Following is an article I wrote as part of an Apologetics course I completed recently. Please let me know if you have any comments or questions about it! Enjoy!
I Had No Clue!: Exploring the Evidences of God
You may be saying, “I have no clue!” about the existence of God. Perhaps you are among those who think that God doesn’t exist, or if He does exist, you can’t be certain about what kind of God He is, nor can you really know Him.
Consider this to be an invitation to explore some of the evidences of God. These evidences are available to be seen by any and all who are willing to look at the clues all around …
Exploring the Bible
Let’s start our exploration about the evidences of God with a quick look at a few key verses in the Bible.
In Romans 1:18-20, it is explained that all people can know God, and are in fact accountable to Him to acknowledge His existence:
“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.”
So, that which is known about God is evident within us, because God made it evident to each of us. These evidences are described as God’s invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature.
And God will hold each of us accountable to this truth about Himself. No one can say, “I had no clue” that God existed!
Exploring The Clues of God
One author and pastor, Timothy Keller, has written about “The Clues of God” which are strong clues for God’s reality, His divine fingerprints, that we find in many places.
Let’s briefly explore these four “Clues of God”:
- The Mysterious Bang
- The Cosmic Welcome Mat
- The Regularity of Nature
- The Clue of Beauty
1. The Mysterious Bang
Many accept the concept of “The Big Bang Theory” which presents how the universe, and time itself, had an origin at the Big Bang. Scientist Francis Collins describes how this involved the universe beginning a very long time ago with “an unimaginable bright flash of energy from an infinitesimally small point. That implies that before that, there was nothing.”
Collins goes on to say that “I can’t imagine how nature, in this case the universe, could have created itself. And the very fact that the universe had a beginning implies that someone was able to begin it. And it seems to me that had to be outside of nature.”
So, something–or Someone–had to make the Big Bang happen, but it would need to be outside of nature, a supernatural, noncontingent (not dependent on, associated with, or conditioned by something else) being that exists from itself. This is a “clue” that there is something outside the natural world.
2. The Cosmic Welcome Mat
In 2017, Australian artist Jonathon Keats designed an actual “cosmic welcome mat” to greet visitors from outer space, placing mats at various locations, and periodically checking for signs of extraterrestrial visitation.
The clue of “The Cosmic Welcome Mat” is not referring to these alien-friendly mats, but rather to the anthropic or cosmological principle “that theories of the universe are constrained by the necessity to allow human existence.” In essence, the 15 fundamental regularities and constants of physics–such as the speed of light, the gravitational constant, the strength of the weak and strong nuclear forces–must all have values that together fall into an extremely narrow range, as though the universe was expecting (and welcoming) human life.
Also called “Fine-Tuning,” this premise considers that these forces must be perfectly fine-tuned for life to exist anywhere in the universe, and that even a small change in these constants would make the universe radically different.
Some suggest that there may be many universes, and we just happened to be in the one universe in which organic life occurred. While this can’t be disproved, it also can’t be concluded that this “fine-tuning” of our universe wasn’t due to some sort of design. This is another “clue” that organic life was designed by a Creator.
3. The Regularity of Nature
The assumption of the regularity (or the “laws”) of nature is what scientific, inductive reasoning is based upon, but these laws cannot actually be fully explained. For example, the regularity of the ocean tides, or that water will boil tomorrow under the identical conditions of today, must use the method of induction.
Keller explains, “Science cannot prove the continued regularity of nature, it can only take it on faith.” This puzzles many secular scientists and philosophers who admit that we don’t know why nature-regularity is happening now, nor do we have any rational justification for assuming it will continue tomorrow.
Many also understand that modern science actually arose “out of Christian civilization because of its belief in an all-powerful, personal God who created and sustains an orderly universe.”
This “clue” for God, also called “Induction,” uses inductive reasoning to learn from experience, use language, and allows us to rely on our memories.
4. The Clue of Beauty
Most can attest to the inescapable feelings experienced when in the presence of great art, or looking at natural beauty, or listening to beautiful music, or even when “in love.” But those who deny the existence of God can only explain that these responses to beauty and love are biochemical responses.
According to Keller, if there is no God, and we are the product of accidental natural forces, then what we might call “beauty” has no meaning and is nothing more than a neurological hardwired response to particular data or input. But there is more to the world than its physical reality.
