Polls show that only about five percent of people disbelieve in God and this has been consistent since Paul preached at Mars Hill about the Unknown God. Man is an incurably religious being (Homo religiosus) and must worship something and theism of some kind is universal; there is a vacuum that only God can fill according to Blaise Pascal. There have always been atheists and agnostics, but today we have anti-theists who are militantly and vociferously against God and Christianity in particular and are embittered by some bad experience and on a mission.
Atheists deny a righteous Judge, a supernatural Creator, and a divine Lawgiver. However, life is no fluke of nature; God is the moral center of the universe and without a Judge, there is no justice; and God is holy and must judge sin according to His laws. The Bible clearly says that the "fool has said in his heart that there is no God." Jesus said the Pharisees were "slow of heart to believe," (cf. Luke 24:25). The Bible assumes and never attempts to prove God's existence: "In the beginning God..." and "In the beginning was the Word." Even the ancient Greeks believed (Heraclitus) that this ancient "logos" always existed and all things are through this "word" or "logic."
The point of creation is that it implies a Creator, and if there ever was nothing, then, said the Greeks, nothing could exist now--nothing comes from nothing! There are only two possibilities then: "In the beginning God," or "In the beginning matter/energy." Science now affirms a beginning to our cosmos called the Big Bang but doesn't know who or what pulled the trigger to get everything in motion and dialed its some 50 universal constants.
The point of creation is that it implies a Creator, and if there ever was nothing, then, said the Greeks, nothing could exist now--nothing comes from nothing! There are only two possibilities then: "In the beginning God," or "In the beginning matter/energy." Science now affirms a beginning to our cosmos called the Big Bang but doesn't know who or what pulled the trigger to get everything in motion and dialed its some 50 universal constants.
But according to the Second Law of Thermodynamics (entropy) all matter and energy go from complex or order to simple and disorder and run out of energy in any usable form (we are headed for an ultimate heat death of the entire cosmos someday without any usable form of energy). If we figure out how to intelligibly create life in a "prebiotic or primordial soup" then it only proves that it takes intelligence to create it. Sir Fred Hoyle wrote The Intelligent Universe to demonstrate life couldn't have originated by chance.
We go from logic to confusion or from cosmos to chaos without the energetic input of a mind in action. There could be no science without cosmos and divine order. You must appeal to some ultimate authority (God) or you are making your own reasoning the ultimate authority and this is per contra reason itself. The chief function of reason is to show that some things are beyond reason! Logic was in the beginning (logos) and is universal, immaterial, immutable, and eternal, of which God is and so you cannot use logic to disprove God. If truth or the cosmos (the orderly scheme of nature in the entire universe) changed our world couldn't be studied as a science.
Modern science believes everything is mechanical and that matter/energy is all that exists--denying the mind or Higher Mind (God-hypothesis). We are not just a brain encased in a body, but soul, spirit, and body joined together, to be separated upon death, and have an immaterial element that cannot be destroyed. We don't just have a brain, but a mind that is the real us, and this implies a Higher Mind--something beyond "Mother Nature," just like a person existing implies a higher personality from which it came (God cannot be of a lower nature than or inferior to His creatures). "Mother Nature has no inherent power contrary to the Gaia hypothesis of New Age thinking today.
We could not think, if there was no God, because He is the ultimate Thinker, because thinking requires a thinker: "Descartes said, "I think, therefore I am." We can verify our own existence this way and that we are self-conscious individuals and aware of our surroundings. The divine order of creation is as follows: Thinker, thought, action, matter/energy. In the same vein: Design implies designer and art implies artist. William Paley, an Anglican apologist, said that if you found a watch in the forest you wouldn't assume it had made itself or had always been there--the analogy is that we are more complicated than watches. You must begin with and assume reason and logic exist, to have a reasonable and logical conclusion. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (cf. John 1:1).
The weak point or Achilles' heel of believing in evolution is that you can't account for the origin of life itself: They believe and understand its impossibility, but believe that somehow this miracle took place and despite the laws of nature it must have happened, because, God forbid, the opposite cannot and must not be true--that there is a Creator. This is what is ironic in my opinion: They believe in this monumental miracle of nature (spontaneous generation was disproved 150 years ago by Louis Pasteur and biogenesis is the principle that life only comes from life--this begs the question of where did the first life come from and back to our original dilemma of the origin of life without God), but, even though they posit evolutionary life as established and unquestionable, they deny that a resurrection of the dead could happen to the Son of God Himself, who is the Author of life!
