5 Arguments for the Existence of God
Is faith in God reasonable?
I’m going to walk through five classical arguments for the existence of God, that show why faith is reasonable and answers the fundamental questions of life in ways that a godless worldview simply cannot.
These are some of the many reasons why I believe in God, and why I think it is reasonable for you to do the same.
I’m not going to twist your arm and try to whip you up emotionally. I just want to lay out the facts so you can decide for yourself.
Alright, so buckle up and warm up your brains because this is going to require some deep thinking. Are you ready?
1. Cosmological Argument: The Universe Had a Beginning
Cosmological just means the question of how the universe began.
We must begin with the beginning. How did everything come into existence?
We have two options: Either something set the world into motion or nothing set the world into motion.
Which is it?
Nothing can’t do anything.
Imagine walking with a friend out in nature, and you hear a loud crash in the distance. And you say to your friend, “Wow, what caused that sound?” And your friend says, “Nothing.” And you say, “What do you mean, nothing caused it?” And your friend says, “Yeah, those sounds just happen out here. Nothing causes them.” Would you believe that? No. Why?
Nothing can’t do anything. By definition, nothing is non-existent. And a non-existent thing cannot cause anything. To say that nothing caused something is logically impossible.
So to say that nothing set the world into motion is false.
That means something must have set the world into motion.
We can see from the world around us that everything we observe has some cause. Animals are born. Plants grow from seeds. Chemicals react to other chemicals to form materials. The world appears to be a giant chain of cause and effect. Therefore, we can reason that following that chain back in time to the very beginning, there must be some initial cause that set everything in motion.
However, in order for that to be possible, there must be something outside this chain of cause and effect in the natural world, a supernatural uncaused first cause. That sounds a little wild until you realize that the word supernatural just means something super or above nature. And by uncaused, I mean something that has no beginning. If it had a beginning, it could not be the first cause because everything with a beginning has a cause.
Naturalism, the belief that the natural world is all that exists, cannot give a good explanation for this uncaused first cause. But Christianity can.
“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth”(Genesis 1:1 ESV).
“By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible” (Hebrews 11:3).
God is the uncaused first cause. He has existed for all eternity outside of the natural order that he created. If there was a big bang, he lit the match. He is the immaterial creator of the material world.
Argument Summary: The material universe began to exist. Everything that begins to exist has a cause. Therefore, the universe has a cause outside itself, something that is uncaused, immaterial, and of unimaginable power.
That sounds a lot like God to me.
But this argument only tells us that there must be an uncaused cause outside the material universe. Can we learn anything about this cause from the material world that it set into motion?
2. Teleological Argument: The Universe Is Orderly
Teleological essentially means the question of purpose. In other words, does the universe have a purpose?
The universe is either the product of accidental chaos or purposeful order.
Which is it?
If the universe is the product of random chance and chaos, atoms exploding and colliding together at high speeds until eventually all this chaos over many years led to life on Earth, is that logical? Perhaps. Some make this argument.
But we have to ask a few questions here: (1) Is the world chaotic or orderly?
You may look at planets flying around space and think, it seems a bit chaotic to me. But is it really? I’m no physicist, but I know enough to see that the orbit of planets is incredibly predictable. I mean, it’s predictable enough for us to use the stars to determine direction, and the sun to calculate time. The universe is so orderly that gravity always works the same. The sun is 93 million miles away from Earth, but if the sun were a little further, life could not exist. And if the sun were a little closer, life could not exist. The Earth orbits perfectly in what some call the “Goldilocks Zone,” where all the conditions are just right for life to exist.
So if the world is orderly, (2) can chaos produce order?
I’ve never seen it, have you? Throw a bomb into a junk yard, will it ever assemble a working machine? Watch a tornado hit a bunch of trees, will it ever assemble a functional home? Chaos produces chaos, not order.
So I would argue that the world shows more signs of being the product of purposeful design than of accidental, chaotic chance.
