How do we know that there is a God? This is the question that every generation throughout all of history has asked. Scholars have debated this question for thousands of years and will continue to discuss it for many more.
However, the truth is that every individual will have to decide what they believe is the answer to this specific question at one time in their life.
There are many ways to approach this question. You could approach it mathematically using numbers and statistics of astronomical proportions. You could approach it scientifically and talk about cellular biology and irreducibly complex organisms.
You can look at it philosophically, socially, and theologically. The point is, if it’s a big fancy word that you need a master’s degree to pronounce, there is a good chance you can use it to answer this question.
But as a youth pastor, who cares deeply about my teenager’s understanding and even deeper for their salvation, I think we need to be able to answer this question in a common-sense “Average Joe” kind of way.
I have found that though some people will need the massive mathematical equation to believe in God, most people do not. Most people want a simple explanation for their questions.
That is the goal of this article, to answer this question for you in a way where you can turn around and answer it for someone else.
Here are the top three ways to answer the question, “How do we know there is a God?”
1. We Know God Exists Because of Morality
Many people will ask, “If there is a God who is all-good and all-powerful, then why is there so much pain and injustice in the world?”
Many will conclude that there must not be a God, or if there is, he either isn’t good enough to end evil or isn’t powerful enough to stop it because surely if he were able to, he would.
This sounds like it makes sense until you dig a little under the surface. Many fail to realize that injustice in the world points to a good God. How is that possible?
C.S. Lewis answers by saying, “A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some ideal of a straight line....atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning” (Mere Christianity).
If you had never felt hot water before, and the only water you felt was cold, then to you, all water is cold. Coldwater is just water. The only reason you can call water cold is that you know how hot water feels and now can compare it. Morality works the same way.
The only reason people can even say something is evil is because there is an ultimate ideal good. Many atheists try to say morality evolved, but most of their arguments are weak. Evolution’s anthem is, “The weak die off, and the strong survive to reproduce, thus evolves to get stronger.” Evolution’s morality says, let the weak die, and let the strong survive to reproduce.
If we based society on this, the world would fall apart. Murder wouldn’t be evil — it’s just a stronger species killing off a weaker one. Why would we protect our elders or disabled people? Evolution says they should die off so the stronger can live on.
According to evolution’s morality, Hitler was just. Hitler believed in pushing forward evolution by creating an Aryan race. He did this by killing millions of people who, in his mind, held back evolution.
And yet something in us rose and said, “This man is evil, and we must stop him.” There is a morality inside of us that fights against evolution. We speak out to protect our elders. We give our lives to protect the disabled.
We fight for those who can’t fight for themselves. We inherently believe that the strong should not kill the weak but defend them. These morals contradict evolution and point to some higher morality that is perfectly good and calls us to be good.
Many atheists argue morality must be cultural. Each society created a moral system for the community to evolve and survive. This argument may work for an individual culture but falls apart when we have a culture clash. Once again, the same problem occurs.
Under this argument, war should be praised because evolution says the stronger society should survive, moving evolution forward. Once again, something inside of every society knows that war is wrong and strives for peace.
Morality is very hard to explain unless you bring God into the picture. For there to be any moral absolutes, there must be a God who put them in place.
2. We Know God Exists Because of Hunger
No one likes to be hungry because hunger is a need. Have you ever noticed that we hunger for what we are designed for? Physical hunger is your body crying out for the food it needs to survive.
Emotional hunger is your heart crying out for relationships it needs to stay healthy. You do not feel a hunger for things that do not exist.
Lewis once again says, “The existence of God could be explained as naturally as our hunger for food: ‘Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such thing as food.’ Why do we yearn for something more? Because something ‘More’ does exist.”
If there were no God, then humanity would have never noticed, cared, or hungered for there to be a God. If there were no meaning to life, humans would have never longed for life to have meaning. We would have never asked the question, “Is there a God?” The thought would have never crossed our minds.
The fact that we have asked, “How do we know there is a God?” proves that a God must exist.
3. We Know There Is a God Because of the First Cause-Effect
One of the greatest laws in nature is called the “Law of Cause and Effect.” It says that everything happens because something caused it to happen. A ball did not just start bouncing; a child threw it, causing it to bounce.
A child did not appear one day. They were the cause of their parents. Nothing can ever create something. Never has there been a pile of nothing that exploded into a pile of something. Someone had to light the match. There is always a cause.
But what was the first cause? Laws of nature cannot spontaneously start themselves. Only something outside of the laws of nature could kickstart them into being.
One time, I talked to an atheistic scientist, and I asked him what could have caused the Big Bang? He explained a “singularity caused it.” That sounds big and scary and intimidating to an uneducated (in this area) guy like me.
So, I asked what it meant. To summarize, he explained that a singularity is a single place where the laws of physics and time and science itself all breakdown and merge into something that is “above the laws of nature” or “super-nature.” This super-nature phenomenon can’t be measured or recorded and could have caused the birth of nature’s laws.
“Hold up,” I asked at this moment, confused. “You mean to say that by definition, something ‘supernatural’ had to of happened to create everything? And this supernatural event cannot be seen or measured? You just have to believe it happened?”
“Yes,” he admitted.
“Wow, you just defined faith,” I remarked. “You believe in something supernatural that created everything. You admit you will never be able to record, test, or prove this. You have to believe it happened. How is this not a religion?”
He had no response.
“Well, I believe that God was the supernatural singularity. He was the first cause to affect everything else. Your faith in the Big Bang gives you no meaning, purpose, or morality. My faith in God at least gives my life purpose and explains why we have morals.”
I went on to tell him the gospel. I explained how our faith in God as the universe’s singularity gives us life, hope, purpose, and future. I shared how God loved him, Jesus died for him, and how he can still be a smart scientist who has faith in God as the creator of all.
“Taylor,” he responded, “I’m going to have to go home and rethink some things.”
There are so many other arguments going deep into science, math, and philosophy. I encourage you to take whatever subject you are interested in and look for how that subject points to God. Like a painting points to the artist, all of creation points to our creator.
I found these three questions tend to answer most questions people have about the existence of God, but I encourage you to dive deeper!
For further reading:
Does Proof of Jesus Other Than in the Bible Exist?
Why Do People Think God Is Cruel?
Did Evil Exist Before Adam and Eve Sinned?
Meaning and Morality Without God: Atheists Know Better Than They Think
Has Science Removed the Need for God?
Photo Credit: ©iStock/Getty Images Plus/Viktoriia Hnatiuk
