Does God exist?

Written by Neil Buckman

, on 7 September, 2024

QUESTIONS (submitted by a group of young people):

How do we know that God is real?
Is there evidence that God does not exist?

ANSWER:

Summary: The universe, and everything in it, has an origin that is either personal or impersonal. If it is impersonal, life is utterly meaningless. But if personal, we must begin a quest to know who created it and why.

Let’s begin with the second question. Is there evidence that God does not exist?

To answer that you must first define what you mean by “God”. If a person has a fixed idea of what they believe God must be, and then finds something that is contrary to that idea, he or she may conclude that there is no God. But the truth may be simply that their idea of God is inadequate. When you hear people say, “If God exists then He would not allow that to happen”, then you know that they have an understanding of God that has no room for whatever it is that has happened. But the question of God’s existence is not settled until they can be completely sure that their understanding of what God must be is correct and sufficient, and to be sure of that, they would need to know God, in which case the question would be answered.

Then what evidence is there that God does exist? There are many ways that this question can be approached, but let’s do this – let’s begin at the beginning of the universe. By the universe, I mean matter, the space it occupies, and time – everything that together comprises the universe.

The world that we know is finite and so it is reasonable to assume that the universe has a beginning. If it has a beginning, it must be either personal or impersonal. That is, either “someone” is the cause of its existence, or it is the result only of “something“. It must be one or the other.

If the universe exists because of something – not a mind or intelligence of any sort, but simply a thing, then it can have no purpose, and therefore no meaning. In fact, in that case nothing would have any meaning, and there would be no moral law, only what is convenient or useful at any time or place. Now, there may be some people who are able to accept that, but most of us can’t, and we certainly don’t live that way. We know that we are more than an accumulation of atoms, that there is a moral order, that love is meaningful and that there must be something beyond this life. And even though we have much in common with the animal kingdom, this self-consciousness and our longing to understand is unique to humanity. The many religions practiced throughout human history and by every people group testify to our shared sense that there is more to life than what we can see and touch. So where can we find a reasonable explanation for this distinctively human self-awareness?

What if the origin of the universe is personal, if we are what we are, and where we are, because of “someone”, an intelligence that created the universe for a purpose and created humanity in a unique way to know and to share in that purpose? Could that be the explanation?

If you rule out the possibility that the universe has a personal origin, then of course you have to explain everything by chemistry and physics, and everything includes every human desire, emotion and experience. You also have to say that the most complex and extraordinary life forms, the intricacies of the DNA code, and the very laws of physics themselves, are all the result of undirected, unintended, and directionless change involving no intelligence of any sort. And more than that, you have to hold this view despite the fact that such an increase in complexity and order has never been seen in nature when it is left to itself – our consistent experience has been the exact opposite.

Therefore, because our inner sense is that life must have meaning and that we are more than highly evolved animals, and because of the complexity of life itself, it is reasonable to conclude that the universe has “someone” as its first cause, not “something”.

But that conclusion does not answer the next obvious question – what is this “someone” like?

If there is “someone” responsible for the origin of everything, including time and space, then that “someone” must transcend all that is created. This “person” is not part of the universe, just as a sculptor is not part of his sculpture. Therefore, unless our creator reveals His nature, character and purpose, we will have no way of knowing Him. Many religions claim to have such a revelation. The Christian message, recorded in the Bible, is a revelation from God, and the Bible’s focus is Jesus, called Christ or Messiah.

Jesus was born in Israel, at the time a Roman colony, during the reign of the emperor Tiberius. He lived a fully human life but without sin, He was crucified under the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, and He rose from the dead after three days, as He said He would. His life is part of recorded history, it is not myth. He is unlike any other person, before or since, because of His moral perfection, His many miracles, His timeless and authoritative teaching, and because of the astonishing things He said about Himself. The people of His day said, “You, being a man, make yourself God” (John 10:33). Yes, He said that He would judge the world, that He would give eternal life to all who put their trust in Him and that to know Him was to know God!

In Jesus we have the fullest and most accessible revelation of the invisible God, and in His resurrection, we have an historical confirmation of the truth of that revelation.

Does God exist? The answer is in Jesus, so begin your search with Him. Is He the Son of God, as He said? When you hear the wonderful truths spoken by Him and see the character of the God in Him, you have the answer, and if you turn to Him and put your trust in Him, you will find the forgiveness of sin, new life, profound meaning and true joy.

Neil Buckman
Having been converted from a nominal Christian background at the age of 17, Neil has spent the last 50 plus years learning too slowly and growing too little. He is, nonetheless, one of many ordinary people increasingly amazed at the grace of God in Jesus Christ and at the wise perfection of this glorious salvation.

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