Reasons to Believe in God
Weighing the Preponderance of the Evidence
© Brian Tubbs
Oct 9, 2006
This article provides an overview of the most compelling reasons to believe in God. Follow-up articles will explore these reasons in greater depth.
It is not possible to prove, beyond any shadow of doubt, the existence of God, much less the Christian God portrayed in the Bible. If we were able to do so, it would undermine the concept of faith, which is critical to Christianity.
As the writer of the New Testament book of Hebrews explains: "...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." (Hebrews 11:6, NKJV) And faith is understood not as certainty, but rather as the "substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen" (Hebrews 11:1, KJV).
Since we are called to faith, Christianity would be self-contradictory if it were possible to prove the existence of God beyond a shadow of doubt. Faith is not possible outside of doubt. In fact, faith involves a conscious decision to set aside doubts and commit to a proposition that can't be proven.
Nevertheless, there is a difference between reasoned faith and blind faith. The Bible does not call Christians to blind faith in God. The Apostle Paul told the church in Thessalonica: "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good" (I Thessalonians 5:21, KJV) and Peter cautioned that believers should "always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you..." (I Peter 3:15, NKJV)
Are there good reasons to believe in God? Are their reasonable grounds to justify faith in God? This article will lay out the leading, basic arguments for God. Future articles will take each of these up in greater detail.
The reader should appreciate these arguments in a cumulative sense. In other words, they should be weighed collectively, not in isolation. None of these arguments is compelling enough as a stand-alone proposition. Taken together, however, you have a formidable case for God - one that the reader should not ignore.
The Cosmological Case for God
Either the universe is illusory (highly unlikely), eternal (largely rejected by modern science), spontaneously generated out of nothing (again, highly unlikely), or the creation of a supernatural, intelligent being. Thus, according to the cosmological argument, God (and different people will, of course, define "God" differently) is the only rational, sensical reason for the origin and existence of the universe.
The Teleogical Case for God
Pioneered by philosopher William Paley, this theory holds that the complexity of the universe demands the presence of an Intelligent Desiger. Paley provided the example of a watch. If one walks through a field and comes across a watch, he naturally concludes that there had to be a watchmaker. The watch didn't just invent itself.
Paley's theory has some weaknesses, many of them pointed out by philosopher David Hume. However, no one has been able to conclusively and objectively prove the spontaneous generation of a complex entity. Absent such evidence, Paley's theory, since it is backed by common sense and observable phenomena, carries considerable weight.
The Ontological Case for God
Philosopher Renee Descartes embraced this theory for God's existence. It essentially goes as follows:
1. Everyone can conceive of God
2. The idea of God is that of an infinite, perfect, and unlimited Being
3. For everything, there must be a cause as great or greater than the effect
4. Therefore, for the idea of God which we have, there must be an infinite, perfect, and unlimited cause
5. But we are not infinite, perfect, or unlimited - and thus could not create such an idea ourselves
6. Therefore there must be a cause outside of ourselves, which is infinite, perfect, and unlimited, which caused the idea of God which we have in our minds
And, thus, we come to the existence of God.
To be sure, the theory has some problems, namely the suspect premise that we can deduce the existence of a being from the idea of a being. Still, there is an elementary appeal in this argument, for it does attempt to articulate and explain the yearning for a divine Being (or Beings) that seems to have characterized a majority of the human population from the dawn of civilization.
The Historical Case for God
What can history teach us about religion? Each and every faith group sprung into existence based on some historical event or series of events. In some case, the "event" is a false claim made by a fraudulent or self-serving "prophet." What about Christianity?
Future articles will explore historical and archealogical evidence, particularly evidence outside of the Bible, that supports some of the basic claims about God in general and Christianity in particular.
The Biblical Case for God
Many Christians have misstated and utterly discredited any allusion to this argument for God. Such Christians argue: "The Bible says God is real. Therefore, He is." Obviously, such an argument is circular and intellectually laughable. That is not the true nature of this argument.
