Is there evidence for the existence of God?

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!

The infidel may tell us that God is to be known in creation. Did any one ever find Him out there? No doubt, creation does prove the existence of a Creator, as we read in the first chapter of the epistle to the Romans, "The invisible things of Him from the creation are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse." Creation yields a testimony which the heathen were bound to receive, and, had they received it, a higher light would assuredly have shone upon them. But they did not receive it, nay, they actually worshipped the things that were made, instead of the One Who made them. Philosophers talk of rising from nature up to nature's God. But nature is a ruin, and man himself a ruin in the midst of ruin; and instead of rising to nature's God, he makes a god of nature, and degrades himself below the level of a beast. See Romans 1:21-32.

Look at the creation. There is a testimony God has given of Himself. Man is guilty, if he does not see God in it. There are many difficulties, many things he cannot explain; but the testimony is sufficient to condemn those who do not believe in God the Creator.

In the works of creation, God has appealed to everybody. It is a perpetual witness of God, displaying His eternal power and Godhead. From John 1:1-3, we see that Christ in creating all things acted as the Eternal Word; that is He as the Word in the Triune and eternal Deity put the impress of the Divine Creator upon every detail of the creation in things great or small, in things heavenly or earthly. Men everywhere are therefore without any excuse in rejecting God's claims. Apart from any other testimony, God has expressed Himself as God, in the works of creation.

The woes of the human race are beyond the possibility of exaggeration, and seem to rise up at every turn as a witness against the notion of infinite goodness; for if God be all powerful, how is it that for so many millenniums His creature has been left in this corner of His creation to welter unpitied in his wretchedness? Can the Creator be indifferent to the woes of His creature? Who can tell us? Is there no voice from Him?

I am certain if there is no revelation from God, there is no God. But the whole universe around me bears witness to the reality of a Creator, and although the visible things do not contain the secret of the nature of Him who brought them into existence, there is enough of evidence borne by them, to convince every intelligent being that He, without whom a sparrow cannot fall to the ground, could not leave His poor creature without some ray of light as to how he stands with respect to His holy and righteous will.

Now, God is beyond the sun, beyond all creation; and, if He is to be known to man, He must deign to reveal Himself. What in us answers to a revelation on God’s part? Clearly, reason does not need revelation. It only demands certain data. Granted so-and-so, and reason will furnish a conclusion. But, then, data are not a revelation.

Creation and things visible are data, and from them man may conclude that there is a God—indeed, should do so, should own “His eternal power and Godhead,” but, even in so doing, he would but conclude mentally that God is. His data are only external facts presenting themselves to the senses. There would not yet be any inward knowledge of God, any certainty.

It is not, therefore, reason that responds to revelation, but faith. God makes Himself known to faith. So we read that the righteousness of God is “revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith” (Rom. 1:17). Faith is not unreasonable, but it transcends reason. It dwells in a region far outside that of reason or science. It has to do with God in His proper sphere.

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.

But the real worth of such evidence from nature, apart altogether from such modifications of it as have been alluded to as now prevalent, its evidence undiluted, at what estimate shall we take it if what we may see of its weight with, and effect upon, men be the criterion by which we judge? Does nature lead to nature's God inevitably? certain as it is that it points there most truly. What does scripture say of its witness? The first chapter of Romans we may take in its later verses surely as giving an instance of how mankind may be affected by the testimony of creation. It is in no special sphere such as Judaism, remember, that this history of man's attitude towards the knowledge of God is traced; but out in the open, among men at large, the Gentiles. From verse 19 onwards we are shown wherein the "ungodliness" of the Gentiles, previously spoken of, consists. This ungodliness of men against which the wrath of God is revealed, what was it but simply an entire absence of the fear of God, where there was sufficient testimony existing to render such a thing inexcusable? The apostle, in reviewing this testimony, goes back to what is primary. The largest, the most general sphere is chosen first, creation, "that which may be known of God." Primitive as is its witness, creation is still full of manifestation of God. That which was "knowable" of God, from the testimony of created things, contained a voice for any listening ear, wherever or whenever found. "Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath showed it unto them. For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead [divinity], so that they are without excuse."

