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Does God Really Exist?

SERIES: The Big Five #1 of 5

2006-07-30

PRODUCTION #: 1021

SPEAKERS: Shawn Boonstra, Mark Finley,

It was one of the most startling covers ever published by TIME magazine. On April 8, 1966, they dared to ask a question that a lot of people in ivory towers had already been asking: "Is God dead?"

In the modern age, was there any proof that God exists, or was He just a fairy tale dreamed up to make us feel better about the brutality of human existence?

Today, on It Is Written, we are going to look at one of the most fundamental questions ever asked: Does God really exist?

A little while ago, I was taking a flight across the country, and I discovered to my delight that my seatmate was a great travel companion. We shared a lot of common interests, so we were able to pass the time quite well. But then the subject of religion came up.

"What do you do for a living?" she asked me.

"Well," I said, "I'm a minister."

"Wow," she said, "that's really interesting. I'm an atheist."

"Really?" I asked, because to be honest, I don't actually believe in atheists, not if you define "atheist" as someone who knows for sure there is no God.

As she started to explain her lack of faith, she said, "Listen, when I was a kid, some pretty awful things happened to me. And when I went to the minister looking for answers, he didn't have any. So even though, today, I find religion very interesting, I personally don't have much faith that God exists."

So, as it turns out, my new friend wasn't really certain that God doesn't exist. She was just disappointed with her experience.

Today, Pastor Mark Finley and I are going to wrestle with one of the biggest philosophical questions of all time, does God really exist?

SHAWN: Mark, as always, I'm delighted that we can spend some time together today.

MARK: I'm delighted again, Shawn, to be able to have this dialog about the existence of God.

SHAWN: Yes, it's one of the moral questions that has captivated philosophers and thinkers for hundreds and hundreds of years. And you know, Mark, you've been in the ministry now going on 40 years. You have traveled the world and I'm sure you've run into a lot of people who wrestle with that question: Does God really exist?

Mark, I'm thinking, in particular, of a time when you addressed a group in Eastern Europe, some time ago, that claimed to be atheistic. They actually challenged you to prove that God exists, didn't they

MARK: Well, Shawn, that was a fascinating experience. I was in Eastern Europe when the Berlin Wall fell. I began working in Eastern Europe back in the late 80s, under communism. And when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, I was preaching in Hungary's capital city of Budapest.

SHAWN: That must have been a remarkable experience.

MARK: It was. Thousands of people marched in the streets and you saw during those years, right after the collapse of the Berlin Wall, this hunger for God. The universities opened up and I was invited to come to a number of them to speak to the students on the subject of God and the existence of God. One of the things that happened was quite fascinating.

The president of the one of the universities in Hungary came to me and he said, "Now, Dr. Finley, would you be willing to come and lecture at our university? The subject is astronomy."

SHAWN: Astronomy. They didn't ask you about theology, but astronomy?

MARK: Well, he said, "I want you to show from astronomy that God exists."

You know, I'm not an astronomer, but I did have a lecture, a slide lecture with my graphics on the computer on astronomy. So I agreed.

And he said, "Now, but there's one caveat. We have an astronomer in the astronomy department of the university. You will speak on why God exists, then he will speak on why God doesn't exist."

And I thought a minute about that, and I knew that I was being set up.

And I said, "You know, I'm willing to do that, on one condition. Since I am your guest, let your astronomer speak first and let me speak second."

So he agreed. I got to the university that morning. He met me at the door and he said, "Now, there is a problem."

I thought he was going to cancel the lecture. I had no idea what the problem was. He said, "Here's what the problem is. The astronomer had another appointment, he couldn't make it."

SHAWN: So he wasn't coming.

MARK: He wasn't coming. So I said, "No problem, give me two hours with the students. One hour to lecture and then another hour to answer questions."

So I lectured during the first hour. And we talked about the heavens and the vastness of space and the evidence that God exists from design. The fact that, where there is design, there must be a Designer. Where there's creation, there must be a Creator. And so we went over that evidence. At the end, I noted there was a section for the faculty. One of the students looked over at the faculty, and I knew he was prompted by some Ph.D. faculty member who wanted to set me up.

