During these 40 posts, I have outlined argument’s for God’s existence and Jesus being the only true revelation of God that has come into the world. I utilised arguments from modern science to show how Intelligent Design makes more sense of the data for why our universe exists rather than random, unguided, physical processes being responsible for everything arising out of nothing by nothing. I gave personal testimony of miraculous encounters with the living God throughout my life including examples of answered prayer. I presented evidence for the Afterlife through NDEs and the historical evidence for Jesus’ resurrection. I compared different religions to show that all other routes to God are lacking, due to the issue of sin that has to be dealt with if any of us hope to inherit eternal life. I looked into the plentiful biblical prophecies for Jesus’ first coming that were written 700 years before He was born in Bethlehem and were fulfilled against all the odds in a meticulous manner. There are a third of the prophecies left to be fulfilled that attest to Jesus’ second coming, so we ought to prepare and be ready for when that event occurs. We have been warned in advance - let’s heed the warning and get studying! I explained the historical argument for the reliability of Biblical texts and the nature of eye witness testimony in the New Testament about Jesus and who He claimed to be. I looked into the complexity of DNA and the fundamental chicken and egg problem at the origin of Life that secular scientists are unable to explain. I also discussed morality and the amazing mystery of human consciousness understanding concepts such as good and evil. We may think that morality is relative and there is no universal code of conduct that all humans agree upon but C S Lewis presented a formidable argument that goes against that claim.
All this is just the tip of the iceberg….
Cumulative Argument for God’s Existence
The cumulative argument for God’s existence was first presented by Oxford Professor Richard Swinburne who stated that while no single piece of evidence conclusively proves God's existence, when combined, they make the hypothesis of God's existence more probable than not. Peter S. Williams uses the analogy of a courtroom to illustrate how cumulative experience works. A single piece of evidence (like an eyewitness or a fingerprint) makes it probable that a suspect is guilty, but the more evidence turns up, the more certain we can be: “isolated pieces of evidence may be insufficient on their own to warrant convicting someone ‘beyond reasonable doubt’, but taken together, the evidence does warrant conviction.”[1] Below I will offer some additional arguments that I have not had time to delve into on this website, but consider them a springboard from which to further your own study.
There is a wealth of evidence for the existence of the Christian God and ample evidence that if you pray from a genuine heart and communicate with Him in the name of Jesus Christ then He will respond. Read the Parable of the Prodigal Son in Luke 15 to see for yourself.
Other lines of argument for Jesus being “the way, the truth and the life”:
The plentiful evidence for the ‘Historical Jesus’ and the case for His resurrection is convincing when you compare the different theories of what happened to Jesus’ body. The reality is that Jesus’ body was never found, which led to rumours that the Roman soldiers had stolen it, or the Jewish Leaders, or even the disciples. There were rumours that the disciples had gone to the wrong tomb in their grief stricken state and therefore Jesus’ body is probably in some long forgotten tomb in the Israeli hillside today. There were theories that the 500 people all gathered in one place, who claimed to have seen the resurrected Jesus, were all high on some unknown narcotic or stimulant. Some suggested that Jesus never really died and so, three days later, he recovered naturally from his coma. Then there is the final theory that Jesus really did resurrect, as many eye-witnesses attested to it and later died for their faith as martyrs during the Roman Empire - they clearly believed what they were preaching! If you want to find out more about this discussion then I highly recommend watching Lee Strobel via the YouTube link below[2].
Descartes’ Trademark Argument is a fascinating argument for God’s existence found in the Meditations. The basis of the argument is that all humans have a concept of God in their mind and that fact requires a sufficient explanation for how the idea arose. We all have access to the idea of God, even if we deny His objective existence. Descartes questioned where that idea came from and concluded that the only source for such a complex and surprising idea is God alone, i.e. God must exist, otherwise it would be impossible for this idea to reside in our minds. We have access to this idea because we are made in the image of God; we have an immaterial consciousness that has access to knowledge via revelation that no physical creature should be able to conjure up from it’s cerebral cortex.
Why do I find this convincing? Well, many of us believe we have gained all our knowledge from the sensory, physical universe. If we can find some knowledge that surpasses the physical universe then it makes sense to ask where it came from. Did the human brain magic the idea of God into existence out of nothing? Or does the idea imply the existence of the thing imagined? Now, you are probably thinking that humans imagine make-believe things all the time - God as an idea is no different from other made up ideas like fairies or unicorns. But Descartes has a very technical argument to show that this is a flawed response. He states that ideas that have indeed originated from our imaginations have not actually arisen out of nothingness, i.e. we didn’t invent them out of thin air. The idea of a unicorn only exists because we have experienced horses and horns and then conflated the concepts to make new ideas. Could God have arisen in this way?
