Introduction:
A. The story is told of a family who had two young boys, ages 8 and 10, who were excessively mischievous.
1. They were always getting into trouble and their parents knew that, if any mischief occurred in their school or neighborhood, their sons were probably involved.
2. They boys' mother heard that a clergyman in town had been successful in disciplining children, so she asked if he would speak with her boys.
3. The clergyman agreed, but asked to see them individually.
4. So the minister met with her 8-year-old, one morning, and was to see the older boy that afternoon.
5. The minister, a huge man with a booming voice, sat the younger boy down and asked him sternly, “Where is God?”
6. The boy's eyes widened and his mouth dropped open, but he made no response.
7. So the minister repeated the question in an even sterner tone, “Where is God!!?”
8. Again the boy made no attempt to answer. So the clergyman raised his voice even more and shook his finger in the boy's face and bellowed, “WHERE IS GOD!?”
9. The boy screamed, bolted from the room, ran directly home and dove into his closet, slamming the door behind him.
10. When his older brother found him in the closet, he asked, “What happened?”
11. The younger brother, gasping for breath, replied, “We are in BIG trouble this time, dude. God is missing - and they think WE did it!”
B. Gabriel Vahanian was a French Christian theologian who was a part of a movement within academic circles in the 1960s called the "death of God" movement.
1. In 1961 he wrote a book called The Death of God: The Culture of Our Post-Christian Era.
2. He argued that modern secular culture had lost all sense of the sacred, lacked any sacramental meaning, had no transcendental purpose or sense of providence. He concluded that for the modern mind “God is dead.”
3. Time magazine picked up on this growing atheistic movement and placed on the cover of the April 8, 1966 edition the question: “Is God Dead?”
4. The accompanying article addressed the growing atheistic spirit in the United States.
5. We all can see how atheism has grown even more in America and Europe in the last 50 years.
C. Today we ask the question: Is God Dead? Or better yet, Does God Exist?, or Did God ever Exist?
1. Last week we began a new sermon series called “Got Questions? Answering Faith’s Great Questions.”
2. Last week we spent some time talking about the fact that doubt is a universal experience and that God is okay with us having doubts, asking questions, and looking for good answers.
D. Most fundamental to all faith questions is the question of God’s existence.
1. Without getting a good handle on this question, there is no need to explore the other ones.
2. Obviously, if there is no God, then the Bible is not God’s Word, and Jesus is not God’s Son.
3. And if there is no God, then He is not responsible for suffering or sending people to hell.
4. So, I think we all would agree that the question of God’s existence is most essential.
E. Certainly God could make His existence undeniable, indisputable and irrefutable.
1. But if God did this, then there would be no such thing as faith, nor a need for it.
2. God, in all His wisdom and according to His plan, has made faith a foundational and critical part of our relationship with Him.
3. I point your attention to last week’s Scripture Reading from Hebrews 11: 1 Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see…6 And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.
4. So faith is necessary, but as I said last week, the faith that is necessary is not blind faith.
5. I believe that God has given us enough evidence that gives us reasons to believe, but not so much evidence that faith is not required.
F. Carl Sagan, former American agnostic astronomer and author, when questioned about God usually said something condescending like: “Well, I’m not saying I know there is no God. It’s just that if there is, there isn’t any evidence for it.”
1. I don’t believe that is true. I think that there is a lot of evidence for God’s existence.
2. If someone is looking for irrefutable proof for the existence of God, then they won’t find it.
3. But if someone is looking for evidence, or strong clues, or divine fingerprints, then you can find them in many places.
4. The philosopher Alvin Plantinga believes that there are no proofs of God that will convince all rational persons.
a. However, he believes that there are at least two to three dozen very good arguments for the existence of God.
b. Most readers who take the time to think through Plantinga’s list will find some items compelling and others not.
c. But the accumulated weight of the ones you find compelling can be very convincing.
5. What I want to do with the rest of this sermon, is to share several of the most compelling clues that in my mind constitute strong evidence for the existence of God.
6. Unlike most of the other sermons in this series, we will not be spending a lot time in the Bible, because we must first establish the possibility for God’s existence outside of the Bible.
7. Nevertheless, I want to share two passages from the Bible that will point us in the direction of the clues for God’s existence that we will discuss today.
a. King David, the Psalmist pronounced: 1 The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. 2Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. 3 There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. 4 Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world. (Ps. 19:1-4)
b. The Apostle Paul wrote: For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. (Romans 1:20)
I. Clue #1: The Argument from Cause (Cosmological)
A. Those of a more rational mind-set have always been fascinated by the question, “Why is there something rather than nothing?”
1. This question has become even more interesting to people in the wake of the Big Bang theory.
2. There’s evidence that the universe is expanding explosively and outwardly from a single point.
3. Stephen Hawking, a British theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author wrote: “Almost everyone now believes that the universe, and time itself, had a beginning at the Big Bang.”
