How Do We Know God Exists?

20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. 21 For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened...14 For when Gentiles who do not have the Law do instinctively the things of the Law, these, not having the Law, are a law to themselves, 15 in that they show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them  Romans 1:20,21, 2:14,15


      How do we know God exists? Philosophers have debated and pondered this since the days of Plato and have come up with some interesting, if not complicated arguments for the existence of God which I will try to summarize here in a way that the common person (me) can understand. I would divide them into 3 categories as seen in the above passages -  the attributes of God argument, the nature argument, and the moral argument.

    The attributes of God argument or ontological argument goes something like this; if the definition of God is that which nothing greater can be conceived -Therefore, if He exists in the mind, He must of necessity exist in the world because that would be greater than existing in just the mind. It's like if a painter has the most beautiful painting ever in his mind, it isn't the most beautiful painting ever unless he paints it. Likewise, if we imagine there could be the most perfect being ever, He must exist because that is greater than the conception of Him. To me this sounds like mental hocus pocus but people much smarter than me think this is a great argument.

     The next series of arguments are nature arguments.

 1. The teleological argument - Any object in which we discern evidence of purposeful adaptation of means to some end implies a creator. For example, let's say you are on a deserted island and you are walking on the beach and you see white smooth stones. That would tell you nothing. Now you come upon a white stone liked object with a handle, a circular rim and a hollow cylindrical center - a coffee mug. What would you assume? Someone has been there before you! How much more a human body with skin, eyes, lungs, heart, etc. should point us to a creator. Extended to our earth we have the anthropic principle which states that our earth has over one hundred finely tuned conditions which if not there would make life impossible. It's as if a creator prepared just the right conditions to put life on the planet.

 2. The sufficient reason argument - Nothing happens without a sufficient reason. Why is there something rather than nothing? The reason for the universe's existence must be found  outside the universe in a being whose sufficient reason is self contained.

 3. The cosmological argument - This is the cause and effect argument. Every effect must have a cause. Traced back far enough there must be a first cause and chance can't be a cause because chance isn't a thing. One variety of this states;
        A. Anything that begins to exist has a cause
        B. The universe began to exist (Einstein's theory of general relativity and Hubble's finding that light from galaxies is moving away from us, and the resultant heat death of the universe implied by infinitude in light of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics are just some of the findings that have led most scientists to agree that there was a beginning)
       C. Therefore the universe has a cause

       Lastly you have the moral argument for the existence of God. This is the one that C.S. Lewis uses in Mere Christianity. The fact that all of mankind appeals to a non-existing moral code when saying things like "I was here first", "You promised", or any "You ought to" or "You shouldn't" phrases. Not only that, but there is a hierarchy of morality which enables us to say, "The extermination of Jews may have been acceptable in Nazi Germany but it isn't acceptable behavior for human beings. It was wrong"! Or to say child abuse is wrong or rape and theft when those things are practiced in the animal kingdom. How does something like a moral code come about when we are a random accident in the universe with no purpose or meaning and where survival of the fittest should be the acceptable behavior.

    For me it takes a whole lot more faith to believe there isn't a God than there is a God!