Looking for Clues of God's Existence in Summertime

As we enjoy the last month of summer, with all its beauty of nature on land and in the sea and skies above, I am reminded that it all points to a Creator God who designed it all precisely.  In his book The Reason for God, Timothy Keller shares some insightful thoughts along these lines.  He notes that Alvin Plantinga, a Christian philosopher, believes that there are no proofs of God that will convince every rational and skeptical person, however, he believes there are at least two or three dozen very good arguments for the existence of God, that when considered all together, become a formidable weight tipping the scale in support of the evidence for God’s reality.

One of the arguments Plantinga discusses is the mysterious Big Bang.  In light of the Big Bang, people must ask the question, “Why is there something rather than nothing?”  Scientific evidence reveals that the universe is expanding explosively and outwardly from a single point.  Stephen Hawking writes, “Almost everyone now believes that the universe, and time itself, had a beginning at the Big Bang.”  And scientist Francis Collins puts this clue for the existence of God in language the average person can understand:

“We have this very solid conclusion that the universe had an origin, the Big Bang.  Fifteen billion years ago, the universe began with an unimaginably bright flash of energy from an infinitesimally small point.  That implies that before that, there was nothing.  I can’t imagine how nature, in this case the universe, could have created itself.  And the very fact that the universe had a beginning implies that someone was able to begin it.  And it seems to me that had to be outside of nature.”

Think about this:  Everything we know in this world has a cause outside of itself.  Nothing just magically appears without some cause bringing it into existence.  It makes perfect sense to conclude that the very creation of the universe itself has to be dependent on some cause outside of itself.  Something had to make the Big Bang happen, but what…or who?

The Atheist, Sam Harris, in his response to Collins’ reasoning states, “…even if we accepted that our universe simply had to be created by an intelligent being, this would not suggest that this being is the God of the Bible.”  I suppose Harris is right in that Collins’ argument for the existence of a personal God is not all-conclusive, but it is a clue nonetheless that there is something besides the natural world that caused the natural world to come into existence.

The Bible starts out, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth (Genesis 1:1)….  And in Romans 1:20 we read, “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made….”  Alvin Plantinga has some three dozen more clues for your consideration as to why it makes sense to believe in God’s existence.  We have considered just one of them.

Have a blessed summer, and enjoy it while it is here!
Tyler