All posts by Dan Vander Lugt

Why Believe in God’s Existence, When It Can’t Be Proven Scientifically?

Dan Vander Lugt
Christianity, God, , , , , , , , , , ,

Something that can be demonstrated by the scientific method is a scientific fact. But it doesn’t follow that just because something can’t be demonstrated scientifically it is less “real” or important than “scientific fact.”

For example, the survival of human civilization depends on the distinction that most people make between good and evil. Yet moral values like good and evil can’t be scientifically proven. Does the fact that moral values can’t be proven imply that they are less real—less “factual” in an ultimate sense—than the things that science can prove?

Most people would consider it morally evil for a man/woman to abandon his/her wife/husband and young children to begin a new life with another woman/man. Most people would consider this a serious moral failure, one of the “worst” things a person could do. But is there any compelling “scientific evidence” that could be brought to bear on such behavior to “prove” that it is wrong?

What “scientific evidence” could prove that murder, rape, and robbery are wrong?  What would become of our system of justice if the prosecution had to scientifically prove that it is wrong for one person to kill, rape, or rob another person!

The existence of love, evil, and good are not “falsifiable hypotheses.” Yet most people—including atheists—admit that values like “love,” “goodness,” “friendship,” and “loyalty” are moral/spiritual realities that truly exist. Theists, whether Christian or non-Christian, have long considered the mind-boggling complexity of the material universe as evidence of a Creator. Although the scientific “spirit of the age” of the 20th century once insisted that the material world was nothing more than the product of impersonal, random evolution, today’s scientific consensus is shifting towards the conclusion that the universe was consciously designed (with incredible exactitude) for the development of life.1

Just as it is reasonable to assume that everything in physical reality has a cause, it is reasonable to assume that everything in spiritual reality has a cause. Immaterial spiritual values like love and goodness are even more amazing than the material wonders of the universe.

God’s existence cannot be proven scientifically. But although God’s existence can’t be proven, reasonable people acknowledge that the small number of alternative explanations for the wonders of material and spiritual reality can’t be proven either. Although faith is as much a matter of the heart as the mind, and belief in God is a moral as well as a rational decision, the rational case for the existence of God as the source of all reality is stronger than any other explanation.

  1. Anthony Flew, an eminent British philosopher who has been widely published as one of the world’s most intellectually capable and well-known atheists, has recently become a theist on the basis of scientific evidence for design:
    Darwin himself, in the fourteenth chapter of The Origin of Species, pointed out that his whole argument began with a being which already possessed reproductive powers. This is the creature the evolution of which a truly comprehensive theory of evolution must give some account. Darwin himself was well aware that he had not produced such an account. It now seems to me that the findings of more than fifty years of DNA research have provided materials for a new and enormously powerful argument to design. (From an interview with Anthony Flew by Gary Habermas, published by the Journal of the Evangelical Philosophic Society.) Back To Article
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How Can I Prove to Someone that God Exists?

Dan Vander Lugt
Christianity, God, , , , ,

The universe presents overwhelming evidence for God’s existence (Psalm 19:1). But no one can be forced to believe in God. In fact, God’s infinite nature makes it impossible to apprehend Him directly (1 Timothy 1:17; 6:16). Because God is Spirit, conclusions about the ultimate beginnings of the universe need to be drawn from the created world and God’s actions within it. Here in the created world, the evidence for God’s eternal power and divine nature is so overwhelming that belief in Him is the only reasonable option (Romans 1:20). While some aspects of God’s nature–His holiness and love, for example–have been obscured by the Fall (See the ATQ articles, Why Would an All-Powerful God Permit Evil? and Why Would God Allow Bad Things to Happen to Good People?), it is disbelief in God’s existence and power that is irrational, not belief.

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To assume that the universe is just a cosmic accident goes against the grain of everything we experience. Everything that we have ever encountered with our senses has a cause: why not the universe?

There is a remarkable human tendency to ignore the obvious. We all take many of the most important things in our lives (security, family, health) for granted. Similarly, we all tend to take the universe and its mysteries for granted. Instead of asking the obvious questions “Why is there a universe and why am I here?” and “How does the universe happen to exist at all?” we allow a superficial smattering of scientific knowledge to divest us of an appropriate sense of wonder.