I don’t have time to get into all the details, but even just the way that the human body works, it is incredible. We have all of these different systems and mechanics in our body that all work together from our respiratory, cardiovascular, and nervous system… It’s amazing! Human biology is so complex and so intelligent that we have had the brightest minds on the planet studying it for countless hours over for hundreds of years, and we still don’t know how it all works as well as it does. It’s amazing.
And you are telling me that this is all just chemicals and random chance? That’s hard to believe. I don’t have that much faith.
It is more reasonable to believe that a purposeful and orderly world is the result of a purposeful designer who created it all.
Maybe the fact that people have attributed the universe to the result of a divine intelligent being since the beginning of human history is not as far fetched as the enlightened scientists of our time think.
For thousands of years the Bible has taught things like:
“The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork” (Psalm 19:1)
“19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse” (Romans 1:19-20)
The more we learn about the brilliance of how the universe and life in it works, the more in awe we should be of the glory and power of God. He is not just smart, he is more intelligent than we can even imagine.
And the world is just a small reflection of God’s greatness.
Argument Summary: The world is either chaotic or orderly. Order exists. Order comes from order, not chaos. Order is evidence of intelligence. Therefore, the world is orderly and comes from an intelligent being.
So we can rationally conclude that there must be an intelligent uncaused cause. But can we know anything else about what this creator values? I believe we can.
3. Moral Argument: We All Live Like Morality Is Objective
Does morality exist?
Either objective morality exists, or it does not exist.
Some argue that objective morality does not exist. It is all relative. Morality is simply a cultural convention of agreed-upon values that evolved over time. To that I would say, was the Holocaust objectively bad? If you say objective morality does not exist, then is there anything keeping another holocaust from being good tomorrow, as long as everyone agrees? When pressed on it, we all agree that murder is bad, especially if I do it to you.
Objective morality exists. And in order for objective morality to exist, there must be an unchanging standard of morality. Otherwise, how do we know if what I think is moral truly is? Morality falls apart without an objective standard of morality.
While atheists can absolutely be moral people who care deeply about human flourishing, a naturalistic worldview struggles to provide any unchanging standard for why or how we must value human flourishing.
Naturalism cannot give a satisfactory objective standard. But Christianity can. God is the standard.
“They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them” (Romans 2:15).
The human conscience is a witness of God’s existence. We feel bad when we do things that we intuitively know are bad. God is a moral being. He is the standard of righteousness, perfectly holy. And as beings that he created in his image, we were created to reflect his righteousness. So when we fall short of that, we feel it. We know it.
God is the perfect standard for morality. He is unchanging. So our morality is based on him. And the atheist cannot base their morality on anything unchanging. The foundation is weak so the morality is weak.
Argument Summary: Either objective morality exists, or it doesn’t. Objective morality must exist for morality to exist at all. Morality exists, and we all live as if it is objective because of our conscience. Therefore, objective morality exists. And in order for morality to be truly objective, there must be an unchanging object that sets the standard. The unchanging standard of morality is God.
This argument shows that the uncaused intelligent first cause is a moral being. And it scratches the surface of a big problem for those who do not believe in God.
4. Presuppositional Argument: Atheism Assumes Theism
The meaning of the word “atheism” itself is interesting to me. “A” means without, and “theism” means belief in God. So by definition, you cannot even talk about what atheists believe without mentioning God.
It’s one of the only belief systems that is defined more by what it does not believe than by what it does believe.
Now, if you want, you substitute it for the more positive “naturalism,” the belief that the natural world is all that exists.
But here is the argument: Naturalism cannot account for the very foundation of its own arguments. So often unknowingly, naturalism actually borrows from theism to argue against theism.
Naturalism cannot account for the foundations of morality, logic, or science on its own.
As we just discussed, morality, in order to be true, must be objectively universally binding and grounded in something. (It cannot be simply a matter of cultural preference, not applicable to everyone, and based on nothing).