SHAWN: They were trying to set you up. This had all been arranged ahead of time.

MARK: For sure. So one of the students stood up and he said, "Our famous, renowned Soviet astronaut, Yuri Gugarin, traveled into space. He didn't see God. Have you ever seen God?"

And you know there are times in your life where the God you believe in gives you an idea. So I said, "You know, before I answer that question, I do have a question that I want to ask the faculty. Then I'll go to students' questions."

And I said, "Faculty, let's leave God out of the question. Let's leave the Bible out. I'm a believer. You folk are not believers. But let's leave all that out. I just want to ask you one philosophical question. Of all the knowledge in the world, how much do your students have? Do they know 50 percent of all there is to know? Do they know 80 percent of all there is to know? How much do they know?"

SHAWN: And these are some pretty bright students.

MARK: Extremely brilliant. So I said, "Look, let me give you an example. Let's take the 16th Ming Dynasty of China. Can you give me, in order, the 17 emperors in the 16th Ming Dynasty?"

SHAWN: Now Pastor Mark, I can't name one of them. Not one of them.

MARK: I'd be hard-pressed, as well, Shawn. Then I said, "Now, what of the king of Saudi Arabia? In the seventh century A.D., can you list for me the first 15 Caliphs in order? List who their wives were. Of the 1,500 known languages in the world, how many do you speak? Do you speak 1,300 of them? If you had a test by the leading astrophysicist in the world, how much would you know? Can you recite for me now, the chemical compounds in order and then describe for me?" They saw where I was going.

I said, "Of all the knowledge, say of all the books in the world, just printed this year, how many have you read?"

SHAWN: Amazing.

MARK: "Let's say that you know 50 percent of all there is to know. From an intellectual standpoint, professors, you are grading these students, do they know 50 percent of all there is to know?"

They said, "No."

"Do they know 30 percent of all there is to know?"

"No."

"Do they know 20 percent of all there is to know?"

"No."

"I'm going to give your students the benefit of the doubt and say that this is such a prestigious university that your students know five percent of all there is to know. That means you don't know 95 percent of all there is to know."

SHAWN: That's a lot you don't know.

MARK: "Now, if you, by your own admission, only know five percent of all there is to know, if by your own admission, you don't know 95 percent of all there is to know, is it possible, intellectually, that God exists in the 95 percent of the knowledge you don't have?"

Intellectually, is that possible? And I watched these atheistic professors, Shawn, it was amazing. They were shaking their heads. They knew, intellectually, in their minds, that it was a reasonable argument. That if I only have five percent of the base of knowledge and I don't have 95 percent, it is possible.

Then I said to them, "If you acknowledge that, you are not an atheist. Because an atheist says, "I know for absolutely sure God doesn't exist." Now what you are saying is that He may exist. He may exist in the knowledge that you don't have."

Then I said, "Now, I have another question for you. Let's suppose that in life, there are only two alternatives. First: There is no God. You are here by evolutionary chance. There is no purpose for your life, basically, and you are an advanced animal and you die. You go into the grave. There's nothing after death. Worms eat your body, your bleached bones, that's it. That's one choice. You struggle through life, you claw your way through this existence. Some good things happen to you, some bad things happen to you. But that's it.

On the other hand, in life, there is another alternative, there is a Creator God who made you, who fashioned you, who shaped you. He loves you. He cares for you. And this Creator God who fashioned you, who shapes you, who loves you, has a plan for you. And you can exist with Him through all eternity.

If you only had those two choices that after death there is a marvelous plan, that not only is He here with you, and He will live with you today and be with you, but also through all eternity He has joy and happiness and an abundant life for you. And your mind can expand and you can live life in the most productive way. And you can fulfill the reason for your existence. If you only had those two choices, which would you choose?"

