I recently watched a comedy about a brilliant little
boy who was destined to become a scientist and was an avowed atheist. He simply
could not place belief in God within his framework of understanding reality. He
had two misconceptions, though, or rather the writers of the comedy did. One,
they did not understand what Christians believe and two, they expressed the
false notion that science is never based on faith.
Before I get into that I want to point out a debate I watched
on Youtube between the militant atheist science celebrity, Richard Dawkins, and
a Catholic theologian when, after hearing Dawkins harangue against belief in
God expressing what he thought was a description of God, the Catholic said
something like, “This is difficult because I don’t believe in the God that he
doesn’t believe in.” The atheist had shown that he had no understanding of who
God is but only a popular mythology kind of view of an old man with a long
beard sending thunderbolts, a sort of Zeus of Greek mythology. Dawkins didn’t
say it just like that but it was clear he had no clue of the God of the Bible
at all.
So it is with Hollywood writers who will have their
characters say the Lord’s Prayer in place of asking a blessing on their food
before a meal or in order to put people of faith down will have them say things
that aren’t in the Bible but sound Biblical, phrases from old pop Christianity
like, “the Lord helps those who help themselves,” as a justification for theft,
or, “cleanliness is next to godliness,” to get a child to take a bath.
In this comedy about the genius little boy a preacher
makes a statement something like this, “There is a 50-50 probability that God
exists. So, I’ll take my chances.” The boy-genius raises his hand and tells the
preacher he is confusing probability with chance. There is a 50-50 chance the
little boy has a million dollars laying on his bed at home but there is
absolutely no probability of it. He also insists he trusts science because it
is based on facts.
Well, let me tell you about science. There is a kind
of philosopher of science who is called an anti-realist. Now, why would they be
called that? Well, for one, they look at something like the Higgs-Boson
particle, the so-called God-particle that allows all things to have mass
supposedly, and they might say to the theoretical scientists, and of course I’m
making this up for my argument’s sake, “Hey, Sparky, the Higgs-Boson particle
is valuable because it has the ability to explain something that really
happens. It has explanatory power. But, there is absolutely no evidence it
exists in reality. In fact, you’re just making it up to justify your worldview
and your theories.” I would add, “without God,” but I doubt the anti-realist
would care to hear that.
But, we’re not discussing whether the God-particle
exists. We’re talking about God. Most of us believe that God exists by faith
but there have been lots of arguments in history regarding God’s existence.
There is everything from Pascal’s Wager, which is the one you hear preachers repeat
all the time in made-up, as in fake or not-true never-happened, salvation
stories they like to use. It goes like this in a shortened way. If I believe in
God and He doesn’t exist I won’t know because I will cease to exist. If you
don’t believe in God and He does exist, you’re fried.
There have been arguments from Aesthetics, Desire,
Conscience, the Moral Argument, the Ontological Argument, and on and on for
thousands of years. But, really, the argument for God’s existence breaks down
to where we live. The most important proof of God’s existence is that there is
something rather than nothing and since stuff doesn’t create itself it had to
be created, and that’s where God comes in.
Now, I don’t believe in God because of this. My faith
is based on my experience with Him and on the truth of what He has said in His
book. Not only have I encountered a risen Saviour in prayer, Bible reading,
answered prayer, and in the creation and reality around me but I completely
trust His book containing His ministry of reconciling mankind to Himself. I
have no doubts. God speaks to my heart through His book changing me without me
hearing words in my ear but working on me from the inside in His special way.
You may not find me a credible witness. If I told you
I had an Uncle Lloyd you might say, “maybe you did, maybe you didn’t.” You
might think I was making Uncle Lloyd up. Well, let me tell you nobody could
make my Uncle Lloyd up. But, typically, if a person says they have an uncle or
a spouse or a close friend and go on to describe them the listener usually
accepts that if they have no reason to doubt the truthfulness or sanity of the
person.
However, with God it is totally different. Unbelievers
become adamant, raving even, that you are a lunatic, or weak, or small-minded.
They cannot accept that a perfectly rational scientist, businessman, or scholar
of any type could believe in and love a God who has not revealed Himself to them.
So, let me try to start with some basics. These are
things outside of our personal experience with God, a personal experience that
no unbeliever can understand or accept unless God Himself touches their hearts.