So when an atheist argues that God does not exist because evil exists, they are borrowing from a theistic worldview of objective morality to base their argument against it. A naturalistic worldview cannot explain why morality exists. It cannot be measured. It is purely immaterial and abstract. Yet they would all agree that murder is bad, especially if you do it to them. Every attempt to ground morality without God collapses. That is why a lot of people are saying morality is relative (a set of culturally evolved conventions). Then there is nothing keeping another holocaust from being good tomorrow as long as everyone agrees? Morality falls apart without a standard of morality that can only be explained by God as the standard for morality.
The atheist cannot give an objectively satisfying answer to this question: What is the basis for morality?
Logic is universally binding on all things, everyone agrees, yet it cannot be weighed or measured or examined. So how did logic come to be? There is no naturalistic explanation. When atheists use logic to argue against God, they are borrowing a theistic worldview that they cannot explain. But a rational God explains it. God created the laws of logic because he is a rational and logical being. The Christian worldview says that he is the Logos. And rational thought works because it is the product of a rational mind created by a rational God.
How can a naturalistic worldview trust the laws of logic, which is immaterial, to be universally binding on a purely naturalistic world? If the human mind is the result of a blind, random, physical process of what is most helpful for survival, we have no basis to conclude that our beliefs correspond perfectly with reality.
They borrow from us whenever they use logic to argue against us. What is the basis for their thinking that their logic is true? They have no standard for it.
Ancient philosophers discussed the law of logic as a discovery of just how existence operates, but they couldn’t account for why.
Science requires consistency of the natural world. We must be able to test and reproduce our hypotheses. The past must reliably predict the future. There is no naturalistic explanation for why the laws of physics are unchanging. You cannot prove the future will resemble the past without assuming the future will resemble the past. Scientists can only do science assuming a constant uniformity borrowed from the Christian worldview. Other religions didn’t offer this assurance. We can only deduce that they exist. But an unchanging God explains unchanging laws.
Someone who says “I only believe in science” has a big problem. Science itself cannot prove this statement. That is a philosophical claim. Science is very limited. It can only investigate things within the natural, physical, repeatable world. Science cannot explain philosophy, ethics (morality), history (since it can’t be repeated), beauty, meaning and purpose, or theology. So to say science has not proven God is like saying this metal detector has not detected any happiness.
Without the existence of God, naturalism cannot give a satisfying answer to: How can we trust laws to be constant and unchanging? All they could say was that they have not changed and therefore will not change, but why? What’s stopping the future from being different from the past?
So the very tools that we use to evaluate the world (logic, science, morality, and others) all presuppose the Christian view of reality. The skeptic has no basis for trusting these tools. They only assume that they are true, but cannot give a good explanation why.
The Bible has been telling us this for thousands of years.
“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.” (Proverbs 1:7)
“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight” (Proverbs 9:10)
The beginning of all knowledge and wisdom is belief in God. Without him, you cannot even understand the foundations of logic, science, or morality. You can only say, “That’s just the way it is.” And come on, we all know an atheist would never allow a Christian to get away with that response to any of their questions.
So the next time an atheist makes a moral, logical, or even scientific claim, you can simply ask: “Could you please explain to me the standard by which you are making that claim?”
Therefore, with these first arguments, we have an uncaused, intelligent, moral, and logical God.
Argument Summary: Naturalism cannot satisfactorily give an answer for the foundation of morality, logic, or science. Naturalists must assume the foundations of a theistic worldview to make any arguments against theism.
But this argument is not quite far enough. All that does is prove that belief in a god like this is rational. And it proves that anyone who tells you that belief in God is not intelligent is being lazy. They are not being intellectually honest, but just assuming Christians are fools while assuming our worldview to be true, and they don’t even know it.
But to fully know who God is, we need to look at how he has revealed himself through history.
5. Historical Argument: History Proves His Story
There is a reason we divide our calendar BC (before Christ) and AD (anno domini – in the year of our Lord). History is all his story.
And there is far more than I can go into in here. I would love to point to some of the miraculous things God did in the Old Testament, or some of the many prophecies about Jesus, like Isaiah 53, written 700 years before Christ.
But I just want to focus on the central claim of Christianity. Did Jesus rise again from the dead?
