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"None of those who have Hell before their eyes will fall into Hell. No one of those who despise Hell will escape Hell.... Nothing is so profitable as to converse concerning Hell. It renders our souls purer than any silver."  

~St. John Chrysostom~

BOOK

Evidences for the Existence of God 

Dear Aaron,

           I think it’s great that your fellowship is going to be evangelizing on campus. Far too many campus groups end up being merely a social club where Christians can gather to encourage each other and eat ice cream. Please don’t misunderstand; I think the social aspect of Christianity is wonderful. Community is a huge part of our religion, and many married Christian couples first met at a church or fellowship meeting. I don’t know if you are aware of it, but your Aunt and I got to know each other through one such campus fellowship.

My initial cynicism comes from years of seeing these groups wither away the opportunity of a lifetime to evangelize people from all over the country and the world. They oftentimes seem to be more concerned with being accepted by the darkness than with being a light in the midst of it. It seems as if their fear of being thought of as ignorant and foolish is greater than their desire to rescue souls. Nevertheless, I am overjoyed that you will be venturing out into the harvest, and hopefully something I say here will be helpful.

I think the best way to help you get started is to give some evidences for the existence of God. If you run into difficulties in other areas please let me know, but I think this will be a good place to begin. Universities continue to be one of the few places in America where you will find an inordinate number of atheists.

One thing you will discover is that atheists enjoy seeing themselves as part of the intellectual elite. They fancy themselves to have seen the world through the cold, hard, eyes of reason, and in doing so have discovered that there is no God. We, the masses who believe in God, are considered to be poor ignorant peasants who rely on emotion and superstition to get us through our miserable lives.

On the contrary, it is atheism that is always emotional. It is never based on reason. The easiest way for this to be shown is to ask the atheist how he knows that there is no God. Since we are all ignorant of most of the knowledge available in the universe, much less any which may be available in the spiritual world, the atheist has no way of knowing whether part of his ignorance is actually the knowledge of God. It is possible to know that God exists, as he can choose to reveal himself to us, but it is impossible to know that he does not exist, because we cannot prove the negative. Since there is not an intellectual way to know that God does not exist, then all atheism must be based on emotionalism.

In light of this, I think there are a few basic reasons why certain people choose to become atheists. For some it is because of a tragedy that happened at some point in their life, for which they either blame God, or cannot reconcile with the existence of a loving God. These tend to be the angry atheists. Others, as they came into adolescence, became aware of hypocrites within the Church and got turned off to religion because of them. These tend to be the cynical ones. Still others have a lot of pride in their intelligence and abilities and in essence, desire to be their own God. These will tend to be arrogant and condescending and commonly found at universities.

One thing virtually all atheists will have in common is a belief in evolution. They think they have found a way for the universe to come about on its own so that there is no need for God. Obviously you have learned about evolution during your time in the public schools. I assume you have figured out that, although it is a popular theory with all the force of modern science behind it, in the end, it is simply the belief that everything came about by chance over a long period of time. Evolutionists hate to hear it put that way because it sounds so simplistic, but nonetheless that is the essence of what they believe.

Now what do you think are the odds, of everything in the universe, including intelligent life, happening by chance? I would say they are astronomical at best. If we were to take anything that has complexity, order, and usefulness, even something as simple as a chain link fence, does anyone really believe that given enough time, random events could bring it about? As another example, imagine that we put all the parts of a bicycle in a weightless environment, magnetized them to attract each other, and left them there indefinitely. What would be the odds that at some point we would find a fully functioning bike? Again, I think they would be astronomical. What if we did this an infinite amount of times? What would the odds be that we would ever get anything more than a random conglomeration of parts? Once again they would be enormous, but this is where the evolutionists have put their faith. They believe that given enough time anything can happen. It takes just as much—if not more faith—to believe this than it does to believe in a creator. I don’t think any of us really believe that we could get something as simple as a bike or a chain link fence by chance. How in the world do we think we could get a fully functioning universe with intelligent life?

Even if we were to assume that evolution was true, it still would not mean that there is no God. Science can neither prove nor disprove the existence of God. If evolution were true, there could still be a god in heaven watching it all unfold. In the end, I believe it is simply human nature, when we look at something that has complexity, order, and usefulness, that we assume a creator, and if we weren’t educated otherwise we would do the same with the universe.

