FreeTruth

I believe that there can be no real doubt about the existence of God. As has been said often, the fact that anything exists today means that something or someone has always existed.

It is absolute nonsense to suggest that something can be created out of nothing. So the fact that something (the universe) exists now means either that that thing has always existed or that something or someone else which has always existed brought that thing into existence. In short: either the universe is eternal or an Eternal Someone made it. There are no other rational options.

And since we know that the universe has not always existed (even secular scientists with their big bang theory acknowledge this), the only rational conclusion is that Something or Someone brought this universe into being. The universe has a Designer/Creator. Throughout history that Designer/Creator has been called "God" (at least in English).

But that leads of course to the question: which God is the right God? Another way of putting it is: how do we know which view of God--that found in the Bible, or that found in another "holy book" or in the imagination of any person--is the right view?

Here is how I arrive at Reason #3 for why I believe the Bible is the Word of God: the God revealed in nature (Romans 1:19, 20; Psalm 19:1, 2) and the God revealed in Scripture are a perfect match.

Since God made the world, the world will reflect His character and being. When an artist creates, what he creates reveals something about him, for the created thing flows out of the being, mind, and heart of the creator.

God's nature reveals God. We can call nature God's Self-Revelation: Volume One. But there's more. Christians believe that actually there are two volumes of God's self-revelation. Volume One is Nature; Volume Two is Scripture.

But for this Christian claim to be verified, Volumes One and Two must be entirely consistent, since God is a God who cannot contradict Himself. What He says in one revelation must agree with what He says in another or else He's a liar. So run the test. What do you find when you compare what is learned about God in nature and what is learned about God in Scripture? A perfect match.

Study Volume One and you'll discover that nature reveals a God who is a powerful, wise, brilliant, good, kind, generous, beauty-loving, eternal, dependable, majestic, transcendant, and yet a constantly-involved-in-His-creation Being. You'll also discover in nature's earthquakes and tsunamis and diseases that nature's God is no benign, passive, entirely-pleased-with-this-world, indulgent, or completely safe Wimp.

Nature reveals that God is all the wonderful things mentioned above, and that He is mad at something. Not all is right between God and his creation. Storms and calamities reveal that something has stirred the wrath of God.

Now study Volume Two and you'll discover that Scripture reveals a God that matches nature's God perfectly. He is all the wonderful things that nature reveals; He is all the terrifying things nature reveals. Nature and Scripture harmonize. Both reveal that God is astonishingly good, and that God is One with Whose wrath we dare not trifle.

This--along with many other factors gives me cause to believe the Bible is the Word of God that it claims to be. It matches what I see in God's creation. It conforms to the way things are in the real world. It echoes the song that nature sings. What I read in God's Word fits what I see in God's world.

Thus I believe. Here I stand.
How about you?

Labels: Apologetics, Creation, Nature, The Word of God