Reasons to Believe in God

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Those simple but profound words were written nearly 3,700 years ago, testifying to a simple truth. If a child were to be raised without any awareness of science or religion, if he were to be allowed complete freedom from any influence for or against the idea of a Creator of life, what conclusion would he naturally arrive at?

Imagine a child being accompanied through a forest until he came to a clearing. In the clearing is a house. The house has a complete range of furniture and all services built into it. Suppose a person then informs the child that the house was not designed or constructed by anyone but just came into existence. How would the child react? The child knows, from his own limited experiences in life so far, that complicated objects and structures do not assemble themselves and run themselves. Without lying to the child, it would be almost impossible to convince them that no-one created the house.

Life and its complexity is under similar scrutiny in our modern scientific age. Those who reject the concept of deliberate creation claim that scientific evidence indicates that life is not the result of design and construction and that the fundamental principle established in the non-biological world, namely that design requires intellect, does not apply to the biological universe. They make these claims despite the fact that they cannot explain why biological organisms are exempt from the application of fundamental logic. Ironically, belief in a creator of life is logical and scientifically sound.

Today many of the world's religious leaders openly support the idea of evolution, claiming that God used “natural selection” as the means by which He created mankind. They claim that this is completely compatible with the Bible's teachings and that, where the Bible and evolution clash, the Bible must be in error. This totally contradicts what the Bible says about life. The Bible teaches a specific, deliberate creation where God creates the first humans in the form that we know today. The Bible further teaches that all animals reproduce only within their “kind” or species. A snake cannot evolve into an ape and a fish cannot evolve into a bird. Science and the study of genetics confirms this fact today. Many religious leaders say that Jesus did not really perform miracles or that there was no Adam or a flood. Yet in saying these things, they are calling the founder of Christianity a liar or a fool. Jesus taught that Adam and Eve existed and that there was a global flood (Matthew 19.4; 24.36). Jesus further referred to His miracles as a taste of what was to come on a global scale, when the kingdom comes (John 5.28). If we express faith in Jesus, then we must believe everything that He taught.   

Before presenting evidence and reasons to consider the existence of a designer of biological life, it is appropriate, even essential to establish one important fact; Contrary to the claims of many non-religious people, a great number of eminent scientists and scholars believe that the universe was designed and created by an intelligent mind. According to the "Journal of the American Medical Association", “Today at least 80% of the scientists who deal with biology would probably admit that biology and life are regulated by some higher power.” Furthermore, according to the science journal “Nature”, “Almost 40% of biologists, physicists and mathematicians surveyed, believe in a God who not only exists, but also listens to and answers prayers.” So if you, dear reader, do believe in a creator, you are in the company of some very intelligent people including Sir Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein and the molecular biologist Michael Behe, not to mention Charles Darwin himself!

There is an abundance of evidence to support the concept of a creator. The laws of physics support such a concept. The first law is “matter can be neither created nor destroyed” but can only be converted from energy. The Bible tells us that God creates by “the abundance of his dynamic energy.” Sir Isaac Newton established that for every event there is a cause. The physical universe requires a causative agent to bring it into existence. So the universe and life not only require design and construction but also need defined physical laws and parameters to ensure cohesion and operation. Interestingly, the Hebrew Bible name for God literally means “cause”.

The second law of thermo-dynamics is “energy and matter, undirected, tend towards entropy” (chaos). Genes are rigid, self-replicating and stabilizing. All living things on earth today produce offspring within their specific species.

Biological life is even more dependent on a cause. To quote one expert, Dr. J. Gray, a leading experimental zoologist, “The spontaneous origin of living from inanimate matter must be regarded as a highly improbable event, and as such can be assumed not to have occurred."

The human experience is another supporting factor for the existence of God. The Bible states that “God has put eternity into their hearts.” (Ecclesiastes 3.11). It does not say this of animals. Unlike all other living things, humans are painfully conscious of their mortality and can imagine, or even fear, the future. The capacity of the human brain is, as far as science can tell, unlimited. This is despite the average human lifespan being just 70 or 80 years! This is an illogical enigma to the scientist who rejects design in living things. The principles of evolution state that an organism must be used to its full potential otherwise it will become obsolete. Why does the human brain have such a huge capacity? Could it possibly be that humans were originally designed to live endlessly, as stated in the Bible?

