Week 1: The Big Rocks - We Believe in God

Genesis 1:1…the first verse in the Bible says, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”

I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist, by Norman Geisler. Geisler helps us recognize the truth about truth. There are many truths about truth. Hear are some of them:

• Truth is discovered, not invented. It exists independent of anyone’s knowledge of it. (Gravity existed prior to Newton.)
• Truth is transcultural; if something is true, it is true for all people, in all places, at all times (2+2=4 for everyone, everywhere, at every time).
• Truth is unchanging even though our beliefs about truth change. (When we began to believe the earth was round instead of flat, the truth about the earth didn’t change, only our belief about the earth changed.)
• Beliefs cannot change a truth fact, no matter how sincerely they are held. (Someone can sincerely believe the world is flat, but that only makes that person sincerely wrong.)
• All truths are absolute truths. Truth is simply truth, period.

Basically, contrary beliefs are possible, but contrary truths are not possible. We can believe everything is true, but we cannot make everything true.


There are four major evidences for the existence of God that people throughout time have argued from.

First, there is the COSMOLOGICAL ARGUMENT.

The name of the argument comes from the Greek word kosmos, which refers to the created order.
This argument goes like this:
1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause of its existence.
2. The universe began to exist.
3. Therefore, the universe has a cause of its existence.

Lee Strobel, the famous investigative journalist from the Chicago Tribune, thought he knew the facts. He became an atheist because of his Yale studies concerning evolution. In his book, The Case for a Creator, he breaks apart the four main pillars of evolution that led him to atheism.

• The Miller Experiment

• Darwin’s Tree of Life

• Ernst Haeckel’s Drawings of Embryos

• The Missing Link

Lee Strobel came to say…“It would have taken more faith for me to remain an atheist than to become a Christian.”

II. MORAL ARGUMENT
This argument states that people have a built-in sense of moral values. Naturalistic evolution has a difficult time explaining this one away.
a. The moral law is undeniable.
Remember the self-defeating claim, there is no absolute truth? Then is that statement absolutely true. Same concept here. There is absolute truth and there is a moral law…absolute values.
b. Since we know what’s absolutely wrong, then there must be an absolute standard of rightness.
Let me show. Question…Is there a difference between Hitler and Mother Teresa? How do you come to that conclusion? One more thought…how do you feel about planes crashing into the World Trade Center?
c. If there were no moral law, then we wouldn’t make excuses for violating it.
Why do people make excuses when they do something wrong or immoral?

C. S. Lewis says, "This points to a connection with a supreme moral being who is responsible for stamping that moral code on the life of all people." This line of argument by C. S. Lewis is so powerful that I would suggest his book, Mere Christianity. He relates, “Who or what else would explain this moral code? What set of molecules would produce a moral awareness in the lives of people all over the world?”

III. DESIGN OR TELEOLOGICAL ARGUMENT

The best illustration of this argument is the story of a watch. Once upon a time my watch was merely a number of disorganized elements and metals lying on a dusty road. Over the process of time, it began to take shape. A few dinosaurs trotting along that dusty road kicked a few of the metals together. Some cavemen in the nearby area passed that way and their shoeless feet kicked a few more elements together. Well, over billions and billions of years this watch began to take shape. Because of the forces acting upon it, the sun, the rain, the wind, and the weather, it began to evolve. It developed hands, and a face, but no legs. Then one day it started ticking. I came along, picked it up, and put it on. And it’s been running ever since. Let me ask you, do you believe the story of my watch?

Voltaire once said, “If a watch proves the existence of a watchmaker but the universe does not prove the existence of a great Architect, then I consent to be called a fool.”

The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows His handiwork. — Psalm 19:1

Ever since God created the world, his invisible qualities, both his eternal power and his divine nature, have been clearly seen; they are perceived in the things that God has made. So those people have no excuse at all! — Romans 1:20

IV. EXPERIENTIAL ARGUMENT

There is a lot of overwhelming evidence, but only one way to prove God's existence and that is by personal experience. No one who has met with God in a real and personal relationship with him as Father and as sovereign Lord can doubt that such proof is sufficient.

By experiencing God personally we can find out for ourselves that God exists.

Romans 1:25 says some people exchange the truth about God for a lie

The fool says in his heart, "There is no God." — Psalm 53:1

Jeremiah 29:11 says, “I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you a future with hope.”

Find out for yourself how good the Lord is. Psalm 34:8