4. Francis Collins, whom we mentioned last week in our list of prominent skeptics turned believers, wrote: “We have this very solid conclusion that the universe had an origin, the Big Bang. Fifteen billion years ago, the universe began with an unimaginably bright flash of energy from an infinitesimally small point. That implies that before that, there was nothing. I can’t imagine how nature, in this case the universe, could have created itself. And the very fact that the universe had a beginning implies that someone was able to begin it. And it seems to me that something had to be outside of nature.”
B. Everything we know in this world is “contingent,” it has a cause outside of itself.
1. Therefore the universe, which is just a huge pile of such contingent entities, would itself have to be dependent on some cause outside of itself.
2. Something had to make the Big Bang happen – but what?
3. What could be that something outside of nature, a supernatural, non-contingent being that exists from itself?
4. Believers say that that something is God.
5. Sam Harris, in his review of Fancis Collins’s book, makes the classic objection to this line of reasoning. “In any case,” he writes, “even if we accept that our universe simply had to be created by an intelligent being, this would not suggest that this being is the God of the Bible.”
6. He is perfectly right.
7. If we are looking at this as an argument proving the existence of a personal God, it doesn’t get us all the way there.
8. However, if we are looking for a clue that there is something besides the natural world that is the cause of everything, then this is very provocative for many people.
C. So clue #1 is the cause of the cosmos - The world could not exist on its own so there must have been a first cause that brought it into being. This first cause could be God.
II. Clue #2: The Argument from Design (Teleological)
A. This argument can be simply stated: The universe evidences great complexity and design; thus, it must have been designed by a great Designer or God.
1. For organic life to exist, there are numerous fundamental regularities that must fall into an extremely narrow range.
2. Again, Collins puts it well in his book, “When you look from the perspective of a scientist at the universe, it looks as if it knew we were coming. There are 15 constants – the gravitational constant, various constants about the strong and weak nuclear forces, etc. – that have precise values. If any one of those constants was off by even one part in a million, or in some cases, by one part in a million million, the universe could not have actually come to the point where we see it. Matter would not have been able to coalesce, there would have been no galaxy, stars, planets or people.”
3. Many in the scientific community are talking about the obvious “fine tuning” of the cosmos. Scientists have identified 75 different finely turned aspects of our world…every one of which is absolutely essential for life…if any one of them were “out of tune,” then we would die.
4. For instance, here are just 4 of the 75.
a. If the earth were 1 degree closer to the sun, we’d fry! If it were 1 degree further, we’d freeze!
b. If the moon was any closer or larger, the tides would destroy the coast lines. If any smaller or further away, the oceans were die from a lack of nutrient movement.
c. If our distance from Jupiter were any greater, asteroids and comets would pepper the earth. If it were any closer our orbit would become unstable.
d. If the surface gravity was any stronger, earth would retain too much ammonia and methane. If it were any weaker, earth’s atmosphere would lose too much water.
B. Some have said that it is as if there were a large number of dials that all had to be turned to within extremely narrow limits - and they were – and it is extremely unlikely that this would happen by chance.
1. Stephen Hawking, an unbeliever, concludes: The odds against a universe like ours emerging out of something like the Big Bang are enormous. I think there are clearly religious implications.
2. Hawking also said, “It would be very difficult to explain why the universe would have begun in just this way except as the act of a God who intended to create beings like us.”
C. Just like the last point – this is not an irrefutable proof for the existence of God, but if we are looking for clues, this line of thinking has merit.
1. Alvin Plantinga gives this illustration: He imagines a man dealing himself 20 straight hands of four aces in the same game of poker.
2. As his opponents reach for their six-shooters the poker player says, “I know it looks suspicious! But what if there is an infinite succession of universes, so that for any possible distribution of poker hands, there is one universe in which this possibility is realized? We just happen to find ourselves in one where I always deal myself four aces without cheating.”
3. This argument will have no effect on the other poker players, even though it is technically possible that a man just happened to deal himself twenty straight hands of four aces without cheating. It could happen!
D. More simply put, this argument of design exposes the foolishness of answering the question “Who made the cosmos?” with the answer “No one! It just happened!”
1. If we look at a wrist watch or the works of Shakespeare and say that no one designed and made them, they just happened on their own is absurd.
2. It is technically possible that given enough time and opportunity a watch could result from a tornado hitting a scrap yard. It could happen!
3. Or it is technically possible that a group of monkeys hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time could type the complete works of William Shakespeare. It could happen!
4. Even though these things are technically possible, they are beyond improbable, and would be unreasonable to use as an explanation for their existence.
E. The same is true for the origins of life.
1. It is technically possible that we just happened to be in the one universe in which everything just happened to be perfectly arranged for life to exist.
