Does God exist?

Nevertheless, by strange coincidence, fresh evidences are constantly accruing which go far to convince even the unwilling scientist of the presence of a Designer’s hand. Stones cry out! Nature speaks!

Creation should, indeed, speak, and its voice be heard. What 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. (See Romans 1:20.) 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!

320 We see, then, that as the Person of Christ was placed in the foreground as the first, the second main subject of the epistle is the righteousness of God revealed upon the principle of faith, so that it is for all, and to be received through faith, and thus appropriated by the soul. What made this righteousness necessary is the universal sinfulness of man, for the wrath of God has been revealed against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who possess the truth in unrighteousness. With regard to the heathen, the apostle gives two reasons for this wrath. First, the testimony of creation (vers. 19, 20); and, secondly, that, knowing God, they did not wish to retain Him in their knowledge but preferred idolatry (v. 21-24). For the invisible things of Him are seen, that is, His eternal power and Godhead, perceived by the things that are made from the creation of the world; so that what can be known of God is manifested among them, and consequently they are without excuse (v. 20). This does not imply that they know God according to His nature, but that they should have known Him as Creator; unless one is blind, a Creator is seen in the creation.

First: If it is claimed that there are men who do not even know that there is a divine Being, he shows the claim cannot be allowed. Creation, both as a whole and in detail, is incessantly declaring there is a Creator, a God over all. It is a demonstration of both the eternal power and divinity of the Maker of all things. The responsibility and accountability of the intelligent finite creature is involved in this testimony of creation. No one, then, can excuse himself for violating the nature and character of his relation to the Creator — a creation of which he knows himself to be a part. As rational beings, all men owe subjection to their Creator, and sin in every form is in violation of this subjection, but no valid excuse can be made. No plea for violating creation's witness will stand. It is inexcusable guilt (vers. 19, 20).

In every human soul, too, scripture testifies, since the fruit of the forbidden tree in Eden was partaken of, the voice of conscience makes itself heard. "Knowing good and evil describes the new moral outlook of man in his fallen state, come under the power of evil now, alas! though his "conscience bearing witness" as we read in Rom. 2:15 — not in regard to Jews, not in that sphere where the light of revealed-truth shone, but among "those of the nations," "the heathen." Instances of commendable ethics among the Gentiles, rare enough no doubt, were sometimes in evidence. This does not prove, however, "the law" to be "written on their hearts." It is "the work of the law" of which this is affirmed, conscience bearing corroborative witness therewith. The thoughts of accusation or extenuation that flit across such dark minds, show them capable, inherently so, of moral exercise, and evidence clearly enough the sense of moral accountability, and the witness of conscience to be, both of them, universal features. All this in its own way we must allow is testimony to the existence of God.

The nominal Christian has heard of the character of God, he has heard of God's holiness and righteousness, his conscience bears witness, and condemns him. God has revealed a standard in His word, and man's conscience tells him how utterly evil he is. Where the word of God has been heard, we cannot dissociate God from conscience. Our moral instinct, our sense of right and wrong, bear witness to the unseen God; within us there is that which knows together with God.

To prove that a God of infinite goodness is not the author of this world in its present state requires no elaborate argumentation, nor does it make any demand upon the least ratiocinative ability. It is everywhere, and in everything, abundantly manifest that a beneficent Creator would not voluntarily give His unoffending creature, whom He has endowed with intelligence, affections, sensitivity, accountability to Himself and to his fellows, into the darkness, the distress, the sufferings, the sorrows, the woes that are the portion of the whole human family.

There must be some terrible reason for the state of things we find in this world—the pestilences, the horrors of war, the hatred, the murders, the corruption, the fear of death, the silence of heaven, the shrinking from the grave to which all are hastening, and the dread of something after—these evils cry out against our attributing to a benevolent Creator the invention or origination of such a woeful state of things.

And, taken in the mass, this is all the fruit the witness of nature has produced in man! There is no clearness lacking, no inherent weakness in, its testimony to a divine Creator. Rather might it seem an inference from which there was no escape. Yet the fact remains that, as the rule, man has not drawn that inference. Man being what he is, God is not in all his thoughts, however much creation seems to press Him upon his attention. Faith truly perceives creation to be His work, as Heb. 11:3 declares "Through faith we understand that the worlds were formed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear." But were we left with the bare fact of nature's witness, not so much after all that "God is" as that "God must be," as the basis of appeal to men, we possess but little. Besides, at best, as has been said, to prove the existence of God is to descend to the very elementary.

228 The 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. So with a watch (the common illustration), some one must have made it. So to the infidel geographer they brought once a globe; and when he asked, who made that? "Nobody" was the reply. What do you mean? I ask who made that globe? "Nobody"; and of course, he was confounded. 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. I am so constituted that I cannot think of such a thing without a cause. This is exactly what it amounts to. God must have wrought: without a cause you cannot think it out. I cannot conceive of anything existing without finally a causing cause. 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! I get a divine testimony, and set to my seal that God is true. This is faith, divine faith. One thing flows from another, and I cannot help inferring. That is the constitution of man, and he must think according to what he is, he cannot think otherwise.

That 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. Were He to do so they would not be intelligible to the feeble minds of puny men. 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.

28 Is not this true? But then there must be a revelation of God in some way, or I (deplorable condition!) remain in total ignorance of Him. I am not saying man is so, but that he must be so if there be no revelation of God. I believe conscience knows that there is a God — Mr. N.'s conscience, my conscience; but it wants something more than it knows: for conscience knows responsibility, and it knows sin — sin lying on itself — on him who has the conscience of it.