The Bible offers us the essential truths about God:

  • He was there “in the beginning” before anything else existed (Genesis 1:1; Psalm 33:9; Isaiah 57:15; John 1:1-3; 1 Timothy 6:16 ).
  • He has no beginning or end, and He is unbounded by time and space ( Psalm 90:2, 4; 93:2; Isaiah 40:28 ).
  • Everything else that existsminerals, water, plants, animals,angels, demonsis on a lower plane ( Psalm 33:6; Isaiah 45:12; Colossians 1:16; Revelation 4:11 ). Only God is an eternal Spirit, uncreated, other, of an entirely different order.

God made human beings in His image (Genesis 1:26-27 ), but we are still part of the material world. Each of us had a specific beginning, and are bounded by three-dimensional experience and passing time. Being immersed in time and space, we become overwhelmed and confused when we try to understand an eternal God (Job 36:26 ;Isaiah 40:28 ).

Many people simply ignore the overwhelming experiential and natural evidence for God’s existence. Ultimately, faith comes down to a decision of the heart. A mind darkened by a rebellious heart is incapable of perceiving God (Isaiah 44:18,20; Romans 1:18-23).2

The eternal God is transcendent, not part of creation. God’s existence cannot be “proven” in the way that science can prove or disprove a fact about the material world (Hebrews 11:1). We are spiritual beings, created in God’s image, aware of our own existence, and capable of choice. Choosing to believe that there is no God and that the universe is just a fantastically complex accident will inevitably lead to the conclusion that life is absurd and without meaning. To live without meaning is a hopeless struggle at best, and always ends in despair. But if we believe in the God of the Bible we not only have a reason to live, but the assurance of seeing the kingdom of God with our own eyes.

For the High and Lofty One who inhabits eternity and whose name is holy says, “I dwell in the high and holy place, with him who has a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones” (Isaiah 57:15).

Also go to, 10 Reasons To Believe In The Existence Of God.

  1. There are many biblical examples of willful people ignoring the most spectacular demonstrations of God’s presence and power. Consider these: Pharaoh ( Exodus 11:10 ), the Israelites ( Exodus 32:1-4 ), Ahab ( 1 Kings 18:38-39 ), Jesus’ enemies (Mark 3:22 ). Back To Article
  2. Today the ideology of naturalistic evolution is losing ground. Both laymen and scientists are growing increasingly aware that the universe and the life within it are much too complex to have been a mere accident. The so-called “Big Bang” (mentioned over 3,000 years ago in Genesis 1:3) set in motion a series of creative events so complex and perfect that all of man’s accumulated scientific wisdom is just beginning to explore them. Within the limited time frame of merely 15-20 billion years (if current estimates are accepted), a feat of cosmic engineering has occurred on such a vast scale that objective observers are being silenced and humbled, just as Isaiah was humbled by his vision of God’s inconceivable greatness ( Isaiah 40:21-23 ). Back To Article
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Can I Depend on Logic to Lead Someone to Faith?

Dan Vander Lugt
Bible, Christianity, ,

Thinking that logic alone can lead someone to faith is like thinking logic can convince someone that something is beautiful. Imagine driving through Navajo country in the southwest United States with a friend who considers the exquisite landscape just a barren wasteland. Would logic convince him that the landscape is beautiful? For every reason you give to demonstrate its beauty, your friend will counter with a reason for thinking it ugly. You perceive beauty; he doesn’t. Mere logic isn’t going to change his mind.

Some of the most important things in life transcend logic. No one can devise a logical proof for faith, beauty, or love. If we attempt a “proof” for them, we will be farther from understanding them than when we started. Such things are perceived by more than just our minds. They are perceived by something more profound than mere intellect.

The Bible refers to the center of the human personality as the “heart,”1 and specifically designates it as the place of faith (Mark 11:23;  Luke 24:25; John 14:1; Acts 8:37; Romans 10:9 ). This doesn’t mean that faith is irrational. Faith can be philosophically and logically defended. But a logical defense of faith is as far from experiencing it as a verbal description of the flavor of strawberries is from their taste in the mouth. The heart includes the function of the mind, but transcends it. The inclination of peoples’ hearts, not their intellectual powers, determines whether they will move in the direction of faith or unbelief. Jesus made this clear:

“Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.” (John 3:20-21 NIV)

Hatred of truth causes unbelievers to use their rational powers to reject it. Hatred of truth occurs in their hearts. Their rationalizations for rejecting it are the consequence—not the cause—of their hatred.

