THE fact that God is, is one of the basic assumptions on which the Bible is written. It is the first premise of all Jewish and Christian theology. In the Scriptures "no argument is entered into to prove the existence of God: Instead, His existence is affirmed as a fact to be believed." 1
Today the prestige of theology as queen of the sciences is past because many modern preachers offer no meaning to life, no hope of eternal life, no standards for morals; indeed, no God at all.
Is There No God?
How can a man conclude with absolute surety that there is no God? Attempted proofs of God's nonexistence are absurd.
In the first instance man is limited in space by specific locality of existence. One man does not exist everywhere at once. One man has not even been everywhere in this limitless universe; therefore, God could be in some place where this man is not, never has been, and never will be present. In other words, to declare the death of God, the atheist must assume his own omnipresence.
Second, man is limited in time by birth and death. In his short life span he cannot hope to learn everything. Man's mind is not infallible and neither is it even absolutely objective in its selection of data. Man cannot complete his knowledge of reality; therefore, he cannot with absolute certainty know all that is to be known. Hence, when stripped of his jungle of words, the atheist is left with his presumptuous claim to be omnipresent and omniscient; that is, God Himself.
The futility of trying to prove God's nonexistence is equaled only by the futility of trying to prove His existence. The atheist and the theist face the same frustration.
In the thirteenth century the Dominican monk Aquinas introduced some arguments for the existence of God. These "celebrated five ways, quinque viae, sometimes called the proofs for the existence of God, follow some general themes running through the universe, namely, change, dependence, contingency, limited perfection, and utility. . . . Hence he infers the changeless changer, the uncause cause, the necessary being, the completely perfect, and the ultimate end—notions all of which combine in the nominal definition of God." 2
Despite sound logic and reasoned arguments, these can at best only infer a god, but they cannot prove absolutely that there is the God. Man can apprehend God, but he cannot comprehend Him (Rom. 11:33). Reason cannot plumb the Absolute. Finite cannot fully know the Infinite. However, reasoned arguments do grant some evidence, and this imperfect knowledge is better than perfect ignorance.
Steppingstones to Conviction
The atheist virtually isolates himself on an island of perfect ignorance and despair. He ignores the Steppingstones to conviction such as innate knowledge, reason, an orderly nature, special revelation, and answered prayer. Granted, while none of these can give perfect understanding about God, the Christian is prepared to use them as steppingstones to the conviction that God exists.
Innate knowledge is perhaps the first steppingstone the atheist should test. It is a hidden stone just below the surface and immediately before the stone of reason.
Innate Knowledge
With a little reflection the atheist must admit that in the mind of every man, how ever primitive or debased, there is at least a weak inner voice that says, "There is a Superior Being." Some call it man's con science. Others call it the imago Dei, or image of God in man. Call it what you will; we must admit that man is Homo religiosus —by nature religious. Animals are not religious. They do not possess this inner awareness or even the faintest suspicion that God exists. They are even unaware that they themselves exist and what existence means. They do not ask, "Is there a God?" Humans alone ask this question because deep in their moral fiber they possess the intuition that there is a Superior Being. As a moral being, man concludes there must be a supreme moral Being to whom he must answer for his choices between good and evil.
In propounding his Concept of Dread, Soren Kierkegaard said, "Being aware that he lives, man is also aware that he must die." s Man realizes he is in time and space and conscious he must make choices between good and evil that mean success or disaster.
These institutions of time, space, being, and morality stem from the prime intuition that there is a God in existence. If the atheist would admit the existence of this primary intuition, it would be the first step from his island of despair, indeed his first step toward salvation.
Reason
The second steppingstone is labeled "Reason." In his book Evangelical Theology Karl Earth puts forth some reasons for the decline of theology today. One reason that he suggests is the prevalence of doubt.* The false belief that all things must be absolutely proved beyond all doubt before they can be given validity is often the reason why men are led to despair, "There is no God."
The steppingstone of reason is a circular stone. Beginning at one spot on its perimeter, we reason our way right around to the spot where we began. This is unavoidable, because all knowledge really has its roots in circular reasoning.
For instance, the Christian says that God exists, which in turn demands a special revelation of God. But in the next breath the Christian says that this very revelation is an indication that God exists. And so we arrive back at the point where we started reasoning.
I he atheist faces the same dilemma. He may start by saying man has originated from the lowest form of life by a refining process of evolution, through a gradation of beings. Then he reasons that because there is a gradation of beings in existence he concludes man has arisen from the lowest form. And so the atheist also arrives back at the point where he started reasoning.
This brings us to the point that both the Christian and the atheist must admit a first cause. For reason demands that everything that happens must be caused except the first cause, which is uncaused or eternal.
A First Cause
We are forced to choose between three possible first causes as a starting point for our reasoning: (1) That eternal nothing gave rise to both mind and matter; (2) that eternal matter gave rise to a mind; or (3) that an Eternal Mind gave rise to all matter. The first choice is inconceivable and rejected by all sane intelligence.
