Bible Basics: Knowing GodSample

Is There Really a God?

By Ross Marshall

Does God even exist? Is there any significant proof of an all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-loving deity? Can modern science and God coexist?

Perhaps you’ve asked these or similar questions. Perhaps you’ve been discouraged from asking them, because our culture doesn’t have much of an appetite for absolute truth. We’re told to just do what feels right and to live our own truth. ‘You do you’ is the philosophy of the day, and so the ideas of Christianity are pretty unpopular to some. Perhaps you’ve been ignored or excluded, or experienced aggression or antagonism, because of your faith. While God doesn’t need us to defend Him, it’s important that we can defend our beliefs, so we can live confident, courageous, unapologetic, and faith-filled lives.

There are three key arguments for the existence of God:

1. The cosmological argument centres around cause and effect. To argue that our universe came into existence from nothing is logically absurd. If the universe has a beginning, there must be a cause, originator, or power that initiated life as we know it: God.
2. The design-based argument asserts that it’s illogical to believe that the galaxies, laws of nature, ecosystems, human body, and so forth, could have just randomly appeared without an intelligent designer. The universe points to an ultimate designer: God.
3. The moral argument concludes that if there is even one universal moral law that spans all cultures and population groups, there must be a moral lawgiver because a moral law is contingent on a moral lawgiver. Moral laws govern people. People don’t govern moral laws. This essentially means that a moral law becomes authoritative and superior to us. If we are not above these moral laws, then who is? It can only be an all-powerful lawgiver who reigns superior over all things: God.

Psalm 14 gives us a good idea of what happens if people – foolishly! – reject God. History proves that ancient nations that denied the existence of God fell into moral decay and fell out of existence themselves. Even though atheism has become a trendy alternative for many, and even though people who believe in God are often mocked for their faith, still, God is raising a generation of young people willing to go against the flow of popular culture. He’s calling us to trust Him, standing for His Kingdom, brave and unashamed. As we answer that call, may we discover the wonders of life with God.