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Does God Exist?

God | Does God Exist? | How Has God Loved Us? | QUESTIONS SKEPTICS ASK

Does God exist?   Is there proof of God?

A logical argument for the existence of God
 
God Is Real
by Travis Figg
 
There first basic statute of the Christian religion (as well as many others) is the existence of God, but how does one know that God exists? One may believe in God, but then what is that person to do whenever someone who does not believe argues against the divine? Remaining stalwart in faith is wonderful for the believer, but it will not aid in opening the eyes of the nonbeliever; and we, as Christians, have been called to spread the gospel.

The evidence that God exist readily abounds; for the universe, and everything within it, could not exist without God. To explain this; imagine the beginning of the universe, whatever that may be. Now, turn back just a moment: What happened prior to the existence of the universe? However varied the answers may be, they will all invariably fall into one of three categories: one, the universe emerged from nothing; two, the universe never had a beginning, but has existed indefinitely; and three, the universe was created by God. Only one of these can be true, and as all logical answers fall into one of these categories, one of them must be true; therefore, if one is shown to be true, the others must be false, and, if two are shown to be false, the other must be true.

The first school of thought is that the universe emerged from nothing. The problem with this, however, is that existence cannot emerge from nonexistence; nothing cannot become something, and will continue to be nothing. For sake of argument though, let us assume that it is possible for existence to form from nonexistence. Even if this was possible (which it is not), a universe would still not form from nothing, because going from nonexistence to existence would be a drastic change, and a force must exist to cause that chance. Even if it was possible for existence to emerge from nonexistence, there would be nothing to cause this to happen and so nothing would remain as it was. The universe could not have emerged from nothing.

The second school of thought is that the universe had no beginning at all, but has existed indefinitely (a variation of this is that there have been an infinite number of universes, each one born from the ashes of the previous). This argument is logically incoherent, however, because the universe must have a beginning point. Think of a number, it doesn’t matter which one, and count upwards until you reach infinity; you can count at whatever multiple you wish. The problem, of course, is that you can count as long as you wish, but you can never reach infinity; taken in reverse (moving from infinity towards whole numbers) explains why the universe must have a fixed starting place, a beginning. If the universe has no beginning, and has existed indefinitely, it would never reach today; it would continue on and on forever, but lacking a fixed point of origin, would never reach present time (to help further illustrate this, imagine running a race with the finish line at a fixed place, but the start infinitely far away). The universe could not have existed indefinitely, but must have had a fixed starting point.

If those first two schools of thought are incorrect, then the third school of thought—that the universe was created by God—must be true; our very existence testifies to this fact.

Further Reading

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