The second choice was one that was taken by Spinoza when he declared the universe conceived as a whole to be the "cause of it self ("causa sui"}."'4 Bearing the roots of pantheism, he concluded that nature was the all-inclusive unique totality. However, upon examination it is impossible and absurd to reason that matter could give rise to mind. Mind is more than just a blob of matter or a conglomerate heap of electrically charged atoms.
The third choice is the only sane choice, and the one taken by Scripture:
"By the word of the Lord were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth. . . . For he spake, and it was done; he commanded, and it stood fast" (Ps. 33:6-9).
With his choice a starting point or first truth in our reasoning, we can explain the meaning and morality of life and grant hope for eternal life. Standing on the circular rock of reason, we can say with Fitchett, "Belief in God is the first instinct, and last conviction of sane intelligence." 6
Law and Design
Next we take a jump across to the steppingstone of law and design. We find it is a wonderful stone of science and beauty. When an anthropologist looks at the rock drawings in the caves of Arnham Land and declares with authority, "This is the handwork of primitive aborigines," then everyone believes him. The geologist says with authority, "Colonial corals in Greenland rocks attest to warmer conditions in the past than today." ~ Everything we observe in life is accredited with having some cause. Nothing cannot produce something. The conviction that every effect must have a cause is founded upon the observations we make in life.
While even a simple track in the sand is recognized as being caused by some animal or object, many men are reluctant to admit a Creator even, though they are surrounded by His creation.
Should bees become extinct, 100,000 varieties of flowering plants would disappear from earth. Such interdependence of plants and animals infers a Creator who worked to a master plan, with each plant and animal serving its purpose in life.
The existence of one hundred thousand million billion known stars moving in space according to predictable paths would infer a mighty God of natural law.
Involved sequences in nature testify to an all-wise Being rather than chance as the beginning of all things. If man had ten marbles marked from one to ten in his pocket and he began to pull them out, there would be one chance in ten that he would pull out number one. The chance of pulling out one to ten in numerical order is one in ten billion. In photosynthesis, metabolism, and even the metamorphosis of a mere frog we see much more involved sequences, which would have necessitated an astronomical degree of chance. A Christian concludes it is better to admit a Creator who gives meaning to all creation rather than give credence to chance, which grants no meaning to all life.
The Witness of Nature
This steppingstone is one of wonder, too. Consider the gangling giraffe. When he lowers his head to drink, a valve checks the rush of blood and prevents a brain rupture. When he stands upright again the valve prevents rapid drainage of blood from the brain. Chance, you say? Or omniscient design?
A man's heart has a 1/240th H.P. rating, yet pumps ten tons of blood every day. The lens of a hawk's eye is so well muscled that in effect it can transform the eye from a telescope to a microscope almost instantly. A single antenna of the wood ant contains 211 cones for smelling and 1,730 touch bristles. The seal, an air-breathing mammal, can dive to depths of a mile and stay under water for fifteen to twenty minutes. Such feats require sustaining tremendous body pressure and oxygen conservation mechanisms. To keep its brain oxygenated during a dive the seal's heart beat will slow from 170 to seven a minute and the arteries constrict accordingly to conserve oxygen. Similarly an alligator's heart will slow to two or three beats a minute to enable it to remain submerged for about two hours.
Examples of such marvels in nature could be multiplied without end, and man has only scratched the surface in his search among the secrets of nature. Man's own body is a living testimony to the interdependence, law, involved sequences, wonders, and beauty wrought by Mind. J. S. Mill declared, "It would be difficult to find a stronger argument . . . than that the eye must have been made by one who sees, and the ear by one who hears." 8 Scripture echoes, "For that which is known about God is evident to them and made plain in their inner consciousness, because God [Himself] has shown it to them. For ever since the creation of the world His invisible nature and attributes, that is, His eternal power and divinity have been made intelligible and clearly discernible in and through the things that have been made — His handiworks. So [men] are without excuse—altogether with out any defense or justification" (Rom.l: 19,20, Amplified).9
(To be continued)
REFERENCES
1. Arthur W. Pink, Gleanings in Genesis, p. 9.
2. J. O. Urmson (ed). Art. "Aquinas," The Concise Encyclopedia of Western Philosophy find Philosophers (London: Hutchinson, 1960).
3. John Gates, Life and Thought of Kierkegaard (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1960). pp. 80-90.
4. Karl Earth, Ch. "The Threat to Theology." Evangelical Theology (London: Weidenfeld and NichoJson. 1963).
5. Stuart Hampshire. Spinoza. (London: Faber and Faber, 1951) pp. 45-50.
6. William Henry Fitchett, The Beliefs of Unbelief.
7. Herbert S. Zim and Paul R. Shaffer, Rocks and Minerals (New York: Golden Press, 1957), p. 130.
8. Quoted in Benjamin Field, Handbook of Christian Theology (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1902), p. 13.
9. From The Amplified Bible. Copyright 1965 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission of the Zondervan Publishing House. Grand Rapids, Michigan 49506.