The idea of God is of a perfect being who is all-powerful, all-knowing, eternal, etc. Have we learnt these concepts, such as perfection, from our sensory world? No, we have never seen true perfection, only things that might come close. How then did we gain access to the idea of perfection in our minds? Descartes doesn’t think it is logically possible to say humans just invented this complex concept ‘out of the void‘ (that is giving our finite brains a bit too much credit and we don’t normally accept something coming from nothing in other arenas of life). You have to look for a sufficient source for the origination of the concept in your mind.
If you saw a bullet hole in a concrete wall and laid before you were a water pistol and a revolver, you would conclude that the revolver caused the bullet hole because the water pistol lacks the power to generate such an effect. The water pistol would have got energy out of nowhere if it had indeed caused the bullet hole to appear. This is absurd. In the same way, the fact that humans have the idea of perfection (and all the other attributes of God that define His nature) in their minds is because God put it there, so He must exist in order to reveal His nature. Humans can’t just say we know God because we can imagine the opposite qualities of Him from our imperfect universe because then we are back to the illogical claim of magicking complex ideas out of nothingness. If you want to study this in more detail, I recommend watching the videos of Jeremy Kaplan on YouTube who will walk you through all six of Descartes’ Meditations[3].
I have followed the evolution of Richard Dawkins’s views on Christianity over the past twenty years. He has evolved from a position of pure hatred towards Christianity (claiming it is no better than believing in fairies and that if God existed he would be a malignant bully in the sky) to nowadays offering a softened approach. Dawkins now credits the tenets of the Christian faith for being responsible for instigating beneficial bedrocks within Western civilisation. Examples include the creation of universal Human Rights and English Common Law being the first to abolish international slavery. Richard Dawkins, however, still holds to a Darwinian view of evolution and recently he outlined speculations about the elusive Multiverse Theory.
Dawkins believes that the Multiverse Theory can explain the cause of the Big Bang and therefore needs no involvement from a metaphysical God. He explains that living things, such as humans, are a microcosm of the universe because they evolved within its Natural Laws. By microcosm, Dawkins means “a community, place, or situation regarded as encapsulating in miniature the characteristics of something much larger.” Therefore we can study living things and reach conclusions about the type of processes that caused life to be. According to Dawkins, living things are physical objects that abide by Natural Laws and so what gave rise to them must also be an ordered physical process, albeit on a larger scale. Similarly, the Big Bang as a physical process must have been caused by a greater physical entity outside of the universe - the Multiverse.
There are many ways that living things prove Dawkins’ point about microcosms. For example, think of the Fibonacci sequence that is repeatedly seen in Nature - many seed heads on plants, pinecones, fruits and vegetables display spiral patterns that when counted express Fibonacci numbers. Plant life that has evolved within our universe will develop characteristics that correspond to the mathematical and physical principles of the universe. The building blocks of life include carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, and sulfur. These elements are common in the universe and make up 98% of living matter on Earth, including human bodies. It would be impossible for living matter to consist of elements such as cyanide, for this is toxic to life and our universe does not operate along physical laws that allow for life to exist in any other format than which it exists on our planet.
So, let’s return to Dawkins original point - the human body is a microcosm of the physical universe in which it arose, otherwise you have something coming from nothing, which is an issue. Humans, however, seem to contain immaterial minds. Thoughts are certainly not physical, tangible entities and thoughts don’t seem to correspond solely with the Natural Laws of the universe, like mathematical principles, as we think about abstract concepts such as beauty, justice, love and goodness. If we are a microcosm of the universe, then what does our consciousness tell us about reality? Possibly that there is an ultimate Being like we are beings; who understands past, present and future like us; who has intentionality and agency like us; who understands moral concepts like we do; who has an immaterial nature like us.
If Dawkins is right, that we are a microcosm of the universe in which we find ourselves, then our consciousness should prove that whatever caused the universe is also conscious. The Multiverse is presented as a passive force with no intelligence or consciousness. This would mean that if there is no God, then humans are the most complex, surprising thing to arise in the ENTIRE MULTIVERSE! Our consciousness is a mystery and has no similar features to anything else in existence (but it seems to exist in all living things to some extent). Life defies the Natural Laws of the universe. A living thing is its own unity that exists separate from the passive physical laws of our universe - how did that happen? As a fluke? Or is life imparted as a gift from the Living God? Life is a mystery on a par with consciousness. I believe it takes more faith to believe that humans are basically God (i.e. we alone are the only conscious thing in the entire multiverse with unique, divine-like traits) than that there is a God who made us in His image. We seem to be microcosms of the true Divine, not solely the physical universe in which we reside.