2. And though you could not prove that the fine-tuning of the universe was due to some sort of design, it would be unreasonable to draw the conclusion that it wasn’t.
3. Although organic life could have just happened without a Creator, does it make sense to live as if that infinitely remote chance is true?
4. This is another clue for the existence of God.
5. I am going to cover the next clue much more briefly to give me more time for the last clue.
III. Clue #3: The Regularity of Nature
A. There is something about nature that may be even more striking and inexplicable than its design – it’s regularity.
1. All scientific, inductive reasoning is based on the assumption of the regularity (or laws of) nature.
2. But how did these laws of nature come to be? And why do they continue with such regularity?
3. David Hume and Bertrand Russell, both secular men, were troubled by the fact that we haven’t got the slightest idea of why nature – regularity is happening now, nor the slightest rational justification for assuming it will continue tomorrow.
B. As a proof for the existence of God, the regularity of nature is inconclusive.
1. You can always say, “We don’t know why things are or continue as they are.”
2. But as another clue for God’s existence, however, it is helpful.
3. Why would it be regular, or continue to be regular without a regulator or sustainer?
IV. Clue #4: The Argument of Moral Law
A. Timothy Keller, in his book The Reason for God, tells about a discussion he had with a young couple who came to him looking for spiritual direction.
1. They said that they didn’t believe in much of anything and wondered how to figure out if there was even a God.
2. Keller asked them to tell him about something they felt was really, really wrong.
3. The young woman immediately spoke out against practices that marginalized women.
4. Keller said that he agreed with her fully since he was a Christian who believed God made all human beings and gave them value.
5. But he said that he was curious why she thought it was wrong to marginalize women.
6. She responded, “Woman are human beings and human beings have rights. It is wrong to trample on someone’s rights.”
7. Keller asked her how she knew that.
8. Puzzled, the young woman said, “Everyone knows it is wrong to violate the rights of someone.”
9. Keller said, “If there is no God as you believe and everyone just evolved from animals, why would it be wrong to trample on someone’s rights?”
10. Her husband responded: “Yes, it is true we are just bigger brained animals, but I’d say animals have rights too. You shouldn’t trample on their rights, either.”
11. Keller asked him whether he held animals guilty for violating the rights of other animals if the stronger ones ate the weaker ones.
12. The man said, “No, I couldn’t do that.”
13. Keller asked, “So you only hold human beings guilty if they trampled on the weak?” “Yes,” the man answered.
14. Keller asked them, “Why the double standard? Why did they insist that human beings had to be different from animals? Why did they insist that humans had this great dignity and worth? Why did they believe in human rights?”
15. The woman concluded, “I don’t know. I guess they are just there, that’s all.”
16. The conversation was much more congenial than this compressed account conveys.
17. The couple laughed at the weakness of some of their responses and were open for further discussion.
B. That conversation reveals how our culture differs from all the others that have gone before.
1. People still have strong moral convictions, but unlike people in other times and places, they don’t have any visible basis for why they find some things to be evil and other things good.
2. It is common to hear people say, “No one should impose their moral views on others, because everyone has the right to find truth inside him or herself.”
3. If someone says that, they leave themselves open to a series of uncomfortable questions.
4. Like: Aren’t there people in the world who are doing things you believe are wrong – things they should stop doing no matter what they personally believe about the correctness of their behavior?
5. If you do, doesn’t that mean you do believe that there is some kind of moral standard that people should abide by regardless of their individual convictions?
6. Why is it impossible in practice for anyone to be a consistent moral relativist even when they are trying to be? The answer is that we all have a pervasive, powerful, and unavoidable belief not only in moral values but also in moral obligation.
7. Sociologist Christian Smith puts it like this: “ ‘Moral’…is an orientation toward understandings about what is right and wrong, just and unjust, that are not established by our own actual desires or preferences but instead are believed to exist apart from them, providing standards by which our desires and preferences can themselves be judged.”
C. All human beings have moral feelings – we call it a conscience.
1. When considering doing something that we feel would be wrong, we tend to refrain.
2. Our moral sense does not stop there, however, we also believe that there are standards that exist apart from us by which we evaluate moral feelings.
3. Moral obligation is the belief that some things ought not to be done regardless of how a person feels about them within herself, regardless of what the rest of her community and culture says, and regardless of whether it is in her self-interest or not.
4. Although we have been taught that all moral values are relative to individuals and cultures, we can’t live that way.
5. In actual practice we inevitably treat some principles as absolute standards by which we judge the behavior of those who don’t share our values.
6. What gives us the right to do that, if all moral beliefs are relative? The answer is: Nothing gives us the right, yet we can’t stop it.
