How Do You Prove That God Exists? Flashcards
How do you know God created the world? (Philosophical)
Do you agree that what you see around you is dependent on a cause outside itself? Everything is. So is the universe. Since the universe is nature, the cause of the universe has to be outside nature, or supernatural.
Only a supernatural being could exist from itself.
How do you prove that God exists?
Most critics evaluate christianity on the basis of proof, a logical or empirical (by sense or experience) argument so strong and airtight that it convinces anyone with functioning mental faculties.
This is not ultimately possible because different people have different background and experiences which influence their evaluations and how they reason, so it is not possible to find a logical argument that is completely convincing to everybody, or fair to demand for one.
It is more acceptable to assume that there are arguments that most people will find reasonable and convincing but there is no argument that will be persuasive to everyone. Some arguments will be more reasonable than others but all arguments are always open to be refuted.
On that basis, we can look for an account that makes the most sense of what we see about the world and ourselves.
Belief in God helps us to explain:
The universe did not create itself
The universe did not come about by chance
We are here for a reason
For humans:
The conflict between sin and goodness
A deep need for meaning and purpose
A love for beauty
How do you know God created the world? (Science)
The universe had an extremely low probability of forming on its own. 15 constants (gravitational, electromagnetism, weak nuclear forces, etc) had to have precise values for it to happen, if not the universe would have not have been formed. E.g If the rate of the universe expansion was off by even one part in a million, the universe would have collapsed into a fireball. If gravity was off by one part in a million, life would not have developed.
We are not talking about simple odds but what theorists call ‘specified probability’ which rules out chance beyond a reasonable doubt.
The big bang theory also still has its gaps: It’s unclear why the four fundamental forces—gravity, electromagnetism, and the strong and weak nuclear forces - became and could work as a single unified force, and why the inflation (expansion) of the universe happened. There’s also no explanation for how these forces came about. (https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/origins-of-the-universe)
Even Stephen Hawkings alluded to religious implications based on the odds against our universe emerging from the big bang. “It would be very difficult to explain why the universe would have begun in his way except as the act of a God who intended to create beings like us.”
How do you know God created the world? (Science II)
Science is merely descriptive in its explanation of the universe’s formation but it can’t explain the universe’s existence. It cannot answer questions like ‘Why is there a universe?’, ‘Why does it go on as it does?’, etc.
Whether there is anything behind what science observes is not a scientific question.
If we believe that God created cosmology, he is not competing with science as an explanation.
Can’t evolution account for creation?
What is evolution? Evolution is how a species evolve through 1) Mutation to adapt to the environment. 2) Natural selection which means that weaker creatures with inadequate characteristics for surviving eventually die out.
The problem with evolution is that it cannot account for the first living cell/s that evolved. More than thirty years of experimentation and discussion on the origin of life has led to a greater perception of the problem and theories that end in stalemate or ignorance.
That said, it is possible to believe in evolution as a process. Some christians take the position that God created life and guided natural selection/cell mutation to develop the creatures we see today. However, christians do not believe in cross-species evolution as God created different kinds of creatures in the beginning. Darwin based his theory on within species evolution of finches on the Galapagos Island but there has been no evidence so far of trans species evolution.
Believing in trans-species evolution means believing that humans evolved in the following order:
Chordates (water-dwelling organism) Vertebrates Amphibians Reptiles Mammals Homo sapiens
Or believing that a fin can turn into a leg in the span of twenty-five million years
Who created God?
This question assumes that all things are created and did not always exist. If I were to ask you ‘The universe created you, who created the universe?’ and you answered something else other than God, the chain of answers would be never ending. We have to admit that there is an original reality that has always existed and that this original reality likely exists outside of space and time (beyond the realm of created things). Both these factors point towards original reality being God rather than a gas.
The order of the universe, the existence of human personhood and its quest for meaning, beauty and truth points also towards original reality being intelligent and personal, qualities that only a God would have. It is hard to believe that our quest for meaning, beauty and truth has no deeper root than molecular mutations.
