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How Do You Know God Exists?

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While this is a critically important question, the way you answer it is just as significant as the answer itself.

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[Darris McNeely] How do you know God exists? Can you prove it? The way you answer that question is just as important as the answer itself.

When it comes down to it, the only person to whom you can prove the existence of God is yourself. In the end, that's all that matters. Each of us has to come to that answer ourselves, and so you ask, how much proof do you need?

I've been married to my wife, Debbie, for 48 years. We've raised two sons, we have four grandchildren. Nothing happens in our lives that we don't talk about, either before it happens or after it happens. We can finish each other's sentences, and we know each other's moods. In fact, we have a very close, loving relationship. I trust her and she trusts me. After 48 years, I know my wife very, very well. I know my wife exists not by faith or imagination but because we interact, because we have a relationship. I know my wife is very real.

Now, biology can submit that my wife exists and the scientific method can prove that she exists. But the scientific method cannot measure our relationship, the depth of our relationship. It can only make sense of the physical, not the spiritual. There's a famous atheist named, Christopher Hitchens. He was a very formidable atheistic arguer in his time but he conceded that he refused to believe in any God, not because it could be proved none exist, but because it could not be proved that one does exist. Science proves existence through sight, sound, taste, touch, and smell. To a secular materialistic culture nothing exists that isn't physical. But if you look beyond the material, there is proof that God exists. The ultimate proof that God exists is what we call action. Action on our part, your part, action on God's part.

You see acting on the law of God you can prove by interacting and engaging with Him that He exists, by obeying God's teachings. Notice something God tells us, it's in the book of Malachi, it's dealing with the subject of tithing, but here's what God says, He says, "Will a man rob God? Yet you," it says, "have robbed Me!" He goes on and He said, "But you say in what way have we robbed You?" God says, "In tithes and offerings. You are cursed with a curse, for you have robbed me, even this whole nation. Bring the tithes into the storehouse," God says, "That there may be food in my house." And then He says this, "Try Me in this, If I will not open the doors and the windows of heaven for you and pour out for you such blessing there will not be room enough to receive it all."

What God is telling man in that passage of scripture is to prove the truth. Prove the truth of His word by action. In this case it's dealing with tithing, part of God's law, but really it applies to all parts of God's law and his way of life. No one will argue you out of that type of proof that you've proven by action. It's a combination of true faith plus experience. And when you've done this, you have met and come into contact with God. You know Him, He's real to you, and He exists.

Now most likely you believe that there is a God that does exist, but let me ask you this question. Can you prove your belief? What type of proof is conclusive for you? Think about that. What is the proof that you require? You see, you can prove the existence of God beyond any doubt. I'm convinced of that, many people are as well. How you do this is critical to maintaining your belief. You see, there's a wrong way to arrive at a correct conclusion, wrong way to arrive at a correct conclusion. That's why math teachers ask you to show your work. "How did you get to that answer?" they ask you. You can guess the right answer. I used to do that a lot myself, but guesses don't always stand up to scrutiny. The way you arrive at the answer is as important as the answer itself, the way you arrive is as important as the answer.

When I was a student in college in Southern California, I visited one time with our astronomy class Mount Palomar Observatory, huge Hale telescope that it is there. The curator director of the site was taking us around that, at one point I remember him saying to us, "Most scientists who come here and look through this huge telescope will privately," he said, “if not publicly admit that there is an intelligent design, a creator behind the stars and galaxies they observed and study." Now there was one such astronomer. His name was Alan Sandage. Alan Sandage spent a whole lifetime looking through telescopes hoping to understand the origin and the destiny of the universe. All of his life he had a question. Why is there something from nothing, as he observed it. After many years of research Sandage came to the point where he actually willed himself to accept that God was the answer behind what he was looking at. Here's what he said. "It was my science that drove me to the conclusion that the world is much more complicated than can be explained by science." He went on to say, "it's only through the supernatural that I can understand the mystery of existence." This one scientist's experience confirms the balanced judgment of the great physicist, Albert Einstein. Einstein said, “Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.”

Today we're going to look at some proofs for God's existence. Remember what I said though, that it is how you come to the answer, how you figure it out, that's really important. Our study aid that we are offering on this program today is "Life's Ultimate Question: Does God exist?" It's free and it goes into this important question. It can be a very invaluable aid to any to work with yourself, with your children, with your grandchildren on this very important question.

Every day brings some new challenge to faith and belief in God. Your children are taught that evolutionary process resulted in life on this earth but the biblical account says that God created human life as a unique part of His creation. That's not taught though. So many ideas work to destroy confidence in the biblical record when it comes to the creator, God, who fashioned man in His image. It's an important question. And you need the facts, you need the answers, you need our study guide, "Does God Exist?" So please go online to beyondtoday.tv or call the number on your screen.

Now, let's look at some ways by which people can prove that there is a God. We're going to examine three different ways here today. The first is the idea that the universe had a cause. It’s part of what is called a cosmological argument. That's a big Greek word there, but it's pretty easy to understand. The argument essentially is this that everything within the universe requires a prior cause including the universe itself. If it had a beginning, then it had a cause. Now that idea of beginning and a cause matches up with true science. Francis Bacon, who is called the father of modern science, said this. He said, "True knowledge is knowledge by cause." Science is about causes. Finding the cause and the reason for the material world. It's undeniable that nothing happens in this universe without a cause, that's true science. And it's accepted today that the universe that we observe did have a beginning. A common name for this is called the Big Bang. The Big Bang idea, some call it a theory, but it's pretty well accepted. Perhaps the first accepted evidence that the universe began with this big bang was when scientists looked through their powerful telescopes and they saw evidence that the universe was expanding in every direction they looked. Now Einstein, Albert Einstein realized this. He made a trip to the Mount Wilson Observatory in Southern California. They have a 100-inch telescope there and that was the largest at the time. He looked through it and saw that and he realized that the universe was expanding and he concluded, he said, "I want to know how God created the world. I want to know His thought. The rest," he says, "are details."

The universe came into existence in a moment of light and energy. And at that point time and space began with that singular event and continues, the universe continues to expand today, as we speak. Now this occurred, according to scientists, some 14 billion years ago, give or take a few hundred million all right? A long time ago.

Another scientist, a man by the name of Robert Jastrow, very famous with NASA. He wrote a book called "God and the Astronomer." And in it he said this, "We see how the astronomical evidence leads to a biblical view of the origin of the world. The details differ," he says, "but the essential elements in the astronomical and biblical accounts of Genesis are the same. The chain of events leading to man commenced suddenly and sharply at a definite moment in time in a flash of light and energy." This is his conclusion. Now, Jastrow's statement led other scientists to a conclusion that the beginning of the universe was nothing less than supernatural. And yet there are people, scientists, very intelligent people who would not accept this as convincing proof of God's existence. In fact ingenious theories have been devised to explain a universe as we see it without a divine Creator, no intelligent cause. The result they say purely of physical forces coming together to produce what we see and the agnostic and the atheist can live with such an explanation.