The Biblical case for God comes at us on two levels. First, the uniqueness and nature of the Bible almost begs for a superintending, providential force behind it. Second, the events described in the Bible, if true, can only be explained by the existence of God.
Let's take the first level. The Bible is not really a singular manuscript. It is, in actuality, a collection of books. These books were written by approximately forty different authors over a period of 1,000 years. And, yet they convey a singular theme that undergirds Christianity, defining its characteristics and essential tenets. This is either a remarkable literary coincidence (highly unlikely), a grand conspiracy, or the work of God. If the latter, then the Bible must be understood as the Word of God.
The second level of this particular argument is that the supernatural events described in the Scriptures, if true, must be attributed to God. They simply cannot be anything else. These events include Creation, the parting of the Red Sea, the virgin birth of Jesus, and of course Jesus' resurrection. In addition, these otherwise inexplicable events include the hundreds of prophecies fulfilled in the life and ministry of Jesus - prophecies written hundreds of years before Jesus was born.
What this all Means
When all these arguments for God are properly understood and taken together, one must acknowledge, at the very least, that belief in God in general, and Christianity in particular, are plausible religious faiths. Not only plausible, but compelling.
We cannot prove, to everyone's satisfaction and beyond all doubt, that God exists or that the Bible is true. But most assuredly, we can show that belief in God is very rational and that the Christian faith is a credible and attractive explanation in understanding who God is.
Our next articles will address each of these arguments for God in greater depth.
The copyright of the article
Reasons to Believe in God in
Protestantism is owned by
Brian Tubbs. Permission to republish
Reasons to Believe in God must be granted by the author in writing.
Comments
Oct 9, 2006 8:31 AM
Pink
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Very good article.
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Finally, we have a participant who shows that he is willing to be reasonable.
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You have voiced at least one opinion for which I have been pilloried by others who claim to be paragons of Christianity here at Suite101.com. <i>"It is not possible to prove, beyond any shadow of doubt, the existence of God, much less the Christian God portrayed in the Bible. If we were able to do so, it would undermine the concept of faith, which is critical to Christianity."</i>
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I hope our compatriots here at Suite101.com will receive your input with enthusiams even though there may be great disagreement in what it is that we believe beyond the point of initial faith. It seems to me that most of us are reasonable and I doubt that any would take issue with you in this article. I think your "Biblical" case is weak; but, you've already admitted that.
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I, for one, understand the idea of faith coupled with doubt that you present and do so quite readily--it is a major pillar of Christian belief. To reject it is deny faith itself. I can put my faith in God but cannot do the same for the Bible; although, Scripture can be a treasure trove of source material as well as a history of some very sick examples of bigotry.
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Oct 9, 2006 2:45 PM
Kim Jeremy Sheil
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Cool article. It reminded me of that book The Case for a Creator.
Oct 10, 2006 2:55 PM
Brian Tubbs
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Thanks for the kudos, guys. I appreciate it. Pink, I particularly appreciate your comments. I hope that, although we may not agree on everything, I can continue to earn your respect.
Oct 10, 2006 3:27 PM
Pink
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Heh heh heh.
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R E S P E C T ?
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That's the name of a song, isn't it?
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We all have a crack in our persona. You have an open mind, that's easy to see. Perhaps your father-in-law doesn't labor in vain. :)
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As long as we maintain our open minds, we are able to see new truths when they are made available to us.
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My grandfather gave me a book just a year before he died. It was titled, "Peck's Bad Boy". I'm sure you can bring it up on the 'Net.
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He copied a line from the book and put it on the first blank page at the inside front cover. Here it is:
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<i>"Man is like a sausage, fair upon the skin; but, you cannot tell from the outside, what there is within.".</i>
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It's what's on the inside that counts. And, when we talk about our beliefs about God, that comes out. Maintain your cool attitude. It will serve you well.