If you only had two choices. And they said, "Doctor, we would choose the latter."

I said, "If you choose the latter, as every reasonable person would, you are not an agnostic, you are a seeker, and that is why I came here."

SHAWN: Amazing! Now, how did they react?

MARK: They reacted positively. We talked about how the great philosophers down through the ages acknowledge the need for God, Carl Jung, for example, who was not a Christian, initially, or a believer.

Philosophers and psychologists have said, "Man does better if he acts as though God is there."

Another psychologist said, "If God did not exist, we would create Him. Because deep within the human heart, there is that sense that there must be more in life, that there must be more."

You know, and if you look at scientific law, Shawn, you look at biology, one of the fundamental laws of biology is that life begets life.

SHAWN: Right, yet, as I understand it, as Darwinism made its impact on society in the 19th century, as people started to find reasons to dismiss the existence of God, they came up with scientific absurdity. They said life must have come out of mineral. Life must have come out of a primordial broth. Is it possible? It's just not possible.

MARK: And the evolutionist said, given enough time, it is possible. See that's their big argument, time. But if you look at biology, fundamental biology, Biology 101, it says: "Life begets life, but non-living things do not produce living things."

But evolution says, given enough time, non-living things will produce living things.

I remember I was staying in a hotel in Orlando, Florida. I was there for about three weeks and I got acquainted with the young man behind the desk. I was on an itinerary, holding a series of Bible lectures. One day I walked in and he said, "You are a preacher, aren't you?"

I said, "Yeah."

He said, "You've been staying at this hotel for a couple of weeks. I just want you to know," and he's a little, not defiant, but almost in your face, and he said, "I'm an atheist."

And I looked up at him and said, "You know, I'd be an atheist, too, but I just don't have enough faith. You have more faith than I do. But since I have to go by logic and I don't have enough faith, I can't be an atheist."

And I walked away. He called to me across the hotel lobby.

He said, "Hey preacher, hey preacher, come back here, what are you talking about?"

I said, "Well, you know, I admire people who have faith like you and I admire people who can make that quantum leap."

He said, "What do you mean?"

I said, "Did you take biology? It says, life begets life and you believe that non-living things produce living things."

I said, "Secondly, the second law of biology, at least when I took biology at the university, said like produces like, life produces life. What you are saying is that non-living things produce living things and things that are not alike. And you will call that an aberration, a mutation. But it's not basic science."

And we talked about that, we talked about how mutations are normally destructive. This young man said, "You know, I need to look at this again."

SHAWN: You know, really, scientifically, Mark, there has never been a time when somebody mutated in recorded history and developed some new part of their body that was advantageous. It has just never happened. But here is another question that has to do with the existence of God. If a society dismisses the existence of God, as many modern societies have, at least in the 20th century, what happens to morality? What happens to right and wrong if God doesn't exist?

MARK: You know, Shawn, I've had a chance to observe that firsthand. From about 1987 through today, I have been traveling to the former Soviet Union in Eastern Europe. The interesting thing I observed is this: Under communism, the average Russian woman had six abortions by the time she was 40.

SHAWN: Six, that's unbelievable.

MARK: Alcoholism is off the charts. Suicide is dramatically high. Now, here's the issue. I remember right after the fall of communism, I was invited to the city of Pushna. That city is not far from Moscow. It's about 50 miles from it. It was a city of biological scientists, 30,000 biological scientists lived there. It was a closed city to any foreign observers.

After the fall of communism that city opened up, and I went and spoke one night, lectured to 1,000 biology scientists in that city. They chose the topics. The first was: "Does God exist?" The second one: "Is the Bible true?" And the third: "Who is Jesus?"

Now, the way the format was, I would speak for 45 minutes and they would write out questions and answer them. I wasn't concerned about the lectures, but I was really concerned about the questions. Because I knew I was facing some of the top brains of the world.

SHAWN: And you can plan a lecture, but you can't plan a question.

