On The Existence of God: An Apology is an Argument not a proof.

An Apology on the Existence of the Judeo-Christian God: 06/01/2003
The propositions:
a) There is one Judeo-Christian God
b) There is no God.
A typical Atheist will begin his discussion with the argument that he has no burden of proof, rather that this burden lies with the Christian. He submits that the Christian is obligated to demonstrate God by some sign, while the Atheist himself has only to show reasonable doubt. This harks back to the observation that there are limited ways by which to prove a negative proposition. So in a court of Law, rather than putting the burden of proof on the defendant to prove the negative proposition “I did not commit the crime,” the burden of proof is laid on the state to prove the positive proposition, “The party accused is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.” The Atheist equates the negative proposition “There is no God,” with the position “I am not guilty.” Let us turn our consideration to the proposition, "There is a Loch Ness monster." While the apologist may disagree with the statement "There is no God," he may quite easily agree with the statement "There is no Loch Ness monster." So the theist appears capricious. But consider instead the proposition, "There CANNOT be a Loch Ness monster!" Here we see a much clearer discussion of the truth. This position requires attention in a way the other does not, and I submit to you that the position of the Atheist (if he is sincere,) MUST be "There cannot be a God." After all, he predicates his understanding and science on it. We may fairly attribute him to say, “God did not do this, so there must be some other reason,” and proceed to find any other explanation he can. This proposition should be just as tenable to the atheist, and yet no one proposes it. A person saying “There is no such beast as Nessie,” chooses to verify the truth of it only cursorily. This is why King David says in both Ps 14 and Ps 53 that the person who says “There is no God” even if it is only in his heart, is a fool.

Having established that some proof is in order, we turn our attention to proofs of negative propositions. There are exactly two ways to prove a negative proposition. Tautology and the Exhaustive Algorithm. Tautology first. The Atheist will probably at some point want to observe that “P then Q, and Q true, proves nothing about P.” He will observe here that if we say God implies creation, and we observe creation to exist, this does not by itself prove God any more than correlation proves causality. It is important to observe that by the same understanding, “P then Q and Q false DOES prove P false.” This is called tautology. We may then observe: If the idea of God necessarily implies something must be true that we can prove false, (or false that we can show true,) he may make his point in that way also. For example if God implies man, and man does not exist, he has proven God does not exist himself. This would appear to be the argument of the existentialist. Tautology is not an empty exercise. In Heb 6:17,18 we see that God confirmed by an oath that “By two immutable things, in that God cannot lie.” This implies a case of tautology. If he is God, he will tell the truth. Therefore if the atheist can show that God has ever, or indeed, in any way CAN lie, then God is not God. Again, we should observe that a simple choice on God’s part NOT to lie, is hardly what one might call immutable. However, the burden of proof falls to the author of the proposition to find and prove said lie. Furthermore, the second immutable thing turns out to be that if the Atheist shows God lied, he has implicitly admitted that God exists in order to tell said lie.

Now for the Exhaustive Algorithm. Lawyers and Logicians understand that the other way to prove the negative proposition is the exhaustive algorithm. For example consider a basket full of colored blocks. To prove that there are no green blocks in the basket might be hard to do by pure logic. Unless there is something about blocks or baskets, or their relationship that makes them inherently green, (or not,) it may appear to be impossible. It IS, however, possible to show that each and every block is a color other than green. For example: They may all be red, or some blue and some red, but none green. In this case, the negative proposition “There are no green blocks in the basket” is satisfactorily proven by examining the color of each and every block. (Thought check: Does this prove that there cannot be green blocks in the basket?) Likewise, to prove that there is no God, one can design an exhaustive algorithm. To prove that there is no God, one would have to be everywhere at once (else God might be in the one place one had just left,) and at the same time know everything (else his existence might be the one thing you did not know.) No man is capable of addressing the burden of this proof... If he could, he would have qualities suspiciously like a God himself.

We may further anticipate that the Atheist will bring up the paradox of self reference. He will show that, just as “This statement is itself false” is a false statement, so the God that cannot “create a rock so big he cannot lift it.” is also false. The living God is not involved in that paradox. Since there is at least one thing he cannot do (lie,) there is no requirement that God fit into the pigeon hole of man’s definition of omnipotence. He cannot create a rock so big that he cannot lift it, anymore than he can lie. However, we take this opportunity to observe that the statement, though it be by definition false, exists as a statement. Likewise, a man may be caught in the same paradox. When defending himself, no matter what his statement, its truthfulness may be questioned by imputing bad motives. This is why it is said “One who is his own lawyer has a fool for a client.” However, the man continues to exist, no matter what the difficulties of his motives. By the same token, if the Atheist considers God to be caught in this paradox, this may be the reason that the Atheist has not found him. He has imputed questionable motives to the evidence that God has given for himself in his word.

Another typical tool the Atheist may use to assail the truth of God’s existence is the argument that a good God could not allow evil. Why, he may ask, do bad things happen to good people? Here it is useful to observe that in the Garden of Eden, before God made the law that Adam and Eve could not eat of that certain tree, there was no way to sin. Nothing they could do was wrong, because there was no law against it. Therefore, in making a law, God himself introduced the concept and possibility of evil (Isa 45:7, in the King James Version for those who may have difficulty in agreeing.) This does not make him a bad God. In Romans 7:9-11 (and following,) Paul discusses the same topic. It is Man’s choice to break God’s law that causes the problems. Without digressing too far, it should be clear that he tests our loyalties by giving us freedom of choice. If he exists, why is he not testable, like gravity? The answer is twofold.
1. On the one hand, if there was a standard test for God, the atheist might be inclined to say that he is nothing more than gravity – an unremarkable extension of nature, which we already knew about. In this case, being “testable” makes him not God.
2. If the proof offered were a sort of miracle, then God would be little more impressive than my dog who will now jump through hoops on command. He would in fact be subject to me, not me to him. It takes but a moment to observe that no matter how patriotic I am, it is a long shot to predict that the President of the United States would perform some act at my behest. Here we approach the ostensible creator of the universe. The God of the bible has offered evidence on his own schedule. It is the atheist who has found this schedule inconvenient, by not having been born at a time when he could test the evidence. In this case being “not testable” makes him not God.