Second point. The laws of physics are very finely tuned and they are sustained. The physical and the mathematical laws of the universe, such as gravity, the speed of light appear to be finely tuned and sustained and they're working. Here's how it's explained. If you look at a watch, very nice timepiece that we have on our wrists in alot of cases, a very fine watch design highly designed crafted piece of jewelry, hundreds of parts put together to work accurately and consistently to keep time. Now the idea is the watch didn't put itself together. It was put together by a designer, by a craftsman, only the mind of a designer could have created such a masterpiece and caused it to work in that way. Thus the argument goes, we have a finely tuned universe put together by an act of a designer, that many would call God. There was another scientist, he was a physicist and actually he was first a theologian then he became a physicist, his name was John Polkinghorne. And he put it this way. He said, "When you realize that the laws of nature must be incredibly fine-tuned to produce the universe that we see, that conspires to plant the idea that the universe did not just happen, but that there must be a purpose behind, there must be a purpose behind it." Now personally, I find that to be very convincing as an explanation to believe in God, but again some people would not accept that. They reason that given enough time, given enough opportunity, the universe could have put itself together as we see it. The same people might argue that given enough time and paper, a lot of paper, a monkey could pick out a letter, a volume of the encyclopedia on a typewriter or the keyboard of a computer.

Cosmologies are compelling proof that the world we observe exists because of the mind of a divine being and that is admitted by scientists, and it matches what's really described in the Bible. In Psalm 19:1, it says, "The heavens declare "the glory of God." The heavens declare the glory of God. It's the same thing that Paul wrote in his own words in Romans 1, where he said, "Since the beginning "of the creation of the world, His invisible attributes are clearly seen, understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead."

There's one more explanation that we should consider. It's called design in nature. In other words we see structure across all the various systems of nature, particularly in microbiology, that act in a way cutting like machines in that they are very complex, irreducible, finely tuned, and clearly have a purpose. The best explanation the scientists look at these matters for, these complex features of nature whether it's a cell or some other part of the universe, they come up with the idea that there's an intelligent cause behind this. One of the leading proponents of this idea of intelligent cause or intelligent design is a man named Stephen Meyer, Dr. Stephen Meyer. And he says this, that intelligent design is an inference to the best explanation. An inference to the best explanation. What it means is that intelligent design is the best explanation for certain features of nature. Dr. Meyer says that this can inform the building block of a larger argument for the existence of a designer through the use of established scientific methods.

Now again people like us, we would then conclude that this intelligent source is God, the God described in scripture. We would turn to Psalm 139 and we would read there it says, "I am fearfully and wonderfully made." Now, as I've studied this I've concluded in my own thought and mind that this intelligent source behind intelligent design is God. The God of Abraham who declares end from the beginning who says that He stretched out the universe and the heavens. All of these arguments gives added weight to the self-evidence scriptures. Like what we find in Genesis 1:1 where it says, "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." It's a self-evident scripture. But when you look at the design of the universe to me, to you, many of you, that affirms this. In Isaiah 46:9, it says, "For I am God, and there is no other. I am God, and there is none like me." Of course, again, for many people today there's nothing to convince them that there is a God. In that sense you have to come to the conclusion of Psalm 14, where it says, "The fool says there is no God." But for you any of these combinations offer enough proof, final convincing proof? That must come from the way that we have not considered.

Remember it's how we prove God, the manner by which we prove God exists, that is critically important. Again, I'd like to offer the booklet, "Does God Exist?" to our viewing audience today. One that many of us have read and looked at. It talks about this amazing earth on which we live where scientists from so many fields have discovered that the planet that we live on teems with life and seems to be expressly designed for life. Showing that an amazing intelligence is behind all of these conditions and leaves us the question really to consider, what is that intelligence telling us? Well you can begin reading this immediately online at beyondtoday.tv, or you can download that copy or get one mailed to you by calling or writing to the address that is on your screen. We'll send it right out. It's a very well put together booklet.

Now as we've seen there are many ways to look at the question, does God exist? For you it may be what you've always believed and accepted without any critical examination. In fact you may think that it's wrong to unnecessarily engage beyond what you believe. But as I've shown, science can neither prove or disprove the existence of a God or the spirit world. That's beyond the realm of science to do so. It's futile even to argue the case. People entrenched in their belief are hard to move for many reasons. When it comes down to it, the only person to whom you can prove the existence of God is yourself. In the end, that's all that matters. And so you ask how much proof do you need? Really, each of us has to come to that answer ourselves. You will know that you have enough proof when you're willing to die for the truth that you believe. You will know that you have enough proof when you are ready to endure any trial and difficulty in life that might test your loyalty and your love for your God that you believe in. You will know that you have enough proof when you make the decision to live your life all the way to the end of your life in the faith that you have in God and His word.

What we have discussed as arguments for God, they're all good arguments, they're fascinating, they offer understanding to support a belief in God, but none of them are enough by themselves to ground us in a final convincing proof. The final conviction and proof of God must come from a different way, not from yourself, from argument or even from philosophy, not even the proof of cosmology or intelligent design. Remember I've said, the way you come to your answer is what is important. The ultimate proof is from action, acting on the teaching and the laws of God, interacting and engaging with God that we read about in His word. The God that we come to love, trust, and have confidence in, His goodness and His faithfulness. We experience and we build a relationship with God. The Bible says that this is how we know God: if we keep His commandments, obedience, action, living by those.

Remember I said earlier I have a wife, my wife Debbie, of 48 years. I know she exists. Not by faith or imagination. We interact, we talk, we have a relationship. I know my wife is real. That's how we prove God. That's how we prove that God exists. And that He is real. God says through the Prophet Malachi that we read earlier, prove me now, prove me. That's how we prove God, by obeying His word, by talking with Him, by trusting His promises that are revealed in His word, the Bible. And discovering that they work, that they form a basic fruitful happy successful life that can't be measured. The spiritual law of God is truth.

In Psalm 34 it says, "The angel of the Lord is a guard. He surrounds and defends all who fear Him.” And it makes a statement there, "Taste and see that the Lord is good. All the joys of those who take refuge in Him. Fear the Lord, you, His godly people, for those who fear him will have all they need." Taste and see, that's how we prove God. So when we have prayed to the one who says He is God and obey what He says is right and prove Him to be true, then we move beyond just a moral, philosophical argument. We know that God, by experiencing Him at the level of the heart and not just the mind. Proving God fully is done in the heart. And it is on our heart that God writes His law, the expression of His mind and His character. And that's a combination of true faith and experience. And when you've done this, you experience God at the level of the spirit which is where Christ tells us that we must experience that relationship with God. That's how we come into contact with the true God and His son Jesus Christ, and you can prove God that way through a relationship each day. And you will not forget that God. I could move away from my wife and in time I'd probably forget her, but I don't plan to do that. And I don't plan to move away from that God that I have come to know.