MARK: And I thought, this is going to be tough. After the fall of communism when I was there, in three nights, I didn't get one question on science. Not one. Not one question on atheism. I got questions like this. "How do you pray? If God is so good, why is the world so bad? How can you have a better marriage? How do you forgive people who hurt you?" So at the end of three nights, I knew this audience by now, I had been speaking to them, answering their questions, meeting with little groups of scientists.

So at the end of the third night, I said to them, "You folk have really surprised me. I'm standing in the midst of some of the brightest minds in the world and you don't ask me one question about science. You don't ask me one question about atheism. Why not?"

And one of the scientists said something that I've never forgotten in all my life. He said, "This is why, for the last 40 years, we have tried atheism and it has failed us. We have tried atheism, and we have seen that it leaves you morally barren and it leaves you with no hope, no future. So the question to us is not whether atheism is the answer to the question of life. The question to us is whether Christianity is. See, you don't have to answer all the questions about atheism, we just want to know that Christianity is the best viable option."

SHAWN: So after living as atheists all that time, after living a godless existence, there was still after all those years a hunger in their hearts for something more. They recognized that something was lacking.

MARK: Augustine put it well. He said that there is a God-shaped vacuum in every heart. He said, "Lord, our hearts will never find rest until they find rest in you."

And I believe that is true with every atheist. You know there may be somebody reading this script today that listened to the arguments and you say, "I can go either way on these arguments. Christianity takes a leap of faith. The existence of God takes a leap of faith, and atheism takes a leap of faith."

And I would acknowledge that you are correct that there is no amount of evidence that can prove to your mind that God exists. Neither is there any amount of evidence that can prove to your mind that God does not exist. So basically, whether you choose the atheistic philosophy or you choose God, there is a leap of faith.

Now what I would say to you is that I think the evidence is certainly on the side of God. Pascal, the great French philosopher, made this observation years ago. It's called Pascal's wager. You may have studied it back in psychology class.

Pascal said this: "If God does not exist, and you don't believe in Him, you've not lost anything. If God does exist and you don't believe in Him, you've lost everything."

So, he said, why not wager that He does, because you haven't lost anything. And that's the leap of faith I invite you to take today. That to accept the living God into your life through a leap of faith is worth it.

SHAWN: Mark, I believe that. You know, a little earlier in today's program, I mentioned a lady I was sitting with on the airplane. And as we began to discuss her atheism, she told the whole story. She said something horrible had happened to her as a child. She told me what it was and when she went to the minister to ask why it had happened, he didn't have a good answer. And that was the reason she chose not to believe in God, not because she had weighed all of the arguments in the balance.

Let me ask you, now, we have looked at why people struggle. What is the greatest evidence you have seen of the existence of God?

MARK: Shawn, all over the world, the greatest evidence that I've seen of the existence of God is changed lives. And let me tell you a story that, to me, is remarkable.

A young man, head of a motorcycle gang, had been in and out of prison scores of times, scar down his face, born up in the state of Massachusetts. His name was Bucky. This guy came to my meetings with his motorcycle gang. I preached, he came forward, accepted Christ, and you know, many in his gang accepted Christ. He was a totally changed man. He used to go out on Saturday nights, get half-drunk, take a beer bottle, break it on a wall and go stick somebody in the face for joy.

SHAWN: Unbelievable.

MARK: One night, after a meeting, I was talking to Bucky. He was about 6'3", bearded, scar on his face, leather jacket, leather boots, and we were kind of joking back and forth. Because by now he had accepted Christ.

After one of my lectures, a middle-aged man came up, a businessman. He had a suit and tie on and the guy began to argue with me about the existence of God. And this little businessman who thought he was so smart, so intelligent, actually shook his finger in my face. And I was tired. It was the end of the lecture and I looked over at my friend, Bucky, this huge guy. And I said, "Bucky, I'm a little tired, can you take care of this guy?"

And the guy couldn't figure it out. You know, he kind of shook his head, "What do you mean?"

