Philosophy & Apologetics

THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
God is there, and He is not silent. This reminds me of Francis Schaeffer, who wrote the book, The God who is There. He wrote this book in 1968 and Schaeffer has gone to be with the Lord. It is interesting to note that today people still want to see or know whether God is active in the world.  When you go out of your house and you examine nature, you realize that God is still at work. His fingerprint is all over creation. Not only that but also when you read the incarnation of Jesus, you come to the realization that God is active today as He was during the time of creation and the day of redemption of humanity when Jesus said it is finished.

God is always at work. He is at work today. Those who know Him and those who are seeking Him can see that He is at work. "With the turn of the twenty-first century and more years of research and understanding, the data pointing to an intelligent Designer has only increased (Gary R. Habermas and Michael R. Licona, The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus, 177).

The Psalmist was right when he wrote, "The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament shows His handiwork" (Psalm 19:1). When you step out of your house and you gaze at the sun, the moon, and the stars, you know that the galaxy is not a happenstance. You acknowledge that these things were orchestrated by an intelligent Designer. That Designer is God, who is active today as He was on the time of creation.

When you look at the stars, the sky, and the moon, they reveal the finger of God in creation. They demonstrate that their existence is not by accident. They were initiated and brought into being by an intelligent Designer.

I believe that many people who dismiss and oppose the existence of God do so from some pain or setback in their lives. They would argue that if there was God, why would He allow suffering? Why would He allow my son, my daughter to suffer and die? Why would a loving God allow my son or daughter to die in a car wreck? I sympathize with parents who lose their loved one through any form of suffering. However, they forget that God has provided us the answer to human suffering and death through the atoning death of Jesus on the cross. The death and resurrection of Jesus is God's answer to sin, suffering, and death.  

Therefore, instead of allowing bitterness to build up in one's heart, one should look up to God to provide the solution to human suffering and death through Jesus Christ, who offers us eternal life. 

In his book, The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism, Timothy Keller writes, "The philosopher Alvin Platinga believes that there are no proofs of God that will convince all rational persons.  However, he believes that there are at least two or three dozen very good arguments for the existence of God" (Keller, 132). He states the Mysterious Bang and poses the question, "Why is there something rather than nothing?" "The Regularity of Nature," "There is something about nature that is much more striking and inexplicable than its design." The truth is that "if there is no God, and everything in this world is the product of 'an accidental collection of atoms,' then there is no actual purpose for which we were made--we are accidents" (Keller, 138).