Now's the time to develop that deep meaningful relationship. The booklet that we're offering on this program today, "Life's Ultimate Question: Does God Exists?" is so important. Even if you believe in God you will benefit from a study of the topic through this free study aid that we have. God does exist. And this tool could help you, your children, and your grandchildren, and develop that. Go online to beyondtoday.tv or call or write the number on your screen for your free copy. How we come to the proof of God is as important as proving He exists. Science can reject a divine Creator and stumble in their vanity. Religion can be blinded by not seeing the true God. But you can act and prove your way to a relationship with God who is loving and provides perfect judgment and justice on this earth. That's the God that exists. And that is the God you can know.

[Narrator] Call now to receive the free booklet offered on today's program, "Does God Exist?" Is there a God? We've all asked ourselves this question. Some don't believe He exists. Others believe in Him, out of faith alone, thinking it's impossible to prove His existence. What about you? Have you proven whether God exists? This free study aid, "Does God Exist?" will help you prove God does exist. It lays out in plain language the amazing scientific discoveries that refute evolution and point to a creator and master designer. You may be surprised to learn that the deeper scientists dig into the mysteries of life and the universe, the more their discoveries support God's existence. Order now, call toll-free, 1-888-886-8632 or write to the address shown on your screen. The truth of God's existence will strengthen your faith and belief in ways you never thought possible and lead you to a more meaningful relationship with your creator. When you order this free study aid, we'll also send you a complimentary one year subscription to Beyond Today Magazine. Beyond Today Magazine brings you understanding of today's world and hope for the future. Six times a year, you'll read about current world events in light of Bible prophecy, as well as practical knowledge to improve your marriage and family and godly principles to guide you toward a life that leads to peace. Call today to receive your free booklet, "Does God Exist?" and your free one-year subscription to Beyond Today Magazine. 1-888-886-8632 or go online to beyondtoday.tv

[Gary Petty] In today's world of confusion, disorder and suffering, fellowshipping with others and learning the truth from God's word is more important than ever. Hi, I'm Gary Petty, a Pastor with United Church of God. If you're looking for a church that encourages living with the word of God really teaches, you found the right place. We're a community of believers dedicated to seeking the truth and preaching the good news of the coming kingdom of God. We'd like to welcome you to come and join us on this spiritual journey. We have hundreds of congregations around the United States and across the world. Visit ucg.org to find a church near you. We're looking forward to meeting you soon.

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Life's Ultimate Question: Does God Exist?

Life’s Ultimate Question: Does God Exist?

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Darris McNeely

Darris McNeely works at the United Church of God home office in Cincinnati, Ohio. He and his wife, Debbie, have served in the ministry for more than 43 years. They have two sons, who are both married, and four grandchildren. Darris is the Associate Media Producer for the Church. He also is a resident faculty member at the Ambassador Bible Center teaching Acts, Fundamentals of Belief and World News and Prophecy. He enjoys hunting, travel and reading and spending time with his grandchildren.

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The First Commandment - The Great Foundation

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The first Commandment "To have no other god's before Me" is the great foundation of everything else. What is the commandment, why is it so important and how do we know there is a God?

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[Mr. Richard Kennebeck]: You know, the Leaning Tower of Pisa is one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World. Its story behind how it was built is interesting. It's actually the bell tower of a cathedral complex. It's built in Pisa, and that word actually means marshy land, which should have kind of been a clue to those building it that there might be a problem. Construction began in 1173 and wasn't completed until almost 200 years later. Pisano began designing it and constructing it, and he stopped after three and a half stories. He quit because he realized the structure was beginning to tilt, and it had a flaw in its foundation. 90 years later, another architect decided to undertake the process and the project, and what he did is he actually kind of built additional stories to try to offset the tilt. He built three and a half more stories and then realized this wasn't working either. The foundation was flawed, it didn't correct the problem. So rather than actually trying to correct the foundation, he gave up.

Another 80 years passed and another architect decided to take on the project, but they determined all they would do was cap it with a dome and call it done. So 200 years of building the structure. 800 years later, it now leans 14 feet to the south. Now they've done work on it, it was leaning 17 feet to the south, but they've actually worked on it to shore it up. But everybody realizes that if they don't continue this process and do something, it will eventually fall, unless it's fixed. You know, here's, what's interesting about that project. Three architects, all the builders and the workman that went into it, over 200 years' time, and nobody fixed the foundation. They've tried to fix other things to make it work out, they made adjustments. Oh, it was beautiful, it's made out of marble, strong marble, but it would've fallen if they wouldn't had shored it up. You know, this tower speaks to us today. It speaks to us in our life that if we don't get the foundation right, no matter what we build on top of it, it's gonna be flawed. No matter how beautiful that is, it's gonna be flawed. We need to fix the real issue before we build.

Everything needs to stand the test of time, and if it does, it has to be built on a good foundation. Physical buildings, they're vulnerable if you don't have a good foundation, but you know, our life is the same thing. If we don't have a good foundation, it begins to crumble over time. Let's turn to one of the greatest foundational statements in the Bible. Exodus 20:3. We're talking about a time here in Exodus 20 where Israel has come out of Egypt. This is just a short time after Israel came out of Egypt, they're encamped at Mount Sinai. And God gives the fundamental foundational rules of life that we call the 10 commandments. Let's actually begin in verse 1 to get the background. Exodus 20:1, “And God spoke all these words saying, ‘I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.’ ”

God sets the stage for these 10 commandments. He's reminding Israel who He is. He reminds Israel of His power and His care for them. He reminds them of the miracles, and the plagues, and the wonders that He performed as He brought Israel out of Egypt, as He released them from Egypt's control. He reminds them of those plagues that got worse and worse until Egypt finally let Israel go. And then He reminds them, as He says all this, He reminds them of that army of Egypt coming after them and Israel walking through the Red Sea on dry land as that water towered over top of them.

God says all of this when He tells them that He brought them out of Egypt. He's reminding them of looking back and seeing the Egyptian armies crushed by the waters as it collapsed on top of them. God's reminding Israel of all this when He says He brought them out of Egypt. He's telling them, “Hey, I'm God, I'm God. And you've seen the evidence of that.” So Israel had no reason to question what was gonna follow. God brought them out of Egypt through power He showed that He was there. And all this was fresh in their minds. As God goes on to that next statement, the first commandment, “You shall have no other gods before Me.” The first commandment. You shall have no other gods before Me.

This is what I'd like to talk to you about today. This commandment, which is the foundation for our life, the foundation for all the commandments that come afterwards, the foundation of our future, and the foundation of our past. It's a firm foundation that all the rest of the commandments rest upon, that our life rests upon. That there're no other gods, but the true God. The true God that's a family of two beings, the Father and the Word, or Jesus Christ. This commandment is that foundation that everything else that you would read further on commandments, rest upon. That firm foundation and everything of which all that is spiritual and all that is physical stands upon.

