"Does God Exist?" Part 1
“Does God Exist?”
Have you ever had this question run through your head? It can happen anywhere, at any time. There are moments in life which naturally cause this question to arise in our hearts and minds. If I had to guess, I would say there are a few instances which are the most popular times to ask this question. Maybe this question might arise after the death of a family member or close friend. Maybe it comes after the announcement of a loss of a job or opportunity. Or, maybe it can even appear at the onset of a global pandemic. Whatever the reason for this question to arise in your heart and mind, the fact is that this question has been asked at some point in your life. My question to you is this, “How do you respond? How do you answer yourself when the deepest parts of your being cry out looking for answers as to the existence of God?”
When I was in college, I went through a season in my life where I doubted the existence of God. I was going through a hard time in a relationship in addition to battling an injury that kept me from playing at peak performance as a baseball player. Life hit hard, and I found myself asking, “Where is God? Does He even exist?”
I would love to say that I answered this question with theological and apologetical soundness, but the truth is I had no clue how to answer this question. (It’s also interesting how I could have been so sure of His love for me and His plans for my life the days before, but then doubted His very existence at the drop of a hat. But that is another topic for a different blog in the future.) I was in a dark place, and it seemed like there was no good response...except to have immense faith.
Maybe you have been in a similar boat when you have asked this question or any question about Christianity. Instead of being provided with a theological and apologetical response, you were told (or told yourself) to simply “have faith”. If you are like me, something did not resonate with that response.
I believe that God honors faith for without faith it is impossible to please God. As Christians we are told to walk by faith and not by sight. I’m all for having faith. However, I think there are better ways to respond to deep questions like the existence of God besides, “Well, you just need to have faith!” Or, “The Bible says it, I believe it, and that settles it.” I think there is a time to have faith--and even blind faith--but I do not believe the time to have blind faith is when you are doubting the existence of God. Telling someone to simply “believe” when they are not even remotely sure of what they are believing is a recipe for disaster, including future abandonment of that faith. The reality is, if we do not have certain key questions about Christianity answered, we do not have a solid foundation to stand on when life forces us to ask those questions.
So the question, “Does God exist,” remains. How should we respond? There are multiple ways to respond, and maybe I will address these ways in an additional post, but one key argument stems from what is called the cosmological argument. It goes a little something like this:
Everything that begins to exist has a beginner.
The universe began to exist.
Therefore, the universe had a Beginner.
If the first two statements are valid, then the conclusion is valid. Let’s examine the first two statements.
“Everything that begins to exist has a beginner.” Is this a valid statement? Think about it. Everything we see came from something else. The tomatoes in my friend’s garden came from seeds. The deck in my backyard came from wood and hard manual labor. Even you and I came from a set of beginner agents called “mom” and “dad”. The idea of everything that begins to exist having a beginner is not a strange concept to grasp. In apologetics, we call this the law of causality. A more philosophical way to say this could be, “Every effect must have a cause.”
It is completely logical to have an uncaused cause (Aristotle postulated this); however, it is illogical to have an uncaused effect. By definition, an effect is the result of a cause.
So, is the universe an effect? Did the universe begin to exist?
It may seem like a weird question to ask, but up until recent history (mid-1900s) many scientists believed that the universe was eternal. This posed an incredible problem for the cosmological argument because if the universe always existed, then it did not need a Beginner. It could be an “uncaused cause”.
This theory was put to rest by two major scientific ideas. First, the Big Bang. Now, I know what you may be thinking, “The Big Bang is evolution! And I am not listening to an evolutionist!” So, before you stop reading, hear me out. The term “Big Bang” that I use is to refer to what the scientific community associates with the beginning of the universe. I hope you can see where I am going with this as it relates to our cosmological argument.
In the 1920s, Edwin Hubble (for whom the Hubble Telescope was named) observed that galaxies were moving away from our galaxy at incredible speeds. In other words, our universe is expanding. Hubble thought if our universe is expanding, then there must have been a point from which the universe expanded. This is what scientists have now called the “Big Bang”.
Second, the second law of thermodynamics or the law of entropy. In simple terms, this law helps us understand that the universe is slowly running out of usable energy—and we cannot reverse this process to gain more energy. We are running on a limited supply of energy. To contextualize this, our universe is like an iPhone—except it has no charger. Because of this reality, scientists accurately suggest the universe cannot be eternal. If it were, our universe would have run out of usable energy a very, very long time ago. As it stands, there was a time when the amount of usable energy was greater than it is today.
Let’s review what we’ve covered:
Everything that begins to exist has a beginner. This is explained by the law of causality and our experience on this earth.
The universe began to exist. This is explained by the “Big Bang” and the second law of thermodynamics.
Therefore, the universe has a Beginner. This is a very logical and valid conclusion given the evidence that we have.
My hope and prayer is that you understand that belief in Christianity is more than just having faith in God. There is an overwhelming amount of evidence for Christianity which will be given in future blogs and writing endeavors. But as for now, I wanted to leave you with a tool you can use to reassure yourself or someone you love when faced with the question, “Does God Exist?”
