Apologetics
Someone might ask me, “Can you prove to me that God exists?” My response would have to be: “Really? Me, a mere human being asked to sit in judgment of the Almighty?” The question itself necessitates the need for a paradigm shift.
When it comes to deciding upon the existence of God, the false assumption is that a person must somehow obtain enough evidence to convince himself or herself that God exists. That is the old paradigm and it must change before a realization of the truth is even possible. The problem is not that the evidence doesn’t exist. The evidence is overwhelming for those who wish to explore it. The snag comes in our reliance upon a 4 pound mass of tissue between our ears as our final authority in judging the truth of God’s existence. How much evidence is enough to satisfy you? How much evidence is enough to satisfy someone else? Maybe you would disagree. Maybe you are thinking that a man or mankind as a whole is quite capable of assessing the truth of God’s existence. Surely if God supplied enough evidence along with rational, logical criteria then the whole issue would be resolved. Or perhaps modern science and technology along with centuries of knowledge is enough to disprove the existence of God. I will go so far as to say that all of our greatest tools of discovery and even God’s best undeniable and verifiable evidence is still not enough to prove God’s existence. The reason is that God planned it that way. Perhaps at this point you are expecting me to say something to the effect that, “therefore we must just have faith that he exists.” Actually, no, that is not going to be my argument. And that is because the problem has absolutely nothing to do with proof of God’s existence.
Here’s the rub. The problem has to do with a man’s inward nature. In other words, (and this is an easy one to believe) people everywhere are messed up. We were all born with a mind that is tainted which means that all of our thoughts, choices, affections, and emotions are skewed. On top of that, everyone is left with his or her own interpretation of the truth. Just spend a fair amount of time reading blogs and this becomes apparent. Every problem in the world, in part, is due to this issue. All of mankind does not have the ability to figure anything out to some sort of grand, unified truthful conclusion about anything. ANYTHING! One man’s right is another man’s wrong. One man’s truth is another man’s error. Truth isn't going to come from humanity. I would suggest that this is an obvious truth, but even that would be challenged by someone.
I am hoping that you and I can at least agree on that. And yes, I am going to stand on my statement that God planned it that way. So shame on Him. Or maybe not.
Picture this. One day you are going about your daily routine when suddenly a massive glowing being standing thousands of feet high, well up into the clouds, appears before you. Maybe He appears before everyone. Doesn’t really matter one way or the other; just keep tracking with me here. Anyway, his majesty is so great that it knocks you to your knees. You are blinded by the glorious light. You fear for your life but then he suddenly smiles at you and it’s even kind of reassuring. You might be thinking to yourself, “Hey, self, could this be God?” And then he opens his mouth to speak. His voice is so loud that you have to hold your hands over your ears. It’s like thunder. And he says, “I am God!!!” By this point you are thinking that maybe he is who he says he is. But you’re still not totally convinced. You’re thinking, “He should prove himself by performing a few miracles.” That might do the trick in convincing you he is God. So you dream up your best set of miracles (one of which is that he must know what you are thinking and tell you so.) And sure enough, he knows what you are thinking and performs the miracles you required in order to nail down the coffin in the unbelief department. He even goes well beyond your expectations. He creates another moon right in front of you. Then he explains all of history to you to the extent that you are saying to yourself, “Oh now I get it. He has explained everything, answered all my hard questions and now I can finally have all the criteria I need to believe that he exists.” So you tell him so. You let him know that he has finally convinced you as to his existence. You even shout it from the mountain top. “I BELIEVE THAT GOD EXISTS.” Hallelujah and all that stuff. But then he does something totally unexpected. He suddenly looks at you sternly and says in his great thunderous voice, “I BANISH YOU TO HELL.”
And so…now you’re in hell. WHAT THE H…
Wow, some loving good God he turned out to be. But in case you haven’t figured it out yet, in this particular scenario, which was on the throne of judgment? Or should I say, who was the one taking the place of god? Who was submitting to whom? I would suggest to you that you, in fact, were taking the place of God. This is because you were acting as the judge over God, requiring him to meet your particular criteria for belief. So the fact is that you were not submitting to God at all, but were expecting him to have to submit to you. You had your criteria for belief, he met it, and then you decided for yourself that He was worthy of your belief. It might be compared to a two year old requiring the parent to submit to his authority and way of thinking. The parent doesn’t have to “prove” anything to the two year old.
So again, I ask you, who acting as God? Oh, and by the way, all those thousands, or perhaps millions or billions of others who saw all of this and were saying to themselves, “he better meet my criteria for belief or I’m not going to believe.” All of them were relying on that 4 pound mass of tissue between their ears as their final authority for determining the truth. I will even go so far as to say that if God had to prove his existence then he would no longer be God. Even still, the Bible states that God has given us all the evidence we need so that all of creation is silenced and everyone is without excuse. Here’s the quote from the book of Romans, “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.” (Romans 1:18-20)
I can assure you the evidence is substantial, verifiable, and available to all who seek Him with a humble heart. Yes, it is a heart issue and not an evidence issue.
It has to do with the fact that we are all born with a corrupted heart which is not responsive or submissive to the great “I AM”. So you see, belief in God is irrelevant unless and until our hearts are changed by the only One who can change them. Otherwise we are destitute. Unless He changes the heart, we are left to that 4 pound mass of tissue between our ears as our final authority and salvation. We rely on it to figure out God and to then try and make good choices concerning this God. Some will rely on this mass of tissue between their ears as their final authority even up to the moment of their death. Good luck with that.
Quite frankly, unless God reveals Himself to us personally, we cannot know Him.
Oh, and as a reminder, He in fact has revealed Himself to us. “Philip said, ‘Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.’ Jesus answered: ‘Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father?’ (John 14:8-9) Not only is Jesus our portrait of God the Father, but He is the means whereby our heart is changed. By so doing, He also becomes the means by which we are able to believe in Him as he truly is and not a manifestation of our own flawed minds. We come into an intimate relationship with God by trusting in the Son and His sacrifice which brought us back to God the Father. For further study, check out www.letterstoskeptics.com
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