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Oct 10, 2006 10:56 PM
Kim Jeremy Sheil
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You're welcome. I'm just glad to have an intellectual like yourself writing here.:)
Oct 11, 2006 6:13 AM
Pink
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Do you think you might consider the reasons not to believe in God as well? I wonder what they could be.
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Oct 11, 2006 6:57 PM
Brian Tubbs
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So, you want me to do the other side's work for them? :-)
Seriously, most of the reasons people give for not believing in God deal with the Judeo-Christian God. I've not heard that many truly intellectual, logical arguments against the existence of a Supreme Cosmic Entity of some kind. It just makes sense that there is some kind of divine entity responsible for the universe. That's why there are (according to polls) very few true atheists in the world today.
Oct 11, 2006 7:49 PM
Pink
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When a person looks out into space even without the benefit of the Hubbel space telescope, they are amazed at the complexity of being and existence. So vast and so unlimited.
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It's difficult to imagine the endlessness of space and that there may be even other spaces beyong the one to which we are exposed. Unlimited possibilities. A being that brought it all into existence from nothing? Where did the being come from?
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What seems most likely is that somehow, something began to be out of the nothingness that must have been. Did it just grow and accumulate energy unto itself? A trillion years or a quadrillion eons of time? An idea? Who can know? But, something came into being. Was it the One existence? Did that One gain an awareness? Did it imagine the galaxies?
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Who can possibly know? But, one thing is for certain and that is that the ideas of a supreme being fascinates us. We are caught up in our thoughts about such a being. I'm sure there were people at one time or another who claimed knowledge--some who were more clever than others. And they told stories that thrilled the minds of the followers.
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And, I can imagine that was repeated over and over again and again until the stories were extremely sophisticated.
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Maybe this all took place in Adromeda and maybe a team went out into space and found the Milky Way where they seeded the planet earth with life. That's as plausible as anything else.
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In the sixties, there was a saying, "Whatever turns you on, man."
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It's hard to imagine that we are the most advanced form of being in all the galaxies of the universe. There must be beings out there that have advanced far beyond us.
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At least, some people think so.
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Maybe one of us is an agent of the masters from Andromeda? Is it you?
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:)
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FOMYCLMBO
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Maybe I'm Just a nut case.
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Might as well have some fun about it.
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Ever hear this song by George Gershwin
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Life Is Just A Bowl Of Cherries
by George Gershwin
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People are queer, they're always crowing, scrambling and rushing about;
Why don't they stop someday, address themselves this way?
Why are we here? Where are we going? It's time that we found out.
We're not here to stay; we're on a short holiday.
Life is just a bowl of cherries.
Don't take it serious; life's so mysterious.
You work, you save, you worry so,
But you can't take your dough when you go, go, go.
So keep repeating it's the berries,
The strongest oak must fall,
The sweet things in
Oct 11, 2006 9:17 PM
Brian Tubbs
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My next three articles - already written and queued up - address what you've written here. I'll simply say, for now, that I think the theory that a) there is a divine cause, and b) an intelligent designer of some sort is more logical and rational than a randomly generated universe that came from nothing. I really believe that - and I say that as one who has gone through doubts (deep, serious doubts about God, religion, and the whole nine yards). As an intellectual, I just don't see the logic in pure atheism. I mean no offense to you or anyone else. But arguing that the universe is an uncaused cause defies logic (at least it does to me).
Oct 12, 2006 5:31 AM
Pink
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I'm not an atheist.
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I probably qualify as a theist.
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I was trying to be a little jocular in that post.
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Be careful admitting to being an intellectual. That can be as liberalism. Intellectuals spend time in their minds sorting things out rather than quoting the drill. That's what the apostle Paul advised Timothy to do in the passage you quoted just the other day--dividing the word of truth. Religionists do not believe in seeking understanding beyond the fundamentals. That would be heresy. But heresy has always led to further enlightenment.
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It's interesting that you had no sooner come on the scene and the famous Brother Jones took off for the tall timber. I wonder if his concern was that you might come into conflict with Southron religion.
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