Let's take a little bit of a deeper dive into this first commandment from a couple of different angles. The word ‘before Me’ in this verse literally means “Before My face.” “Before My face,” it's a Hebrew idiom, an equivalent to beside Me or in addition to Me. So the commandment requires the worship of one God alone, and nobody else beside that God. The Amplified Bible translates this verse as, “You shall have no other gods before or beside Me.” The Hebrew of this first commandment literally says, “Not shall have to you gods other beside My face.” Israel was to have only one God. It wasn't supposed to have other gods, wasn't supposed to bring other gods into their belief system and into their religion.

Israel had come out of Egypt and had many different gods and they'd lived in that culture for centuries. So that's what they had lived around, was many different gods, but they were supposed to be different. They were to have one God. You know, Keil & Delitzsch, in their commentary, have these words for the first commandment. They say, “Let there not be to thee other gods beyond Me or in addition to Me or equivalent to Me or by the side of Me.” They then go on to say the sentence is quite a general one and not only prohibits polytheism or the worship of many gods, and idolatry, the worship of idols in thought, word, and deed, but also commands the fear, love, and worship of God. That's all wrapped up in this commandment.

So the first commandment requires us to acknowledge three things about God. One, we must acknowledge that there is only one true God. And two, we must acknowledge that He's a personal God that interacts with humans in a personal way. And that's why it's so important to develop a personal relationship with God, to trim our lamps on a daily basis. And three, it requires us to know Him, worship Him, glorify Him, and love Him accordingly. And His first commandment sets the tone for the next three commandments, because the next three commandments continue this relationship with God and how we're supposed to have it.

The next commandment shows us how to honor and worship God. Verse 4, Exodus 20, commandment two, “You shall not make to yourself a carved image, any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them nor serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those that who hate Me.” In verse 6, “But showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.” You know, commandments one and two are so closely tied together. Worship no other gods, and don't make images. Because when you make an image of God, you're making something that isn't God. It represents God, and it brings flaws into who God is. You're limiting God if you create an image and you are worshiping something else.

The third commandment in verse 7 states, “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain for the Lord will not hold him guiltless, who takes His name in vain.” This commandment reminds us to give the honor and respect to God, to that one true God that there is. And to not think of God flippantly or carelessly. To uphold His name and His honor. And the fourth commandment reminds us to set aside a day, to set aside time to honor and worship God, that one true God. And it also reminds us that He's creator of all things. Verse 8, “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it, you shall do no work.” And in verse 11, “For in six days, the Lord made heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them and rested the seventh day.”

So the fourth commandment reminds us to set aside time and to worship God. And it also reminds us that God created this earth and all that there is. That one true God. These first four commandments, remind us and tell us how to love God and how to worship God. But who is this God we worship? How would you describe God? I'd like to read the UCG statement of beliefs on God, just a short paragraph. “We believe in one God, the Father, eternally existing, who is a Spirit, a personal Being of supreme intelligence, knowledge, love, justice, power and authority. He, through Jesus Christ, is the Creator of the heavens and the earth and all that is in them. He is the Source of life and the One for whom human life exists. We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ of Nazareth, who is the Word and who has eternally existed. We believe that He is the Messiah, the Christ, the divine Son of the living God, conceived of the Holy Spirit, born in human flesh of the virgin Mary. We believe that it is by Him that God created all things, and that without Him was not anything made that was made. We believe in the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of God and of Christ. The Holy Spirit is the power of God and the Spirit of life eternal.” This is the one God, the one true God that is a family that we worship, that we praise, that we glorify.

This statement comes from several scriptures in the Bible. I'll go through a few of them today, but if you wanna write down and read where they all come from, 2 Timothy 1:7, Ephesians 4:6, 1 Corinthians 8:6, John 1:1-4, and Colossians 1:16. Those scriptures are the basis of our statement of beliefs. You know, the Bible reveals that God is the Sovereign of the universe, existing supremely above all things else. God is eternal, He existed before anything else. God is unchangeable in character, all-powerful, all-knowing, ever-present. He's our Provider and our Shield, our Counselor, our Teacher, our Judge in salvation. He's faithful and merciful, generous and patient, compassionate. He hears our prayers and He desires us to become part of His family. This is the one true God that we worship, that the first commandment is talking about.

So how can we break this first commandment? To have no other gods beside the true One. What are ways that we can sin against this God and break this commandment? Of course, the first one is, is we actually could worship other gods. There're religions and faith beliefs in this world that do believe in different gods, in multiple different ways. Israel had problems with that back in their time, but we could worship multiple gods, that's one way. But that typically isn't the way we would do that in our modern Christian world. It isn't how we would break that commandment.

A second way is we can put things in front of the place of God. We can worship other things through how we act and react in our lives. Matthew Henry in his commentary on this commandment says, “The sin against this commandment which we are most in danger of is giving the glory and honor to any creature, which is due to God only. Pride makes a god of self, covetousness makes a god of money. Sensuality makes a god of the belly. Whatever is esteemed or loved, feared or served, delighted in or depended upon more than God that in effect we have made a god of.” So we can break this first commandment if we build our life on anything other than God. No matter how good it is, if we build our life, and our actions upon something other than God, then we break this commandment.

And a third way we break the first commandment is by giving power to or worshiping nature rather than, or in addition to the true God. You know, we see that today in horoscopes, astrology, new age crystals, good luck charms, various things like that. And God created us this wonderful dwelling place on this earth. It's beautiful, and He told us to rule over it. He told us to enjoy the sun, the moon, and the stars, to enjoy crystals and the beautiful gems that we have. To enjoy animals. To enjoy other things. But He told us, or He never told us to worship those or to give power to those things. He never wanted us to do that, to direct our worship towards those things.

Let's turn to Romans 1:21. Romans 1:21-25, because we're never supposed to direct our worship to anything other than God. I'll actually read this in New Living Translation. Romans 1:21, “Paul says, yes, they knew God, but they wouldn't worship Him as God or even give Him thanks. And they began to think of foolish ideas of what God was like. As a result, their minds became dark and confused. Claiming to be wise, they instead became utter fools. And instead of worshiping the glorious ever-living God,” - the one that we're told about in that first commandment - “and instead of worshiping the glorious ever-living God, they worshiped idols made to look like mere people, and birds, and animals, and reptiles. They made idols in place of God.” Verse 24, “So God abandoned them to whatever shameful things their heart desired. As a result, they did vile and degrading things with each other's bodies.” Verse 25, “They traded the truth about God for a lie. So they worshiped and served the things God created instead of the Creator Himself who is worthy of eternal praise.”

We can't worship the creation. We must worship the Creator. We can worship creation sometimes, there are certain modern religions that say when you're worship the creation you're just worshiping God, because God is the sum total of creation. But that's not the case, we worship God. People put their confidence in astrology or in lucky stars or anything like that. But God tells us that's not right. Deuteronomy 4:19, we see where we're told not to worship those things. Deuteronomy 4:19, God warns against this practice. “And take heed lest you lift your eyes to heaven. And when you see the sun, the moon, and the stars, all the hosts of heaven, you feel driven to worship them and serve them, which the Lord your God has given to all the peoples under the whole heaven as a heritage.” God gave these for us for the beauty of them, to be able to enjoy them, but not to worship them. They have no power over anything. Astrology and your lucky stars are a way of looking towards and worshiping the creation rather than, or in addition to the Creator. It's a way of looking to those for supernatural guidance. Christianity and astrology are not compatible. You cannot do both of those.

