God Existence Question Essay Research Paper Does

God Existence Question Essay, Research Paper

Does a God Exist? Either God exists or He doesn’t. There is no middle ground.

Any attempt to remain neutral in relation to God’s existence is automatically

synonymous with unbelief. It is far from a simple clear cut question, for if God

does exist, then nothing else really matters; if He does not exist, then nothing

really matters at all. If He does exist, then there is an eternal heaven to be

gained (Hebrews 11:16) and an eternal Hell to be avoided (Revelation 21:8). The

question for God’s existence is an extremely important one. One might wonder why

it is necessary to present evidence for the existence of God. As Edward Thomson

so beautifully stated it: "…the doctrine of the one living and true God,

Creator, Preserver, and Benefactor of the universe, as it solves so many

problems, resolves so many doubts, banishes so many fears, inspires so many

hopes, gives such sublimity to all things, and such spring to all noble powers,

we might presume would, as soon as it was announced, be received by every

healthy mind." Some, however, contrary to their higher interests, have

refused to have God in their knowledge and thus have become vain in their

reasonings and foolish in their philosophy (Romans 1:21,22,28). They do not see

the folly (Psalm 14:1) of saying there is no God. The Christian has not only the

obligation to "give answer to every man that asketh you a reason concerning

the hope that is in you…" (I Peter 3:15), but an obligation to carry the

Gospel message to a lost and dying world (Mark 16:15-16, et al.). There will be

times when carrying the Gospel message to the world will entail setting forth

the case for the existence of God. In addition, we need to remember that

Christians are not agnostics. The agnostic is the person who says that God’s

existence is unknowable. As difficult as it is to believe, some Christians take

that same stance in regard to God’s existence. They assert that they

"believe" there is a God, but that they cannot know it. They state

that God’s existence cannot be proved. Is God’s existence some "blind leap

into the dark" as so many have erroneously asserted? If we do attempt to

prove that there is a God, we do not mean by the word "proved" that

God’s existence can be scientifically demonstrated to human senses as one might,

for example, prove that a sack of potatoes weighs ten pounds. But we need to be

reminded (especially in our day of scientific intimidation) that empirical

evidence (that based solely upon experiment and/or observation) is not the only

basis for establishing a provable case. But an important question which serves

as a "preface" to the case for God’s existence is this: "From

whence has come the idea of God in man’s mind?" The inclination to be

religious is universally and peculiarly a human trait. If, therefore, man is

incurably religious–and has the idea of God in his mind–and if we assume that

the world is rational, it is impossible that a phenomenon so universal as

religion could be founded upon illusion. The question is highly appropriate

therefore: what is the source of this religious tendency within man? The idea of

God has not come from reason (skeptics hold, of course, that the concept is

unreasonable), and that it has not come from revelation. The idea of God has

simply come through imagination. David Hume, renowned in the secular of

philosophy, stated that the "creative power of the mind amounts to nothing

more than the faculty of combining, transposing, augmenting and diminishing the

materials afforded to us by sense and experience." The imagination, it

turns out, has `no creative power’. Neither reason nor imagination create.

Reason, like a carpenter’s yardstick, is a measure, not an originator.

Imagination works only on those items already in the mind; it does not

"create" anything new. [Sigmund Freud, German psychoanalyst of the

first part of the 20th century, attempted to explain God’s existence by stating

that man had indeed formed the "heavenly father" from the idea in his

mind of his "earthly father." But this idea will not suffice either.

Is the God of the Bible the God man would "invent" if asked to do so?

Look around at the "god" man invents when left to his own devices–the

"god" of hedonism, epicurianism, subjectivism, or the "god"

of "if it feels good, do it." The God of the Bible is not the God man

would invent, if left to his own devices. Freud’s attempt to explain the idea of

God in man’s mind failed miserably. The idea of God in man’s mind could have

come through revelation. So is the concept of God a traceable communication

between the Creator and the creature? An argument against this can be posed in

the following question: "If the idea of God is basic to human nature, we

would not be able to deny it; we do deny it, however; therefore it is not

intuitive." It is sufficient to observe in rebuttal to such a claim that

man, under the enchantment of a deceptive philosophy, can deny the most obvious

of things. Those deluded, for example, by "Christian Science" religion

deny the existence of matter and death. Some today deny that the earth is

spherical or that man has ever been to the moon. But a denial of facts does not

automatically negate the facts. Man’s attitude toward Truth does not. Dr. E.A.

Maness once remarked, "If the word God were written upon every blowing

leaf, embossed on every passing cloud, engraved on every granite rock, the

inductive evidence of God in the world would be no stronger than it is."