I said, "This is my buddy, Bucky, and he's here for guys just like you." And the guy kind of shook and Bucky looked down at him a minute and this is what he said. He said, "Sir, if this were six months ago, I would've taken you out in a back alley if you insulted a friend of mine like that."

"But," he said, "you better be glad that there is a God, because He changed my life. So now I just want to hug you." And he reached out and hugged the guy.

SHAWN: Amazing.

MARK: The guy was astounded, you know. The greatest evidence that God exists is the Buckys, whose hearts and lives are changed by the grace of God.

SHAWN: You know, I can say the same thing, even on a personal note. I wasn't always a preacher. I was raised in a Christian home, but there comes a time when you ask questions. But my own heart has been changed. It's all the evidence that I needed. And I have had the privilege, as well as you, of working with thousands of people, who come from witchcraft or from atheism or from a hard life, murder or prison, suddenly believing in God. It's amazing what God can do.

I have often heard it argued that it's impossible to prove or disprove the existence of God. And I suppose if you want to do it with a pocket calculator, there might be some truth to that statement.

But in the final analysis, just because you can't quantify it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

For example, I could tell you that I really love my wife, but how would you measure that scientifically? You might try pointing to evidence, like the amount of time I spend with her, or the way I speak to her. But that's not really quantitative, scientific evidence, because you can't put love in a test tube and measure it.

And maybe the existence of God is a little like that. When we look for absolute proof, the kind that would completely satisfy the scientific method, maybe we are trying to empirically quantify something that just doesn't work that way. Maybe, when we do that, we are trying to measure the Infinite in terms of ounces, grams or gallons. And frankly, the Almighty just doesn't fit into a test tube.

But that doesn't mean we don't have evidence. The Apostle Paul reminds us in Romans, chapter one that we have plenty of it. In Romans 1:20 he writes: (Romans 1:20 KJV)

p(scripture)."For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse?"

According to the Bible, there is enough evidence that nobody really has an excuse for not noticing the existence of God. And if you really want to come face to face with Him, take a quiet moment and examine your own heart, because there is a divine spark there that confirms, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that we are more than just carbon-based life forms.

In the book of Ecclesiastes, chapter three and verse 11, it says:

(Ecclesiastes 3:11 KJV)

"He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also He has put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end."

God has planted eternity in your heart. There is something inside your heart that tells you to reach beyond yourself.

I have no question that somebody listening today has experienced disappointment. You have suffered the kind of crushing blows that make you doubt. And maybe you've been let down by people who call themselves Christians.

But stop to think about it. Why is it you still have such an ache in your heart to know that God exists? Why is it that your disappointment is so, well, disappointing?

It's because you were born with eternity in your heart. There is a part of you that longs to reach out for God's hand and find out that He is really there. I think that today would be the perfect time to take that chance.

You know, Pastor Mark, as we have been talking today, I know that somebody reading this script today is struggling with the existence of God. And in their hearts, they would love to believe that He really exists. They have had disappointments, they've had letdowns, they've had pain in their lives, but they still want to believe in God. And I think it'd be nice to pray for them.

MARK: I'd love to, Shawn.

PRAYER:
Father in heaven, somebody struggling today, somebody today has gone through pain, sorrow and disappointment in their life. They have gone through agony and, through their tears, they are crying out to you. They wonder whether you exist. And Father, I pray that you would reveal yourself to that person, now. May they sense your love, your care, your goodness. May they have that spark of hope in their heart. May they know that you are there by their side, to lift them from the drabness and dreariness and the lack of fulfillment in their lives. Father, we know it takes a leap of faith and it takes a risk to trust our lives to you. I pray for that person right now, that they would take that leap of faith, they would reach out and grasp your hand and sense your strong arm around them and sense that still small voice that gives them hope just now. In Jesus' name, amen.

Scriptures for Show #1021
DOES GOD REALLY EXIST?

"For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse?" 
—Romans 1:20 KJV

"He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also He has put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end." 
—Ecclesiastes 3:11 KJV

Scriptures Used in “Does God Really Exist?”