The first commandment warns us to not accept a religion or philosophy that teaches that our wellbeing or our life is dependent upon anything other than the true God. How about angel worshiping? Is it okay to worship angels? Should we be doing that? Well, Paul answers that question very directly in Colossians 2:18 and 19. Colossians 2:18 and 19, worship of angels has been around for a long time. We know it's been around at least since the time of the early Christian Church. Colossians 2:18, “Let no one cheat you of your reward, taking delight in false humility and the worship of angels. So we could be cheated of our reward by worshiping angels, intruding into those things, which he has not seen vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind.” So Paul here clearly says to the Colossians that you don't worship angels, but then what does Paul tell them? In the very next verse, verse 19, “And not holding fast to the head from whom all the body nourished and knit together by joints and ligaments grows with the increase that is from God.” So Paul, instead of focusing on angels and false humility, he says, “Focus on Christ. Focus on the true God.”

The first commandment is the solid foundation for the worship of God, for our life, for our future, we are to worship God only and not worship other gods, not worship angels, beings, or anything beside the true God. You know, if this is a foundation, let's ask the question - is there a God? Is there a God? Because if there is no God, this commandment is meaningless. It doesn't mean anything. If there is no God, none of this means anything. The first commandment begins with the monumental unshakable assumption, nay the unshakable assumption, an unshakable fact that there is a God. It states there is a God, worship Him only. But many people will question whether there is a God, you know, that's nothing new. That's been going on for a long time. Most of our history, mankind's history, humankind's history. Is there a God? Or is God something that we've just manufactured to fill some sort of void that we need? To fill a void. You know, some people will say “I've read the Bible through, I've looked all around me, but is there really a God?” Is there really a God? Is it possible that everything just was created spontaneously, appeared over billions and billions of years and that we're now left alone to find our way?

Is it possible to see evidence of God, the Creator of all things, Beings that existed before anything physical existed, Beings who live outside of the physical and the timeframes that we humans think about? You know, let's just take a couple of minutes to look at this question. As I said earlier, if there is no God, this is fruitless. It doesn't matter. Knowing and believing that there is a God is foundational to our belief though. Without it, we don't have a future and we don't have faith. Turn with me to Hebrews 11:6, because knowing and believing that there is a God is foundational to our belief as Christian to our faith. Hebrews 11:6 makes a very basic and foundational statement concerning our faith and our relationship with God. This verse is very closely tied and related to the first commandment.

Hebrews 11:6 says, “But without faith, it is impossible to please God, for he who comes to God must believe that He is,” - must believe that He is – “and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.” We can't please God if we don't firmly believe that He exists, and that He's a personal God who rewards us for diligently seeking Him. So faith is closely tied to our belief that there is a God. Do you have an unshakable belief that there is a God, that God does exist? Let's take a little look, just a short look at some of the proofs that there is a God. Let's go through just a few evidences that there is a God so we can see that the God does exist.

You know, we see evidence, first of all, evidence of God in this universe, in the stars, and in the earth, and all that is in them. Genesis 1:1, let's go back there. That gives the reason for our physical being, the reason for all that we see around us. I look at this verse as understated in its simplicity. It doesn't even spend time proving that God exists. It doesn't need to. But it does tell about His creative nature. Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and earth.” It's a simple statement of authority, a simple statement of fact. It declares the beginning of this physical realm we live in. And then when you read to Genesis 1 and Genesis 2, you see that God creates all manner of animals, and plants, and the like, and ultimately, man and woman. But this is internal within the Bible.

Let's take a look at some of the external because even within the Bible, we see the looking towards the external. In Psalms 19, we see that David looked towards the external to see proof of God. Psalm 19:1-4, in these verses David praises and glorifies God whose act of creation can be seen all around us. How the heavens declare His existence, His very existence, and the glory of God. Psalm 19:1, “The heavens proclaim the glory of God, disguise, display His craftsmanship. Day after day, they continue to seek or speak, night after night, they make Him known. They speak without a sound or word, their voice is never heard.” Verse 4, “Yet their message has gone throughout the earth and their words to all the world.”

David saw evidence when he looked to nature, when he looked to the skies, when he looked to heaven. He saw evidence of a masterful Creator, of an intelligence and a Being out there. He saw evidence. We can see the same thing. We basically see the same heavens, stars, and the like, as David did. Paul wrote something similar in Romans 1:20. You don't need to turn there, but it says something very similar. It says, “For since the creation of the world, His invisible attributes are clearly seen, understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead. So that they are without excuse.” Again, even in these scriptures, David and Paul are saying look external. You can see evidence of the creation. You can see evidence of a Being, evidence in which we really cannot just forget about, evidence that we cannot just push aside. And there is no excuse. Now, as we gain knowledge into an understanding of this creation, sometimes that has an impact on us how we view the heavens, the stars, the beauty.

Imagine for a moment, a family of mice who lived all their lives in a large piano. Into their piano world came the music of the instrument, filling all the dark spaces with sound and harmony. At first, the mice were impressed by it. They drew comfort and wonder from the idea that there was someone who made the music, though invisible to them yet close to them. They loved to think about that great player whom they could not see. Then one daring mouse one day climbed up part of the piano and returned very thoughtful. He had found out how the music was made. Wires. Wires were the secret. Tightly stretched wires which vibrated. They must revise all their old beliefs. None but the most conservative could any longer believe in the unseen player. It was the wires that caused the music. Later, another explorer carried the explanation further, hammers. Hammers were now the secret. Numbers of hammers, stamping, dancing, and leaping on the wires. This was a more complicated theory, but it all went to show that they lived in a purely mechanical and mathematical world. The unseen player came to be thought of as a myth for now. They knew how the music came to be. But the pianist continued to play.

You know, this story is from an article from the London Observer several years ago. And it sums up the way our modern world is. As we've dug deeper and deeper into the beauty and the structure and the complexity of this world, we've been amazed by it. But for some reason, we've looked at that complexity in structure and it caused our world to move God out of the picture and to think it's totally a physical creation without any God behind it. They've totally removed God, the true Designer and Creator of it all, but yet God continues to play. Just like those mice, who began to wonder, begin with wonder and awe at this world, as David mentions, and if you look out at the stars. These mice did the same at the start, but then as they go to know more about how it worked, they lost their awe of God.