There has never been a non-religious generation in human history. Even with the advent of Darwin’s theory, still the multitude are religious. Why can earth's billions not shake off this idea that they were designed? Is it mass delusion, even among the educated? Are we naturally stubborn when it comes to faith? Or is it possible that the human brain is unable to reject a concept that is fundamentally logical and true? Surely, if the evidence absolutely proved that God does not exist, only a madman would cling to such a defunct belief!

Nature itself has often been cited as evidence of creation. Without dwelling on the wonders of life too much, I would insist on highlighting the level of quality inherent in everyday living. Human sight is not just a tool for observation but is a process that reveals all the textures and colours of the spectrum more accurately and speedily than the most advanced cameras invented. Food is not simply nutritional, which is all that is required to sustain life, but it comes in a limitless array of colours shapes and flavours. There are over 2,000 varieties of apple alone on our planet. The human capacity to create beautiful, meaningful music, art and entertainment is a tribute to who we are and how we are defined. The existence and function of our universe and our planet is incumbent upon too many variables and coincidences to calculate and justify.

When is a mouse trap not a mouse trap? When one or more of it's parts are missing. The human brain and eye, the air that we breath, and the process of photosynthesis that produces it, are complex and phenomenal and none of them would function if any part were missing. All parts must arrive at once, in ready working order. Furthermore the ability of two members of a species to produce offspring stands as a permanent denial of the emergance of life by chance. Only specific creation can account for these things.

Aside from these strands of evidence in the natural world and in our own human experience, another valid reason to accept the existence of a creator is the written Bible. This literary masterpiece, whose writers claimed was a revelation from our creator, contains substantial internal evidence that it is from a source of information and guidance far superior to that of human contrivance. The Bible speaks of a "beginning", something that, until fairly recently, was ridiculed by the scientific community.The opening passages of the Bible describe the correct stages of life, confirmed by science thousands of years later.

Take the wisdom contained in the Bible. It is widely considered to be original and superior and it can be applied by anyone of any culture or background. Its wisdom is timeless, applying to all generations, no matter how modern or technologically advanced. So profound and successful is the Bible’s wisdom that the late psychiatrist Dr. James F. Fisher, at the close of his successful career, expressed his esteem for the wisdom of Jesus Christ, saying: “If you were to take the sum total of all the most qualified of psychologists on the subject of mental hygiene—if you were to combine them and refine them and cleave out the excess verbiage, if you were to have those unadulterated bits of pure scientific knowledge concisely expressed by the most capable of living poets, you would have an awkward and incomplete summation of the Sermon on the Mount.”

Another evidence of divine origin in the Bible is its fulfilled historical prophecy. This is discussed in greater detail in my other article.

If, as some claim, there is no God, and life is a series of random accidents and mutations, then there is little hope for the human race and there is no purpose to living other than to selfishly pursue pleasure until we die. If, however, there is a God, then there is purpose and there is hope. Despite the terrible situation we find ourselves in globally, our creator would know the reasons for the situation and the solution to it. The Bible explains these things clearly, for those that take the time to get to know God. Almighty God is not, as some have contended, an invention of man. Man cannot create that which he cannot experience. Albert Einstein once stated a simple truth, “the only knowledge is experience”. Man is an invention of God and the evidence is “inexcusable”, as the Bible says. Mankind has the arrogance to stand on this beautiful planet and survey this awesome universe with his complex eyes, and consider it's grandeur with his perfect mind, while breathing pure air of the exact mixture beneficial to him, and yet deny he is a product of an intelligent mind. But God knew this long ago. In the pages of the Bible He describes such ones when he says "The perversity of you men! Should the potter himself be accounted just like the clay? For should the thing made say respecting its maker: “He did not make me”? And does the very thing formed actually say respecting its former: “He showed no understanding”? (Isaiah 29.16).

And so the truth remains, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”