My freshman year of college I worked several jobs to pay for college, and one of those jobs was as a salesman for Kinney Shoes. There was a lot of time between customers, and a full crew of us working, so there was a lot of time for conversation. My co-workers knew of my belief in God, one of them even said I was “addicted to Jesus”, so spiritual conversations were a part of our routine. I can’t remember if they asked how I knew God existed or if I just plowed into the string-of-consciousness sermon on my own, but either way in only a few minutes I provided them with my evidences. Yesterday we mentioned that the question of God’s existence wasn’t one we could answer in that post; with a nod to the past at Kinney’s it is a question I’d like to try and answer in this one.

Proving God’s existence starts with my spin on the Cosmological argument. Even if one believes the universe began with a bang, that is the explosion of some kind of primordial egg that expanded into the vast expanse we know today, there remains a problem: where did the egg come from. Science tells us the universe may have been expanding, then contracting back into itself until the mass is so great that it explodes again into a new universe for millennia. That explanation still doesn’t answer the question. At some point we have to conclude that there was something eternal (without a beginning) from which everything else sprang. For the sake of convenience we’re going to call that eternal something God.

The fact that the universe is so ordered would indicate that its origins were even more ordered (last time I witnessed an explosion it didn’t result in an improvement of conditions). Philosophers such as Plato and others have argued that if something exists its components had to come from something else that exists. A chair, for example, is made of wood which came from a tree, etc. Therefore, everything that exists must have existed in some form in the eternal something we call God. This includes the design we see in the universe, life and even intelligence. I know we’re moving fast here but from just a couple paragraphs we’re able to show that “God” is eternal, is the cause of the universe, and is alive and intelligent. This still does not prove that “God” is The God of the Bible, but from here its easy to see how it could be.

Atheists argue that there is no compelling evidence to assume the existence of a supernatural being, such as God. But as we’ve just seen there is a reasonable and logical argument. That’s not all, however. Throughout history nearly every culture believed in a supernatural God (or several gods); even today the percentage of atheists in society is in the single digits. All those trillions of people throughout history up to today do not believe in some kind of God without reason. In his letter to the church in Rome Paul says that the very order of creation is evidence to all people of God’s existence. The author of the book of Hebrews uses the Cosmological argument by arguing that “every house is built by someone” to prove that “God is the builder of all things.”

I admit, none of these arguments by themselves is proof of anything, but taken together they show that belief in God is more reasonable than unbelief. In fact, the only proof of God’s existence is God himself, and thankfully he proves himself to all who trust in him. There is no greater argument I can make for God’s existence than my own relationship with him. I know God through my conversion experience (I am not the man I used to be), through prayer (including answered prayer), and the freedom that comes from forgiveness and righteous living. Unfortunately, this doesn’t silence the doubters either. I’ll leave you with a few choice verses:

The Lord says this to the family of Israel: :Seek me so you can live!” (Amos 5.4)

But if you seek the Lord your God from there, you will find him, if, indeed, you seek him with all your heart and soul. (Deuteronomy 4.29)

There is no one who understands, there is no one who seeks God. (Romans 3.11)