"Questions About God and Life" Part 1
"Is there a God? If so, can God be known?"

I’m beginning a series of messages where we’re going to tackle some of the profound questions people ask about God and about life. Today, to get started, let’s back up to the most elemental question of all:

Is there a God?

You may say, "Of course there is! Doesn’t everybody believe in God?” No, not really. A recent Fox News poll indicated that 92% of people in the United States say they believe in God. That’s a high percentage, but if 8% of the people in the U.S. don’t believe in God, that’s a lot of people!

(By the way, this poll suggested that a higher percent of women believe in God than do men. Also, Republicans are more likely than Democrats to believe in God!)

A Harris poll conducted online came up with different results. Data from this online survey indicated that only 73% of Americans said they believe in God, and only 58% are "absolutely certain" that God exists! (Why a lower percent? Pollsters suspect that people will tend to be more honest in an online survey than if they are talking to an interviewer over the phone).

Shortly before Christmas I received an interesting email in response to one of the daily emails that I send out. It came from a man in Salt Lake City, Utah, who said he is not a Christian, that in fact he is an atheist, but he agreed with what I had said in that particular email.

How about you? Are you absolutely certain there is a God? Haven’t you ever wondered, “Is there really a God? How do we know, for sure?”

Atheists say there is no God. Agnostics contend that we don't know, or cannot know, whether God exists. Why is it that some people don’t believe in God?

We can read the writings of atheists and get some heady philosophical arguments why there cannot be a God. This week I did a search on Google under the heading of “atheism”. I found that there are scads of material on the internet about atheists and atheism. One atheist insisted that the "concept of God is self-contradictory and logically
inconsistent with some known fact.”

Probably the greatest reason why some people don’t believe in a God is because of the suffering and evil in the world. For example, one atheist I read this week uses the Spanish influenza as a case in point. In the year 1919, in a span of 3 months, from September to November, 20 million people died from Spanish influenza. Then suddenly the virus that caused this deadly flu disappeared. No one has seen it again.
So, this atheist contends, how could this possibly have occurred if God exists? Was God not powerful enough to kill this virus and prevent it from growing? If God could not stop it, then God is not all-powerful, and not really God.

On the other hand, suppose God is all-powerful and could have eradicated the Spanish influenza virus. Why didn’t God prevent it? Is it because God is not perfectly good? If God is not perfectly good, can this be God? So, he concluded that no good and all-powerful God could have created a world where there is so much suffering and evil. (We will be looking at this matter in next week’s message when we ask the question, “How can a good God allow so many bad things to happen?”)

But one of the core beliefs of Christianity is that there is a God. None of the writers of Scripture debate whether or not there is a God. The Bible assumes that there is a God. And Jesus simply accepted the reality that God exists.

Why do Christians believe in God? It is not only because the Bible teaches us about God, but because the evidence seems overwhelming.

Perhaps the strongest argument for the existence of God is creation itself. There is the classic "cause and effect" argument: every effect must have a cause.

Look at this church building. All of these bricks and mortar and wood didn’t come together simply by chance – someone must have made it. Look at the world in which we live - it's breathtaking beauty. Think of the incredible design and order of the universe. Someone or something must have caused it.

I remember one year when I was a camp counselor at one of our church camps. One night we did a star gaze. It was a gorgeous night, perfectly clear. As we put our blankets down on the grass in an open field and looked at the stars, I was amazed at the number of stars we could see with the naked eye. And this is but a speck in the magnitude of God’s creation! I remember also in high school, in biology class, looking for the first time in a microscope at a drop of pond water. The amoeba and paramecium! A whole microscopic world of great order! Could all this have come about by chance?

One atheist, arguing that the universe came about by chance, says that if you sat 6 monkeys down at the keyboard of a computer and let them “strum unintelligently…for millions and millions of years”, they would be bound in time to write all the books in the British museum. Give me a break! Can you really believe that would happen, no matter how long you give those monkeys at the keyboard?

On the other hand a scientist named A. Cressy Morrison demonstrates how improbable it is
that the universe came about by chance. He says that if you placed 10 coins in your pocket, and numbered them 1 through 10, the chance of drawing them out in succession (1,2,3,4,etc.) would be 1 in 10 billion! This scientist concludes: "So many essential conditions are necessary for life to exist on our earth that it is impossible that all of them
could exist in proper relationship by chance. Therefore, there must be in nature some form of intelligent direction."

Actually, because of advances in astronomy and astrophysics over the last 50 years there is no longer any credible scientific voice to defend the view that the universe always was, or that it happened by chance. The cosmos did not always exist - it had a beginning. Therefore, there must have been a beginner - a first cause.

I don't know about you, but I find it harder to believe that the universe just "was" or happened by chance than to believe some supernatural power created everything!

The Bible points to how the world and nature reveal a Creator God. Psalm 19:1 says, "The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork."

