Does God Exist?

(Part One)

Introduction. What is the most important question you will every answer? Questions about marriage?  Questions about what job you will have?  Decisions about buying a house?  The most important question each of us must ever consider is does God exist? This question will affect everything about your life. It will determine how you live your life.  Depending upon how you answer this question,it may affect your life for all eternity.

            This morning and this evening I would like for us to consider eight arguments for the existence of God. We will look at some this morning, and if you are able to be with us tonight, Lord willing, we will consider some of the strongest arguments which show the existence of God. If you can be with us, I urge you to do so.  We are going to look at some amazing things.  I don’t know how anyone can see some of the things we’ll look at, and come away saying, “there is not God.”

Arguments for the Existence of God.

I. The Ontological Argument. This argument basically contends that the concept of God attests to the existence of God.

A.     Advocates of this argument. 

1.      Anselm of Canterbury, “God” is defined as “something than which nothing greater is possible to conceive,” since it is not possible to think of something greater than can be conceived, God must exist  (Anselm of Canterbury)

2.      René Descartes. Argued that the quality of “being” is an inescapable characteristic of the very concept of God. He illustrated it by saying, as the concept of a mountain implies a valley, reality of existence is a quality implied by the concept of God.

B.     The essence of the question.  Is it possible to conceive of something that  does not have some basis in reality? All cultures have some concept of God.  Where would this come from if there had never been some experience with deity?

C.     The Bible establishes the concept of God.

1.      The fool says, “There is no God” (Psalm 14:1). Denying something acknowledges the existence the concept of it. Where did this concept come from?

2.      God has shown it to them (Romans 1:18-19). God revealed Himself to men and women of the past.

II. Cosmological Argument. This argument rests on the fact that every cause has an effect. The argument contends that God is the “uncaused cause”

A.    Advocates of this argument.

1.      Plato. “To conceive that anything can be moved without a mover is hard or indeed impossible, and equally impossible to conceive that there can be a mover unless there be something which can be moved.”

2.      Thomas Aquinas. The fact that things undergo change, means that there must be a cause of change which is not itself caused to change by anything

B.     The essence of the argument. If we saw a picture of dominoes falling, what would be inferred by the picture?  Something pushed the dominoes!

1.      It used to be easy for man to imagine that the universe had just always existed. Until astronomers discovered something called the “red shift” in every astronomical body outside of our solar system.  The “red shift” is a phenomenon present when a body is moving away from another body, so that the position of visible light actually shifts to a red portion of the spectrum. What it indicates is that everything is expanding.  That means that if everything is expanding it once was together—it had a beginning.

2.      What started all things?  How would the mass of everything in the known universe when together come into being?  I asked an astronomy teacher this in college.  He said the current theory is that this came about as “a fluctuation in nothingness.”  Huh!  You don’t see those every day, do you?  I think I may have seen that in my bank account a time or two!

C.     The Bible teaches that God is the Cause of All Things.

1.      “In the beginning God created” (Gen. 1:1-3).

2.      “I laid the foundation of the earth” (Job 38:1-14).

3.      Things  seen came from things which did not exist (Hebrews 11:1-3).

4.      The God of the Bible is transcendent—that means He is above and distinct from this universe. This is a unique doctrine about the God of the Bible.  The gods of the pagans operated within, and subject to the limits of this universe.

5.      The God of the Bible is the “Unmoved Mover”—the “Uncaused Cause”

III. Argument from Natural Law. This argument draws attention to the fact that the universe functions under predictable and measureable laws. The argument that God established these laws.

A.    The essence of the argument. 

1.      There are basic laws of nature which govern all things.  Strong Nuclear Force (binds the nucleus of atoms together) [note: Pat Goguen did a lesson for us years ago which pointed out the fact that in every atom, this force has the amazing force to bind positive to positive—something that usually cannot happen!]; Electro-Magnetic Force (this is what makes compasses work, and electronics, etc.); Weak Nuclear Force  (which binds molecules together—so hydrogen is different than carbon); Gravity (allows planets to hold together, solar systems to function, etc.). 

2.      Without these forces the universe could not exist!

B.     Human beings tend to take these forces for granted. 

1.      Steven Hawking (the brilliant Cambridge physicist and mathematician) has come out with a new book entitled The Grand Design.  In it he wrote, “Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist.” 

2.      Here is the problem with this—why do these laws exist? Science currently had no idea!  Everything depends on these law, but we have no idea, what makes them work!

C.     The Biblical Answer.

1.      God established the laws of nature (Psalm 119:89-91).

2.      In Him all things consist (Colossians 1:16-17). “Hold together” (NASB).

3.      “Upholding all things by the word of His power” (Hebrews 1:3).

IV. Argument from Morality.  This argument observes that all human beings have some concept of “right” and “wrong.” The argument is that this must have its origin in a moral source.

A.    The essence of the argument.

1.      Why does man have a concept of morality? Sure, not everyone agrees about morality. But, why is there any sense of right and wrong?

2.      Animals are not moral creatures. They feel no guilt.  The shark doesn’t feel remorse for its treatment of a seal.  The chimpanzee feels no sense of moral duty or need to demonstrate reverence.  Human beings do!

3.      Where did our sense of morality come from?

B.     The Biblical answer.

1.      “The breath of the Almighty gives him understanding” (Job 32:8).

2.      Mature human beings (since the Fall) have a “knowledge of good and evil” (Gen. 2:9, 17; Deut. 1:39; Isa. 7:15-16).

3.      This must be directed by God’s revelation (Romans 7:7-8).

4.      Even criminals have a sense of morality.  God is the source of this sense of morality.

C.     The challenge to this argument.  Some see the immorality of man as a challenge to the very idea that God exists.  The question is raised: If God is the source of morality, why is there so much evil in the world?

1.  Epicurus. Was one of the first recorded philosophers to articulate this objection. Centuries later it was articulated by…

2.  David Hume. “Is he willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is impotent. Is he able, but not   willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Whence then is evil?” (David Hume).

3.  I would suggest that this is really asking the wrong question.  It is not that evil should make us doubt that God exists—If there is no God, why would we  even care about “evil”?

4.  Unfortunately, evil is a consequence of having a capacity to “refuse the evil, and choose the good”—we don’t always do that!

5.  C.S. Lewis. “We can, perhaps, conceive a of a world in which God corrected  the results of this abuse of free will by His creatures at every moment: so that a wooden beam became soft as grass when it was used as a weapon, and the air refused to obey me if I attempted to set up in it the sound waves that carry lies or insults. But such a world would be one in which wrong actions were impossible, and in which, therefore, freedom of the will would be void” (C.S. Lewis).

Conclusion.  In the travels of the Apostle Paul, Acts 17 records his work in the city of Athens. Acts 17:18 records that he had a discussion with some “Epicurean and Stoic philospophers.” How interesting it is that Epicurus was argued that evil was a reason to reject a belief in God!  To these men, Paul declare, these word:

“God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. Nor is He worshiped with men's hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things. And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us” (Acts 17:24-27).

God made us, and everything in this universe.  He made us so that we would seek Him. The challenge is left to us to do so.

Kyle Pope 2010