"While sitting in a coffee shop reading C. S. Lewis's Mere Christianity, I put down the book and wrote in my notebook, 'the evidence surrounding the claims of Christianity is simply overwhelming.' I realized that my achievements were ultimately unsatisfying, the approval of man is fleeting, that a carpe diem life lived solely for adventure is just a form of narcissism and idolatry. And so I became a believer in Christ." (Kevin, New York City, from the book The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism, by Timothy Keller.)
Man, of all the creatures, has the capacity to contemplate ultimate reality. French mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) said this: "I only know that on leaving this world I fall into nothingness or into the hands of a wrathful God, without knowing to which of these two states I shall be everlastingly consigned." Modern theologian William Lane Craig (resource list <http://www.faithfacts.org/search-for-truth/questions-of-christians/recommended-resources>) adds, "Man's condition ought to impel him to seek to discover whether there is a God and a solution to his predicament. But people occupy their time and their thoughts with trivialities and distractions, so as to avoid the despair, boredom, and anxiety that would inevitably result if those diversions were removed."
This article is all about using reason and evidence to examine ultimate things. First we will examine how faith fits into the use of reason and evidence in such exploration.
In one sense, we all operate every day on faith in many different areas of our lives. If you've ever eaten at a restaurant, accepted a doctor's prescription, or planned for the future, you have certainly been operating on a degree of "blind faith."
As C. S. Lewis said, most of the things you believe are believed on authority, secondary evidence, etc. For example, you may never have actually seen a living dinosaur, but you are confident based on evidence that dinosaurs once existed. We are confident that things like gravity, the laws of logic, and true love exist even though we cannot see them. Of course, experience and rational investigation should increase your confidence in what is true.
The issue is not faith. Everyone has a faith-atheist, agnostic, or Christian. The real issue is what is a worthy object of our faith. In this article, and those following, we will show that Christianity is reasonable and rational, that it is logically consistent, that it fits the evidence, and that it is relevant for modern man. And we hope to clear up a few common misconceptions about Christianity.
Christianity is not mere blind faith. As emphasized by theologian D. James Kennedy, the claim that belief in Christianity produces an irrational, uneducated, unintelligent, or unintellectual view of life is completely false. And the statement that unbelief produces a rational and intelligent and enlightened view of the universe is equally false.
Blind faith is faith without evidence, which would be superstition. The Bible does not call us to blind faith. The Bible calls us to faith in evidence. We submit that various truth claims, including Christianity, should be evaluated on the evidence.
Yes, there will always be a step of faith for the Christian. But that step doesn't require a person to leave his brains at the church door.
This is an invitation to those who are not Christians to look into truth, not religion. To ask questions like: How would I recognize the truth if I saw it? What would it take to convince me that Christianity is true?
Note to the skeptic who is willing to delve into religion based on reason and evidence: Human beings have imperfect knowledge. There are always things outside the realm of our experience. So we often base our perception of things on assumptions or "presuppositions," either consciously or unconsciously. But we must be careful not to become prisoners of our preconceptions. There is always the possibility that some new information could overturn our previous ideas. Through the various articles here and in the future, we challenge you to examine your presuppositions and invite you to challenge us as well!
Our pre-suppositions can be self-destructive! One is at risk of having built a house on sand. When the rains of existence come down, the house may not stand. We argue that you may have claimed the right to judge the rationality and morality of things. But consider that apart from God you cannot make any of your claims stick beyond your own subjective state. This is so because you cannot explain rationality itself. Why do the laws of logic seem to work? Who says so? Why do we all have moral ideas about right and wrong and the desire to impose them? Why do we expect nature to act uniformly? The skeptic cannot provide a satisfactory explanation for the "why" of the most basic "laws," the very criteria he wants to impose. He has to admit that either he made them up or that he accepts them on the authority of other finite creatures.
The Christian, however, asserts that God has spoken to us-that deep down we know this, and that God has explained these most basic laws and criteria. God has not told us everything there is to know, but He has told us enough with which to navigate existence. We are suggesting the bold claim that the unbeliever has nothing to stand on. When the unbeliever uses logic against Christianity, he implicitly acknowledges a God who grants us logic! The believer has at his disposal every datum of the universe-even things as "unlikely" as evil and suffering-because Christianity provides the only satisfactory explanation for this data..