Let’s
take something as complex as life. The astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle was born in Yorkshire,
England on June 24, 1915. He was conferred a master's degree from Cambridge in
1939 and then was elected Fellow, St. John's College, Cambridge in the same
year. He worked his way to become a Professor of Astrophysics and Natural
Philosophy in 1958. He was a leading contributor in the discovery of how the
elements from lithium to iron are synthesized inside stars.
Professor N. Chandra
Wickramasinghe was born in Colombo, Sri Lanka, on January 20, 1939, studied
astrophysics at Cambridge, and was a student of Hoyle's. He received a Ph.D. in
1963 taught at Cambridge. He later became a Professor of Applied Mathematics
and Astronomy at the University College, Cardiff, Wales. He is an expert in the
use of infrared astronomy to study interstellar matter.
These are no lightweights
although Wickramasinghe has gone a little bonkers in the last few years. But,
they both came to the logical atheist conclusion that life came from outer
space. Why? Because it was impossible
for it to have happened by random chance on earth, not in 15 billion years or a
hundred billion years. Let me read you a quote published recently by Dr. Wick…
“Improbability of Life
The blueprint for all life from bacteria to plants to animals was
discovered in the 1950s by Watson and Crick to reside in DNA – in particular in
the precise arrangements of the nucleotides A,G,T,C that effectively code for
proteins that in turn control cell function. In a series of books and articles
published in collaboration with the late Sir Fred Hoyle, I have argued that
highly specific arrangements needed for the operation of living cells cannot be
understood as arising from random processes. For the simplest bacterium
(Mycoplasma genitalium) the probability that its few hundred genes will be
discovered by random shuffling of their amino acid components gives a figure of
1 in 10 to the 1000th power or smaller. Hoyle and I have compared
such horrendous improbabilities to the odds against a ‘tornado blowing through
a junk yard leading to self-assembly of BOEING 707 airplane.’” [Chandra Wickramasinghe & Robert Bauval, Cosmic Womb: The Seeding of Planet Earth (Rochester, Vermont:Bear & Co., 2017), Kindle
ed., chap. 1]
1 in 10 to the 1000th? These types of
scientists estimate there is only 10 to the 80th power number of
atoms in the universe. Saying that life came about by random processes is like
me saying that I’m getting handsomer, wealthier, and smarter as I get older.
You would just look at me and go, what? I’m joking, right? But, scientists who
believe in spontaneous generation, I mean abiogenesis, or life by accident are
serious.
So, proof that God exists, step one. Life could not
have happened on earth by chance. It’s not mathematically conceivable, not by
any stretch of your Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, Star Trek, Hitchhiker’s
Guide to the Galaxy, Dr. Who imagination. But, what about it coming from
somewhere else? That’s called panspermia and that’s what Dr. Wick believes in.
Well, NASA scientists Peter D. Ward and Donald
Brownlee, in their book, Rare Earth: Why
Complex Life is Uncommon in the Universe, explained that it is also highly
unlikely that life came from someplace else as this planet, located where it
is, is the best and most likely place for life to exist and, in fact, probably
could not exist anywhere else.
So, proof that God exists, step two. Life could not
have happened anywhere but on earth. But, it couldn’t happen here by chance.
So, something else, or someone else rather, must be happening.
Who could it be?
You know if they could have proven that life could
have come together by random events on earth like Miller-Urey’s experiment
tried to do and failed in the 1950s it would be astounding. But, you’d have to
have nothing and then have something suddenly come into existence for it to
simulate God without God. After all, Miller-Urey made something happen with the equipment and chemicals they introduced
making themselves in the place of God. But, they did not create life and
established conditions that evolutionists do not believe were present in their
fantasy of early earth anyway. So, it worked as a publicity stunt but was not
good science.
Then, there was Dr. Wimmer in the latter part of the
twentieth century that supposedly made a virus out of synthetic DNA. Now he
admitted in an interview that he did not create life as a virus isn’t alive, it
can’t reproduce itself and needs a host, and he used synthetic DNA.
None of these experiments or any other created life or
proved that it could be created by random processes without an intelligent mind
involved.
So, now you have the gorilla in the living room. You
have something as complex as life and you shouldn’t have it if there were no
one to inject intelligence into it. Life isn’t possible without God.
You have the atheist or the doubter demanding, “How do
you know God exists?” and you have your own testimony, if you have one, and you
have this incontrovertible fact, “Because without God life could not exist.”
You see, we are not just alive. We are aware that we
are alive. Science has a huge problem with conscious self-awareness. Step three
to proving that God exists. I am.