This, too, is why the writer of Hebrews declares:

Without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him. (Hebrews 11:6 NIV)

The existence of God—like the existence of love and beauty—can be logically described. But it cannot be logically proven to someone who doesn’t want to believe. Belief in these things requires openness of the heart. While logic can be used to provide evidence for the truth, it can also be used to rationalize evil. Ultimate choices are not only decisions of the mind but also matters of the heart, where logic is only a tool for fashioning a life of truth and goodness, or illusion and evil.

  1. In the Bible, the term heart refers to the “whole man, with all his attributes, physical, intellectual, and psychological.” (New Bible Dictionary) The meaning of mind, in contrast, is usually limited more specifically to mental abilities.
    So the term heart refers to the governing center of man, that part of him that is often referred to with such terms as character, personality, will, and mind. Heart is therefore a broader and more inclusive term than mind. In the New Testament, heart is fundamentally synonymous with person. Back To Article
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Is It Inconsistent for Believers in God to Look for Scientific Explanations of Natural Things?

Dan Vander Lugt
Contemporary Issues, God, , , , ,

Is it inconsistent, as Richard Dawkins claims, for believers in God to look for scientific explanations of natural things, if they don’t think it is necessary to seek scientific proof of God’s existence?

This is a classic example of comparing apples to oranges. Infinite Spirit can’t be examined the same way the physical world can.

According to the Bible, the characteristics of the physical universe have been shaped by God. As the apostle Paul writes, “God’s invisible qualities—His eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made” (Romans 1:20). Because the natural world has been created and designed by God, it reflects His power and divine nature. However, God is of an entirely different order of being. He is not physical, but Spirit, of a higher dimension of being that encompasses our universe but which cannot be directly observed and measured by the physical sciences.

But if God can’t be directly investigated by physical science, are there no compelling reasons to believe that He exists? Someone with a naïve faith in evolution might say there are no compelling reasons, but more objective scientists acknowledge that the rational basis for God’s existence is being continually strengthened as science progresses.

Even if it could be demonstrated at some future time that evolution is a seamless natural process with no “gaps” where God can be demonstrated to supernaturally intervene, atheists have to account for the components and circumstances that make the process possible. Physicists who believe in the probability of God’s existence don’t do so because of gaps in evolutionary theory, but because of the mind-boggling, overwhelming complexity of the circumstances within which natural macroevolution would have to occur.1

The fact that circumstances of such infinite, or nearly infinite, complexity exist as the necessary background to life implies design. The idea that the universe has no origin is a counterintuitive faith assumption, as everything in our experience that is complex is derived from something more complex. It’s hard to see how Dawkins and other atheists consider it more reasonable to believe that the infinite complexity of the natural world is rooted in chance.

The existence of randomness as part of the process of evolution within the space/time universe is not—as some atheists claim—evidence against design. Randomness itself appears to be an aspect of the design, making possible the development of self-aware, free beings (such as we are). Thus the existence of randomness and freedom within the context of natural law imply a much higher order of complexity than a mere “clockwork universe.”

So it isn’t unreasonable to believe in God, even if we can’t “explain” or “define” Him in scientific terms. The choices are to either take the mind-boggling complexity of a universe containing self-aware beings as mere accident, or to assume that the complexity we see within and around us is evidence of a supernatural God.

  1. One of the most startling developments to come from modern physics is that the universe, in some very fundamental way, seems to have been “designed” or “tuned” to produce life and consciousness. Actually, what physicists have discovered is that there are a large number of “coincidences” inherent in the fundamental laws and constants of nature. Every one of these coincidences or specific relationships between fundamental physical parameters is needed, or the evolution of life and consciousness as we know it could not have happened. The collection of these coincidences is an undisputed fact and, collectively, have come to be known as the “Anthropic Principle.” (From the essay, “The Holistic Anthropic Principle,” by Joseph P. Provenzano and Dan R. Provenzano.) Back To Article
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Why Doesn’t God Make His Existence Undeniable?