When the writer of Hebrews stated that, "…every house is builded by

someone…" (Hebrews 3:4), he suggested the well-known principle of cause

and effect. Every effect must have an adequate cause. Further indicated is the

fact that no effect can be qualitatively superior to or quantitatively greater

than the cause. The universe is here, and is a tremendous effect. Hence, it must

be explained in terms of an adequate cause. There are four possible explanations

for the universe. (1) It is but an illusion, and does not really exist. This is

not a logical consideration. (2) It spontaneously arose out of nothing. This

view is not highly likely. No material thing can create itself. (3) It has

always existed. This theory, though held by many atheistic scientists of our

day, is scientifically untenable. Every moment reveals that the stars are

burning up, the sun is cooling off, the earth is wearing out, etc. Such facts

indicate that the universe had a beginning; otherwise it would long ago have

already reached a state of deadness. The essence of the strange developments is

that the Universe had, in some sense, a beginning–that it began at a certain

moment in time. According to the second law of thermodynamics, when applied to

the Cosmos, indicates that the Universe is running down like a clock. If it is

running down, there must have been a time when it was fully wound up. The

astronomer comes to a time when the Universe contained nothing but hydrogen–no

carbon, no oxygen, and none of the other elements out of which planets and life

are made. This point in time must have marked the beginning of the Universe. In

effect it must have been created. This is the only remaining alternative and the

only reasonable view of the origin of the universe. Since our finite, dependent

(and contingent) universe (of matter/energy) did not cause itself, it was

obviously caused by a force, to what this force is depends on your beliefs. Was

there a God in involved? There are an estimated one billion galaxies, and most

of them contain billions of stars (the Milky Way galaxy in which we live, for

example, contains over `100 billion stars’). It is so large that traveling at

the speed of light (186,317.6 miles per second) it would take you 100,000 years

to go across just the diameter of the galaxy. Our nearest neighboring galaxy is

the Andromeda galaxy, which is an estimated 2,000,000 light years away. That’s

so far that a radio wave which goes around the earth approximately 8.2 times in

one second would require over 1 million years to get there, and a return message

would take another 1+ million years. The observable universe has an estimated

diameter of 20 billion light years. But it isn’t simply the size of the universe

that is so marvelous. The size is important, of course, but so is the `design’.

The earth, for example, in orbiting the sun, departs from a straight line by

only one-ninth of an inch every 18 miles–a very straight line in human terms.

If the orbit changed by one-tenth of an inch every 18 miles, our orbit would be

vastly larger and we would all freeze to death. If it changed by one-eighth of

an inch, we would come so close to the sun w e would all be incinerated.. Are we

to believe that such precision "just happened by accident"? The sun is

burning at approximately 20 million degrees Celsius at its interior.. If we were

to move the earth `away’ 10%, we would soon freeze to death. If we were to move

the earth `closer’ by 10%, we would once again be incinerated. The sun is poised

at 93 million miles from earth, which happens to be just right–by accident? The

moon is poised some 240,000 miles from the earth. Move it in just one fifth, and

twice every day there would be 35-50 feet high tidal waves over most of the

earth’s surface. The distance of 240,000 miles happens to he just right–by

accident? And consider these facts: the earth is rotating at 1,000 miles per

hour on its axis at the equator, and moving around the sun at 70,000 miles per

hour (approximately 19 miles per second), while the sun with its solar system is

moving through space at 600,000 miles per hour in an orbit so large it would

take over 220 million years to complete just one orbit. What would happen if the

rotation rate of the earth around the sun were halved, or doubled? If it were

halved, the seasons would be doubled in length, which over most of the earth

would cause such harsh summer heat and winter cold that not enough food could be

grown to feed the world’s population. If it were doubled, no single season would

be long enough to grow the amount of food necessary to feed the world’s

population. The fundamental law of science, we repeat, is the Law of Causality

which states that every effect must have an adequate cause. There is no known

exception. The universe is admittedly a known effect. The Universe and

everything that has happened in it since the beginning of time, are a grand

effect `without a known cause’." The question is: `What is the adequate

cause?’ The atheist/agnostic has no answer. The Christian does. `God is the

First Cause’, and has left the evidences of His existence so evident that they

are incontrovertible. Men go abroad to wonder at the height of mountains, at the

huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of the rivers, at the vast compass of

the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars; and they pass by themselves

