It’s interesting how one can grow up believing things as fundamental as God’s existence, and yet feel wholly unprepared to defend those beliefs when put on the spot. That’s a normal experience – not something to feel bad about. Let it motivate you to think more deeply about your faith, and thus it will be used for good. What trips up many Christians is the overarching nature of the question itself. Prove is a strong word, one that sets the bar at an unrealistically high level. From my legal background I can tell you prosecutors almost never use that term alone. Instead, they attach it to four other important words. They’ll say, “I’m going to prove beyond a reasonable doubt” that such-and-such happened. In Scripture, we’re told to “be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have” (1 Peter 3:15). Giving an answer requires some forethought, but it’s a lot easier than proving something! Consider using aspects of the following as you deem best.
So our first response to someone asking this question might be, “No, I can’t prove God exists, but I can offer some good reasons to believe in him.” If this individual protests, ask him if he can “prove God doesn’t exist.” He’ll quickly see that he doesn’t have proof either. What are some positive reasons we can give for believing in God (outside of quoting Bible verses, which most nonbelievers won’t accept)? I asked that question of one of the world’s leading defenders of Christianity, Dr. William Lane Craig, when I interviewed him for The Case for Faith. Here’s a short version of his response.
Reason #1: God Makes Sense of the Origin of the Universe. “Both philosophically and scientifically,” Craig said, “I would argue that the universe and time itself had a beginning at some point in the finite past. This is commonly known as the Big Bang, and it is accepted almost universally by scientists worldwide. But since something cannot just come out of nothing, there has to be a transcendent cause beyond space and time which brought the universe into being.”
Reason #2: God Makes Sense of the Complexity of the Universe. “Scientists have been stunned,” Craig declared, “to discover that the Big Bang was not some chaotic, primordial event, but rather a highly ordered event that required an enormous amount of information . . . The universe had to be fine-tuned to an incomprehensible precision for the existence of life like ourselves. That points in a very compelling way toward the existence of an Intelligent Designer.”
Reason #3: God Makes Sense of Objective Moral Values. “A third factor,” Craig explained, “is the existence of objective moral values. If God does not exist then objective moral values do not exist. Then morality is just a matter of personal taste . . . to say that killing innocent children is wrong would just be an expression of taste . . . But we all know deep down that objective moral values do exist,” he continued, “ so it follows logically and inescapably that God exists.”
Reason #4 God Makes Sense of the Resurrection. Craig summed up this argument simply: “If Jesus of Nazareth really did come back from the dead, then we have a divine miracle on our hands and, thus, further evidence for the existence of God.” This, by the way, was the primary argument that convinced me when I was skeptic.
Reason #5: God Can Immediately Be Experienced. This last point, Craig explained, is not so much an argument as a “claim that you can know that God exists wholly apart from arguments by having an immediate experience of Him.” This has certainly been true in my life, and perhaps in yours too.
The scientifically supported evidence from the origin of the universe, the fine-tuning of the universe to support life, the inescapable existence of objective moral values that originate from beyond us, the historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus, and our own experience with the living Savior – these combine to form a powerful case for the existence of God.
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, so that people are without excuse. -Romans 1:20