Basic Bible Doctrine
Lesson Two
"God"

As a Christian, you will be challenged by atheists, skeptics and hecklers to prove that there is a God.
The reason for this is because it  is hard for the natural man to believe in something that he cannot see, touch or feel (I Cor. 2:14).

The Bible is not a textbook that attempts to prove the existence of God - the Bible opens with a positive fact that God does exist..."In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth" (Gen. 1:1). 

It did not occur to anyone to prove this fact.  God exist, and everyone knew it. Only until recent years have people questioned if God was real or not.

The Bible plainly states that it is the fool who denies the existence of God.
Psa. 14:1, "The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God."

Anyone with any intelligence would acknowledge the evident fact of a living God.
The greatest proof apart from Scripture of the existence of God is our daily fellowship with Him through prayer and our daily walk with Him. I know that there is a God because I talked to Him today and He heard and answered the prayer of my heart though it was only whispered silently.

Following is a list of different ways we can know there is a God.

I. PROOF FROM SCRIPTURE

Psa. 19:1, 'The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth His handywork." The beauty and glory of the heavens speak loudly saying, "God exists."

Rom. 1:20 goes farther and suggests that creation even teaches about the eternal power of the Godhead, "For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse."

The man who accepts Scripture will readily acknowledge the existence of God.
Now lets look at some other less convincing but nevertheless powerful arguments.

II. PROOF FROM CONSCIENCE

Man is born with a universal belief in a supreme Being; no tribe has yet been discovered that lacks this. They know that some Being created and controls the universe.
Rom. 2:15, "Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another." The existence of God is written in the human conscience.

Acts 17:23, "For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, To the Unknown God." Conscience told them that there was a God though they did not know Him personally.
Some atheists may claim that their conscience does not tell them about God.

Personally I have never met anyone who claimed to be an atheist, who truly was. In the end, they will always admit that something is out there.

Some men are so blind that they may deny the existence of the sun in the sky but that does not alter the fact that the sun exists, rises and sets each day. None are so blind as those who refuse to see. The honest man will find that the inner still small voice says that God exists and is alive today.

Men deny the existence of God not because they cannot find Him but because they are afraid to face the responsibility of being accountable to Him alter death. Atheism is one of the devil's tools to put men to sleep without accepting salvation. If there is no God then I am not responsible to anyone and I can live and die as I please. but in the quieter moments of reflection the conscience of every man whispers, There is a God" and only fools deny it.

To look up and see a plane and not see the pilot and say that the plane is pilotless is as ridiculous as looking into the heavens and saying that there is no God simply because we cannot see Him.

Few of us have ever seen our brains, yet we believe that we possess them because of a centralized control system in the body. Because we see creation, we believe in God.

III. THE ARGUMENT FROM CAUSE (Cosmological)

The world is here. It must have come from somewhere. Somebody or something must have caused it to come into being at one time or another. Or, Here is a book. Someone must have written it. No printing press can of itself produce a book, be it ever so modern a press with the latest electrical gadgets.

Someone built the building. Someone created the trees. Someone operates the universe.

If all the pieces of a watch were placed in a can and the can shaken, a watch will never be created, even over a billion years. Although all the parts needed are there, it will still take a master watch maker to put it all together.

The only sensible answer to the problem of the existence of the world is the existence of an intelligent Being whom we call God.

IV. THE ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN (Teleological)

A watch not only exists but it has a designer. It was planned for a specific purpose.
A watch was not designed for mosquitoes to live in. It was designed by a keen mind for the purpose of accurately telling the time. An examination of the world and the things large and small shows that each is designed by an intelligent mind for a specific purpose in life.

The colors of the bird and means of defense of the animals are not accidents. They are the result of a plan of a superior planning mind of the originator.

V. THE MORAL ARGUMENT (Anthropological)

Man has an intellectual and moral nature showing that the Creator must not be merely an inanimate force but a living, intelligent moral Being. Gen. 1:26, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness."
Gen. 1:27, God created man in the image and likeness of God, that is, patterned after Him.

Psa. 94:9, "He that planted the ear, shall He not hear? He that formed the eye, shall He not see?" God has given to man ears, eyes, knowledge, intelligence, and will power, for these are the things that He possesses.
Conscience teaches man right and wrong, good and bad; for the Creator is a moral Being that is holy, and loves righteousness but abhors evil.

VI. THE LIFE ARGUMENT

Life comes from life and the original life must have come from a Being possessing eternal life, that is, life that existed before physical life was created. This is also what some refer to as "first cause". Where can such life be found? It can only be found in God who possesses eternal life. Psa. 36:9, "For with Thee is the fountain (source) of life."

The apple tree gets its life from the parent tree, the lamb from the mother sheep. But where did they get life from? We go back to the original creation.

Jesus said in John 11:25, "I am... life," also in John 14:6, "I am ... life," and in John 10:28, "And I give unto them eternal life." All life proceeds from God. The theory of spontaneous generation has been proved false and completely unacceptable to authoritative science. Life must have a beginning. The only logical answer is that beginning was with God who was before all, and created all.

In conclusion, when learning about God, the first thing one must confirm is that there is a God.   There can be no other answer. Scripture, History, logic, science, the universe, and conscience all tell us that He exist.

Heb. 11:6, "He that cometh to God must believe that He Is [exists)."