How Can You Believe in God in Spite of the Absence of Scientific Proof?

07 May How Can You Believe in God in Spite of the Absence of Scientific Proof?

It’s almost impossible for me to believe in God. 

If I wake up in the middle of the night, or early in the morning, and think about God, I think… “How can there be a God?!?  I have never seen Him.  No one I know has ever seen Him.  The vast majority of people who have ever lived have never seen Him.  So, why believe in Him?” 

We start out believing in God, I suppose, because our elders told us to.  However, they told us Santa Claus existed, too, but we grew out of it. Why don’t we grow out of belief in God?

There is no scientific proof that God exists

This perspective is being embraced by more and more Americans identifying as atheists.  From their point of view, no one has ever seen God. Plus, there is not a shred of scientific proof to suggest that God exists.  There was a big bang, molecules gathered to form stars and planets.  One of the planets happened to be capable of creating and supporting life as we know it.  That’s all we know, and all we can know.  That’s all there is and all there ever will be, and anyone who thinks otherwise believes in the Tooth Fairy.

There are some subjects that are outside the scope of the scientific method

Requiring proof of God, however, is unnecessary.  There are some subjects that are outside the scope of scientific inquiry.

“Proof” for a scientist, is a very specific thing.  All scientific proof comes from the “scientific method,” which has a very specific protocol:

1. Start with the question
2. Propose a hypothesis (an educated guess as to what you expect)
3. Conduct an experiment to test your hypothesis
4. Record your observations and analyze the data
5. Conclude whether to accept or reject your hypothesis

If you can repeat the experiment and get the same results, you have scientific proof.  If you cannot do so, you have no proof. 

So, suggesting that God could be proved is absurd. He lies outside the scope of scientific inquiry.  But so do many other things that atheists believe for which they have no proof. First and most obvious, is the Big Bang theory, which nearly all scientists believe in. And they tout its accuracy with unquestioned fervor.  But they can’t come close to proving it.

Another is the theory of evolution.  It is, as the title suggests, a theory.  But nearly all scientists believe it without question.  And scientists who do not believe it are outcasts.

For atheists to unquestioningly accept the Big Bang and evolution, but then demand proof of God, is both impossible and inconsistent.   

Whenever a scientist speaks about anything outside the scientific method, he is speaking not as a scientist, but as a philosopher. And as such, he has no more authority or credibility than a nonscientist.

While we have no proof, we have plenty of evidence

So, in the absence of proof, what do you look for? You look for evidence. You move from the laboratory to the courtroom. And when you do that, we are all on an equal footing with scientists. When we look at evidence, the ground shifts dramatically in favor of belief in God.

So, here’s the evidence that convinces me, that centers me, that comforts me that there is, in fact, a God. 

The ultimate philosophical question is, “Why is there something rather than nothing?”

In using “reason” to answer that question, we accept that every effect must have an adequate cause. So here we have the universe, the starry heavens: the most colossal effect there is. The question is, then, what is the cause? There are three possibilities:

1. Something came from nothing
2. Matter is eternal
3. God created it

There is no scientific proof that something came from nothing, nor is there scientific proof that matter is eternal.  To believe either of those two positions is a step of faith, just as believing in God is a step of faith.  Plus, for me, they both stretch credulity beyond the breaking point.  

But, how trustworthy is the conclusion that God created the universe?  Well, the resurrection helps at this point.  If the resurrection is true, then it seems reasonable to trust everything else in the Bible. 

So, what evidence do we have that the resurrection is true? 

If you apply the tests of accuracy to the resurrection that you apply to any other significant historical event… and if you do so without an anti-supernatural presupposition (that is, without concluding before looking at the evidence that it is impossible) you come away saying, “the resurrection must be true!”

But what about the popular objections? 

Some say the disciples stole the body. 

Impossible!  A Roman guard was posted at the grave, specifically to prevent anyone from stealing the body. That was the main thing the religious leaders were afraid of.

Some say His enemies stole the body or bribed the soldiers for the body.

Unthinkable!  They wanted to prevent anyone from saying He was resurrected.  When the word started to spread that Jesus had risen from the dead, they would have simply brought the body to the steps of the Temple and put it on display for everyone to see, silencing anyone who suggested Jesus was alive.

Some say they went to the wrong tomb. 

Inconceivable!  If they went to a wrong tomb that was empty, they would have simply found the right tomb with the body in it, silencing rumors of resurrection.

Plus, there were… 

• the eyewitness accounts (hundreds of people in Jerusalem saw Him after the resurrection)
• the remarkable transformation of the disciples from cowards to heroes (willing to suffer and die for their faith because they had seen the risen Lord, paying the price to carry the message of the Gospel to the surrounding world)
• the historical record (Josephus, a Roman historian writing for emperor Vespasian, wrote it as fact not long after Jesus’ death)

The reality is, there is no good explanation for what happened to the body other than the resurrection. The only way you avoid accepting the validity of the resurrection is if you don’t want to believe it. 

So, all that being the case, in the face of the evidence, I accept the resurrection as true. 

And since I believe the evidence indicates that the resurrection is true, it’s an easy step for me to conclude that Jesus is who He said He is: the Son of God, come to die for our sins so that we, through faith, believing in and receiving Him as our God and savior, could be saved from our sins.  

Conclusion

I started out by saying it was nearly impossible for me to believe in God.  But, based on the evidence, it is absolutely impossible for me to not believe in God.   

Looking, not at personal experience (I have not seen God), nor at “proof” (there is no scientific method to prove or disprove God) but at evidence, the evidence is overwhelming that God exists. 

Romans 1:20 says, “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.”

God has created us so that when we look up into the stars at night, there is something within us that says, “There must be a God.”  And when we take that impression to its logical conclusion, based on evidence, we can rest comfortably in the fact that He “is there.” 

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