There are many
rational reasons for believing in God. This article will briefly explain three
simple reasons for God’s existence.
Order in the Universe
When we reflect upon
the nature of our world, we see order everywhere from the water cycle to the
movement of the earth around the sun. Commenting on the order found in the
universe, the physicist Stephen Hawking explains that the overwhelming
impression ‘is one of order, the more we discover about the universe, the more
we find that it is governed by rational laws.”[1]. This observation is shared
by the vast majority of scientists.
Since the universe has
order and is governed by the ‘laws of science’, we should question how this
order came about. The most effective way to answer this question is to reason
to the best conclusion. Take your mobile phone for example, your phone is made
of glass, plastic and metal. Glass comes from sand, plastic comes from oil and
metal is extracted from the ground. Imagine you were walking in a desert (where
there is lots of oil, sand and metals in the ground), and you found a mobile
phone lying around. Would you believe that it came together by itself? That the
Sun shone, the wind blew, lightning struck, the oil bubbled to the surface and
mixed with the sand and metal, and over millions of years the mobile came
together by chance?
No one would believe
such an explanation. A mobile phone is clearly something that was put together
in an organised way, so it would be rational to believe that it must have an
organiser. In the same way, when we see the order in the universe, isn’t it
rational to say that the universe has an organiser?
This ‘organiser’ is
best explained by the existence of God. God is the one who bought about the
order in the universe.
Beginning of the Universe
If something has
always existed it doesn’t need a creator. In the first part of the 20th century
some physicists held the view that the universe had always existed. If the
universe had always existed it wouldn’t need a creator.
However, according to
Cosmology the universe had a beginning some 14 billion years ago with a cosmic
event commonly known as the ‘Big Bang’ [2].
Imagine you heard a
loud bang, and you asked ‘where did that sound come from?’ Would you be
satisfied with the answer that it came from ‘nothing’ and it ‘just happened?’
Of course not. You would say ‘what was the cause of that loud bang?’ In the
same way, rationally the ‘Big Bang’ must also have a cause that bought it
about. Now we can ask since the ‘Big Bang’ has a cause, what was the cause of
that cause? Then we can ask, what was the cause of that cause? And so on and so
on. But this can’t go on forever and must end with a first cause, because of
the following example:
Imagine a sniper who
has just found his target and calls back to base to get permission to shoot.
The person at the base tells the sniper to hold on while they seek permission
from someone else higher up. So the guy higher up seeks permission from the guy
even higher up and so on and so on. If this goes on forever, will the sniper
ever get to shoot the target?
The obvious answer is
that he wouldn’t be able to shoot. The only way the sniper can shoot is if
someone gives permission without asking for anyone else’s permission. That
person would be the first cause of the sniper shooting. In the same way, the
Big Bang must have a first cause.
We can conclude that
this first cause must be powerful as it bought the whole universe into
existence, and it must be intelligent as it caused the ‘laws of science’ which
govern the universe. Also, this first cause must be timeless, spaceless and
immaterial, because time, space and matter began at the ‘Big Bang’. Finally,
since it is uncaused it must have always existed.
All of these attributes
of the first cause make up the basic concept of God. God is the uncreated first
cause of the universe.
Human Nature
Throughout the history
of the world, the majority of people have believed in God. There seems to be
something built in the human mind that makes us want to believe.
Over the last decade
some really startling facts have been found that show that children have an
innate belief in God. Dr Justin Barrett, a senior researcher at the University
of Oxford Centre for Anthropology and Mind, states ‘œThe preponderance of
scientific evidence for the past 10 years or so has shown that a lot more seems
to be built into the natural development of children’s minds than we once
thought, including a predisposition to see the natural world as designed and
purposeful and that some kind of intelligent being is behind that purpose…’ He
adds that ‘œIf we threw a handful [of children] on an island and they raised
themselves…they would believe in God’.[3]. To put it simply, his answer as to
why anyone would believe in God is that, our minds are designed to do so [4].
Disbelief in God is something which is unnatural to the human being. Oxford
University development psychologist Dr Olivera Petrovich, who is an expert in
the Psychology of Religion states that, belief in God develops naturally and
that ‘atheism is definitely an acquired position’ [5].
So where did this
natural belief in a creator come from? We can’t say it is taught by society as
this belief is innate, and studies show that it is independent of societal
pressures and is cross-cultural [6].
The best explanation
for this belief is that God has put this into humanity.You have just read three
independent reasons why it makes sense to believe in God. Belief in God is not
only rational but it’s also part of human nature. There are many questions
raised by the existence of God, such as why is there evil and suffering in the
world? Doesn’t evolution disprove God? Do we have a purpose in life? For
answers to these and other such questions please click on the other articles in
this section.
References
[1] Antony Flew, There
Is a God: How the World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind
[2] Derek Raine, An
Introduction to Science of Cosmology (Astronomy & Astrophysics)
[3] Justin L. Barrett,
Why Would Anyone Believe in God?
[4]
http://www.cam.ox.ac.uk/publications-original/why-would-anyone-believe-in-god/
[5] Dr Olivera
Petrovich, Childs Theory of World
[6] Justin L. Barrett,
Jonathan A. Lanman, The Science of Religious Beliefs
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