So what evidence do we see of God in this universe? What evidence do we see that shows us proof that there is a God, you know, many of us Christians of the church of God community who've been around since the '60s might be able to recite from memory the seven proofs of God's existence from the old “Does God Exist” booklet. Lawgiver, Life-giver, Creator, Sustainer, Designer, fulfilled prophecy, answered prayer. For many years those were the proofs that we used for God's existence. And I still remember them, it's interesting. But it's interesting to look at those in light of our modern science, they still hold true in many ways. These are all proofs that God exists. And there are many other ones. Let's take a look at a couple arguments for the existence of an intellectual Designer, of a Being that's outside of this physical. You know, one proof of evidence that there's a God is the cosmological argument. And I'm not gonna go into these arguments very far. We've probably heard these before. The one I'd like to use is from a man named Dr. William Lane Craig, he's one of the premier Christian apologists today. But the argument goes this way, whatever begins to exist has a cause the universe began to exist. And from that follows, therefore, a cause of the universe exists.

In other words, there is something outside of the universe that caused the universe to exist. There must be a Creator. That was one of those seven proofs that God exists. You know, it's one of the most universal things that when we look around this world, we realize that every single thing begins at some point. There's always a beginning to everything. That's an observation we see. You know, for much of our modern history, science thought that the universe existed forever. But back in the 1920s and 1930s that began to crack. Cracks began forming in that belief as more and more knowledge was gained until in the 1960s, there was the realization that the earth was not around forever. This universe was not around forever. They call it the Big Bang Theory. That there was a beginning of this universe.

And there is no understanding of really what happened before that. Where did it come from? How did it come to being, how did it come to existence? In its simplest form the Big Bang Theory states that at some time in the past long ago, the universe came into being at a point of time from seemingly nothing. And in many ways, that explains exactly what happened in Genesis 1:1. God, outside of the universe, outside of anything physical, created all that was physical. Turn with me to John 1:1, because one of the issues with the Big Bang Theory is when they go through it, they can't get back before the big bang. They can't tell you how it was created, who created it, why it came into being. They can't tell you who the cause of the universe is. Now, remember this argument says whatever begins to exist has a cause. The universe began to exist, therefore the universe has a cause. The universe has something that created it.

John 1:1, “In the beginning or as a beginning was the Word and the Word was with God. And the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him. And without Him, nothing was made that was made.” Verse 4, “In Him was life and life was the light of man.” This verse explains to us that there was a time when the universe didn't exist, then it began to exist. It was created and it had a cause, it had a Creator who created this universe. Someone or something brought it into existence, and John 1:3 tells us who that is, who that cause is, it's the Word. You know, a second argument for a Supreme Being, a Creator, a Designer, is a teleological argument. And it basically states that the complexity and fine-tuning of the universe presents a case for an intelligent Designer. That this world, this universe, everything that is physical is so incredibly designed that it would be very difficult for it to happen. Happenstance.

This goes back to those seven proofs I mentioned earlier, this is the fifth proof of God's existence. Lawgiver, Life-giver, Creator, Sustainer, Designer, fulfilled prophecy, answered prayer. You know, every day we depend upon this delicate balance, this delicate incredible design. A Designer who built this universe and it worked. It didn't fail. A Designer who knew exactly how to put it together, exactly what to do, exactly how to design it and create it. And it had to be perfect. Here are just a few facts about this incredible design that we have in this universe. If the Earth's average temperature would change just by a few degrees, how we live on this planet would be more difficult. Unless the delicate balance of various gases in our atmosphere weren't basically what they are, this world would be more difficult or impossible to live in.

Let's take a look even deeper than that. The building blocks of this universe. If you look into that, you can see how incredible this design is and how fine-tuned it is. You know, scientists have come to this shocking realization that there are fundamental values or qualities or quantities that defined a foundation and a fabric of this universe, and they are incredibly tiny, incredibly, unbelievably tiny. These numbers represent such small limited numbers that if they differ by just tiny bits, this world wouldn't exist. This universe wouldn't exist. Just a hair's breadth and there's no Starbucks coffee, no internet, no life, no planets, no stars, no life. I'll just give you two of these fundamental values that are essential to our existence. That show us the incredible mind power of this Designer that is outside of the physical, who designed this.

In the book “The Language of God” by Francis Collins, he explains how finely tuned this universe is. If the critical density of the universe, this is just one of these qualities of the universe. If the critical density of the universe, that's one of the factors that causes the universe to expand as it is now, was off by 1 in 10 to the 15th power, put a 1 and 15 zeros. Life would not and could not exist because the universe would either expand too rapidly for life to ever exist or contract upon itself too rapidly that life could not exist. You know, that 1 with 15 zeros behind that, take $10 trillion. That's a little easier to comprehend anymore with the trillions of dollars we're spending. Take $10 trillion, change it into pennies, paint one of them red. Get somebody who has no sight, have them find it on the first try. I mean, that's what 1 in 15 zeros chance is.

Another one of these incredibly fine-tuned requirements within this incredibly designed universe is the ratio of electromagnetic force to gravity. If this force that holds electrons and protons together in atoms among other things that it does, if it varied by 1 in 10 to the 40th power. I remember we were 1, 10 to the 15th before. 1 in 10 to the 40th power the universe could not exist because atoms and molecules would not exist. If it was just so tiny of a fraction off, nothing would exist. You wouldn't even have atoms and molecules. The building blocks of this physical world. You know, and scientists have come to find that they're over 90 of these different requirements, finely tuned requirements, that this world and this universe depends upon.

And the incredible odds that this could actually happen by chance or dumb luck is just hard to even fathom. It shows us the only conclusion we can come to are either ways that stretch beyond anything that's possible to occur in this world, in this universe, or to come to the logical conclusion that there is a Creator. There is a Designer, there is a God. Everything points to a supreme Being, that one God of the first commandment, a supreme Being of great intelligence and power who purposely designed and created this earth and the whole universe. Because the odds of all this occurring by accident is just so, so, so incredibly small.

Patrick Glynn, a Harvard-educated scholar abandoned his atheisms to become a Christian after his study of the intricate balance of the universe of some of these things we've discussed. He wrote in his book, “God: The Evidence,”: “Today the concrete data point strongly in the direction of the God hypothesis. Those who wish to oppose it have no testable theory to marshal, only speculations about unseen universes spun from fertile scientific imagination. Ironically, the picture of the universe bequeathed to us by the most advanced science is closer in spirit to the vision presented in the book of Genesis than anything offered by science.” Science gives us strong evidence that God exists. Science, and if you look out at the stars at night, gives us strong evidence that God exists. But there are other evidences that God exists besides looking at the physical creation around us and various other evidences that we have. There are others. Fulfilled prophecy, answered prayer, and there are others even to that.

The last bit of evidence I'd like to present to you is personal experience of God. It's the personal experience of God. To me, this is the ultimate most personal and honestly, the most believable piece of the evidence and proof that God exists. It is Christ living in us, and the miracles that He performs. It is Christ living in us and the miracles that God performs. To me, this is the most powerful evidence there is. It's backed up by everything physical, but it is incredibly powerful proof that God exists. I've seen it in my life. I've seen it in the world around me. Our relationship with God gives us powerful evidence of His existence.

