The Existence of God

Is God Real?

Confirmation Class

Overview

Questioning the Existence of God Who is God? Stories in the Old Testament Chance or Natural Causes Marks of Intelligent Design Complexity of the Human Brain Universal Law of Cause and Effect Passion of the Masses God Pursues Us Jesus’ Resurrection

Do you have questions?

If God exists, then …

• Why haven’t I ever physically seen Him?

• Why does He seem so distant?

• Why hasn’t He talked directly to me?

• Why doesn’t he answer my prayers?

• Why is there suffering in the world?

Who is God?

Who is God?• God is the Supreme Being, the Creator "who made

heaven and earth, the sea, and all things that are in them"   (Psalm 145:5)

What does "Creator" mean? • It means that God made all things out of nothing

• "I beseech thee, my son, look upon Heaven and earth, and all that is in them: and consider that God made them out of nothing, and mankind also."   (2 Maccabees 7:28)

Holy Trinity

Three Persons in One God

• “Going therefore, teach ye all nations; baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost” (Matthew 28:19)

• “And there are three who give testimony in Heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost.  And these three are one” (I John 5:7)

They are equal to One Another, but each One is a separate and distinct Person, and each One is God

How can there be three persons in only one God?

• This is a mystery that no human mind can completely understand

Is there really a God?

Polls show that as many as 96% of all Americans strongly believe in the existence of a God who is holy and perfect, and who created the world and rules it today

If it is beyond our five senses to examine God, then you cannot use science to either prove or disprove

• No one has ever seen love, yet we all know it is real

• No one has ever smelled freedom, but we know it exists

The key is to look for evidence that would support whether or not it is reasonable to believe in the existence of God

Stories in the Old Testament

Some read the Old Testament (OT) literally and have difficulty accepting the stories and therefore discount the reality of God

Stories in the OT are not intended to be a record of history, nor intended to be a literal account of an event

• These stories were past orally generation to generation through the spoken word before eventually in time being put into written form

• Like many stories told by mouth there is no way to actually go back to the original event; stories have be elaborated on and expanded

Stories in the Old Testament

The OT is a treasure chest of wisdom and inspiration to guide people closer to God and live in right relationship with one another

• The OT contains profound truths and insight into the meaning of human life though we do not dismiss that these stories may be based on some historical event and can sometimes be verified or likely to have occurred if archeological evidence is found that help point to an event

• More important is that the OT represents stories of a communal faith lived and witnessed by God’s chosen people, the Israelites

Stories in the Old Testament

What’s important is ancient people were more concerned with insights into relationships with God and one another than a literal historical account

We do not know whether there was a great flood that destroyed the world’s population

• Story Intent: Humanity became so depraved and distant themselves from God that God want to start his creation over and chose the good, pious, and just man Noah & his family to begin anew and also entered into a covenant with Noah never to again destroy his creation no matter how depraved his creatures became.  Simply put for the ancient authors was that God prefers justice and goodness in his creation over depravity and sinfulness

Stories in the Old Testament

Another difference for the ancients was a very limited knowledge of the world in which they lived

• No instant worldwide communication, broadcast news 24/7, and satellite images of the earth from outer space

• Their world was as far as the furthest boundary they may have traveled & early civilizations depending on agricultural crops they grew had no need to wander very far

• Plausible explanation for the great flood

• King David and Goliath

• Ages of people … theological point is the effects of sin which is death is how the life span shortens due to sin and not intended to give us a literal life span record

Chance or Natural Causes?

• If God doesn’t exist then all that exists came about by natural cause and random chance

• Science confirms that life cannot arise from non-life

• What did human, animal and plant life come from?

• Natural causes are an inadequate explanation for the amount of precise information contained in human DNA

What caused the “Big Bang?”

The “Big Bang” is a broadly accepted theory for the origin and evolution of our universe

• The theory says that the universe started expanding roughly 14 billion years ago from an extremely dense and incredibly hot initial state

You can’t have something come from nothing Dr. Robert Jastrow, professor of Astronomy at Columbia University

& Dartmouth College, Manager of the Mount Wilson Observatory, and for 20 years director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, made the following comment in regard to the Big Bang

• "Now we see how the astronomical evidence leads to a biblical view of the origin of the world”

What caused the “Big Bang?”

Physicist Stephen Hawking once told a reporter …

• "The odds against a universe like ours emerging out of something like the Big Bang are enormous - I think clearly there are religious implications"

Who is Dr. Stephen Hawking?

