How Can I Know There Is A God? | Part One

I was saved by God when I was five years old.

I was called by God into the ministry when I was fifteen.

I made a pledge to God to remain faithful to my bride when I was 21.

I serve God by pastoring a large church.

I write and talk about God to a lot of people.

I converse with God every morning, night, and throughout the day.

Occasionally, I wonder if God really exists.

And I imagine you do, as well.

I regularly encounter people in my church who will never confess to ever having any doubts about anything, including the existence of God. “I may have questioned a lot of things, but I have NEVER doubted that there is a God who loves me,” they proclaim. These people seem to be representative of the vast majority of Americans who profess belief in God. According to a recent Gallup poll, more than nine in 10 Americans still say they believe in God. Apparently, Americans are much more inclined to believe in God than the rest of the world’s population.  Just over half (51%) of people worldwide claim to believe in God’s existence; however, I’m not confident that people are as sure about God’s existence as they profess.

Daniel Dennett, the author of Darwin’s Dangerous Idea, is representative of the “new atheists” who have launched a vitriolic broadside attack against theists. As much as I disagree with just about everything Dennett believes, I think it is correct to clarify the distinction between actual belief in God and what he terms “belief in belief.” If you probe those nine in 10 Americans who say they believe in God more deeply, you will find that what they really believe in is not God but their own beliefs about God. If they truly believed in God, wouldn’t they conduct their lives differently? And if over half of the world’s population and 90% of Americans started acting as if God really existed (and would one day evaluate their lives), wouldn’t this world be in much better shape than its current state?  Even atheists like Dennett can get it right every now and then! 

Whether we are willing to admit it or not, almost all of us have wondered about the existence of God. The only people who never doubt are those who never really think. I agree with Mark Buchanan’s claim assertion that “The depth of our doubt is roughly proportional to the depth of our faith. Those with strong faith have equally strong doubts. That principle bears out in the other direction as well: People with a trivial and shallow faith usually have trivial and shallow doubts.”  

This series, “How Can I Know,” is for those of you who have sincere questions about religion but may be too embarrassed to voice them. Perhaps you have grown up in a church and realize you should know the right answers to these questions—but you don’t. And even if you feel confident in your own beliefs, you would be hard-pressed to answer questions from a friend, co-worker, or family member such as . . . 

• How do you know the Bible is really true?
• How do you know that out of thousands of religions, Christianity is the right religion?
• How do you know there is such a thing as life after death?

Maybe you are listening to this series because although you would like to be a better person—maybe even a religious person—you have some legitimate doubts that have kept you from embracing Christianity. If so, you can relax. Rather than berating you for your doubts, I want to address them intelligently and compassionately. Questioning foundational beliefs is not a sin but a necessary prerequisite for faith.

Obviously, the most foundational question about faith is the one we are beginning within this message: How can we know there really is a God?

1. Why We Doubt The Existence of God

• Natural Doubts 
• Philosophical Doubts 
• Experiential Doubts
• Spiritual Doubts
• Empirical Doubts

2. Can We Prove The Existence of God?

While we cannot prove God’s existence, we can look at evidence that strongly argues for His existence. Unfortunately, when confronted with strong evidence for the existence of God, some people willingly choose to ignore it. Jimmy Williams, founder of Probe Ministries, likes to tell the story of a man who went to a psychiatrist convinced that he was dead. The psychiatrist tried everything to assure the patient that he was not dead. The patient remained undeterred in his belief. Finally, the psychiatrist asked him, “Do dead men bleed?” The patient said dead men do not bleed. The psychiatrist then pulled out a pocket knife, reached over, and nicked the man’s finger. The patient exclaimed, “What do you know? Dead men DO bleed!”

While it is true that theists cannot prove the existence of God, it is equally true that atheists cannot prove God does not exist. Legal scholar and philosopher Mortimer Adler observed that while it is possible to prove an affirmative existential proposition, it is impossible to prove a negative existential proposition—that something does not exist. For example, someone might claim that a red eagle exists, and someone else may assert that red eagles do not exist. The first person only needs to find one red eagle to prove his claim. However, the second person must scour every corner of this vast universe—an impossible feat—to ensure he has not missed a red eagle somewhere.

When it comes to the existence of God, we must understand that the issue is not about “proving” whether God exists but making an informed decision based on the evidence. Let’s examine the four most powerful pieces of evidence for arguing for the existence of God. After weighing the evidence, an honest seeker of truth should ask himself, “Is it more reasonable to accept or deny that there is a God?”

3. The Evidence For The Existence of God

Why is there something rather than nothing? Look around you, carefully noting everything you see. A chair, a lamp, a tree outside the window, a cloud in the sky. Now, ask yourself, “Why do I see something rather than nothing at all?” Or, to get even more introspective, “Why do I see?” And for a real mind-blowing question, “Why am I even asking myself this question?” The naturalist’s explanation for the existence of everything we see is found in this simple formula:  

Formula: No One x Nothing = Everything 

Yet, the existence of a vast universe (not to mention you and me) strongly suggests that Someone brought something into existence out of nothing. To put this argument into perspective, consider the immensity of our universe. Our solar system exists in the Milky Way Galaxy, which consists of at least 100 billion stars. The average distance between those stars is 30 trillion miles. How far is 30 trillion miles?  

Author Norm Geisler asks readers to imagine boarding one of the now-decommissioned space shuttles for travel through the Milky Way Galaxy. The space shuttles flew at 17,000 miles per hour or five miles per second. At that speed, it would take you 201,450 years to travel 30 trillion miles.  

Or, put another way, if you had started your journey on the day of Christ’s birth more than 2000 years ago, by now, you would have just traveled one-hundredth of the way there. And once you finally arrived, you would have just made it to the first star, with hundreds of billions yet to go. And remember, that is just the Milky Way Galaxy. Our galaxy is just one of hundreds of billions of galaxies in the universe!

So, how did these hundreds of billions of stars in hundreds of billions of galaxies come into existence? For many years people argued that the universe was eternal and, therefore, had always existed.  

Unfortunately for the atheist, science has now demonstrated that the universe had a beginning, necessitating a cause. Furthermore, since the universe consists of time, space, matter, and energy, this cause must transcend time, space, matter, and energy. The cause must be above or beyond the natural or, in other words, “supernatural.” 

The often-asked question, “If there is a God, why doesn’t He reveal Himself so that everyone can believe in Him?” is built upon a false premise. God has revealed Himself in the world. The existence of anything and everything in the cosmos offers powerful evidence for the existence of God.  

As the psalmist declared, “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands” (Psalm 19:1).

When famed astronaut John Glenn was allowed to fly in the Space Shuttle Discovery at age 77, he looked out of the window and remarked, “To look out at this kind of creation and not believe in God is to me impossible.”

While the existence of the universe is a powerful argument for a transcendent and personal Creator, atheist Richard Dawkins is correct in claiming that it is a giant leap from such a First Cause to the God of the Bible. However, the Creator has left other fingerprints in the Universe that tell us even more about Himself. And next time we will discover three more powerful arguments for the existence of God.

Full Passage: Romans 1:18-23