The Evidence Of The Existance Of God

Blaise Pascal, a devoted Christian who invented the first calculating machine and laid the basis for infinitesimal calculus, once said: "Man is created to think and his whole duty is to think as he ought."

A great philosopher, A. E. Taylor, once put together all the evidence of God's existence and organized it under three categories. According to Professor Taylor, one can see the existence of God if one looks from "nature to God," from "man to God," and from "God to God."

In looking from "nature to God," one looks at the phenomenon of science, which is the discipline of discerning and manipulating the natural laws of the physical world. These natural laws of science reveal a tremendous fact of life, that there is reason and order in the world, an order that reveals itself to other reasonable minds. Reason and order reveal purpose and planning. This in turn leads to the reasonable conclusion of the existence of a reasonable and purposeful Designer, which philosophers from Plato on have traditionally called God.

The argument from "man to God" looks at the phenomenon of human beings: that there has occurred in the course of life a being who has genuine personality. Personality, as defined by philosophers, is held by beings who are conscious of their own intelligence as well as the intelligence of others, and who are able to make decisions based on values, beliefs and principles. If personal beings can occur in an impersonal world, then it is logical to conclude that there is a personal force behind--and greater than--the brute physical forces of the natural order. This force struggles to reveal itself in personal beings and is the source of our values and principles. It is God.

The argument from "God to God" relates to the phenomenon of religious experience in human existence. Millions of persons, some being the finest minds and personalities in history, have given testimony to personal encounters with One greater than themselves who has strengthened them in times of trial, confronted them in times of sin, forgiven them in times of guilt, and given them hope in times of despair. To deny all the experiences of these numberless persons would be arbitrary and closed-minded. Unless we dogmatically and unscientifically assume that valid religious experiences cannot occur, then we must allow for the possibility that these persons have had and continue to have profound experiences with the living and personal God.

None of these arguments can stand alone, but taken together, they can provide a strong cumulative case of belief in the existence of a personal God. Where then is the finest expression of this personal God? Christianity believes the ultimate expression of God's personal nature is found in the life of Jesus Christ. It is in Christ as we encounter him in the New Testament that we find the most fully personal expression of the God whose nature is love.