Is God Real?

Many conflicts throughout human history – both intellectual and militaristic – are driven by the question of the existence of God. Everyone seems to have their own worldview with different versions of godhood, and in modern times atheism and denying the existence of God is becoming increasingly common. On the assumption that there is a divine being, there are things that people can know about Him, from vague to specific.

Some broad things that can be inferred, which are supported by the Bible, are:

1. If an all-powerful God exists, He would be the source of all things and life. (Genesis 1)

2. To be the source of all things and life, God would have to be all-powerful.

“Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God” (Psalm 90:2).

3. Through history, civilizations and people groups took patterns of the natural world as a proof that God - or gods - was responsible for these patterns. (Job 38)

Christians believe that God revealed Himself through revelation, prophecy, relationships with people, and ultimately through the Scriptures.

From the Bible some of what can be known about God includes:

1. He is holy.

“‘Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!’” (Revelation 4:8b).

2. He is righteous.

“For the Lord is righteous; he loves righteous deeds; the upright shall behold his face” (Psalm 11:7).

3. He is just.

“The Rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are justice. A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and upright is he” (Deuteronomy 32:4).

4. He is merciful.

“Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful” (Luke 6:36).

5. He is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent.

“’Can a man hide himself in secret places so that I cannot see him?’ declares the Lord. ‘Do I not fill heaven and earth?’ declares the Lord” (Jeremiah 23:24).

6. He is Triune in nature - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

“As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased’” (Matthew 3:16-17).

7. There are things about Him that people cannot understand in this life.

“...Who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see. To him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen” (1 Timothy 6:16).

These are just a few things the Bible reveals about God’s character, nature, and will.

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Skeptics dismiss the Bible and the Christian God, claiming the depiction of God in the Scriptures are just one of many. However, it is not irrational to believe in the existence of God, as there is no way to prove or disprove His existence to oneself or another person without an element of faith.

The Biblical presentation of God is unique among other versions of God.

He is unique in:

- Character as a Triune being, both three and one simultaneously. 

- In His claim to omnipotence and omnipresence. 

- In His claim to perfection, lacking human weaknesses, needs, and motivations.

John Wesley observed the Bible could only have been written by good men or angels, bad men or demons, or God. It could not be written by good men or angels because if they claimed God said or did something He did not, they would cease to be good or angelic. It could not be written by bad men or demons because it forbids sin, condemns sinners to hell, and affirms goodness. The Bible must have been written by God Himself by divinely inspiring and guiding humans to record what the Spirit guided them to record.

The Christian God also promises He will reveal Himself in countless ways, verifying the truth of His existence:

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).

“For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse” (Romans 1:20).

“To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David. The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork” (Psalm 19:1).

“The friendship of the Lord is for those who fear him, and he makes known to them his covenant” (Psalm 25:14).

“The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (2 Peter 3:9).

“Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me” (Revelation 3:20).

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One of the unique features of the Bible is that it consists of multiple authors who are not recording stories, but histories and first-hand accounts that support and verify one another. The Gospels were not stories written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, but letters testifying to truth they witnessed. In the case of Luke, He came to faith and then interviewed eye witnesses.

In the Pentateuch, the accounts about people are the written record about oral histories the people who recorded them did not consider fiction. The cities, language groups, nations, empires, and historical figures named in various points in the Bible are supported by other sources outside of the Bible and archaeology.

Other religions do not have this historicity. Some take place in a time beyond record, meaning there is no way to prove or disprove their veracity. Some talk about people and places that have no secondary sources supporting their existence, or scientific or historical evidence. Others conflate points of history, and mention people and places who did not exist at the same time.

Do We See Evidence That God Is Real Outside of Scripture?

While people must ultimately take a step of faith to believe or not, there is evidence of God outside of the Bible. Some of it is logical, historical, and scientific.

Logical

There are certain logic tests that can be applied to the existence of God. For example, because objective truth exists, there must be an objective observer; without an objective observer, objective truth would fail falsability tests, the only possible true objective observer would be God. Therefore because Objective Truth exists, God exists.

Another is that because morality exists, there must be a source and objective standard of morality, which would be God. Even if people reject morality, it still exists. Because there is morality, God exists.

Historical

Many of the people in the Bible can be identified in the archaeological record going as far back as King David. Some of the ancient cities mentioned in the Bible still exist, and many others can be correlated with artifacts, ruins, or other things used to identify locations that are long gone. Events and individuals mentioned in the Gospels are recorded in other sources, though from another perspective.

For example, Joesphus was a Jewish historian who did not believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah, but He verified the historical person of Jesus of Nazareth, noting the only exceptional thing about the way Jesus looked was that his beard color matched his hair color.

Scientific

Despite what many suggest, a lot of science actually supports a Biblical worldview, and nothing in science contradicts it. One scientific proof for the Biblical account is the fine-tuning of the universe. The ability for life to exist in the universe is slim, but everything in the universe perfectly supports life on earth. If any one small thing was different, life would not exist.

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People are grounded in the physical world, experiencing everything through their five senses. However, people are not just flesh, but have a will and an eternal soul. Without knowledge and belief in God, people cut themselves off from the metaphysical - spiritual - part of themselves.

Confidence in the existence of God allows someone to feed themselves physically and spiritually. Once someone begins that journey, they can pursue a relationship with the living Creator of all things, who came to earth as a baby, lived as a human, and paid a debt so great that no one else could bear it. Even after someone comes to faith, there can be moments of doubt; this is understandable and does not mean someone is not saved. It can impact the Holy Spirit’s ability to work in their life. In times of doubt, a believer can go to God, wrestle with their doubt, seek answers in the Bible, and find counsel from other Christians. God will prove Himself faithful and present.

One of the most powerful statements in the Bible comes in Luke’s account of the earthly church in Acts. As the Apostle Paul shared the Gospel with a group of Gentiles, he declared,

“The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.  And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place,  that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us” (Acts 17:24-27).

In other words, God is beyond the limitations that man seeks to place on Him, because He is the source of all things seen and unseen. He does not need people, but is the answer to all of humanity’s needs. Every person was put on earth in time and location in order for them to seek and come to know Him, because even though He cannot be seen with human eyes, He is there, waiting for each person to respond to the Gospel when it is revealed to them. If people pursue God, the Bible shows that He will reveal Himself to them.

God is real, and one day everyone will face Him, and their eternal status rests on whether or not they accepted or rejected God’s love, manifested in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

“They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them” (Romans 2:15).

Sources

Comfort, Ray. Undeniable Evidence Ten of the Top Scientific Facts in the Bible. 2019.

Groothuis, Douglas. Christian Apologetics: A Comprehensive Case for Biblical Faith. 2nd edition. Westmont: InterVarsity Press, 2022.

Nelson, Robert. God? Very probably. Cambridge: Lutterworth Press, 2016.

Pitre, Brant. The Case for Jesus The Biblical and Historical Evidence for Christ. New York: Image, 2016.

Strobel, Lee. The Case for Christ. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1998.

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