How do we even know God exists?

Questions from Teens continues

 

     This is a great question.  First let me take this from the exact opposite angle: How do we know God or a god DOESN"T exist?  Is there any proof for the non-existence of God or a god?  Quick answer: No there isn't ANY proof for the non-existence of God.  Christopher Hitchens, one of the 4 horsemen of the 'New Atheism' - he's deceased now, God rest his soul - said as much in his debate with Dr. William Lane Craig, a Christian apologist who specializes in debating atheists.  Mr. Hitchens did not present one single argument for atheism.  He said that Christians behave badly - yes, I behave against God's Will usually daily.  He said that the universe would be destroyed in several billion years - yes, all Christians believe in the End of the World, some day.  He said that evil exists and a God that's all-good, all-knowing and all-powerful would want to do something about evil, would know that evil exists and would be able to do something about it.  But evil exists therefore there is no 'god'. 
     However, the most this can show - and I mean the absolute most - is not that a god doesn't exist, but that God is either not all-knowing, not all-powerful or not all-good.  On the other hand, this argument is also a 'false dichotomy', meaning, it presents two choices and pretends those are the only two choices available.  The two choices are: either evil exists or God does.  But there is at least one more choice:  That God exists and has good reasons for allowing, temporarily, evil to exist in our world.

     Near the end of the debate, after being asked several times by Dr. Craig for a single argument for the non-existence of God, Mr. Hitchens stated, "I don't have to give any."  He then went on to say that everyone is born an atheist so it is up to the theist to convince us, but he just hasn't found any of the arguments compelling.

     Several things here: 1) Note that he agrees that he did not present ANY arguments for atheism.  In saying, "I don't need to give any [reasons]."  Mr. Hitchens is also saying, "I didn't give any." 

2) The idea that everyone is 'born' an atheist assumes atheism is the norm.  This is entirely false.  I believe the last I saw it, atheism comprises about 1 to 2 percent of the population - I think it would be reasonable that if atheism were true, we'd see a higher percentage of atheism. 
      Also, if everyone is born an atheist, how did we go from 0 to 1?   In other words, how did the first person begin to believe in God or a god?  Some would argue that a cave man saw lightning and couldn't explain it so he assumed some powerful being in the sky made it.

     This is also problematic.  Why would early man make up an explanation for something that was a regular, natural occurrence in his experience?  Lightning isn't a one-in-a-lifetime thing that is so shocking - pun intended - that demands a unique, radical, crazy, never-been-thought-of-before answer.  You might as well say rain was so shocking it needed someone to make up a god to explain it. 
      In addition, if there is no idea of God, why would someone make it up?  And it had to be so convincing that 90+% of people he told believed him - who all held the opposite opinion to begin with.  I might as well make up, right now, that some sort of invisible pen is writing these letters on my screen as I press the corresponding key on the key board.  Who's going to believe that?
      But, Mr. Defensor, we have modern science.  Primitive Man could not have been able to understand such things and therefore needed to make up a god to explain it...  Says who?  Primitive Man had their five senses and a brain.  If someone were to start telling Primitive Man about some source of all being that was an invisible, intelligent source of all existence... they'd tell that person to go take a long half-erect walk off a short stone pier... Unless it reflected a truth engrained in us. 

3) I highly doubt Mr. Hitchens had read all the full arguments for the existence of God, with an open mind evaluating both sides for what is true.  In some of his other writings, as quoted by other Christian apologists, he seems to have many misunderstandings of the arguments and especially of what Christians mean by "God."

 

Ok then how do we know God or 'a god' exists?

     You may have noticed that both Mr. Hitchens and Dr. Craig talk about the arguments FOR God's existence.  In the book, Handbook of Catholic Apologetics Dr. Peter Kreeft lists 20 arguments.  I'm only going to detail out one.

 

The Cosmological Argument

    Premise #1:  Nothing that has a beginning, began itself.

Ok what?  Well let's think about it.  Look out your window and look at a tree.  Did that tree have a beginning?  Yes.  Did that tree decide when it was going to begin?  No.  Another example would be yourself.  Did you have a beginning?  Yes.  Did you, in your non-existent state, decide when you were going to exist?  No.  Everything that has a beginning needs something else to cause it to begin.

 

     Premise #2:  The Universe had a beginning.

Science shows that the Universe indeed began about 13.7 billion years ago.  Interestingly, even though today many atheistic scientists assume that the Big Bang theory disproves the existence of God - and many Christians reject the science (and science in general) believing that to be true - the theory was first proposed by a Catholic priest, Fr. George Lematre (also a friend of Albert Einstein's).  Atheistic scientists at first opposed the theory vehemently realizing it sounded way too much like Genesis.

     Back on topic: a simple definition of the Universe is all time, energy, space and matter.

 

Conclusion:  Something outside of time, matter, energy and space began the Universe.

 

Think about how astounding this is, for a minute.  What, outside of time, matter, energy and space, began the Universe?  Aliens?  Nope they'd be inside of time, matter, energy and space.  The only thing that fits the bill is a timeless (eternal), spirit (non-material).  The Spirit would have to be the source of all existence, energy, and be able to create something from nothing.   That's a tall order... unless it's God.

 

There are objections and the counter points to those objections that could be detailed out.  There are also dozens more arguments for the existence of God that could be made too.  But let me challenge you to think about something:  If someone said, "There's a treasure chest in that cave full of amazing gold, jewels and art."  But someone else says, "No there's not."  When you ask why each believes what they believe, the second person says, "I don't have any reasons; I don't need any reasons."  But the first person says, "I have an old treasure map which shows this is the spot.  The locals have many stories of treasure being hid in this cave.  Several locals have gone into the cave and come out with treasure, and they say there's treasure in there."