Dan Vander Lugt
God, Relationships, , , , ,

God may have designed the universe so that the motive for faith must be as much moral, relational and spiritual as it is logical. Consider what the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews writes:

Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for. By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible. By faith Abel offered God a better sacrifice than Cain did. By faith he was commended as a righteous man, when God spoke well of his offerings. And by faith he still speaks, even though he is dead. By faith Enoch was taken from this life, so that he did not experience death; he could not be found, because God had taken him away. For before he was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God. And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. (Hebrews 11:1-6 NIV, italics added).

In fact, the intrinsic nature of faith, hope, and love are such that they shouldn’t and can’t be reduced to mere logic. If God designed the universe so that His presence could be “proven” in the scientific, mathematical sense, faith wouldn’t have to be a decision of the heart. It would be mere acquiescence of the mind, motivated by necessity and fear but not by love. If faith, hope, and love were reduced to a logical decision, freedom would vanish. Who would dare stand against God if logic always seemed completely on the side of faith? If God’s existence and ultimate control were undeniable, people would obey out of fear and would struggle to conceal their resentment.

Rather than being a loving, heavenly Father who allows prodigals to make mistakes, repent, and come home to experience His love, He would be viewed as such an ominous authority that creatures would never dare become prodigals, who by returning to faith could discover freedom, individuality, calling, and love. Self-awareness would be overwhelmed by the obviousness of God’s presence. Creatures would be so engulfed by His power and glory that they couldn’t even begin to discover themselves. Love as we know it could never exist in such a world.

This may be why faith, hope, and love affirm logic but transcend it; why they must involve moral choice rather than mere logical deduction. This too may be why He employs randomness within the creative process, leaving profound evidence of His involvement and presence but doing nothing to coerce obedience.1

  1. “I believe that we Christians are warranted in seeing every potentially viable life form (or every viable variant of DNA) as something thoughtfully conceived in the mind of the Creator. As did Basil and Augustine, I believe that we may rightfully speak of God calling into being at the beginning, from nothing, all material substance and all creaturely forms (whether inanimate structures or animate life forms). And, still standing with Basil and Augustine, I believe that we may rightfully presume that the array of structures and life forms now present was not yet present at the beginning, but became actualized in the course of time as the created substances, employing the capacities thoughtfully given to them by God at the beginning, functioned in a gapless creational economy to bring about what the Creator called for and intended from the outset.
    “In the context of this traditional Christian vision of God’s creative work . . . , we might now wish to employ the vocabulary of twentieth-century science and speak about the full array of functionally viable forms of DNA (and the creatures thereby represented) as constituting a ‘possibility space’ of potential life forms—this possibility space itself, along with all connective pathways, being an integral component of the world brought into being at the beginning. Furthermore, in the language of this theistic paradigm of evolutionary creation, we would speak of DNA being enabled by the Creator to employ random genetic variation as a means to explore and discover (in contrast to create) viable pathways and novel life forms so that the Creator’s intentions for the formative history of the Creation might be actualized in the course of time.

    “See, then, what this evolutionary creation paradigm accomplishes: Do material processes have to create? No, the possibility space of viable and historically achievable life forms is an integral aspect of the world that God created at the beginning. Material systems need only employ their God-given functional capacities to discover some of the possibilities thoughtfully prepared for them. But, one might ask, how can such ‘mindless’ material processes function to bring about what appears to be the product of ‘intelligent design’? The point is that they are not really mindless at all. Rather, every one of these processes and every connective pathway in the possibility space of viable creatures is itself a mindfully designed provision from a Creator possessing unfathomable intelligence.

    “It seems to me that this theistic paradigm provides precisely what the naturalistic (broad) paradigm—the blind watchmaker hypothesis—could not. It provides the answer to the question, How is it possible that such a remarkable array of life forms is not only viable but historically realizable within the economy of the world at hand? Could anything less than the infinite creativity and faithful providence of God suffice?” (Howard Van Til, First Things, July/August 1993) Back To Article

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