Can We Prove that God Is?
A few years ago, a well-known gospel preacher advertised a sermon during his gospel meeting as “The Existence of God.” I went intending to hear a faith building lesson but came home disappointed in the speaker and his material.
The gist of his lesson was: “You cannot prove that God exists, you cannot prove that God does not exist. However, there is stronger evidence that God does exist.” I wondered as I sat listening to the speaker preach how a person who was to preach with conviction and clarity could fill his lesson with so many fallacies! I also wondered if he had read a book written by another on preaching on Christian Evidences which states, “Now, in religion, as well as in philosophy, there is no such thing as absolute proof. ‘Can you prove that God exists?’ we are sometimes asked. The answer is, ‘No, but I can offer evidence that he exists, and can show this evidence is better evidence than any that can be offered against his existence.’” (Wilson, Gordon. Set for the Defense 15). This type of reasoning is false and opens the doors to almost any interpretative principle one may desire to choose. Is it possible to prove the existence of God? Or, is the preacher and the author above correct in their approach that we cannot know if God exists?
How Known?
How does man obtain evidence of the existence of God so that he can believe, preach, teach, and write with confidence and an up-building of one’s faith of those who hear and read him? There are two divine books of evidence from God which teach that God is: the Universe and the things therein, and the Scriptures.
First, the Universe and the things therein testify to God’s existence as the Universe and the things therein declare design. The precision of the Earth on its axis, and the relationship that the Earth sustains to the other planets and to the Sun, are unchanging through the years. There can be no design without a designer; even the scoffers admit this! The Universe and the things therein testify to God’s existence as the Universe and the things therein are effects. Every effect must have an adequate cause. Only an all-wise, all-powerful, every-where-present, and eternal God of the Bible is the adequate cause! David states that the Universe gives evidence that God is: “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth his handiwork” (Psalm 19:1). David also stated that the human body is evidence that God is: “I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made . . .” (Psalm 139:14). Paul appeals to man’s daily knowledge of the rains, crops, and seasons as evidence that God is: “. . . [H]e left not himself without witness, in that he did good and gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness” (Acts 14:17). The divine book of the Universe and the things therein give adequate evidence for a valid deduction that God is.
Second, the Scriptures declare: “Have faith in God” (Mark 11:22). “Let not your heart be troubled; ye believe in God, believe also in me” (John 14:1). Paul declared God to the Athenians (Acts 17:29). In the Roman letter, Paul speaks of “that which is known of God” (Romans 1:19) and that the Gentiles “when they knew God” (Romans 1:21); again, Paul in 2 Timothy 1:12, declares, “I know whom I have believed . . .” In the classic statement of Hebrews 11:6, “But without faith it is impossible to please him; for he that cometh to God must believe that he [God] is. . . .” The Scriptures declare: 1) God is! 2) We are to believe that God is! 3) God made the world and the things therein! 4) God made man! 5) Man has evidence and can know and prove that God is! 6) Our faith is based on the foundation that God is! (While we have adequate evidence that God exists from the Universe and the things therein, it is insufficient evidence to save man and man must read and obey the Scriptures.)
Man can know that God is! If one can prove that the universe and the things therein are the result of the Designer and Adequate Cause, then one can know that God is. One can prove that design and effect exist in the Universe and the things therein. Therefore, one can know and prove that God is! In reasoning from the Universe and the Scriptures one may logically and truthfully reason to certain facts about God. We are reasoning, as Paul reasoned, that God’s existence may be known by man “through the things that are made” (Romans 1:21; cf. Acts 14:17; 17:29). When we so rightly reason, it becomes to us a matter of knowledge.
It Is Important
It is important that Christians believe, preach, teach, and write as a (Biblical) theist, that is, that they know that God exists and they know that adequate evidence exists in the Universe and the Scriptures to prove that God exists. Christians are to build their faith on solid ground (Matthew 7:24-25) concerning God, Christ, and the Bible (Hebrews 11:6; 2 Timothy 1:12; John 20:30-31; Jude 3).
The Scriptures teach that the Christian’s faith is rational; we are to “prove all things” (1 Thessalonians 5:21). The word prove means “to test, examine, scrutinize (to see whether a thing be genuine or note).” The Christian has adequate evidence in both divine books, the Universe, and the Scriptures, to KNOW and to PROVE that God is. He is not to be as an agnostic who teaches that we do not know whether God exists because we do not have adequate evidence to prove that He exists! Roy Deaver related an incident where he heard on of the professors in our colleges content, “There is no way we can prove the existence of God.” In the question and answer period which followed, Deaver asked, “Are you sure?” The professor approached the microphone and answered, “No!”
Let us preach, teach, and write with conviction and certainty in this age of doubt and uncertainty. It is time to “cast out” from among our thinking “the leap into the dark” philosophy (Colossians 2:8) and replace in our thinking the proving of all things (1 Thessalonians 5:21). We are without excuse for preaching and writing that we cannot prove and know that God is.