Absolute Proof That God Exists?

Q. Is there an absolute proof of Gods existence or does it completely come down to faith and personal testimony? Romans 1:20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, [even] his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse. Invisible meaning actually can’t physically be seen, but at the end says are clearly seen by the world around us.

Let’s focus first on the verse quoted above: Romans 1:20.  In it Paul is talking about the material manifestations of God’s eternal attributes.  In other words, he says that something of who God is can be seen in the things that He has made; that the creation bears the image of its creator.  This refers not only to the planet we live on, but also to the inner-workings of we as human beings.

Only Two Ways To Look At Things

Essentially, there can be only two reactions to Paul’s point.  Either we infer a great creative mind from the incomprehensible complexity and beauty we behold in creation, or, we believe that everything (and I stress, everything) we know of life is the result of one huge cosmic accident. This latter option would declare that everything from DNA, to romantic love, to art, to iPods, to earthworms, to irony, to Bach’s cello pieces, to dirt, to college degrees, to self-esteem are all products of the same cataclysmic explosion that happened somewhere in the ancient past, long before the laws of physics (the ones we use to describe it) had come into existence.

This reductio ad absurdum, though it shows the irrational grounds of materialistic evolution, does not prove the existence of God outright.  What it does help us to do is make an inference to the best possible explanation, which is that all the complexity of life, emotion, physics, energy, and thought owe their existence to a Being more complex and wise than a cosmic cocktail of chemicals (which, by the way, would have had to come from somewhere).*

Absolute Proof

In the end, the answer to the question is that there is BOTH absolute proof and the assurance of faith and personal testimony.  Aside from any arguments related to the creation/evolution debate, we have absolute proof for God of another kind: the life of the historical Jesus. Even if God had left no visible traces of His divine nature in creation, as Paul wrote, we would still be left with the record of the God-Man himself.

The evidences from the life of Jesus form a greater proof for God’s existence than all the volumes of arguments written on God’s existence as proved from material creation.  And this is to be expected, because the focus of the Bible is not the scientific evidence we have for belief in God; it is rather the eternal Word of God, manifest in the God-Man Jesus Christ, whose life is the greatest proof for God available to us.

___________________________
* Proceeding with an argument for God’s existence from design would take a much longer than the scope of this post.  Serious inquirers would be well served to obtain a copy of documentaries such as “The Privileged Planet,” or books such as I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist by Norman Geisler.

This entry was posted on June 29, 2010 at June 29, 2010 and is filed under Creation, God. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.