Another evidence for the existence of God is that in every society that anthropologists unearth, there is resident in that society a belief in the supernatural. I think it is safe to assume that if God did not exist, a belief in the supernatural would take some time to evolve. One could very easily postulate that for many thousands of years there would be no evidence for God in human society. After a while we would discover some simple expressions of worship and eventually more complex ones. What we find though, is complex religious ritual in even the most primitive societies. This seems to be more consistent with a God who has created us with an innate understanding of Him—and our expressing that understanding through worship—than it does of us evolving in a Godless world, and yet somehow still having an instinct to believe.

I’m sure you will encounter some who will argue that when primitive man saw things he could not understand, such as lightning, volcanic eruptions, eclipses, etc. that his easiest and simplest response would have been to claim that it was the work of a supernatural being. I would have to disagree. It seems to me that the easiest response would have been for him to declare his ignorance and fear of such phenomenon, and in the case of lightning run back into his cave for cover. If he did feel the need to explain these events, he could have chalked them up to natural forces, and then at some point begun the process of trying to understand them.

Certainly, creating a God with particular characteristics, commandments to follow, and prescriptions for worship, would not have been his simplest response. Even if he did believe that God was behind these events, it would merely show how natural it is for us to believe in Him. In my opinion, this would actually be evidence for the existence of God, and our innate knowledge of Him.

This next bit of evidence is slightly more complex, but being the bright young man that you are, I am sure that you will be able to grasp it easily enough. It seems to me that it is natural for us as humans to have objective morals. By this I mean we all hold certain actions to be right or wrong, not just for ourselves, which would be subjective morality, but for everyone, which is objective morality. The specifics may vary from person to person, as one may believe murder to be wrong for all, and another rape, and yet another eating too many peas on Sunday. What they all have in common, though, is the belief that there are some things that are right or wrong for everyone, despite one's personal beliefs to the contrary.

Philosophically this is only possible if there is a God. To understand this, let us imagine that there is no God, and we all crawled out of the primordial slime, and are now nothing more than glorified slime balls. Who then has the authority to set the moral standard for everyone else? We are all fallible human beings. There is not a superior class who inherently has a greater moral authority than the rest. Of course, societies for what they believe to be their highest good can create laws and punish those who break them, but this is not an objective moral authority. It is merely that which is born of force and the changing opinion of the masses, and we all know that this can be highly unreliable and dangerous. One only has to think of slavery to understand what can happen when we allow public opinion to dictate morality.

The obvious point here is that if there is no God, all morality is merely human opinion, and there are no absolutes. On the other hand, if there is a God who is the creator, omniscient, and perfectly good, he can reveal how he created man to live, and anyone who acts differently would be wrong, independent of his personal beliefs. God’s commands are objective and absolute, and that is how man thinks and lives. If you need an example of this, imagine seeing a woman being raped. Would your first thought be, “Well that would be wrong for me, but I don’t know about him,” or would it be, “He’s doing something wrong, and I must stop him.” You see how it is human nature to declare a universal morality and act upon it. This is perfectly consistent with the existence of a God Who has created us to act in certain ways, and not at all consistent with a humanity floating all alone in the universe free to do as it pleases.

Finally, as human beings we all believe that there is a purpose and meaning to life. None of us can go through our daily lives without believing that there is some reason for it. We may not all ascribe to it a supernatural meaning, but we all ascribe meaning nonetheless. The problem is, if there is no God there is no meaning. We are simply an accident in a universe of accidents, and one day when the sun is extinguished, and life on earth ends, there will be no more remembrance of anyone or anything. Who could live his life believing that nothing he does has any ultimate purpose, without falling into a deep depression? Even atheists ascribe some reason or purpose to life; otherwise, they could not go on.

On the other hand, if there is a God, then He is the reason for our existence. This not only explains our innate sense that life has meaning, but it also fulfills it. As you know, the meaning to life is not a thing but a person. A person with whom we can have a relationship, a person who can fulfill us.

            In closing I’d like to point out that all of these evidences flow directly out of human nature, and how we naturally think and act. Therefore I believe that they will make the biggest impression on any atheists or agnostics you may encounter. Let me know how it goes, and if you run into any questions you can’t answer, drop me a line. If I don’t have the answer I’m sure I know somebody who does.

All the best,

Uncle Greg