The works of God truly render eloquent testimony regarding their Author; and "that which may be known of Him," in respect of His Being and power, finds adequate expression there. His eternal power and divinity, invisible like all His attributes, apart from His disclosure of Himself, visible objects of striking character are eminently suited to proclaim. "The heavens," we read in Psalm 19, "declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handiwork." Above man then appeared, and around Him were strewn, wonders great and innumerable to draw and fix his attention upon that supremely wise and powerful One to whom they silently pointed. That these did point somewhere the most darkened heathen has never escaped the conviction of. To say, however, that such have merely missed, through inadvertence, the right direction in which they might have been dimly seen to point, would be to misrepresent the case. Had the indications been obscure, some such excuse might be found possible, but it is not a mistaken reading of the evidence that we must lay to man's account, but the wholesale rejection of it. The language that "day unto day uttereth" is as little ambiguous as its "pouring forth" is meagre. The knowledge that "night unto night showeth" is no esoteric doctrine, but breathes its whisper in the ears of all. "There is no speech nor language, their voice is not heard." Not in articulate fashion; yet "their line is gone out through all the earth, and their sayings to the end of the world."

1916_159 Of the Gentiles it first speaks, showing that that which was "knowable" of God from the testimony of created things, contained a voice for any listening ear, wherever or whenever found. "Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them, for God hath showed it unto them. For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse." Creation, open to the observation of all, is full of manifestation of God. Above and around man there are strewn in abundance evidences of a divine, hand at work, and the most darkened, one would say, would have real trouble to escape the conviction of a wisdom and power therein displayed nothing less than divine. Yet, widespread, continuous, and eloquent as is its testimony, men have not so read God's plain speech in it. And, remark, it is no mistaken reading of the evidence merely that we must lay to man's account, but the wholesale rejection of it. There was little room left, one would think, for mistake, had not the hearts of men been really desirous of some alternative signification. Yet just there it lies. Anyone or anything but Him they would willingly invest with the glory of such handiwork. They say unto God — "Depart from us, for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways." Yet, even in face of this want of desire after God, these silent witnesses remain, to be accusers, if nothing more; and the sum of their accusation here is that ungodly men are "without excuse." This witness of creation to the great Originator and Sustainer of all, infinite in His might and wisdom, is fact beyond challenge or dispute. Designed so to testify to man, legitimately therefore is it to be reckoned as one more instance of truth bestowed, of truth resisted.

"Because what is to be known of God is manifest among them, for God has manifested it to them. For the invisible things of him from the world's creation are perceived, being understood by his work, both his eternal power and divinity, so that they should be inexcusable." The general force is plain. A few expressions may call for more detailed explanation. Τὸ γνωστόν means here, I think, not the knowledge (ἡ γνῶσις) or what was known of God, but, as the English Version, "that which may be known" of Him. It is the knowable rather than the known. The evidence was ample and distinct, but their eyes were dull. Next, I see no sufficient ground to take the phrase ἐν αὐτοῖς in an emphatic sense, but in one more general. Had self-knowledge been appealed to, as many conceive, it appears to me that the proper word for subjective knowledge must have been employed, and, further, the reflexive pronoun. It was expressly an objective character of knowledge which lay open in the midst; and this is confirmed by the added intimation — "for God manifested it to them," not the action of conscience, which finds its more appropriate place in Romans 2 where moral perception and conduct is discussed.

But how did God manifest to men what may be known to Him? This is answered in verse 20. For His invisible things, not all of course, but His eternal power and divinity, since the creation of the world, are perceived, being mentally apprehended by His works. The things He made were before all eyes, and, as we know, did not fail to produce convictions far above the ordinary strain of human thought prostrated by superstition and bewildered by philosophy: so much so that even the famous positivist of ancient times could not write his treatise on the world without affirming that "God, though He is invisible to every mortal being, is seen from the works themselves."