Turn with me to Hebrews 11:1. Hebrews 11:1. You know, all of the physical and philosophical proofs of God are just that, they're physical and philosophical. But the ultimate proof is God working with us, that's the ultimate proof of God. Hebrews 11:1, “Now, faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For by it the elders obtained a good testimony. By faith, we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God. So that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.” Again, God created all that is visible and is through faith, the faith that God gives to us when He's working with us and in us that we can understand God, the God of this universe Who created everything that there is.

We see His existence through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, through Christ living in us, through the change that we see, through the change in our lives, and through the miracles that God gives to us and others. You know, I could ask you to raise your hands of how many have had miracles, but I won't. In my lifetime, I've seen many miracles. I've been told many miracles. I've heard of things that suspended the laws of nature. But that shows to me that God is personal with us. God is personal. I'd like to tell you about a miracle that happened to my wife and I to show you, to me, something that taught me a lesson about this is a personal God, God didn't just create us and then said, “Okay, fend for yourself.” But God is personal and works with humans.

Shortly after my wife and I were married, we moved to Houston and we went from working and living together 24 hours a day, basically, to where I saw her for about, I don't know what it was, 7 hours a night. I got up at 4:00 in the morning. I got home at about 9:00 at night and I just didn't ever get to see her. And we were newly married, only one year. And it hurt us deeply that we were separated like that. And we didn't have enough money for me to take my car in. So I rode with my boss, that's why it took so long. One Friday or one Thursday afternoon after I got home, for some reason I got off work early and my wife and I took a stroll down a dirt path. And we were talking about how difficult this life was for us and how, boy, if I just, we came to the conclusion, if I just had a dollar, if I just had a dollar, I could put enough gas in the car and I could drive the next day and I could get home and have a wonderful, enjoyable evening with her and come into the Sabbath early enough. Just a dollar.

And we walked, and we walked, and we turned around and we walked back, and there laying in the sand, in the Texas mud, was a dollar. And I know it might have been there beforehand, but God showed it to us. It was mostly buried. That's all I needed, was a dollar. I filled up, well, I didn't fill up my car, but I got a couple of gallons of gas, enough for me to take my car into work the next day, and to come home. That is, I don't know if you can call a miracle tiny, but it was, it's a dollar, but it has always shown me that God is personal. That God gives the response to requests and sometimes performs miracles for something personal. And for me, that made me realize that God is a personal God and we need to relate to Him as a personal God, to Christ, and to the Father as a personal God. To me, that was evidence that God exists. I've had other miracles in my life, but none has ever touched me like that one has.

So when we look at this evidence of God, we have to realize we have to come to the conclusion that there is a God. That there is a God and that we have to worship Him, and honor Him, and glorify Him, the Father and Jesus Christ as the first commandment tells us. Turn with me to Colossians 1:15-17 in closing. This passage begins talking about Jesus Christ and then moves into the creation. Colossians 1:15, “He is the image of the invisible God,” talking of Jesus Christ, “The firstborn of all creation, for by Him, all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things were created through Him and for Him.” Verse 17, “And He is before all things and in Him, all things hold together,” that is our Creator. God exists whether we choose to believe it or not. God continues to play on.

God has a plan for mankind, and for us. He designed and created this universe. And the first commandment requires that we believe in God, who's an all-powerful, all-knowing every existing eternal, incredibly intelligent, creative, loving God. It's fundamental and foundational to our belief, to our life now, to our life in the future. The first commandment is all about the proper worship of God. It is the foundation of everything else. The first commandment, you shall have no other gods beside Me, is the beginning point from which everything else flows. The first commandment is about keeping first things first. And the first thing and the first and foremost thing is to fear, love, trust, and worship, and honor God and God only above all things. Paul declared there is nothing apart from God in Acts 17:28, where he says "For in Him, we live and move and have our being."

You know, we'll shortly be keeping the fall festivals. These days are based upon the fact that there are no other gods before God. There is a true God that created all things who created these Holy Days, created them so we might know His plan, His truth, and the future that He has waiting for us. These holy days point to the fact that there is a true God. Trumpets pictures the return of Jesus Christ to set up His kingdom; Day of Atonement, a time when that false god, Satan, will be put away. Feast of Tabernacles is a time when this whole world that is alive at the time of the millennium will know the one true God. And the Eighth Day where everybody whoever was alive and didn't get a chance to know the truth will get to know that one true God, get a chance to know the real God. That's what these fall Holy Days are all about. The first commandment is the foundation of this feast, the foundation of life, the foundation of this universe. It establishes that there is a God in heaven who created all things and rules over all things. It is to that God and that God only that we should bow and worship. It is to that God and that God only that we should dedicate our life. It is to that God and that God alone, that we should entrust our eternal future.

Darris McNeely

Darris McNeely works at the United Church of God home office in Cincinnati, Ohio. He and his wife, Debbie, have served in the ministry for more than 43 years. They have two sons, who are both married, and four grandchildren. Darris is the Associate Media Producer for the Church. He also is a resident faculty member at the Ambassador Bible Center teaching Acts, Fundamentals of Belief and World News and Prophecy. He enjoys hunting, travel and reading and spending time with his grandchildren.

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As the growing body of evidence in science pointed increasingly to a theistic explanation of the universe, Dr. Flew found that the standard atheistic explanations were untenable.

Answers From a Famous Ex-Atheist About God

Jul 8, 2016
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When you’ve devoted a lifetime to arguing against the existence of a divine Creator, it can be hard to admit you were wrong. So what compelled one of the world’s leading atheists to do just that?

Imagine for a moment being one of the world’s foremost atheists. You’ve basked in the fame of academic circles for 50 years and have written more than 30 books, many of which are hailed as hallmarks of atheistic thought. You’re highly respected, honored as one of the world’s brightest minds.

Then, suddenly, you announce you have reversed course and now believe in God.

You can imagine the reaction from most of your colleagues and the secular press—mostly anger, scorn and a withering hail of criticism.

What made you sacrifice your reputation and good standing among many of your peers, knowing full well how unpopular your belief in God was going to be, especially in an increasingly secular and atheistic society?

“I now believe that the universe was brought into existence by an infinite Intelligence. I believe that this universe’s intricate laws manifest what scientists have called the Mind of God.”

It’s a fascinating story, and one that holds many valuable answers for young and old alike who have asked the most basic and most important question: Does God exist?

It’s not often that you can view this topic from the other side of the aisle—from one who had been a champion of atheistic thought and had based his life and teachings on the premise that God did not exist.

Who is this person? His name is Dr. Antony Flew, an Oxford professor who spent 50 years teaching philosophy and constructing clever arguments to support an atheistic point of view.

Why did he change his mind? And more importantly, why did he go public about his acceptance of God’s existence, knowing the damage to his reputation among his colleagues that would follow?

Prior to his death in 2010, Dr. Flew wrote a book in 2007 titled There Is a God: How the World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind, explaining why he had reversed his long-held position and what had compelled him to admit he had been wrong. It’s not often that we see a premier philosopher who was an atheist explain why he changed his mind and came to believe in a divine Creator. His reasons are great answers to those who question God’s existence.