Is there rational evidence for the existence of God?
There are several lines of reason that prove God's existence. The first is the so-called Cosmological Argument. Authors Boa and Moody (see resource list <http://www.faithfacts.org/search-for-truth/questions-of-christians/recommended-resources>) explain that there are essentially three possibilities as to the origin of the universe and the implications about God:
1. That the universe emerged from nothing. Little needs to be said about this notion. Nothing produces nothing. This premise is neither logical nor reasonable.
2. That the universe is eternal. Among many scientific reasons why the universe is not eternal are: (a) the big bang theory, (b) the abundance of hydrogen, and (c) the irreversible decay of the universe.
a. The discovery by Edwin Hubble that the universe appears to be uniformly expanding in all directions leads to the conclusion that the universe had a beginning. The Big Bang theory is not merely a proposition that matter expanded from an infinitely small position. It is the proposition that the universe had an absolute beginning-that before this event not even space nor time even existed at all!
b. Hydrogen is continually being converted into helium through the process of nuclear fusion. This process is irreversible, so the abundance of hydrogen in the cosmos belies the notion of an eternal universe.
c. The second law of thermodynamics says that while the total amount of energy remains constant (the first law), the availability of usable energy in the universe is constantly declining (the second law). Apart from the intervention of a supernatural agent (God), the stars would have burned out and the universe would have run down like a clock with no one to wind it back up. The logical conclusion is that it cannot be true that an infinite amount of time has passed because the universe would have reached a cold and lifeless state of absolute equilibrium.
3. That the universe was created by an eternal being. By process of elimination, the existence of an omnipotent God is the most reasonable conclusion for origin.
There are those who may use terminology that they hope will circumvent the obvious conclusion of the Big Bang. For example, they may say that before the Big Bang the universe was a "point of singularity." Then at the Big Bang, the pre-universe emerged from a state of organization to one of disorganization. But there is a known scientific law that states that anything at rest must remain at rest until an external force causes it to move. So we again must conclude that something of a higher order of being than the universe itself must have caused the big bang. The conclusion remains that God was the first cause, the prime mover.
But this attempt to circumvent the Big Bang is based on ignorance of what scientists believe about the Big Bang. The Big Bang is not about the rearranging of matter that already existed. It is about all known things-matter, energy, space, and time-arising from NOTHING.
According to Frank Turek in an article at Townhall.com (Big Bang Evidence for God <http://townhall.com/columnists/FrankTurek/2009/01/14/big_bang_evidence_for_god>):
"Why couldn't natural forces have produced the universe? Because there was no nature and there were no natural forces ontologically prior to the Big Bang. Nature itself was created at the Big Bang. That means the cause of the universe must be something beyond nature-something we would call supernatural. It also means that the supernatural cause of the universe must at least be:
? spaceless because it created space
? timeless because it created time
? immaterial because it created matter
? powerful because it created it out of nothing
? intelligent because the creation event and the universe was precisely designed
? personal because it made a choice to convert a state of nothing into something (impersonal forces don't make choices)
Those are the same attributes of the God of the Bible."
According to Dinesh D'Souza in his book What's So Great about Christianity (resource list <http://www.faithfacts.org/search-for-truth/questions-of-christians/recommended-resources>), "If you accept that everything that has a beginning has a cause, then the material universe had a nonmaterial or spiritual cause. This spiritual cause brought the universe into existence using none of the laws of physics. The creation of the universe was, in the quite literal meaning of the tern, a miracle." He emphasizes, "It is very important to recognize that before the Big Bang, there were no laws of physics. In fact, the laws of physics cannot be used to explain the Big Bang because the Big Bang itself produced the laws of physics...If the universe was produced outside of the laws of physics, then its origin satisfies the basic definition of the term miracle. This term gives [atheistic] scientists the heebie-jeebies."
The Law of Causality is a fundamental principle of science and logic. To deny it is to deny rationality.
In addition to the evidence from science, mathematicians and philosophers also have concluded that the idea of an infinite universe has no merit. See the link to the highly entertaining debate featuring William Lane Craig at the bottom of this article for more on this.