without wondering. So many people fail to see one of the most powerful arguments

possible for God’s existence–their own selves. Consider, for example, the human

body. It is composed of 30+ different kinds of cells, totaling over `100

trillion’ cells when all added together to make up the human adult.. These cells

come in all different sizes and shapes, with different functions and life

expectancies. For example, some cells (e.g., male spermatozoa) are so small that

20,000 would fit inside a capital "O" from a standard typewriter, each

being only 1/20th mm long. Some cells, put end-to-end, would make only one inch

if 6,000 were assembled together. Yet all the cells of the human body, if set

end- to-end, would encircle the earth over 200 times. Even the largest cell of

the human body, the female ovum, is unbelievably small, being only 1/100th of an

inch in diameter. Yet each cell is composed of a lipo- protein membrane lining

(lipids/proteins/lipids) which is approximately 6/100-8/100 fm (4 atoms) thick.

Yet it allows selective transport outside the cell of those things that ought to

go out, and selective transport into the cell of those things that ought to go

in. Inside the cell’s three-dimensional cytoplasm there are over 20 different

chemical reactions going on at any one time, with each cell containing five

major systems: (1) communication; (2) waste disposal; (3) nutrition; (4) repair,

and; (5) reproduction. The endoplasmic reticulum of the cell serves as a

transport system. The ribosome produce protein, which is then distributed around

the body as needed by the Golgi bodies. The mitochondria (over 1,000 per cell)