It has been said repeatedly that consciousness is the
window through which we understand. Science has failed to pinpoint the actual
brain processes that are behind our awareness. Some neuroscientists and
philosophers of science express a deep pessimism that we will ever find an
explanation for consciousness. But we know. Every car mechanic or customer
service rep, a farmer or bank teller can know what a neuroscientist does not
know. We know where consciousness comes from, that function of our spirit.
Zechariah 12:1 ¶ The burden
of the word of the LORD for Israel, saith the LORD, which stretcheth forth the
heavens, and layeth the foundation of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man within him.
Scientists say that a good theory, a
theory that must supplant other theories, doesn’t have to answer every
question. But it must answer more questions than its competitors. The belief in
God answers far more questions than theoretical science can even come up with.
God is the greatest of all self-aware
beings.
Exodus 3:14 And God said
unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt
thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.
He made us. He formed our bodies, our souls, and our
spirits. In these verses are all three; body, spirit, and soul.
Genesis 2:7 And the LORD
God formed man of the dust of
the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a
living soul.
1Thessalonians 5:23 And the
very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body
be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
He uses our spirit to see us from the inside.
Proverbs 20:27 The spirit
of man is the candle
of the LORD, searching all the inward parts of the belly.
We are made self-aware and our soul is the seat of our
self-identity and will and our spirit makes us aware of it, of God, and of all
things. It is our understanding, our skills, our drives, our emotions, our
yearnings.
It is sad that the atheist or doubter will question
your testimony as to whether or not you are a credible witness for God’s
existence. That was how I came to Christ, the mechanism He used, the testimony
of others. I vacillated between atheism, happy to believe in any religion at
all, and really, God just being irrelevant to my life or thinking. But, over
time I saw the truth of Christianity in the lives of people around me.
No, it wasn’t because of someone screaming Bible
verses at me on a street corner. It wasn’t from someone handing me a gospel
tract. It was the testimony of Christians, filled with faith and goodness,
relying completely on God for their very survival, trusting in Christ’s
righteousness and not their own for eternal life. Their faith was real, and it
took time but God impressed on me that reality until I accepted it myself and
received Christ on March 19, 1986. It was a Wednesday evening I believe.
The question of whether or not God exists has been a
subject of deep philosophical debate for thousands of years. But, even outside
of our experience we know.
Psalm 19:1 The heavens
declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.
The proof of God’s existence is all around us. Without
God’s existence no reality makes sense for very long.
The universe is finely tuned, so finely tuned that
something as rare and fragile as life can live in it. Things like the ratio of
the strength of electromagnetism to the strength of gravity for a pair of
protons, nuclear efficiency of fusion from hydrogen to helium, the density
parameter, the cosmological constant, and a bunch of other intelligent sounding
stuff make many scientists insist that the universe is just so and because of
that you, me, and that little chipmunk you saw on your deck this morning can
exist.
Other scientists invent all sorts of nonsensical
things to counteract this belief. They will resurrect the multidimensions of
the occult of the late 1800s which impacted theoretical physics then and say
there is a multiverse, many universes where things are different and anything
is possible. I might even be handsomer, wealthier, and smarter on one of them,
in their imagination only of course.
But, the universe is fine-tuned. Now, how does
something get tuned? Have you ever seen a radio tune itself? Never mind. In
today’s world I suppose that is possible. But, at some point a person was
involved; an engineer or someone to tune that radio. How do you think the
universe was tuned so close and exact? Who did it? Who maintains it? We all
know that if you leave your car in the driveway without maintaining it for
thirty years the tires will rot and it will become undriveable. The Second Law
of Thermodynamics says that all things fall apart. Oh, and there is this;
Colossians 1:17 And he is
before all things, and by him all things consist.
In a couple of my Sunday School classes I present some
scientific studies that express alarm at the harmful mutations produced in each
generation of people. One of them was entitled, “Contamination of the Genome by
Very Slightly Deleterious Mutations: Why Have We Not Died 100 Times Over?” But,
we’re here, our biology is preserved, life goes on and the planet is not yet
cold and dead.
Again, I say ask yourself, if there was no God, then
why is there something rather than nothing? Why is something as complex as life
here in this space of earth? If God doesn’t
exist why do I know that I am? Why is the universe so finely tuned as to permit
us to exist?
You know, our government has spent millions of dollars
searching for extraterrestrials, life on other planets, even microbial. They
will continue to do so but will probably never find it. The scientific
community has a hunger, a lust, to overthrow God. They are searching for
microbes and water on Mars.
