that God's presence is manifested in the coming of Jesus Christ on earth. Jesus himself claimed to be God, as he accepts worship and forgives sin. In Mark 2, a paralytic manwas brought to Jesus to be healed and in that moment, Jesus declared his deity by forgiving the paralytic man and he provedhis deity by healing the paralytic man in front of everyone. He proved who he was by restoring the man paralysis. (Mark 2:1-12).His miracles are the authentication of who he is. And the central and most powerful pieces of evidence of Jesus is his resurrection.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, let me tell you a true story about an atheist journalist. One evening Lee and his pregnant wife and daughter Alison went out for dinner to celebrate his special recognition as a journalist. And their daughter Alison choked on a piece of candy. One of the customers, a nurse, intervenes and saves Alison. After her wife befriended the nurse, they started attending church, eventually Lee’s wife Leslie became a Christian. Lee was shocked and irritated at his wife newfound faith and tried to persuade her to abandon Christianity. He decided to find evidence to disprove the resurrection of Jesus and as an investigative journalist he has the tools and technique to achieve this. After robust research, of the death and resurrection of Jesus, he concluded that it was true and amazingly Lee put his trust in Jesus. This a true story of Lee Stobel who wrote a book about his conversion in ‘The Case for Christ’.

If you are an atheist or agnostic, I encourage you to seriously consider the evidence for God and Christianity. God revealed himself in creation and he inscribed his moral law in our hearts. Ultimately, he manifested himself in Jesus who came, lived aperfect life, and fulfilled God’s law and died as a substitute for sinners. On the third day, Jesus rise from the dead. Those who trust in Jesus will be saved. I urge you today, trust in Jesus and you will receive the gift of eternal life.