Proofs of God's Existence
It is the done thing now to assume that religion in general, and Christianity in particular, are idiotic, unscientific, and pointless. Yet many draw these conclusions without proper investigation—as I did—often by picking on the flaws of the religious people we know, as though they show the whole thing to be hooey. The arguments for God being real are very strong, even though many don't know it.
It can be hard to talk about whether God is real, since many 'open-minded' teachers, friends, and intellectuals will mock or dismiss the question, rather than addressing it. It can be hard to think about too, since it can feel like you're missing something or doing something shameful if you don't believe he's not real like everyone else. Take courage, and remember that "when the whole world is running towards a cliff, he who is running in the opposite direction appears to have lost his mind." (C. S. Lewis)
Is God a Logical Idea?
First, if it is unreasonable to think of God as having no beginning, it is unreasonable to think of matter as having no beginning, and something must have had no beginning—for if there was once nothing, nothing could ever exist. Non-existence cannot cause anything, nor can there be an infinite chain of causes.
What exactly is God’s essence? How can it be described technically? Well, what is the essence of energy? Both are unknown, but we can know of their existence by their effects. Just as atoms and molecules were known of long before they were observed in any fashion, God has been known always. By His effects, we know that God has a mind with intelligence that dwarfs our own, along with perfect goodness. For proofs of these, please read The Argument from Reason and the Moral Argument.
It is often assumed that God is a ridiculous concept, but a clear explanation is always coming and never comes. Go ahead, spend years of your life following your conviction that God cannot be real without ever being able to prove it—instead of following sound reasoning—or don't.
Design
The point is simple: if you saw a watch on the pavement, you would know that it was designed by something with a mind—specifically, a human. The universe, being infinitely more magnificent than a watch, was then clearly designed. Both paying attention to the world you live in and modern science make it very clear that the universe was designed.
This argument rings true to many, but many scientists lie, saying that chance can explain everything and has 'proven there is no God', making ordinary people afraid. However, physicists are forced to admit that there is a tremendous degree of fine-tuning in the universe—such a tremendous degree that it seems the god Chance has been mostly abandoned by them. Instead, they turn to embarrassing fiction, such as the multiverse theory.
Morality
If right and wrong are real, then there is something unacceptable about rape and murder. If morality is just a feeling we have because of evolution or a set of cultural beliefs, then the rapist and the murderer are really free to do as they choose, provided they don't get caught. In fact, there is no reason other than how you would like to spend your time and what risks you are willing to take to not rape and murder, unless you owe it to others to not rape or murder them.
It is false to pretend that without a moral law, we have a real obligation to act morally. Either acknowledge that we owe goodness to someone, or deny it, and admit that we are free: admit that Nazis and cannibals are not really worse than people who have sacrificed themselves to save others from death.
Prophecy
If there have been very specific predictions made by people who claimed to hear from God, and these predictions came true, they would be strong evidence of God.
As it happens, there are very good reasons to believe that a number of the prophecies in the Bible actually came true and were written before the events they prophesied about. For example, take Jesus's prediction of the destruction of the Temple. He said that not one stone of the temple in Jerusalem would be left upon another, and lo and behold, within 40 years, the Temple was pulled apart, stone from stone, by Romans. How can we be sure this prediction was uttered before the temple's demise? One compelling reason is that it is never mentioned that the Temple and Jerusalem were destroyed in any of the New Testament books. The reason this is such strong proof is that the New Testament authors were Jewish, and when Rome took their capital, slaughtered many people, and scattered the rest, it would have unquestionably been a central issue and topic of discussion.
Miracles
A miracle in the literal sense—that is, God causing something to happen which cannot normally happen—can demonstrate that God exists. After all, if a God who created and sustains the universe exists, of course He can cause unusual things to happen in it. However, if the universe is somehow ruled by fixed laws on its own (created by whom?), miracles could not possibly occur.
Many of you reading this very article will know that something extremely unusual has happened to you or someone you know that you cannot pass off as natural. If that is the case, then you must find out more about what God expects from you—quickly investigate beliefs here. If you lack direct knowledge of a miracle, or you do not remember, you should look into the matter. Ask around, or read a book. There are also articles you can check out, such as this one about Dunkirk in WWII, and movies such as Breakthrough, Miracles from Heaven, and Heaven is for Real.
Causes
- Whatever begins to exist has a cause;
- The Universe began to exist;
- Therefore, the Universe has a cause.
In other words, everything that came into existence must have been made to by something else, as things do not appear from nothing. Nothing by definition does not have any power to create (see below). Since most people agree that the universe had a beginning, something made it. Yet there must be something which simply exists and was not created, since and endless chain of creation makes no sense. Indeed, something that was there before the Universe did not begin to exist; it always existed.
A similar argument is that if matter is controlled by unconscious forces, then by definition, it does not have a mind of its own. Thus, anything that matter does must be a result of some other act. However, there must have been a first act done to matter, or no matter could ever have done anything. Picture a line of dominos. Unless there is an outside force to topple the first domino, they will do nothing. (Do not being up the wind or an interfering cat—remember, the dominos represent all physical things.) The same is true of all things that cannot act on their own: At some point, they were made to act by a being with free will.
Reason
Let us say that the mind is the product of irrational forces. In that case, there is no such thing as free will, since strict physical laws can never lead to a choice. (A computer program will crash if you do not strictly define whether it should choose a or b.) But if you do not have free will, then none of what you believe can be relied on. You could not choose to believe true things, only things which the blind forces of nature make you believe. Yes, if you want to argue against free will, you have undermined your own position before you even open your mouth, since by believing you have no free will, you believe that you have no control over whether you believe the truth. You cannot reason.
Your mind cannot be the product of your irrational molecules, so how does it exist? You only came into existence recently. If you always existed, the question would not need answering, but you have not, and there is only one conclusion: from another being with a mind. This is because, as we have established, something with no freedom of choice cannot create something with freedom of choice. It thus makes sense that a free being that came into existence must owe its beginning and continued existence to another free being: God.