Real Answers: Does God Exist?

Real Answers to Big Questions: Is God Real?

Scott Bayles, pastor

Blooming Grove Christian Church: 6/28/2015

We all have questions. Some questions are simply curiosities. Why is the sky blue? Why do we drive on parkways but park on driveway? If you tied buttered toast to the back of a cat and dropped it from a height, how would it land? Did Adam and Eve have belly-buttons? Other questions are a bit deeper and more meaningful: Why is there suffering in the world? What’s the meaning of life? Did the universe explode into existence without cause or design, or were we created for a purpose? Is there a God? Does He care for us?

As Christians we not only wrestle with the questions ourselves, but we’re often approached by others looking for answers. The Bible says, “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect” (1 Peter 3:15 NIV).

We live in an increasingly skeptical society. According to survey’s conducted by The Pew Research Center, 20% of Americans ages 18 to 25 identify themselves as non-religious, atheists or agnostics, which is nearly double what it was 20 years ago. And therefore, it’s become increasingly important for Christians to be equipped with real answers to those big questions about God, Jesus and the Bible. Fortunately, those answers are not as elusive as they may sometimes feel. In fact, it all boils down to three big questions. I call them the God Questions:

• Does God exist?

• Is Jesus God’s Son?

• Is the Bible God’s Word?

If we can provide compelling answers to these three questions, then not only will our own faith be strengthened, but we’ll be in a better position to share our faith confidently and convincingly with others. For the next three weeks I want to explore these questions and hopefully equip you with solid, sensible answers, starting with that first question: Does God exist?

Throughout human history, people have questioned the existence of God. We can’t see, hear, touch, or taste him, so how can we know for sure if he exists?

This questions weighs so heavy on our collective minds that scholars, scientists, and philosophers have given it deep thought over the ages—many concluding that God must be real, and that there are sound reasons to believe in him. I’d like to share three of those reasons with you today. First, is the evidence of cosmology.

• THE EVIDENCE OF COSMOLOGY

Cosmology is the study of the cosmos, or universe. And cosmology tells us not only that there is a God, but it even tells us a little bit about what he’s like! The Bible says, “The heavens proclaim the glory of God. The skies display his craftsmanship. Day after day they continue to speak; night after night they make him known. They speak without a sound or word; their voice is never heard. Yet their message has gone throughout the earth, and their words to all the world” (Psalm 19:1-4 NLT).

The Hebrews didn’t have a word for universe or galaxy, so when they spoke of the cosmos they used the word heavens. The Bible, in others words, is saying that we can look to stars and learn about the glory of God without ever having to open a Bible. The cosmos is big and beautiful, and its very existence raises the question: “How did the universe get here?”

The seventeenth century philosopher G.W. Leibniz observed, “The first question which should rightly be asked is: Why is there something rather than nothing?” Answering that question has led many scientists and philosophers to conclude that God must exist.

There are only three possible explanations for the existence of the universe. The first, is that the universe is simply eternal and has always existed. Prior to the 1920s this was actually a commonly held view dating as far back as Greek philosophers like Plato and Aristotle. Most people assumed that the cosmos was static, unchanging, and eternal. Since that time, thanks to astonishing developments in modern astronomy, we now have strong scientific evidence that the universe had an absolute beginning—commonly referred to as the Big Bang. In the 1920s a Russian mathematician, Alexander Friedman, and the Belgian astronomer, Georges Lamaitre developed models of an expanding universe based on Einstein’s equations. These predictions were confirmed in 1929 by the American astronomer, Edwin Hubble, when he observed a “red shift” in light coming from distant galaxies, which indicates that they are getting further away. As you trace the expansion of the universe back in time, everything gets closer and closer together, until the distance between any two points is zero. At that point, often called the singularity, you’ve reached the boundary of space and time. The standard Big-Bang model, which is almost universally accepted among astronomers and astrophysicists, thus predicts an absolute beginning to the universe.