In Post 23, I talked about the contradictions that exist between different religions when it comes to the Afterlife and its entry requirements. But it is worth exploring in greater detail just how many inconsistencies exist between the world religions. When I embarked upon this study, I realised how ludicrous a claim it is to say that deep down all religions point to the same God. There either is a God (theist position) or their isn’t (Buddhist position). You either enter an Afterlife based upon your own good deeds (Islamic position) or because the ruler of the Afterlife allows you in through Grace (Christian position). Abraham either attempted to sacrifice Isaac on the altar (Jewish position) or he sacrificed Ismael (Islamic position). Humans are either born with a morally neutral nature (Sartre) or a morally good nature (Roussea) or a morally bad nature (Augustine). Jesus was either crucified on a cross 2000 years ago (Christian position) or he wasn’t (Islamic position). God is either One (Abrahamic Faiths position) or he is many (Hindu position). If there is an Afterlife it is either a place you go, like Heaven (Abrahamic Faiths position) or you are reincarnated into this temporary universe in another body (Hindu and Buddhist position).
How can all of those positions be true? If they can’t all be true at the same time, the next best question to ask is: which of these positions has the best evidence for accepting it as a valid position? Relative truth is totally illogical once you discover more and more contradictory opinions that people can hold and yet still claim them all as valid. I know it is tempting to say that everyone is entitled to their own opinion in the spirit of fairness; or political correctness and avoiding offense; or genuinely believing that there is no evidence available to rule one position as more true than another. But I would argue that I’d rather find out what is true, if at all possible, than passively submit to every position in a cowardly fashion. Prioritise the search for Truth over political correctness. Avoiding offence at all costs is not the highest good. Worshipping the one true God is the highest good. This website is testament to how much evidence exists to argue for the Christian faith above all others.
Finally, I want to expand upon the story I told in Post 24 regarding my encounters with the Holy Spirit. A few months ago in 2024, I was thinking about the outpouring of the Holy Spirit I experienced in Somerset in 1994 at the height of the Toronto Blessing Revival. I remembered experiencing Holy Laughter and I was reminiscing about the miraculous encounters that my mum, sister and friend also experienced. This trip down memory lane led me to develop a strong desire to meet someone who was there the day the Holy Laughter descended. When I experienced this phenomena I was by myself in a crowd of 200 other children who were strangers to me. This meant my mum didn’t witness it, or my sister, or my friend, as they were in different venues at the time. I decided that I would pray to God and ask if He could miraculously bring someone into my life who was one of the other 200 kids there that day. I wanted to chat with them and hear their version of events. I even tried to give God some suggestions for how this miracle could come about - I prayed “God you can do anything, you could make someone bump into me on the street who just happened to be one of those people. I know we live miles away from where it happened and it was decades ago, but you could do this for me if you wanted to.” After I prayed, a thought came into my head: ‘go and speak to your husband’. So I did. My husband confirmed that he was indeed in that venue in Somerset in 1994 and witnessed the Holy Laughter, although it didn’t happen to him. I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t meet my husband until later on in life in a different town across the country from Somerset and yet it turns out I had married one of the 200 kids who witnessed that pivotal moment in my life! Some might consider this a bizarre coincidence but I choose to side with the Archbishop William Temple who said “when I pray, coincidences happen. When I don't, they don't.”
In Summary…
There is a God in Heaven who we can approach as our Father. He is not an impersonal force like the Multiverse that secular thinkers propose. He answers prayers and is intimately involved with the out-workings of human history. He is not capricious. Even though for a short time we live in a suffering universe, this was a result of human freewill choosing to side with Satan instead of the Creator. This led to the corruption of God’s originally good Creation and caused the widespread suffering we live under. But God always had a rescue plan in mind before Adam and Eve ever chose to rebel. This plan involved subjecting Himself to suffering by sending Jesus to die on a cross for the sins of the whole world. Jesus, one part of the triune God, knew no sin, and yet became sin when He hung on the cross (2 Corinthians 5:2). This means that Jesus would have felt what it was like to be a genocidial, racist dictator. He would have experienced the level of evil in his pure soul that it takes to commit heinous crimes like rape and paedophilia. Can you imagine the agony of mind and soul that Jesus would have felt alongside the physical agony of crucifixion?! Jesus didn’t just die FOR our sins, He BECAME the sins of the whole world. This meant that God the Father could pour out His wrath on Jesus instead of on us who actually deserved it! God willingly subjected Himself to this fate because “He so loved the world that He gave His one and only son, that whoever believes in Him might not perish, but have eternal life” John 3:16. This God will not share His glory with another. Acts 4:12 tells us that salvation exists under no other system; for there is no other name under Heaven by which we will be saved. That name is Jesus.
Let’s spend the rest of our lives getting ready to meet Jesus face to face. Let’s accept his gracious offer of dying for our sins so we can stand righteous before Him. We will be clothed in righteousness that is not our own if we believe in Jesus’ sacrifice for us. There is no other way into Heaven. There is no other way to inherit Eternal life - we enter by Grace or not at all. Look at all the evidence God has hidden through time, space and history for us to explore to reach out to our Creator. God’s rescue plan for you is the best news you will ever hear on planet earth - accept it with thanksgiving.
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