Are you going to explore that cave or not?

 

The atheist says, "I don't have to give you any reasons to not believe in God."  The theist says, "Here's twenty based on logic, science and philosophy."  No evidence on one side and evidence on the other.  Even if it's weak evidence, shouldn't you side with the evidence?  That's what we do in courts, the scientific method, and all other rational deduction.

 

But this would mean changing your life, and the way you live... that might be the REAL issue.

 

 



Lifest Wrap-up

This months newsletter: 

1) Apologies
2) Meeting Reminder
3) Lifest

First, I need to apologize for not being as active on the blog / facebook page as you've come to expect, in the last month.  The reason is the same reason why my typing today may not be the greatest ever:  I'm typing one-handed.  No, I didn't get injure d.  My wife and I had our 7th child on the 4th!  (2 boys, 2 girls 3 in heaven due to miscarriage).  Since then things have kind of been a blur and I've dropped the ball on a few things.  Mom and Baby are doing great.  I haven't paused long enough to figure out how I'm doing.

Reminder that if you're in the area, our monthly meeting is this Saturday the 25th, 8:00 am at the Gehl Center - same building Cathedral Book and Gifts is in, directly behind the Cathedral in Green Bay.  We're starting a chapter by chapter study of The Essential Catholic Survival Guide.  Each chapter is a different tract from Catholic Answers so even if you miss a month you won't be off a chapter or anything.  If you can't make the meetings, you can still follow along with our newsletter and if you don't have the book, you can look up a related article - sometimes the same tract - on Catholic Answers' website:  www.catholic.com.

Lifest was a Holy Spirit filled blast!  Our Apostolate spent seven hours answering questions of Non-Catholics and Catholics alike.  99% of the conversations were positive, genuinely pleasant conversations.  Our Apostolate was invited to a non-denominational bible study to present the Catholic position on the various topics being studied there - the jury's still out on whether we can make it or not.  We even had one person call us the following week with follow-up questions!

There was one woman who was just coming back into Christianity from being nothing for years, due in large part to her daughter attending Lifest the last 4 years.  She was upset and concerned that she had been a bad mom for most of her daughter's life.  We spoke to her about forgiveness, love and mercy.  Plus, we added, she made the decision to send her daughter to Lifest the last four years, leading to her coming with her daughter for one day last year which was the catalyst for her coming back into the faith.

Most of the questions we had are ones we've already gone over in class / newsletters: Prayers to Mary and the Saints, use of statues / art in Catholic Churches, Authority of Scripture (Bible: yes.  Bible ALONE: no), why do we call priests 'Father'.  Etc.

One question we had to look up later was a woman who had been studying with some Seventh Day Adventists.  She posed the question of why do we worship on Sunday when the Ten Commandments state clearly to keep holy the Sabbath.  Why did the Catholic Church change the Sabbath to Sunday?

The quick answer is: The Catholic Church never changed the Sabbath.  Catholicism still teaches that the Sabbath is the day before the Lord's Day (CCC 2175).  What the Catholic Church - and the vast majority of Christians - recognizes is that Jesus Christ fulfilled the Old Testament Law and certain aspects of it have been changed (2 Cor 5:17; Heb 7:12 etc).  One aspect is that we, as Christians, are no longer bound by the Sabbath (Col 2:16).  The Sabbath was a mere shadow of what was to come.  What we see in Scripture is the Christians gathering to worship on the Lord's Day, the 1st Day of the week, aka  Sunday (Acts 20:7; 1 Cor 16:1-2; Rev 1:10).  Here's a more in depth treatment of this question by one of the top Catholic Apologists out there today, Tim Staples.

One person we'd like you to pray for is a young woman whom we never even got a name.  Every apologist / evangelist messes up from time to time and I must admit that I violated most of the rules for apologetics on this one.  We were having a pleasant conversation with one woman.  During the conversation.  This young woman came up very impassioned that she overheard us saying that works are necessary for salvation.  Taken a bit off guard, I went into defense mode rather than sticking with what I know is best.  We fired bible verses back and forth, bounced to several different topics.  Eventually I was able to start asking her questions like: Where do you find in Scripture that everything needs to be found in Scripture?  After being unable to answer those question, she left, stating in a huff that she was raised Catholic and almost became a nun, but now she's learned the truth.

 It hit me like a ton of bricks as she was walking away: the vast majority of ex-Catholics have walked away because of an intense negative emotional experience, i.e. they were hurt by someone usually in authority.  They then use anti-Catholic apologetics to justify why they left.  I realized if I had had made the defense with reverence and kindness, instead of trying to win, I may have had the opportunity to help bring some healing to a wound.  Please pray for her.

But the day was not summed up by this, but by our last encounter.  The last people to visit our booth was someone I knew: a Protestant apologist I have had several discussions with in the past.  Because we've both recognized each other's love for Jesus Christ we've developed a mutual love and respect for each other, while still not always agreeing.  He came up to us and enthusiastically said, "It's great to see you guys out here spreading the Good News!"  We had a great conversation about things we agree on: pro-life and real marriage.  We directed him to some great resources on both topics.  At the end, I shook his hand and thanked him for thinking of us Catholics as equal Christians - some denominations, usually the most vocal ones, do not believe Catholics are Christians, or if they are, they're some kind of quasi Christians like Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses.  He stated, "Oh I've run across enough Catholics now to realize the Catholic Church teaches the Gospel."  AMEN!

We're still looking for one or two more people interested in learning more about Street Evangelization.  Praise God we've had a few people courageously step up and express interest.  Is God asking you to step forward?