Our experiences of beauty and love can evoke appetite and desire (what can be referred to as “blessed longing”) where we also feel the absence of what we long for. These unfulfilled desires are clues to the reality of God, as described in Confessions by St. Augustine.
Keller asks, “Isn’t it true that innate desires correspond to real objects that can satisfy them, such as sexual desire (corresponding to sex), physical appetite (corresponding to food), tiredness (corresponding to sleep), and relational desires (corresponding to friendship)?”
So it follows that the unfulfillable longing evoked by beauty qualifies as an innate desire. “We have a longing for joy, love, and beauty that no amount or quality of food, sex, friendship, or success can satisfy. We want something that nothing in this world can fulfill. Isn’t that at least a clue that this ‘something’ that we want exists?”
This unfulfillable longing and deep, innate human desire is the fourth “clue” that God is there.
Exploring Arguments and an Unexpected Clue
However, the school of evolutionary biology claims to have contradicting answers or arguments to these “clues” since it claims everything about us as humans can be explained as a function of natural selection, including religious feelings.
These evolutionary theorists hold to the view “that our capacity to believe in God is hardwired into our physiology because it was directly or indirectly associated with traits that helped our ancestors adapt to their environment.” They argue that these “clues” and belief in God are merely inherited traits and are not really clues at all. In actuality, this supposed “clue-killer” has a fatal contradiction, and it even points to another clue to God.
Keller explains, “Evolutionists say that if God makes sense to us, it is not because he is really there, it’s only because that belief helped us survive and so we are hardwired for it. However, if we can’t trust our belief-forming faculties to tell us the truth about God, why should we trust them to tell us the truth about anything, including evolutionary science? … why trust them about anything at all?”
So, if we can’t trust our belief-forming faculties in one area, then we can’t trust them in any area. And yet we do! This actually leads to the unexpected, final clue about God.
The Final Clue
Here’s the “final clue” about God (thanks to the “clue-killer”):
“If we believe God exists, then our view of the universe gives us a basis for believing that cognitive faculties work, since God could make us able to form true beliefs and knowledge.”
Also, our belief in God makes perfect sense of the four other “clues” described above. We can even know to expect them.
But if you don’t believe in God, all these things are “profoundly inexplicable.” The view that there is no God would lead you to not even expect them, even though you go on using them, such as:
- believing that your rational faculties work
- believing that nature will go on regularly, and using inductive reasoning and language
- trusting your senses that love and beauty matter
While a secular worldview (in which God doesn’t exist) may be rationally possible, it doesn’t make sense of “The Clues of God” that are all around us. What makes much more sense is the worldview that there is a God, and He has created the universe (and everything in it) and holds it all together, supports it and makes it all function by His power.
Exploring a Personal Invitation
We have explored the evidences of God, both as explained in the Bible and as presented in the four “clues” of God. Also, we have taken a look at the arguments raised and even a “final clue” about the existence of God.
Regardless of what we profess intellectually, each one of us knows God is there. According to Keller, “Belief in God is an unavoidable, ‘basic’ belief that we cannot prove but can’t not know.” So even if we believe with our minds that there is no God and life is meaningless, we really know better and don’t actually live that way.
Also, as we read in Romans 1:18-20, God will hold each of us accountable to this truth about Himself. No one is “off the hook” for not knowing God. So, how can we know that we know God?
A Personal Invitation from the “Clue-Maker”
The Bible makes it clear how we can personally know the God who created us. The “Clue-Maker” extends a personal invitation to each of us.
The following principles explain how you can personally begin a relationship with God:
- God loves you and offers a wonderful plan for your life.
- All of us sin, and our sin has separated us from God.
- Jesus Christ is God’s only provision for our sin. Through Him we can know and experience God’s love and plan for our lives.
- We must individually receive Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord; then we can know and experience God’s love and plan for our lives.
If you want to accept the invitation to know God personally, you can receive Christ by faith through prayer. You can pray a prayer such as:
“Lord Jesus, I need You. Thank You for dying on the cross for my sins. I open the door of my life and receive You as my Savior and Lord. Thank You for forgiving my sins and giving me eternal life. Take control of the throne of my life. Make me the kind of person You want me to be.”
If this prayer expresses the desire of your heart, you can pray it and then confidently can know that you know God personally! No longer do you need to say, “I have no clue!” about the existence of God, but rather, “I followed the clues and I know God!”