Either Jesus rose from the dead, or he did not.
Which is it?
Jesus predicted he would. Old Testament prophecies said that he would. But if Jesus did not rise from the dead, our Christian faith is worthless. Jesus would be proven a liar, and we are all just wasting our time here singing about a dead guy.
When Christianity began to spread after Jesus was crucified, the religious leaders went to a lot of trouble to persecute and try to stop it from spreading. And do you know what would have instantly stopped it? All they had to do was produce the body of Jesus still dead. But they couldn’t. Why? It wasn’t in the tomb.
You can visit the graves of the prophets of most major religions today. Mohammad is still buried in Saudi Arabia, Buddha was cremated, and his ashes are relics you can visit in various temples in Asia, Confucius is still buried in China, Joseph Smith is still dead and buried in Illinois.
But we can’t find the grave of Jesus, because he’s not there. I’ve been to Israel and seen the sites where Jesus may have been put in the tomb, and guess what? He’s not there.
So did Jesus rise from the dead?
We have substantial historical eyewitness testimony evidence that he did. I could spend a whole sermon talking about this, but let’s just look at what Paul wrote.
“For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8 Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. 9 For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God” (1 Corinthians 15:3-9).
So Paul says that Jesus died and rose again and then he appeared to all of these eyewitnesses. First, Cephas (who is Peter). And Peter confirms this claim in his writings (1 and 2 Peter), and the Gospels also tell his story. Paul also says Jesus appeared to the twelve disciples, and we have accounts written in the gospels about this and this also includes John who wrote John, 1-3 John and Revelation that confirm this claim
Next (v.6), Paul says Jesus “appeared to more than 500 brothers, most of whom are still alive.” Now, why would he say this? Because Paul was writing within their lifetime. The church wasn’t that big yet. People knew who these 500 brothers were. It was like Paul was saying, just go ask them. If Paul was lying, anyone at this time could have simply said, who are they, and nobody would have been able to find one of these witnesses. But this was a given fact in the church because these guys were around and shared their stories.
V.7 Then he appeared to James. This is a big one. Who is this James? It was not the disciple James, he was executed by Herod. This is James, the brother of Jesus (who wrote the book of James). And by the way, early in Jesus’ ministry tried to stop Jesus from preaching along with Mary and his other brothers (Mk 3:21). But suddenly, the brother of Jesus who doubted Jesus goes from skeptic to believer (John 7:5), and became a leader in the church in Jerusalem until he was executed, thrown off the temple mount by the religious leaders because of his faith that his brother had risen from the dead. And by the way, another brother of Jesus, Jude (who wrote the book of Jude).
But I still need to hit on Paul’s last point, that Jesus also appeared to Paul, who “persecuted the church”. Paul went from Christian killer to the number one evangelist and writer of 13 books of the New Testament. How did that happen? Paul had an encounter with the resurrected Jesus on the road to persecute more Christians.
All of these testimonies and a whole lot more prove at the very least that something was going on, because all of the disciples except John, and Jesus’ brother James, and Paul, were martyred for their faith. And who would die for something you knew was a lie? Nobody does that. You have to at least admit that they believed they had seen Jesus alive after he died.
Argument Summary: Either Jesus rose from the dead, or he did not. The tomb is empty. A body could not be produced. There is historical evidence that witnesses saw him alive and died for their testimony. There is no historical evidence that they were lying. Therefore, it is reasonable to believe Jesus rose from the dead.
Faith In God Is Reasonable
So based on these five arguments, it is absolutely rational and logical to believe in God. And further, to believe in the God of the Bible.
Now here is the question that matters most: Do you believe?
If yes, I hope you are encouraged today.
If not, I hope you have been challenged to think deeper about this today. And ultimately, I pray that you, too, will come to believe as I do.
Christianity answers the deepest questions of existence; it fills the deepest longings and desires of our souls for meaning, purpose, justice, and more. And I have seen God’s work undeniably in my life, and in the lives of so many others.
And if you have any questions or pushback on these arguments, drop them in the comments, and I’ll answer as many as I can.
