1. The best evidence for the existence of God comes from the creation and human nature.
2. Everything we see around us states that life comes from life:
A. No-one has ever seen life come from non-life. We only ever see life coming from life. Therefore, based simply on what we have seen up to this point in human history, we have no evidence that the first material life could have come from non-life. It obviously could not have come from another material life, otherwise, it wouldn’t be the first. The only alternative that we know of is that the first material life came from an immaterial life.
3. Likewise, we have never seen intelligence come from non-intelligence. We have only ever seen intelligence coming from intelligence. So based on what we have seen to this point in human history, there is no evidence that the first intelligent material life could have come from a non-intelligent material life. It obviously could not have come from another intelligent material life, otherwise, it wouldn’t be the first. The only alternative that we are aware of is that the first intelligent material life came from an intelligent immaterial life.
4. Finally, we have never seen self-awareness come from non-self-awareness. So, based on our experience to this point in time, we only have evidence that self-aware life comes from another self-aware life. Therefore, the first material self-aware life had to come from another self-aware life, but it couldn’t be material or it wouldn’t be the first. The only alternative that we know of is that the first material self-aware life came from an immaterial self-aware life.
5. If we put all of this together, what we get is that the first material, intelligent, self-aware life came from an immaterial, intelligent, self-aware life. All qualities that God would have:
A. This is what the observational evidence that we have in front of us to this time in human history actually shows. If the evidence changes, we can reevaluate it, but to this point in time, this is where the evidence points.
6. Anthropologists tell us that every society that they have ever uncovered has a full fledged belief in, and worship of, some manner of god, gods, goddess(es), and/or belief in the supernatural. In other words, they have never uncovered an atheistic society:
A. One would think that if species act according to their nature, and man evolved in a godless, materialistic universe, and is made up of the elements of that godless, materialistic universe, then he would be by nature godless.
B. There would be nothing in our godless nature that would in any way cause us to even think about a god much less worship one or more.
C. One could very easily postulate that since the universe is a closed system, and if it is solely material, and the material universe works solely by cause and effect, and there is no God in that cause-and-effect closed system, that there would be no cause and effect chain of events within it to allow the concept of God to arise in the human brain. Since we need the concept of God before we can have the concept of no God, neither concept would be present in that universe.
D. And yet we inhabit a world in which, not only do we have the concepts of God and no God, the vast majority of all people, and all societies, (unless they have been forced otherwise by tyrannical rulers) express a belief in some sort of god, gods, goddess(es), and/or the supernatural.
E. All of this taken into account, It makes much more sense that there is a God, and so man finds it natural to believe in and worship him even if he often gets the particulars wrong.
7. Some unbelievers would say that when primitive man saw phenomena that he didn’t understand, such as, eclipses, meteor showers, lightning, earthquakes etc. that his first instinct was to declare a God in order to explain it. They say that this would have been the simplest explanation for him to give, and would explain the existence of the concept of God in a godless universe:
A. If it were possible that the thought of God could have arisen in man, even though he had no naturally inherent understanding of his existence, why would it have been the easiest explanation to make up a supernatural being complete with personal characteristics and ways of worshipping and/or appeasing him?
B. It seems to me that it would have been much simpler for primitive man to declare his ignorance of such phenomena, chalk it up to some sort of natural forces, and in the case of lightning run into his cave for cover.
C. If it was primitive man’s first instinct to declare a god when he saw things he didn’t understand, then it seems as if that would be evidence of his being created by a god and therefore having an innate understanding of his existence even if he didn’t know who or what he was. Contrary to what the unbeliever says this would actually be evidence for a god’s existence.
8. All people possess objective morals. These are actions which they believe to be wrong for everybody no matter what:
A. We may disagree to some degree as to what these morals should be, but we all have them.
B. If there is no God, objective morality is philosophically impossible.
C. If there is no God, then man just made up the concept of morals and therefore can do away with the concept altogether if he wants. If he keeps the idea of morals, he can fill in the particulars anyway he wants. He is the highest authority on the planet, and no individual has the inherent authority to tell another individual that his morals are wrong.
D. A group of people, who all agree, can bind together and force their morality on others, but they cannot show that their morals are necessarily better than the ones held by those whom they are forcing them upon.
E. To have objective morals one needs an infallible source.
F. If one’s source is fallible, then the morals which come from that source can be wrong and therefore not necessarily objectively true.
G. If there is a God and he is the creator, perfectly good, omniscient, and perfect love, then being the creator, he has authority to tell everyone in the world what is right and wrong. Being omniscient, he can’t be wrong because of a lack of knowledge. Being perfectly good, he can’t be led astray by a less than perfectly good motive or desire. Being perfect love he always acts to our highest good.
H. So a God with these qualities has the authority to tell everyone in the world what is right and wrong, he can’t be wrong when he does it, and it has to be to our highest good to follow it.
I. The very existence of objective morality in man is evidence for the existence of God.
9. All people believe and/or act as if life has meaning:
A. There is no meaning to life if there is no God. Something only has meaning if it’s created for a purpose. If the universe just happened, and there was no creator, then there is no purpose and by extension no meaning to it.
B. If there is no God, then we are an accident in the universe, and someday we shall cease to exist.
C. If we did not come into existence through a purposeful act, our lives have no inherent meaning.
10. Only an intelligent being can ascribe meaning to something. If our origin was non-intelligent energy/matter then our existence can have no inherent meaning.
11. Why do we feel the need to ascribe meaning to our lives if our origin is meaningless? If we are meaningless beings by nature, why can’t we be content to live according to our nature?:
A. Nobody can wake up every morning seriously believing that it’s just another meaningless day, in a meaningless life, in a meaningless world, in a meaningless universe, doing meaningless things, dying a meaningless death, and ceasing to exist forever, and find a reason to get out of bed.
B. Some atheists will say that they don’t believe in an objective meaning to life, but they give themselves their own subjective meaning. So, essentially they are saying that they have to live as if there is a God while claiming that there isn’t one.
C. If a person’s words and actions conflict, actions will always tell you what they really believe.
12. If we can’t live a healthy mental and emotional life without believing that life has meaning, and it can only have meaning if there is a God who created it, then the only reasonable conclusion is that there is a God who created it.
