"There's just no proof..."
In all my posts thus
far, I've been making a case for "the hope that I have" - that is, I
have been giving reasons for why I
believe in Christianity and it's core truths.
Surprisingly, I
haven' t yet given my reasons for believing one of the fundamental beliefs of
Christianity (and all of the monotheistic religions): the existence of God.
Many in our fairly
secular society believe that the belief in the existence of a deity is
something that "one must take by faith". Which, in their mind,
usually means that there is no real reason to believe that one exists... but if
it is to your liking, then go ahead and believe.
If you are convinced
that faith and reason are mutually exclusive and that "faith doesn't look
at the evidence" or something along these lines, then check out my post on
Faith & Reason/Science & Religion. I won't deal with that directly
here, but you need to know that this is simply not the case (at least not in
Biblical Christianity).
On the other hand,
you may think that these areas are not completely separate and that you could
probably be a pretty reasonable person and still believe in a religion or
something to that effect. But when it comes to the existence of God,
"Well," you say to yourself, "that's another story. There's
simply no evidence at all."
I'd like to
challenge you on that today.
An Argument for Belief
I used to think that
since God is outside time and since he is really not a physical being, that he
very well could be there but we could never really truly know for sure. So I
would default into this kind of aforementioned "there's no proof, but believe
if you want" way of thinking - or something like it. But when I entered
University and was faced with the question of whether or not I should believe
in the God of the Bible, I was forced out of this position. I felt myself
unable to "just believe" anything - such thinking just seemed
fantastical and foolish. I knew that I had had an undeniable experience when I
was younger that convinced me of the truth of what Jesus had taught. But the
questions came from all angles, both internally from my own skeptical mind and
externally from the many who only years ago were assailing any and all
religious belief in our quickly secularizing Western culture. "Where's the
evidence? Can we outsiders really trust your subjective experience? If God is
indeed real, why would he not make himself more obvious?" I had to face
these if I was going to continue to be a thinking person at an academic
institution and yet still hold genuinely to my belief in the God of the Bible.
If you've been
following my posts at all, you've seen a few arguments for the truth of the
Christian faith. I've looked at why evil and suffering are not reasons to
disbelieve in God (and why they actually support Christian truth), I've looked
at the miraculous historical reasons for believing in the resurrection of Jesus
of Nazareth, and I've even given what I think to be more than valid reasons for
trusting what the Bible says about Jesus and what happened surrounding the rise
of Christianity in the first century common era. Some of these arguments
already give weight to the existence of the God of the Bible. But what about
specific arguments for the existence of God?
To start, I think I
will discuss my favourite and probably the most accessible argument for the
existence of one personal God (though it's not necessarily an argument for the
existence of the Christian God). The argument
actually comes from a Muslim many years ago, and is called the "Kalam
Cosmological Argument". It is very simple, and is laid out in the
following three premises:
- Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
- The Universe has a beginning.
- Therefore, the Universe has a cause.
The idea behind the
above progression is that if premises 1 and 2 are true, premise 3 naturally
follows (hence the "therefore" at the beginning of premise 3). Now
hundreds of years ago when the argument was made, we had no real idea about the
Big Bang and the Universe's history. But in recent times, scientific data gives
this argument great weight as astronomical and cosmological findings point to a
finite beginning of the Universe. "But," you may ask, "why does
this cause have to be God?" Good question, because it might not seem so
obvious at first. But if we understand the Universe to be all time and spae
(and therefore, the Big Bang was actually the beginning of both space and
time), then whatever this cause is has to be spaceless and timeless. What
things are spaceless and timeless? You would be hard pressed to imagine much of
anything besides abstract objects (like numbers) and minds. I sincerely doubt
an abstract object would have the power or the intentions of creating a
Universe - so I think it's most reasonable that this cause of the Universe is a
mind. And given that this mind actually had intention to create something like
the Universe (and in doing so bringing about the existence of beings such as
ourselves), I think it's pretty reasonable to assume this mind is also personal
and not just a supernatural force with great power and ability. Thus, I think
it is not only reasonable but actually more reasonable,
given the data we have about the Universe, to believe in the existence of a
personal God. [If you want a quick and very insightful video going a bit more
in depth into the argument, check this out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CulBuMCLg0]
Make sense? For the
most part I think it's actually quite a simple argument even though it involves
big topics such as cosmology and other philosophical themes. It also holds
great weight despite it's simplicity, and (I hope) puts a huge dent in the prevalent
position that "it is unreasonable to believe in the existence of
God." I hope you agree!
If you've followed
my posts you know this is a significant topic for me, and that I think issues
like "does God exist?" are very important to one's life. I think this
largely because I believe that Jesus Christ was God incarnate, and that believing
in Him has indeed changed my life and can change yours.
As always, please
message me if you have any of your own questions regarding God, faith, Jesus,
spirituality and the like! Any and all questions are welcome.
I have a few more
arguments I think helpful on this specific topic, so look out for those soon!
Sorry the posts haven't been more regular!
Happy thinking.
Until next time -
Corey