The skeptic sometimes asks, "Well, then, who created God?" The answer is that no one created God, as he is eternal. A rule of logic states that every effect must have an antecedent cause. But God is not an effect; rather he is a cause. The logic here is simple but compelling. Since something exists, and since something cannot arise from nothing-and further that the universe itself is not eternal-something outside of the universe must be eternal. An infinite creator God must be that something. Time and space had a beginning, but God exists outside of time and space.
The Bible affirms this truth-that God is independent and self-existing "from everlasting to everlasting" (Psalm 90:1-4 <http://www.faithfacts.org/>, Psalm 102:25-27 <http://www.faithfacts.org/>, Isaiah 40:28-31 <http://www.faithfacts.org/>, John 5:26 <http://www.faithfacts.org/>, Revelation 4:10 <http://www.faithfacts.org/>). As put by Henry Morris, "The only answer that satisfies all the facts of science and human reason is that God is 'from everlasting.' He is the Creator of time as well as space and all things that exist in time and space. This is beyond our mental comprehension, but there is no other rational explanation for our existence." (Morris, Defender's Study Bible, pg. 643)
In addition to the Cosmological Argument, there is the Teleological Argument. This idea is that the design in the universe implies God. (The Greek work telos means design.) This argument is expressed in various ways scientifically, but with common sense that one can prove with 100% certainty-without calling on faith or the Bible-that God exists. There is evidence of intelligent design all around us. If one sees a bird's nest, he concludes that a bird made it. If one sees a computer, he must acknowledge the evidence of an intelligent computer designer. A painting proves that there is a painter. Information does not derive from non-information. Intelligence does not derive from non-intelligence. The fact of creation proves a creator.
A scientific explanation of the teleological argument is the so-called anthropic principle. This principle is the fact that the universe is based upon several fundamental constants of physics. Even non-Christian Stephen Hawking, considered the best-known scientist since Albert Einstein, acknowledges "...the universe and the laws of physics seem to have been specifically designed for us. If any one of about 40 physical qualities had more than slightly different values, life as we know it could not exist: Either atoms would not be stable, or they wouldn't combine into molecules, or the stars wouldn't form the heavier elements, or the universe would collapse before life could develop, and so on...." (Austin American-Statesman, October 19, 1997.
Since Hawking's statement in 1997, much additional evidence has been identified. Christian astronomer Hugh Ross in 2009 listed 167 physical constants that point to the conclusion of the existence of God. (See Reasons to Believe <http://www.reasons.org/>.) Philosopher William Lane Craig <http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billcraig/docs/teleo.html> has written extensively in books and articles on this and is an outstanding source for the interested reader. See also the Walter Bradley video in resource list <http://www.faithfacts.org/search-for-truth/questions-of-christians/recommended-resources>.) The issue is the incredibly interrelated complexity of the laws of physics themselves. Why did they arise in this way if not by an all-powerful God for the ultimate purpose of life? Where did the laws of physics come from? How can inanimate objects like electrons follow laws? Why is reality structured the way it is? Random chance cannot explain it.
Another convincing aspect of the design argument for God's existence is the irreducible complexity of biological systems. We address this in detail in another place on our website: Origins and Silly Putty <http://www.faithfacts.org/evolution-or-creation/origins-and-silly-putty>. In this article, we show that not only did life itself not arise by chance, but macroevolution by natural selection cannot explain the existence of humankind. Who programmed the cell with its digital code? Who gave it the capacity to make copies of itself? The advancement in scientific knowledge in this area is a major reason given by famous philosopher Anthony Flew for abandoning his atheism.
But there are important questions outside of the realm of science. If you ask a scientist "Why is the water boiling?" he would answer in terms of molecules and temperatures. But, as D'Souza explains, there is a second explanation: the water is boiling because I want to have a cup of tea. This second explanation is a perfectly valid description of reality, yet it is ignored or avoided by the scientific account. This is where philosophy and logic also point to God. Why are biological systems demonstrably so complex that they could not have arisen by slight successive modifications that evolution postulates? And why do they exhibit purpose?
There are still other arguments for the existence of God. One of these is called the Moral Argument. Let's consider this logic: (1)If God did not exist, there would be no objective moral standards. (2)Objective moral standards do exist. (3)Therefore God exists. Deep down, everyone believes that there are at least some objective moral standards. (See Moral Absolutes <http://www.faithfacts.org/search-for-truth/questions-of-christians/why-do-you-believe-in-moral-absolutes>.)