7. For instance: People who laugh at the claim that there is a transcendent moral order do not think that racial genocide is just impractical or self-defeating, rather they believe it is wrong.
a. The Nazis who exterminated Jews claimed that they didn’t feel it was immoral at all, but we don’t care. We don’t care if they sincerely felt they were doing a service to humanity.
9. They ought not to have done it because it was wrong and would always be wrong.
D. So where does this moral obligation come from?
1. In his essay, “Where Do Rights Come From?” Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz lays out the possibilities.
a. Some say human rights come from God. If we were all created in God’s image, then every human being would be sacred and inviolable. Dershowitz rejects this answer.
b. Others say human rights come from nature, or what has been called “natural law.”
c. Dershowitz, however, points out that nature thrives on violence and predation, on the survival of the fittest. There is no way to derive the concept of the dignity of every individual from the way things really work in nature.
d. Another theory claims that human rights are created by us, the people who write the laws.
e. But if rights are nothing but a majority creation, then there is nothing to appeal to when they are legislated out of existence.
2. The late Yale law professor Arthur Leff concluded that most people feel that human rights are not created by us but are found by us, that they are there and must be honored by majorities, whether they like them or not.
a. He asked the question: “When would it be impermissible to make the formal intellectual equivalent of what is known in barrooms and schoolyards as ‘the grand Sez Who’? Who among us ought to be able to declare “law” that ought to be obeyed?”
b. He said, “Either God exists or He does not, but if He does not, nothing and no one else can take His place.”
c. Leff ends his intellectual essay in a most shocking way: “As things are now, everything is up for grabs. Nevertheless: napalming babies is bad. Starving the poor is wicked. Buying and selling each other is depraved…There is such a thing as evil. All together now: Sez Who? God help us.”
3. Leff was not simply concluding that there no basis for human rights without God, he was also pointing out that despite the fact that we can’t justify or ground human rights in a world without God, we still know they exist.
a. Without God, Leff can’t justify moral obligation, and yet he can’t not know that it exists.
E. The argument from moral law says: A universal moral law cannot exist accidentally.
1. And because we all have a sense that there is a universal moral law, there must be a Lawgiver who originates and upholds the moral law.
2. Ultimately, without God morality would be impossible.
3. Moral law exists, therefore God exists.
Conclusion:
A. So have I proved that God exists? No I have not, but I hopefully have demonstrated that God has left us clues that help solve the mystery of our existence.
1. The clues about the cause and design of our universe and our existence should point us to a Creator and Designer.
2. The clues about the regularity of nature should point us to God as the one who sustains and maintains all that is.
3. The clues about our moral sense should point us to God who is the lawgiver and judge.
B. If we are honest with ourselves about why we live the way we do, then we would acknowledge that deep down in our hearts we know there is a God or that there must be a God.
1. We all live as if it is better to seek peace instead of war, to tell the truth instead of lying, to care and nurture rather than destroy.
2. We believe that these choices are not pointless - that it matters which way we choose to live.
3. Yet, if the Cosmic Bench is truly empty, then “who sez” that one choice is better than another?
4. If the Bench is truly empty, then the whole span of human civilization, even if it lasts a few million years, will be just a flash in relation to the eternity of dead time that preceded it and will follow it, and there will be no one around to remember any of it.
C. But we people of faith believe that there is a God and that the Cosmic Bench is not empty.
1. Our faith allows us to live as if beauty and love have meaning.
2. Our faith allows us to live as if life has eternal meaning and that humans have inherent dignity.
D. T.H. Huxley, who lived in the 19th Century and was a well-known agnostic, was with a group of men one weekend.
1. On Sunday morning, while most of them were preparing to go to church, he approached one of the men who was known for his Christian character and said, “Rather than go to church, suppose you stay here and tell me why you are a Christian.
2. The man hesitated, knowing that he couldn’t match wits with Huxley.
3. Huxley gently said, “I don’t want to argue with you. I just want you to tell me simply what this Christ means to you.”
4. So the man did just that – all through the morning he told Huxley about what God had done in his life and what God meant to him.
5. When he was finished, there were tears in Huxley’s eyes as he said, “I would give my right hand if only I could believe that!”
E. Maybe that’s how you feel – you would give anything to have your doubts erased and replaced with faith in God.
1. I would encourage you to keep searching and studying. Don’t give up the search!
2. I believe that there are answers to the questions that we need to have answered.
3. Those answers don’t remove the need for faith, but they make faith more possible.
4. Next Sunday, Lord willing, we will explore the question – Is the Bible Truly the Word of God?
Resources:
Skeptics Answered, by D. James Kennedy, Multnomah Books, 1997
Questions People Ask Ministers Most, by Harold Hazelip, Baker Book House, 1986
The Reason for God, by Timothy Keller, Penguin, 2009
God Really Exists. Really! Sermon by Jeff Strite, SermonCentral.com
Does God Exist? Sermon by Joseph Rodgers, SermonCentral.com