There is another problem of evolution or denying God because you have to believe in "matter over mind" or that matter has some power or cosmic energy inherent to create life and design itself and give itself purpose and meaning. We deny truth by denying God, because truth is what conforms to His mind, the Author. Jesus claimed to be the Truth, so it is knowable, absolute truth and even Augustine said, "All truth is God's truth." Christians have nothing to fear from scrutiny and the truth. There can be no knowledge, truth or logic without God because that is what God is to any system of proof--so you cannot prove anything without assuming God and that there are truth, knowledge, and logic.
We go from logic to confusion or from cosmos to chaos without the energetic input of a mind in action. There could be no science without cosmos and divine order. You must appeal to some ultimate authority (God) or you are making your own reasoning the ultimate authority and this is per contra reason itself. The chief function of reason is to show that some things are beyond reason! Logic was in the beginning (logos) and is universal, immaterial, immutable, and eternal, of which God is and so you cannot use logic to disprove God. If truth or the cosmos (the orderly scheme of nature in the entire universe) changed our world couldn't be studied as a science.
Modern science believes everything is mechanical and that matter/energy is all that exists--denying the mind or Higher Mind (God-hypothesis). We are not just a brain encased in a body, but soul, spirit, and body joined together, to be separated upon death, and have an immaterial element that cannot be destroyed. We don't just have a brain, but a mind that is the real us, and this implies a Higher Mind--something beyond "Mother Nature," just like a person existing implies a higher personality from which it came (God cannot be of a lower nature than or inferior to His creatures). "Mother Nature has no inherent power contrary to the Gaia hypothesis of New Age thinking today.
We could not think, if there was no God, because He is the ultimate Thinker, because thinking requires a thinker: "Descartes said, "I think, therefore I am." We can verify our own existence this way and that we are self-conscious individuals and aware of our surroundings. The divine order of creation is as follows: Thinker, thought, action, matter/energy. In the same vein: Design implies designer and art implies artist. William Paley, an Anglican apologist, said that if you found a watch in the forest you wouldn't assume it had made itself or had always been there--the analogy is that we are more complicated than watches. You must begin with and assume reason and logic exist, to have a reasonable and logical conclusion. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (cf. John 1:1).
The weak point or Achilles' heel of believing in evolution is that you can't account for the origin of life itself: They believe and understand its impossibility, but believe that somehow this miracle took place and despite the laws of nature it must have happened, because, God forbid, the opposite cannot and must not be true--that there is a Creator. This is what is ironic in my opinion: They believe in this monumental miracle of nature (spontaneous generation was disproved 150 years ago by Louis Pasteur and biogenesis is the principle that life only comes from life--this begs the question of where did the first life come from and back to our original dilemma of the origin of life without God), but, even though they posit evolutionary life as established and unquestionable, they deny that a resurrection of the dead could happen to the Son of God Himself, who is the Author of life!
There is another problem of evolution or denying God because you have to believe in "matter over mind" or that matter has some power or cosmic energy inherent to create life and design itself and give itself purpose and meaning. We deny truth by denying God, because truth is what conforms to His mind, the Author. Jesus claimed to be the Truth, so it is knowable, absolute truth and even Augustine said, "All truth is God's truth." Christians have nothing to fear from scrutiny and the truth. There can be no knowledge, truth or logic without God because that is what God is to any system of proof--so you cannot prove anything without assuming God and that there are truth, knowledge, and logic.
C. S. Lewis said, "Unless I believe in God, I can't believe in thought; so I can never use thought to disbelieve in God." God is the originator and inventor of thought and logic. To claim something is nonsense, you have to believe in sense or absolute truth! You can't make sense of the cosmos without God. Either you start with man and explain God or you start with God and explain man! The only system of thought that Christ will fit into is the one where He is the starting point and humanism tends to deify man and dethrone God and believes man is the "measure of all things" (Homo mensura).
Note that the burden of proof is on the infidel. Don't believe you have to prove God: It takes faith to be saved. We are not to attempt to prove God (God is not on trial, we are), but make Him known enough to take a leap of faith--we don't stoop to their level. We go in the direction of the preponderance of the evidence like a jury that doesn't know all the facts to make a decision. You don't need all the answers to have faith! The evidence demands a verdict and the unbeliever should be challenged to realize that we haven't kissed our brains goodbye.