Dostoevsky is credited with saying that "Without God, everything is permitted." (or "If there is no immortality, then all things are permitted.") So without God, doing something immoral would be an illusion-even nonsense, or something merely unfashionable. All moral statements would be arbitrary. Atheists cannot escape the problem that without God, whoever has the most political power determines what is moral.
As put by William Lane Craig, "Thus, if atheism is true, it becomes impossible to condemn war, oppression, or crime as evil. Nor can one praise brotherhood, equality, or love as good."
Tim Keller in his book The Reason for God insists that such moral sense could not have arisen by evolution: "Today we believe that sacrificing time, money, emotion, and even life-especially for someone 'not of our kind' or tribe-is right....How could that trait have come down by a process of natural selection? Such people would have to have been less likely to survive and pass on their genes....Natural selection does not work on whole populations."
Further, we observe that nature is ruled by one central principle-violence by the strong against the weak. So our moral sense cannot be evolutionary because it is contrary to nature.
Keller: "If you believe human rights are a reality, then it makes much more sense that God exists than that he does not. If you insist on a secular view of the world and yet you continue to pronounce some things right and some things wrong, then I hope you see the deep disharmony between the world your intellect has devised and the real world (and God) that your heart knows exists. This leads us to a crucial question. If a premise ('There is no God') leads to a conclusion you know isn't true ('Napalming babies is culturally relative') then why not change the premise?"
This line of reasoning not only points to the existence of God, it begins to explain who God is, that is, what attributes God has. We can begin to see that God is not some evil monster, but rather is a loving and rational God, consistent with the God of the Bible.
In summary, the logic for God is so overwhelming that the philosopher/theologian R. C. Sproul insists that a reasonable man must aquiesce to this conclusion. The evidence is so compelling, that one must override his senses to deny Him. It is only the person who is blinded by his own agenda that refuses to accept it. A thinking person who denies God must do so on the basis of preferring to believe there is no God in order to try to escape His judgment, thus irrationally seeking autonomy. Our challenge to the skeptic: At some point you must be willing to rationally consider the evidence and honestly seek with an open mind details about the God who made you.
Ultimately, the question of God for the atheist is one of motive. As put by Dinesh D'Souza, "If you want to live a degenerate life, God is your mortal enemy. He represents a lethal danger to your selfishness, greed, lechery, and hatred. It is in your interest to despise Him and do whatever you can to rid the universe of His presence."
St. Paul, writing in the first chapter of the biblical book of Romans, discusses how men are inclined to "suppress the truth." We submit that what we have with atheism is really a philosophy of life that does just that-suppresses the truth. It is a failed attempt to throw out God in order not to be under His authority.
Three books that we highly recommend on this subject are (1) I Don't Have Enough FAITH to Be an ATHEIST, by Norman L. Geisler and Frank Turek. This is a comprehensive book on the topic. (2) A smaller book is former atheist C. S. Lewis' Mere Christianity. Lewis-a converted atheist-is considered one of the top Christian thinkers of the 20th century and this book has probably influenced more people than any other. (3) The third in our recommended trilogy is The Reason for God by Timothy Keller. This book addresses the heart as well as the mind. All of these are great books to give out to friends.
This a most interesting time in history for the discussion about the existence of God. Some well known life-long thinkers have converted from atheism to theism. At the same time there is a new crop of young atheists. Here is an article that discusses both groups: New Thinking <http://www.probe.org/site/c.fdKEIMNsEoG/b.5769699/k.C694/Challenging_the_New_Atheists.htm>.
Here is another highly recommended resource. It is a debate between Dr. William Lane Craig, a Christian philosopher and atheist Dr. Bill Cooke: Is God a Delusion? <http://www.rfmedia.org/RF_audio_video/Other_clips/New-Zealand-08/Is-God-a-Delusion-Craig-v-Cooke.php> The shallowness of the atheist arguments are quite apparent!
Also, see the question, "Why can't I live my life as an agnostic?" in this series <http://www.faithfacts.org/search-for-truth/questions-of-christians>, as well as the series Evolution or Creation elsewhere on the website. And for a detailed look at atheism, go to this link: Conservapedia/Atheism <http://www.conservapedia.com/Atheism>.