The Atheist may commonly suggest many questions for which he sees no answer in God’s word. For a discussion on this, we might consider Gödel’s Incompleteness theorem: No finite set of axioms can prove all possible theorems. There should therefore be things that anyone can posit that cannot be proven from the Bible as it has been revealed. The theist does not imagine that the Bible is a Car Repair manual. Nevertheless, Faith does not make him incapable of fixing his car. The Atheist accepts Chilton’s for cars and Manifesto’s for philosophies. What makes the Bible any less authoritative for a manual on how to obey God?

The Atheist often prefers to bypass all abstract discussion, and proceed directly to evolution. To do this, he invokes the law of Parsimony, more popularly known as “Occam’s Razor.” He states that “Entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity.” By implication then, the Atheist argues that creation as it exists is complex enough and needs no further complication by “inventing” God as creator. The first thing that we must needs establish,should the discussion come up, is an answer to the question “What does Occam’s Razor do to the Two Bullet Theory of the Kennedy Assassination?” Once we have established that the law of Parsimony is being correctly applied, we should then enquire, “What’s simpler: A long and complicated discussion of evolution, with attending problems of dating and inconsistencies, or the somewhat simpler suggestion that God made it, and described his workmanship in the Bible?” Occam’s razor should apply as much to evolution as any other account.

Others will gladly speak in detail on inconsistencies in Evolution.

We establish then, that atheism is unproven. How then should we affirm that the God of the Bible is the one true God? Consider Ro 1:20 "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."Clearly, the God who created man intends for us to conclude this: while creation does not prove his existence any more than “p then q and q true proves p,” we should infer that he exists just as surely as causality generates correlation. He further goes so far as to say that if we do not “tumble to it,” we are without excuse. And the rest of the chapter describes what they did because of it. The things that are "made," then are the things to which we turn our attention. Physicists are familiar with the Laws that govern closed systems: They are called the Laws of thermodynamics. The first of these states that “A body in motion tends to remain in motion, and a body at rest tends to remain at rest.” The second states "Heat cannot pass from a cooler object to a warmer one, without an outside influence." If the earth was considered a closed system, and Man 'evolved' that would be proof that there was an outside influence. Christians would easily attribute that outside influence as being God. Darwin came along, and attributed it to the Sun instead. How then should we resolve this conflict? The Atheist may be attributed to say, "Well, if we can find life on other planets in the Universe, that proves evolution!!!" I submit to you that if we find more order in the Universe, and not less, that indicates that the Universe (by definition a closed system) is itself being influenced from the outside. Thus, extra-terrestrial life tends to be more in favor of theism than against it. Consider if you will. What if the atheist figured out what that famous "primordial soup" was? If he then cooked it (for however long) and got any living creature out of it, I submit to you that he designed it, just as God designed man; it was not a random occurrence. Or, to put it another way, just because you did it that way now, does not prove that it occurred that way before (P -> Q and Q.) This is called the argument to design, and I first learned of it in the Warren/Flew debate. Even cloning does not disprove God’s existence. Rather that it takes a symphony of planning to “create” life. We can further say that an animal such as a dog or a cow does not sin, and is not made in Gods image, so discovering dogs on Mars would not unfound Christianity. How much less of a proof is a single celled organism? If you found a dog on Mars, where would you think it came from? Why is an Amoeba any different?

The alert among us may be able to discern that icicles growing during a thaw show that localized order can occur even in a decaying system. They can even grow straight up, in apparent violation of the law of gravity! If we are so alert, we will easily see that universe with localized order certainly does not PROVE there is no God! God can create a universe with localized order, as easily as a totally random universe.

Descartes set the standard for provable things rather closely, by affirming only “I (first person singular pronoun) THINK, therefore I Am.” Even with that limited premise, we could reasonably ask, “Could GOD have a thought?” By inference, if He could have a thought, He would exist. Nor is He silent on the subject. (Isa 55:8,9 and ff, Ex 3:14.) Another indication that there is indeed a God is as follows: It is undeniable that Jesus existed(whom Christians call the Christ of God.) The Twelve Apostles stood to gain notoriety by promoting the story of his resurrection. Christ’s disciples suffered much persecution, not political advancement. Yet they claimed eye witness testimony that he was actually resurrected even in the face of certain death. If Christ was not resurrected, why is his tomb not as famous as his following? His tomb should be infamous for its contents!

We may close by humorously considering the argument attributed to R.D. Laing. “If I think I am stupid and I am not stupid, then I am stupid. If I am stupid, and I think I am stupid, then I am still stupid. It follows that to think I am stupid is sufficient condition for me to be stupid.” The point I would like to leave you with is this. Reasonable doubt doesn't make the Atheist's case, and extra-terrestrial life doesn't represent reasonable doubt. That is the trap, and this document is written to deliver a person from that trap.

There CAN be God!