Does God exist?
Few questions are asked more often, and the Bible's own approach to it is surprising: it never sets out to prove the point. Instead, Scripture treats God's existence as the fact everything else rests on, and turns the question back on the one asking — why does the denial feel so necessary?
Scripture opens without an argument
The Bible's first sentence introduces God as maker of everything, and moves straight on. One writer notes how deliberate that silence is, and why the demand for proof usually comes from a particular kind of person.
F. B. HoleThat God exists and that He originated all things is assumed and stated. Unbelieving men may demand that proofs of His existence be produced, but nowhere in Scripture does God condescend to furnish such proofs... Moreover they are no more really needed than proofs that the sun exists and shines. That fact could only be doubted by a man who had neither sight nor feeling, and it is just because unbelieving men have neither sight nor feeling of a spiritual sort, that they doubt, or even deny, the existence of God.
Creation is evidence enough
The made world does speak, and Romans 1:20 says what it says: "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." Notice the limits of that testimony as well as its force.
J Wilson SmithWhat is invisible in the Creator should be and is seen, and seen clearly, being understood by the things that are made—even His eternal power and Godhead—not, indeed, His grace, or truth, or love, but infinite power and design, so much so that people are left thus without excuse... Creation declares the power of God. It does not reveal what He is in Himself—His nature—but to any, except those wilfully blind, it is evidence sufficient of the existence of a Creator-God!
The proof that ends in a wall
The design argument works — but follow it carefully and it delivers something you cannot then hold in your mind.
J. N. DarbyThe very thing by which man proves there must be a God is a proof that he cannot know God. Take this world: there is evidence of skill, there must have been a designer, some one must have made it... I am not capable of conceiving of such a thing existing without a cause; but if I see it there, I must get a Former of it... But a cause uncaused is above me! The thing that proves He must be proves I cannot tell what He is. Logic says, If so-and-so is true, then so-and-so must be; but this does not say that it is, which is a very different thing to my soul. If I say "must be," that is a mere inference. The moment I get a testimony that it is, how different!
The denial is a matter of the heart
Psalm 14:1 places the atheist's statement in the heart, not the head — "The fool says in his heart, 'There is no God.'" Commentators consistently read the denial as something wanted before it is concluded.
J Wilson Smith"God" implies authority, and we all know that restraint is irksome; but, further, when "God" means holiness, and the judgment of evil, and the disallowance of that which we naturally like, then we do our utmost to banish from our minds, if possible, the existence of any such God at all.
The conscience is what makes the denial necessary in the first place. If nothing inside a person answered to God, there would be nothing to silence.
J. N. DarbyMan says so in his heart. Why should he say it? Because his conscience tells him there is one. His will would not have one; and, as God is not seen in His working, will sees only what it will. God is set aside, and the whole conduct is under the will's influence, as if no God existed.
Knowing that He is, and knowing Him
Establishing that God exists still leaves the real question open. Sin has put distance between the creature and his Maker, and no amount of investigation crosses it from our side.
J Wilson SmithHow, then, is this moral distance to be bridged? How can man possibly reach to God? Creation with its complex wonders cannot help him. The wisdom of the world is only speculation... What, then, is necessary? How alone can this knowledge be obtained? By revelation. It is essential, if man is to know God, that God should reveal Himself.
That revelation has a name and a face. John 1:18 says, "No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father's side, he has made him known."
William John HockingNo one ever yet or at any time has seen God, Whose Being is enveloped in impenetrable mystery to all creatures. But now the blank wall reaching from earth to heaven has been demolished, like the veil of the temple rent in twain from the top to the bottom. The eternal secrets in God Who is light and love have now been revealed, the Only-begotten Son Himself being their exponent.
Summary
- Creation speaks. The made world shows eternal power and design clearly enough that no one is left with an excuse — but it tells you He is, not who He is.
- Reason stops. The same instinct that demands a cause for everything cannot picture a cause that has none; proof by inference gets you "must be," never "is."
- The heart decides. The denial begins where God means authority, holiness and judgment — the will refuses first, then the mind supplies reasons.
- Conscience convicts. A man only needs to say "no God" in his heart because something in him already says there is one.
- Revelation answers. What creation and human wisdom cannot bridge, God crossed Himself — the Son at the Father's side has made Him known, and faith is how that knowledge is received.