are the "powerhouses" of the cell, producing the energy needed by the

body. The nucleus, of course, carries the genetic code in its DNA

(deoxyribonucleic acid). Red blood cells (there are approximately 30 trillion of

them) live about 120 days; white blood cells (the blood’s defense system) live

about 13 days; platelets (which help blood to clot) live about 4 days; nerve

cells may live over 100 years. In any given 60-second period, approximately 3

billion cells die and are replaced in the human body through the process we call

`mitosis’, whereby the standard chromosome number (in the human, 46) is

faithfully reproduced. A single cell contains a strip of DNA (placed in the

nucleus in a spiral-staircase configuration) which is about one yard long, and

which contains `over 6 billion biochemical steps’. Every cell of the body

contains such DNA–over a billion miles total in one human. How powerful is the

DNA? It provides, in coded form, `every physical characteristic of every living

person’. How many people are there on the face of the earth? There are a few

more than 5 billion. It took two cells (a male spermatozoa and a female ovum) to

make each one of these people. If there are roughly 5 billion people on the

earth, and it took two cells to make each of them, that’s approximately 10

billion cells (remember: this is the DNA it took to give every living person

every physical characteristic he or she has), and that DNA would fit into no

more than `1/8th of a cubic inch’. Are we to then understand that this kind of

design came "by accident"? Consider the skin of the human. It is a

nearly waterproof layer, enclosing the body’s contents, almost 60% of which is

water. It prevents the exit or entrance of too much moisture, and acts as a

protector for the rest of the body. At the same time it is both a radiator and

retainer of heat, helping to regulate the body’s temperature in conjunction with

the two hypothalamus glands in the brain. Skin may be as thick as 5/16th of an

inch (e.g., the eyelid). The skin contains over 2,000 sweat glands which form

one of the most ingenious air-conditioning systems ever known to man. Skin acts

as a barrier to protect the sensitive internal organs, and even has the power to

regenerate itself. Consider the skeletal system of the body. It is composed of

206 bones, more durable and longer lasting than man’s best steel. Each joint

produces its own lubrication and the system as a whole is able to provide not

only structure, but great protection (e.g., the 24 ribs guarding the internal

viscera). There are 29 skull bones, 26 spinal vertebrae, 24 ribs, 2 girdle

bones, and 120 other bones scattered over the body. The bones range in size,

from the tiny pisiform bone in the hand, to the great femur (over 20 inches long

in the thigh of an average man). Yet in a man weighing 160 pounds, the bones

weigh only 29 pounds. And consider, of course, the muscles. There are over 600

of them in the human, with the function of contraction and release. From the

smile on the face of the newborn baby to the legs of the marathon runner, the

muscles are in charge. They are placed, however, into two systems–the

`voluntary system’ over which you have control (reach out and grab a ball), and

the `involuntary system’ over which you have little or no control (try stopping

a kidney). Are we to believe that the skeletal and muscle systems, in all their

complexity, "just happened"? No one could ever convince you that, for

example, a Cadillac limousine "just happened." Yet something

infinitely greater in design and structure– the human body–we are asked to

believe "just happened." What kind of incongruous logic is that, to

reach such a conclusion? One does not get a poem without a poet, or a law

without a lawgiver. One does not get a painting without a painter, or a musical

score without a composer. And just as surely, `one does not get purposeful

design without a designer.’ Consider, for example, the human ear and the human

eye. The average piano can distinguish the sounds of 88 keys; the human ear can

distinguish over 2,500 different key tones. In fact, the human ear can detect

sound frequencies that flutter the ear drums as faintly as one- billionth of a

centimeter (a distance one-tenth the diameter of a hydrogen atom).. The ear is

so sensitive that it could even hear, were the body placed in a completely

soundproof room, the blood coursing through the veins. Over 100,000 hearing

receptors in the ears are sending impulses to the brain to be decoded and

answered. The human eye is the most perfect camera ever known to man. So perfect

is it that its very presence caused Charles Darwin to say, "That the eye

with all its inimitable contrivances…could have been formed by natural

selection seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree." Darwin

also commented: "If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ

existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive,

slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down." The eye, as

it turns out, is such an organ, and Darwin’s theory, as such, has broken down.

Each human eye is composed of over 107 million cells with 7 million cones

(allowing the eye to see in full, living color) and 100 million rods (allowing

the eye to see in blacks, whites, and greys). The eyes are connected to the

brain by over 300,000 nerves, and can detect light as feeble as 1/100 trillionth

of a watt. How is the eye supposed to have "evolved"? What

"intermediate state" between no eye and a perfect eye could nature

have "selected" to be passed on to successive generations? There are

so many systems in the human body that could be discussed, but since space

precludes discussing them all, it is now to the brain that we turn our

attention. The brain, of course, regulates the rest of the body. It contains

over 10 billion nerve cells, and 100 billion glia cells (which provide the

biological "batteries" for brain activity). These cells float in a

jellied mass, sifting through information, storing memories, creating what we

call consciousness, etc.. Over 120 trillion connections tie these cells

together. The brain sends out electrical impulses at a speed of 393 feet per

second (270 mph), and receives nerve impulses being produced at a rate of over

2,000/second. The brain receives signals continuously from 130,000 light

receptors in the eyes, 100,000 hearing receptors in the ears, 3,000 taste buds,

30,000 heat spots on the skin, 250,000 cold spots, and 500,000 touch spots. The

brain does not move, yet consumes 25% of the blood’s oxygen supply. It is

constantly bathed in blood, its vessels receiving 20% of all the blood pumped

from the heart. If the blood flow is interrupted for 15-30 seconds,

unconsciousness results. If blood is cut off to the brain for longer than 4

minutes, brain damage results. Four major arteries carry blood to the brain as a

sort of "fail-safe" system. And, the brain is protected from damage by

not one, but three major systems: (1) the outer skull bone; (2) the `duramater’

and; (3) the absorbing fluid, which keeps the brain from hitting the inner

skull. With the brain properly functioning, all the other body systems

(hormones, circulatory, digestive, reproductive, etc.) can be overseen and

controlled. An accident in a universe that created it could not have had us in

mind in the first place. Or, are we created "in the image of God"

(Genesis 1:26,27)? In order to get a poem, one must have a poet. In order to

have a law, one must have a lawgiver. In order to have a mathematical diagram,

one must have a mathematician. A deduction commonly made is that order,

arrangement, or design in a system suggest intelligence and purpose on the part

of the originating cause. In the universe, from the vastness of multiplied solar

systems to the tiny world of molecules, marvelous design and purposeful

arrangement are evidenced. In the case of man, from the imposing skeletal system

to the impressive genetic code in all of its intricacy, that same design and

purposeful arrangement are evidenced. So has this all been purposefully designed

by an Intelligent Cause. Could this cause have been God? This examination of

whether God exists has not even touched upon the "historical"

arguments which come to bear on the case. For example, the historical Christ,

the resurrection, the Bible, the system of Christianity, and other such

arguments are equally as important. The arguments from historical fact point to

the existence that there is a God, and He is not silent. That Christ existed

cannot he doubted by any rational person. His miracles and other works are

documented, not only in biblical literature, but in profane, secular history as

well. The Bible exists; therefore, it must be explained. The men who wrote it

were either deceivers, deluded, or telling the truth. What do the evidences say?

The internal and external evidences are enough to tell the story of God’s

existence, and the fact that He has spoken to us from His inspired word. Paul

stated that "in him we live, and move, and have our being…" (Acts

17:28). Moses’ statement still stands as inspired testimony to the fact of the

existence of God: "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the

earth" (Genesis 1:1). So do we take these as factual and accept them as the

final ?truth? and the existence of such a God? As in all things, you are

entitled to your own opinion.