In the Rosetta Mission they recently learned that
water in space can be vastly different than water on earth so they feel
confident in at least admitting that our water didn’t come from comets. Recent
research on earth has shown that water alone will not be the cause of life if
other conditions aren’t right. But, they will keep searching, hoping to be able
to drive the nail in the coffin for belief in the God of the Bible.
There are two other things that scream the truth of
the existence of God. One is the very desperate desire to prove beyond all
doubt that He does not. Let me read you part of the short religious history of
man that God has provided in Romans.
Romans 1:19 ¶ Because that
which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. 20 For the invisible things of him from the
creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are
made, even his eternal power
and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: 21 Because that, when they knew God, they glorified
him not as God, neither were
thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was
darkened. 22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,
And in another context
an ancient warning;
Isaiah 66:4 I also will
choose their delusions, and will bring their fears upon them;
because when I called, none did answer; when I spake, they did not hear: but
they did evil before mine eyes, and chose that in which I delighted not.
Remember what King
David thought of atheists in about 1000 BC.
Psalm 14:1 « To the
chief Musician, A Psalm of
David. » The fool hath said in his heart,
There is no God. They are
corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.
Finally, evolutionary
biologists admit an astounding thing. Belief in God, according to some of them,
is hard-wired into the human brain. A neuroscientist and the author of several
books, Andrew Newberg, wrote a book entitled Why God Won’t Go Away: Brain Science and the Biology of Belief. He
is called a neurotheologist, studying how religious belief and prayer affect
the brain.
On page 129 he wrote, “…evolution
has adopted this machinery, and has favored the religious capabilities of the
religious brain because religious belief and behaviors turn out to be good for
us in profound and pragmatic ways.”
As evolutionists often
do he refers to evolution as he does in other places with natural selection
almost as a god in itself rather than just a process or a mechanism by which
new species of dog, cat, or deer are produced by environmental stresses or
opportunities or human cross-breeding efforts (There are more than two dozen
scientific definitions of species.) The fact is that all of the genetic
information necessary for a creature to adapt to its environment are present
within the creature’s DNA and no dog ever became a cat and no alligator ever
became a trout. But, Newberg, like other of his ilk, refer to evolution as a
sort of inert god who unfeelingly adopts and
favors in the passage I quoted. In a
preceding page he refers to natural selection as not tolerating something. So, it is almost humorous to see how these
kinds of scientists use language, at the least, very interesting.
Susan Mazur, a science
writer and journalist who doesn’t appear to be a fundamental Baptist (said in a
tongue-in-cheek manner), wrote in her book The
Altenberg 16: An Expose’ of the Evolution Industry that, “Evolutionary
science is as much about posturing, salesmanship, stonewalling and bullying as
it is about actual scientific theory.” (v)
In any event, this is
not a sermon about comparative religions so we’ll leave the religion of
evolution alone for now.
So, to summarize, if
you want to look outside of your own experience for proof that God exists I
suggest starting with life. There are many other topics we could talk about
that prove or at least suggest His existence but let’s stick with the ones I’ve
brought up.
One, there is something
rather than nothing and since space dust did not create itself then something
or someone did. Two, life could not have begun here on earth and probably not
on some distant planet by chance. Some intelligent being had to create it.
Three, self-awareness and consciousness imply a reality greater than the
physical universe. Four, we are apparently “hard-wired” to believe in God. It
is part of our make-up.
We believe in God
because He has communed with our spirit so that we can. We experience Him in
our prayer and in the answers to it, the way the Bible speaks to us, in the
truth found in it, the way He molds and changes us by our reading and hearing
it read, by the reality arounds us that is confirmed in the Bible, and by His
miraculous intervention in our lives.
But, an unbeliever
doesn’t have that privilege that we do. So, sometimes you have to think in
order to give them something to think about.
In the end, though,
these facts revealed through the Bible and common-sense must be accepted and
understood without the arguments. No one ever came to Christ by an argument
based on logic.
1Corinthians 1:18 For the
preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us
which are saved it is the power of God.
Tell them the truth as
you know it from the Bible and pray that God will open their eyes for there is
no other hope for salvation than God Himself opening someone’s eyes. It is not
a numbers game like sales. If you hand out a hundred gospel tracts you’re not
assured of getting a 2% return. They will only come to Christ, turn to Him,
trust in His righteousness and not their own, if God speaks to their twisted,
wicked heart like He did to your twisted, wicked heart, all arguments
notwithstanding.