Romans, chapter 1 in the New Testament says the same: “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of those who by their wickedness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made. So they are without excuse” (Romans 1:18-20).

Notice, we see in this Scripture that creation hints at certain aspects of the God behind creation. This God is eternal - "his eternal power". God is incredibly powerful - "his eternal power". God is Other, and not like us - "and divine nature". God is non-material, non-physical - "invisible though they are".

So, there is a "general revelation" in creation that points to the existence of a Supreme Being. But there's more evidence of God.

There is the moral argument. There seems to be an innate moral compass in every civilization, in every tribe of human beings, that senses right and wrong. Though it may vary from culture to culture, there is this pervading sense of "ought" that implies a moral standard beyond the human situation, and sanctions imposed by a transcending power

Some point also to the universal yearning among human beings for the religious
and the spiritual. Religion is a universal human phenomenon. In every country and every century human beings have exhibited an innate longing to worship something! Human beings are incurably religious. The great theologian Karl Barth called it an "incurable Godsickness".

Frankly, in light of all this evidence, I find that it takes a lot more faith NOT to believe in God than to believe there is a God!

You may be thinking, "Harry, why are you spending all of this time trying to convince us there’s a God, when all of us here in church already believe that?” Well, first of all, I
wouldn’t be surprised if some of us aren’t struggling with the question: Is there really a God? Or, we believe in God, we think – but we aren’t absolutely sure! If that’s the case, I hope what I’m saying helps us, because there’s a big difference between just hoping there is a God, and being absolutely certain there's a God.

Here’s something else to consider: Some of us may say, "I believe in God", but to be honest, we’re "practical atheists" – because we live as if there is no God. Think about this: What difference would it make to you, personally, this very minute, if you discovered there is no God?

There is something just as important as the question, "Do you believe in God?" That is the question: What kind of God do you believe in?

USA Today polled a number of Americans on their belief in God, and found that although we may claim to be “one nation under God”, we Americans have very different images of God. Four distinct images of God seemed to emerge - anywhere from an authoritarian God angry at people's sins and ready to rain down judgment on the unfaithful and ungodly, to a God who does set standards but is more merciful and forgiving, to a God who is distant, a cosmic force that launched the world then left it spinning on its own.

What is God like? Is God involved in the world? Can God be known? There are many people who believe in God as potent energy, or a cosmic force, or some higher power, but not a God involved in the world or involved with people in any personal way

But Christians believe in a God who is involved in the world, a God who can be known and experienced. Our belief in God, if we’re Christians, is not based on mere speculation, but on historical fact! God has revealed Himself in human history – and the Bible is the written record of God’s self-disclosure - in the Old Testament primarily through Israel, and in the New Testament most supremely in the Person of Jesus. John 1:18 says, “No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known.” We don’t have to guess at what God is like – Jesus has made God known to us!

Turn to Hebrews, chapter 1, the first three verses. It says, “Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds. He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being.” Notice, it says, “He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being.” God is like Jesus. For instance, Jesus loved and cared about all people. God loves and cares about all people. Jesus opposed evil and the things that destroy life. God opposes evil and the things that destroy life.

Jesus revealed a God who is “personal”, not just some impersonal cosmic force. God is “personal” in that God has self-awareness, like us. God has a mind - God reasons, thinks and wills. God has feelings – God laughs, grieves, hopes, forgives. And because God is “personal”, God longs for relationship with His creation.

Look at what Acts 17:24-27 tells us: “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth, and does not live in temples built by hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us.” Did you get that – “though he is not far from any one of us”!

The Bible also says that through God’s Son Jesus we can have a relationship with God that is close and intimate. “But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship. Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, ‘Abba, Father’” (Galatians 4:4-6). Through Jesus we can be adopted into God’s family and become His sons and daughters. When that happens, God sends the Spirit of Jesus into our lives and we can call God “Abba”. That word in the New Testament is a word hard to translate into English. Perhaps the closest word we can use for “Abba” is the word “daddy”. Imagine that, we can call the living God “Daddy”! That’s how close a relationship we can have to God through faith in Jesus.

In fact, God’s Spirit is in the world, drawing people towards Himself. And often the problem is not a lack of evidence that God exists and wants a relationship with His creation – but rather our own rejection of that gracious welcome by God. We would rather say “no” to God and live our own way. And that is the essence of what sin means in the Bible.

Psalm 14:1 says “Fools say in their heart, ‘There is no God’”. In light of all the evidence that there is a God, we’d be a fool not to believe it!

And yet, when all is said and done, we can’t prove there is a God. We must accept that on faith. Hebrews 11:6 says, “Without faith it is impossible to please God, for whoever would approach him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.”

Sermon preached by Harry L. Kaufhold, Jr.
Lititz United Methodist Church
January 7, 2008

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