He is a world-renowned physicist who has worked on the basic laws which govern the universe. Professor Hawking has twelve honorary degrees; he’s the recipient of many awards, medals and prizes and is a Fellow of The Royal Society and a Member of the US National Academy of Sciences.

Marks of Intelligent Design

The complexity of our planet points to a deliberate Designer who not only created our universe, but sustains it today

• The universe exhibits purpose, design and intent

There are many examples

• The earth is perfect in size with corresponding gravity holding a thin layer of mostly nitrogen and oxygen gases; right distance from the sun; moon is prefect size and distance to create ocean tides and movement so ocean waters do not stagnate

• Water is colorless, odorless and without taste, yet no living thing can survive without it

Complexity of the Human Brain

The human brain’s complexity shows a higher intelligence behind it• Simultaneously processes an amazing amount of info

• It takes in all the colors and objects you see, the temperature around you, the pressure of your feet against the floor, the sounds around you, the dryness of your mouth

• Keeps track of the ongoing function of your body like your breathing, eyelid movement, hunger and movement of the muscles in your hand

• Processes more than a million message a second; filtering out the relatively unimportant while evaluating pertinent information

Complexity of the Human Brain

Was it merely biological causes, perfectly forming the right tissue, blood flow, neurons, structure?

The brain functions differently than other organs

There is an intelligence to it, the ability to reason, to produce feelings, to dream and plan, to take action, and relate to other people

How does one explain the human brain

Universal Law of Cause and Effect

The world seems to work according to the universal law of cause and effect

• Every observable effect must have had an initial “push” by some agent or cause

• Every “thing” we observe is dependent upon other “things”

• Examples:

• Children are dependent on parents

• The earth is dependent on the sun

Universal Law of Cause and Effect

• Everything needs a cause in order to exist

• There is nothing in our visible world that we can look at and say, “that's been here forever!”

• The only thing that does not need a cause in order to exist is God (Acts 14:15, 17) - He is all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-present

Passion of the Masses

• Throughout history, billions of people have attested to their firm, core convictions about God’s existence which is arrived from their subjective, personal relationship with God

• Millions today could give a detailed account of their experience with God

• People point to answered prayer and specific, amazing ways God has met their needs, and guided them through important personal decisions

• Can a skeptic say with certainty that he or she is absolutely right and all these other people are wrong about God?

God Pursues Us

God wants to be known

• He created us with the intention that we would know him

• He surrounded us with evidence of himself and he keeps the question of his existence squarely before us

• You simply cannot escape thinking about the possibility of God

Jesus is the Proof

With all the other major religions their leaders were teachers or prophets (e.g., Buddha, Muhammad, Confucius and Moses) none ever claimed to be equal to God … like Jesus

Though Jesus talked about his Father in heaven, it was not from the position of separation, but of very close union, unique to all humankind

• “I am the light of the world, he who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

Jesus is Divine

Jesus performed miracles

• Jesus healed … blind, crippled, deaf, raised a couple of people from the dead

• Jesus had power over objects … created food out of thin air (feeding thousands)

• Jesus performed miracles over nature … walked on top of water, stop a raging storm

People followed Jesus everywhere

• Jesus said if you do not want to believe what I’m telling you, you should at least believe in me based on the miracles you’re seeing” John 14:6

Jesus is Divine

The single miracle that proves the existence of God is His Resurrection

• He died in our place so we could be forgiven

What is your purpose in life?

Life is a promise; fulfill it. Mother Theresa

We are created in God's image for relationship with him. Being in that relationship is the only thing that will ultimately satisfy our souls. Until we come to know God, we've had many wonderful experiences, but will feel unsatisfied. St. Augustine summarized it this way: "You [God] have made us for yourself and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee”

What is your purpose in life?

Jesus said, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty." Until we come to know God, we are hungry and thirsty in life. We try to "eat" and "drink" all kinds of things to satisfy our hunger and thirst, but yet they remain.

Our day and age is filled with people who do not

believe in God. This is shown in both their beliefs

and their actions. As Catholics, we take a

different stand. We say that in our beliefs and in

our actions, God exists, that He loves us, and that

He is the greatest force in our lives

Summary

There are many things in this world which the human mind cannot understand, such as growth, sight, hearing, electricity

• We should not be surprised to find that we cannot completely understand the God who made the world

Faith is accepting something on the word of another

• God says that there are three Persons in One God.  If you accept that statement as being true because He said so, then you have faith

• Faith is a gift that you must pray for