Note that the burden of proof is on the infidel. Don't believe you have to prove God: It takes faith to be saved. We are not to attempt to prove God (God is not on trial, we are), but make Him known enough to take a leap of faith--we don't stoop to their level. We go in the direction of the preponderance of the evidence like a jury that doesn't know all the facts to make a decision. You don't need all the answers to have faith! The evidence demands a verdict and the unbeliever should be challenged to realize that we haven't kissed our brains goodbye.
For the person that doesn't want to repent and has moral objections, no amount of evidence will convince him, but for the person who is penitent and believing and wants to do God's will, a proof is necessary--it is a work of God. "If any man wills to do His will, he shall know ..." God wants us to take the leap of faith to get saved, not become intellectually convinced--it is not belief in the mind, but in the heart. Our faith must not rest on the power of persuasion, as Paul found out at Mars Hill, but in the power of the Holy Spirit as Paul strove to just know Christ and Christ crucified. We are not sold on an idea or way of life by a salesman!
It is true that Jesus is the Answer and Solution to all our dilemmas. We don't know all the answers, but we know the Answerer. "All the treasures of wisdom and knowledge"..."are hidden in Christ" (Colossians 2:2-3). With Christ as the starting point and reference, everything is rational. Christianity is not rationalism, but it is rational. All thought was originated from the first thinker, God and we know that something besides matter and energy exists: Something immaterial and takes up no space, yet has power over our body to command it--thought. We should never answer a fool according to his folly (not acknowledging God), but catch him off guard, lest we become like him (Prov. 26:4), and never attempt to prove God (however, we demonstrate their folly or foolishness) or put God on trial, but boldly proclaim the gospel, because it is what has power according to Paul in Romans 1:16: "...[For] it is the power of salvation to everyone who believes...." If we lose our fulcrum of the power of the gospel and stress our wits or cleverness in the persuasion, the Holy Spirit cannot work, for He uses the Word as a seed, not the wisdom of men.
The fulcrum or weak and pivotal point of advantage is the Bible itself as the ultimate authority and if they say prove its authority, you say, "No, you prove it: Read it and it will read you! God honors His Word. A lion needs no defense, it can defend itself. Well, they say: "Prove God exists!" No, tell them, "No, prove God doesn't exist!" If he doesn't have evidence, then he has blind faith, not knowing why he believes. They can't prove the designer of a watch never existed! "For what can be known of God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them" (Rom. 1:19, ESV). You aren't always preaching to the choir: You should realize the futility of trying to convince someone who doesn't want to believe in God or doesn't see his need of preaching--he just wants to get more reasons to disbelieve or thinks he's got it together. No, you prove He doesn't, the burden is on the unbeliever who is going against the grain and tide of humanity's common faith through the ages. You can't prove God doesn't exist and no one can cite any evidence for this. You cannot prove a universal negative, any more than you can assert there are no green men--you'd have to be everywhere simultaneously! In other words, you would have to be omniscient and omnipresent, knowing all and everywhere, or you would have to be God to disprove Him or be an atheist
For the person who claims he has intellectual problems or issues, pride is not absent (these are known as smokescreens to divert the real issue of Jesus Christ's relevance), he really has moral problems and doesn't want to alter his lifestyle or change his way of life, i.e., repent. John Stott said, "We must cater to intellectual integrity, but not pander to intellectual arrogance." Mostly they don't want to believe but are just engaging in some power game or mind game to win an argument and make you feel bad. No one is going to come up with some "smoking gun" evidence to make Christianity come tumbling down after two millennia. The trouble with people is not that they can't believe, but don't want to. Mark 9:24 says that a doubter (doubt is an element of faith, and not its opposite) said, "I believe, help thou mine unbelief." God gives faith to us as a gift and, if we are honest and seek Him, He will increase it. Faith comes by hearing of the Word of God according to Romans 10:17.
Scripture says there is no excuse to disbelieve in God because He has given this knowledge to all: You have to practically brainwash or indoctrinate a child to stop him from believing in God. "For when they knew God.." shows they once knew and stayed because they didn't acknowledge God or give Him thanks. and exchanged the "truth" about God for a lie. (Cf. Rom. 1: 18-28).
