Rev. David Holwick
First Baptist Church
West Lafayette, Ohio
April 10, 1983
Why I Believe In God
Romans 1:19-20, NIV
"Is there a God or not?" This question is more important than any that mankind might ask. It is the question that must be answered by every human being and the answer is far-reaching in its implications. If you feel that this statement is only an opinion of a preacher, listen to the statement of Mortimer Adler from his writings in the "Great Ideas Syntopicon," a collection of the combined wisdom of the Western World from the ancient Greeks to the present which quotes each great author on selected topics. Adler says: "With the exception of certain mathematicians and physicists, all authors of the Great Books had something to say in the chapter of God." As a matter of fact, it is the longest chapter. The reason is obvious - your belief in or denial of God has more implications for the way you think and live than the answering of any other basic question. Your whole approach to life is affected by whether you regard yourself as the Supreme Being in the universe, or acknowledge a superhuman being that you think of as an object of fear or love, a force to be defied or a Lord to be obeyed.
What evidence is there for God? First of all, I have to say it is not possible to prove God in the scientific sense of the word but you can't prove the existence of Socrates by science either. The reason lies in the way science works. To prove something by the scientific method, that thing has to be repeatable but history can't be repeated. You cannot bring Socrates back or rerun the beginning of the universe but the fact that these events cannot be proven by repetition doesn't mean they never happened. The scientific method is useful only with measurable things. No one has ever seen three feet of love or two pounds of justice but you would have to be a fool to deny their reality. To insist that God has to be proven by the scientific method is like insisting that a telephone be used to measure radioactivity.
What evidence is there for God? It is significant that anthropologist have found that among the farthest and most remote primitive tribes today, there is a universal belief in God. In the earliest histories and legends of people all around the world the original concept was of one God who was the Creator. Even societies which today believe in many gods at one time believed in an original high God. This research in the last fifty years has challenged the evolutionary concept of religion, which thought that monotheism, the belief in one God, was the product of polytheism, the belief in many gods. It is increasingly clear that the belief in one God came first. It is enough to observe that the vast majority of humanity, at all times and in all places, has believed in some kind of god or gods. This is not conclusive proof but it should be kept in mind.
Another evidence for the existence of God is the law of cause and effect. No effect can be produced without a cause. We as human beings, and the universe itself, are effects which must have had a cause. Scientists may say that the universe was caused when every all energy and matter was brought together in a dense lump which then exploded. They call this the "Big Bang" theory of creation. But where did the matter and energy come from to make that lump? You still need a cause behind the matter - God.
A further development of this line of thought has to do with the order and design of the universe. No one would think a wristwatch could come into being without an intelligent designer. How much more incredible is it to believe that the universe with its infinite complexity could have happened by chance. Evidence of this design is abundant. It is unlikely that a monkey with a typewriter could print out Webster's 3rd International Dictionary. If we found a copy of it we would conclude that an intelligent mind was the only possible explanation for the typing.
It is also incredible that water, for instance, for all its properties could have just happened. Nowhere else do we find water in any abundance except here on earth. Water is an amazing solvent that dissolves almost everything upon this earth except those things which are life-sustaining. In our bloodstream, water holds a minimum of sixty-four substances in solution. Any other solvent would be pure sludge! This amazing substance exists as ice which breaks up rocks and produces soil. As snow it stores up in glaciers and thaws to make water in the valleys. As vapor it exists as cloud cover in just the right amount. If we had clouds like Venus, life on Earth could not exist. But we have exactly fifty percent of the surface of the earth covered by clouds at any one time, which allows just the right amount of sunlight to come through. Other than bismuth, water is the only liquid that is heavier at four degrees Celsius than it is at freezing. If this were not so, life could not exist on this planet because when it is frozen the ice is lighter and floats. If it did not, lakes and rivers would freeze solid from the bottom up and kill all the fish. This would also kill most of the algae so that our oxygen supply would cease and mankind would die.
The earth itself is evidence of God's design. The mass and size of our planet is just right. If the earth were either ten percent larger or ten percent smaller than it is, life would not be possible on this planet. Furthermore, it is just the right distance from the sun and thus we receive the right amount of heat and light. If it were farther away, we would freeze and if it were closer, such as the distance of Mercury or Venus, we would burn to a crisp.
In addition to design in the universe there is the second law of thermodynamics. There is a perfect illustration of this law but I'm sure no one here is old enough to appreciate it. In the olden days margarine was white. The dairy industry would not let them make it yellow because then it would look just like butter and that would be too much competition, so you had to make margarine yellow yourself. You would take a plastic bag, put the margarine in and add a small capsule filled with yellow coloring. When the capsule was broken and the bag was massaged, the coloring eventually spread through the lump of margarine. If you squeezed long enough the coloring would become perfectly spread throughout the entire mass. But no matter how much more you squeezed you could not reverse the process and get the coloring back in the capsule. That's the second law of thermodynamics.
So what? Well, there are some parts of the universe that are much hotter than other parts of the universe. The heat is always "squeezed" from the hotter regions to the cooler ones. As the heat "flows" from the hotter regions to the cooler ones, it becomes more and more evenly distributed. If the universe has existed forever, the energy would have been evenly distributed by now. The fact that there are still hot areas in the universe means that the furnace was lit, so to speak, at some measurable time in the past. This would be the moment of creation. This is what the apostle Paul had in mind when he wrote in Romans 1:20:
"For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities -- his eternal power and divine nature -- have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse."
There are many evidences and arguments for the existence of God. But it is important to observe that although there are many indications of God in nature, nature cannot conclusively show us what God is like. It is obvious that among those who believe in God there are many ideas as to what God is like. Some, for instance, believe God is the ultimate killjoy. He peers down from heaven looking for anyone who seems to be enjoying life. When he finds such a person, he shouts down, "Cut that out!" Others think of God as a sentimental Grandfather Of The Sky.
According to the Bible, throughout history God has tried to tell people what he is like. His fullest revelation has been his invasion into human history in the person of Jesus Christ. Here, in terms of human personality that we can understand, he has lived among us. If you wanted to communicate your love to a colony of ants how could you most effectively do it? Obviously, it would be best to become an ant. Only in this way could your existence and what you are like be communicated fully and effectively. The best and clearest answer to how we know there is a God is that he has visited us. The other indications are merely hints. What confirm them conclusively are the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Other evidence for the reality of God's existence is his clear presence in the lives of men and woman today. When Jesus Christ is believed and trusted, a profound change takes place in the individual and ultimately the community.
One of the most moving illustrations of this is told by Ernest Gordon, now chaplain at Princeton University. He tells how during World War II the American prisoners of the Japanese in Malaysia had been reduced almost to animals, stealing food from their buddies who were also starving. In their desperation the prisoners decided it would be good to read the New Testament. Because Gordon was a college graduate they asked him to lead the study. By his own admission he was a skeptic, an agnostic, and those who asked him to lead were unbelievers too. As he read those words to them from the New Testament, those men were converted to the living God through Jesus Christ. This community of animals was changed into a community of love because God lives and he lives in Jesus Christ.
I believe in God. However, to believe in him is not enough because the Bible says the demons believe in God - and tremble (James 2:19). It is necessary not only that we believe God exists but also that he came in human form in Jesus Christ and died for our sins. We must believe, repent of our sins, cast ourselves at his feet and place our total trust in him. Have you done this?
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Typed on February 20, 2006, by Sharon Lesko of Ledgewood Baptist Church, New Jersey
Copyright © 2024 by Rev. David Holwick
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