The Bible is the ultimate authority and only standard to appeal to; it is self-attesting or self-authenticating because if we appealed to any other authority it wouldn't be the ultimate authority anymore but our authority of verification would be. We just say that "It is written" to answer Satan and to stop him in his tracks. If he says he doesn't believe the Bible, ask him why or if he's read it, and if he has, what its main point is (salvation through Christ) to make him realize the foolishness of his ignorance, for he cannot even account for the concept of knowledge without the necessity of God. Without God we wouldn't have such entities as love, justice, righteousness, fair play, trustworthiness, courage, mercy, grace, altruism, sacrifice, purpose, significance, meaning, good faith, goodness, hope, honesty, intuition, wisdom, or even truthfulness--where else would they come from and one must admit they have always existed and always will: Does beauty remain after the rose fades? Note that God is love and also good, and the Word personifies Wisdom in Proverbs 8. Ponder this: Whence rights? As one secular humanist said, "When, one wonders, in evolutionary history did hominids first acquire natural rights?" But we acknowledge God as conferring our rights as unalienable.
If the fool repents, God will convince him, for it is written in 2 Tim. 2:25 (ESV): "...God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth." Repentance leading to the truth is the gift of God. This kind of proof the Bible refers to is ontological (we feel a tug towards God and have an innate knowledge of Him) and we don't have to convince the sheep, for they hear His voice, not necessarily our argumentation (John 10:27).
Our ultimate efficacy depends upon our dependence on the Holy Spirit and our testimony that he cannot refute, not our own brilliance--which may convince minds but not win over hearts. If we just win an argument (and you cannot argue someone into the kingdom) then we will be able to boast that we converted them, not the Holy Spirit. God confirms Himself to us by our experience in Christ that is based upon the objective historical fact of the resurrection, not something mystical, and this is called a "properly basic belief" and is the verification of God: "His Spirit bears witness with our spirit..." (Rom. 8:16). Apart from a work of the Holy Spirit no one will believe, God must prepare their hearts for the gospel message.
By saying you don't believe in God is calling God a liar (because the Bible says so), and making yourself the authority and putting God on trial, rather than yourself. God will judge man, not man God and man answers to God and not God to man. We all have faith and have presuppositions to our knowledge (which couldn't exist without God), but it takes more faith to be an atheist than a believer and the evidence is stacked up against his disbelief; hence, it is harder to be an unbeliever than have faith as Norman Geisler said, "I don't have enough faith to be an atheist." Atheists begin with the existence of reason to use reason to disprove God--how ironic! The Bible assumes God unapologetically, and we should follow suit in faith in the power of the Holy Spirit.
To conclude: Paul wrote that "faith comes by hearing, and by hearing of the Word of God," not by argumentation: You cannot argue someone into the kingdom! If you want to believe, you don't need evidence and if you are stubborn and don't want to, no amount will convince you. There are positive, informative, telltale reasons to have faith and to be intellectually honest, and they fit the facts better than doubt. We are not commissioned to win arguments but souls by speaking the truth in love, and witnessing for Jesus by our testimony and the gospel message itself--plant seeds not arguments or controversies! Soli Deo Gloria!
It is true that Jesus is the Answer and Solution to all our dilemmas. We don't know all the answers, but we know the Answerer. "All the treasures of wisdom and knowledge"..."are hidden in Christ" (Colossians 2:2-3). With Christ as the starting point and reference, everything is rational. Christianity is not rationalism, but it is rational. All thought was originated from the first thinker, God and we know that something besides matter and energy exists: Something immaterial and takes up no space, yet has power over our body to command it--thought. We should never answer a fool according to his folly (not acknowledging God), but catch him off guard, lest we become like him (Prov. 26:4), and never attempt to prove God (however, we demonstrate their folly or foolishness) or put God on trial, but boldly proclaim the gospel, because it is what has power according to Paul in Romans 1:16: "...[For] it is the power of salvation to everyone who believes...." If we lose our fulcrum of the power of the gospel and stress our wits or cleverness in the persuasion, the Holy Spirit cannot work, for He uses the Word as a seed, not the wisdom of men.
The fulcrum or weak and pivotal point of advantage is the Bible itself as the ultimate authority and if they say prove its authority, you say, "No, you prove it: Read it and it will read you! God honors His Word. A lion needs no defense, it can defend itself. Well, they say: "Prove God exists!" No, tell them, "No, prove God doesn't exist!" If he doesn't have evidence, then he has blind faith, not knowing why he believes. They can't prove the designer of a watch never existed! "For what can be known of God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them" (Rom. 1:19, ESV). You aren't always preaching to the choir: You should realize the futility of trying to convince someone who doesn't want to believe in God or doesn't see his need of preaching--he just wants to get more reasons to disbelieve or thinks he's got it together. No, you prove He doesn't, the burden is on the unbeliever who is going against the grain and tide of humanity's common faith through the ages. You can't prove God doesn't exist and no one can cite any evidence for this. You cannot prove a universal negative, any more than you can assert there are no green men--you'd have to be everywhere simultaneously! In other words, you would have to be omniscient and omnipresent, knowing all and everywhere, or you would have to be God to disprove Him or be an atheist
For the person who claims he has intellectual problems or issues, pride is not absent (these are known as smokescreens to divert the real issue of Jesus Christ's relevance), he really has moral problems and doesn't want to alter his lifestyle or change his way of life, i.e., repent. John Stott said, "We must cater to intellectual integrity, but not pander to intellectual arrogance." Mostly they don't want to believe but are just engaging in some power game or mind game to win an argument and make you feel bad. No one is going to come up with some "smoking gun" evidence to make Christianity come tumbling down after two millennia. The trouble with people is not that they can't believe, but don't want to. Mark 9:24 says that a doubter (doubt is an element of faith, and not its opposite) said, "I believe, help thou mine unbelief." God gives faith to us as a gift and, if we are honest and seek Him, He will increase it. Faith comes by hearing of the Word of God according to Romans 10:17.
Scripture says there is no excuse to disbelieve in God because He has given this knowledge to all: You have to practically brainwash or indoctrinate a child to stop him from believing in God. "For when they knew God.." shows they once knew and stayed because they didn't acknowledge God or give Him thanks. and exchanged the "truth" about God for a lie. (Cf. Rom. 1: 18-28).
The Bible is the ultimate authority and only standard to appeal to; it is self-attesting or self-authenticating because if we appealed to any other authority it wouldn't be the ultimate authority anymore but our authority of verification would be. We just say that "It is written" to answer Satan and to stop him in his tracks. If he says he doesn't believe the Bible, ask him why or if he's read it, and if he has, what its main point is (salvation through Christ) to make him realize the foolishness of his ignorance, for he cannot even account for the concept of knowledge without the necessity of God. Without God we wouldn't have such entities as love, justice, righteousness, fair play, trustworthiness, courage, mercy, grace, altruism, sacrifice, purpose, significance, meaning, good faith, goodness, hope, honesty, intuition, wisdom, or even truthfulness--where else would they come from and one must admit they have always existed and always will: Does beauty remain after the rose fades? Note that God is love and also good, and the Word personifies Wisdom in Proverbs 8. Ponder this: Whence rights? As one secular humanist said, "When, one wonders, in evolutionary history did hominids first acquire natural rights?" But we acknowledge God as conferring our rights as unalienable.
If the fool repents, God will convince him, for it is written in 2 Tim. 2:25 (ESV): "...God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth." Repentance leading to the truth is the gift of God. This kind of proof the Bible refers to is ontological (we feel a tug towards God and have an innate knowledge of Him) and we don't have to convince the sheep, for they hear His voice, not necessarily our argumentation (John 10:27).
Our ultimate efficacy depends upon our dependence on the Holy Spirit and our testimony that he cannot refute, not our own brilliance--which may convince minds but not win over hearts. If we just win an argument (and you cannot argue someone into the kingdom) then we will be able to boast that we converted them, not the Holy Spirit. God confirms Himself to us by our experience in Christ that is based upon the objective historical fact of the resurrection, not something mystical, and this is called a "properly basic belief" and is the verification of God: "His Spirit bears witness with our spirit..." (Rom. 8:16). Apart from a work of the Holy Spirit no one will believe, God must prepare their hearts for the gospel message.
By saying you don't believe in God is calling God a liar (because the Bible says so), and making yourself the authority and putting God on trial, rather than yourself. God will judge man, not man God and man answers to God and not God to man. We all have faith and have presuppositions to our knowledge (which couldn't exist without God), but it takes more faith to be an atheist than a believer and the evidence is stacked up against his disbelief; hence, it is harder to be an unbeliever than have faith as Norman Geisler said, "I don't have enough faith to be an atheist." Atheists begin with the existence of reason to use reason to disprove God--how ironic! The Bible assumes God unapologetically, and we should follow suit in faith in the power of the Holy Spirit.
To conclude: Paul wrote that "faith comes by hearing, and by hearing of the Word of God," not by argumentation: You cannot argue someone into the kingdom! If you want to believe, you don't need evidence and if you are stubborn and don't want to, no amount will convince you. There are positive, informative, telltale reasons to have faith and to be intellectually honest, and they fit the facts better than doubt. We are not commissioned to win arguments but souls by speaking the truth in love, and witnessing for Jesus by our testimony and the gospel message itself--plant seeds not arguments or controversies! Soli Deo Gloria!