A principle to guide your life

In his book Dr. Flew mentioned that early in life, he came on a principle that would guide his career: Follow the evidence wherever it leads, no matter how unpopular that may be.

In his youth, he thought the evidence at that time backed an atheistic perspective, namely, that the scientific data and philosophical reasonings pointed more toward a belief that God did not exist.

Yet, he mentioned, from the 1980s on, the evidence started turning against atheism and toward a Creator God. He then had to reluctantly reassess his beliefs.

“I now believe,” he came to admit, “that the universe was brought into existence by an infinite Intelligence. I believe that this universe’s intricate laws manifest what scientists have called the Mind of God. I believe that life and reproduction originate in a divine Source. Why do I believe this, given that I expounded and defended atheism for more than a half century? The short answer is this: this is the world picture, as I see it, that has emerged from modern science” (There Is a God, p. 88, emphasis added throughout).

In particular, he offered three lines of evidence that convincingly led him to his belief in God.

How did the laws of nature come to be?

The first of these has to do with the origin of the laws of nature.

Dr. Flew was quite candid about his former atheistic views on the laws of nature, which are the standard explanation against God’s existence. Yet he would later call this type of reasoning “the peculiar danger, the endemic evil, of dogmatic atheism” (p. 86).

This is the assumption that things in the universe exist as they are and should be accepted as such without much further thought. It had been his defense against any questions about the ultimate origins of what exists.

He noted: “Take such utterances as, ‘We should not ask for an explanation of how it is that the world exists; it is here and that’s all’ or ‘Since we cannot accept a transcendent source of life, we choose to believe the impossible: that life arose spontaneously by chance from matter’ or ‘The laws of physics are “lawless laws” that arise from the void—end of discussion.’ They look at first sight like rational arguments that have a special authority because they have a no-nonsense air about them. Of course, this is no more sign that they are either rational or arguments” (p. 87).

As the growing body of evidence in science and technology pointed increasingly to a more theistic explanation of the universe, he asserted that these standard atheistic explanations were becoming antiquated and untenable.

“My departure from atheism was not occasioned by any new phenomenon or argument,” he said. “Over the last two decades, my whole framework of thought has been in a state of migration. This was a consequence of my continuing assessment of the evidence of nature. When I finally came to recognize the existence of a God, it was not a paradigm shift, because my paradigm remains, as Plato in his Republic scripted his Socrates to insist: ‘We must follow the argument wherever it leads’” (p. 89).

He admitted that the accumulation of the evidence in the last two decades now supported the existence of a Creator God, and he had the courage, personal integrity and humility to accept this conclusion—no matter how personally disagreeable it had been for him.

He mentioned that the evidence dealing with the laws of nature increasingly indicated a Superior Mind was operating at a cosmic level.

“The leaders of science over the last hundred years,” he wrote, “along with some of today’s most influential scientists, have built a philosophically compelling vision of a rational universe that sprang from a divine Mind. As it happens, this is the particular view of the world that I now find the soundest philosophical explanation of a multitude of phenomena encountered by scientists and laypeople alike.

“Three domains of scientific inquiry have been especially important for me . . . The first is the question that puzzled and continues to puzzle most reflective scientists: How did the laws of nature come to be?” (p. 91).

One of the most enigmatic aspects of the laws of nature is that these invisible forces act on matter and energy, but are not matter or energy themselves. For them to work, they had to be in place before matter and energy existed, and they are not tangible objects. To believe all these intricate laws that act in unison somehow appeared together at just the right time, with just the right force, without some organizing Intellect behind them, defies logic.

“The important point,” Flew brought out, “is not merely that there are regularities in nature, but that these regularities are mathematically precise, universal, and ‘tied together.’ Einstein spoke of them as ‘reason incarnate.’ The question we should ask is how nature came packaged in this fashion. This is certainly the question that scientists from Newton to Einstein to Heisenberg have asked—and answered. Their answer was the Mind of God” (p. 96).

So, although it may not be well known, a number of cosmologists and physicists have admitted that the orderly laws of the universe point to something bigger and grander than the universe itself!

Flew quoted numerous of these scientists, like the famous cosmologist Paul Davies, who affirms: “Science is based on the assumption that the universe is thoroughly rational and logical at all levels. Atheists claim that the laws [of nature] exist reasonlessly and that the universe is ultimately absurd. As a scientist, I find this hard to accept. There must be an unchanging rational ground in which the logical, orderly nature of the universe is rooted” (p. 111).

Flew concluded: “Those scientists who point to the Mind of God do not merely advance a series of arguments or a process of syllogistic reasoning. Rather, they propound a vision of reality that emerges from the conceptual heart of modern science and imposes itself on the rational mind. It is a vision that I personally find compelling and irrefutable” (p. 112).

How did life originate from non-life?

Flew’s second line of evidence for a belief in God has to do with the great difference that exists between life and non-life.

“When the mass media first reported the change in my view of the world,” he related, “I was quoted as saying that biologists’ investigation of DNA has shown, by the almost unbelievable complexity of the arrangements needed to produce life, that intelligence must have been involved.

“I had previously written that there was room for a new argument to design in explaining the first emergence of living from nonliving matter—especially where this first living matter already possessed the capacity to reproduce itself genetically. I maintained that there was no satisfactory naturalistic explanation for such a phenomenon” (p. 123).

Pondering over this question, Flew came to the conclusion that a self-replicating living thing being produced by chance from non-life utterly defies all odds. Self-replication means that something has within itself the ability to copy components of its being and pass traits and the mechanism itself to future generations.

Indeed, that copy has to be so perfectly reproduced that it can perpetuate itself in turn, and yet it also has to carry an additional system that permits it to adapt to a changing environment to improve its chances of survival.

As a philosopher, Flew pointed out: “Most studies on the origin of life are carried out by scientists who rarely attend to the philosophical dimension of their findings. Philosophers, on the other hand, have said little on the nature and origin of life. The philosophical question that has not been answered in origin-of-life studies is this: How can a universe of mindless matter produce beings with intrinsic ends, self-replication capabilities, and ‘coded chemistry’? Here we are not dealing with biology, but an entirely different category of problem” (p. 124).

He came to see that scientists don’t have a satisfying answer to this question.

“Carl Woese, a leader in origin-of-life studies,” he explained, “draws attention to the philosophically puzzling nature of this phenomenon. Writing in the journal RNA, he says, ‘The coding, mechanistic, and evolutionary facets of the problem now became separate issues. The idea that gene expression, like gene replication, was underlain by some fundamental physical principle was gone.’

“Not only is there no underlying physical principle, but the very existence of a code is a mystery. ‘The coding rules (the dictionary of codon assignments) are known. Yet they provide no clue as to why the code exists and why the mechanism of translation is what it is.’

“He frankly admits that we do not know anything about the origin of such a system. ‘The origins of translation, that is before it became a true decoding mechanism, are for now lost in the dimness of the past, and I don’t wish to . . . speculate on the origins of tRNA, tRNA charging systems or the genetic code’” (pp. 127-128).

Although there is an increasing body of knowledge about how DNA and RNA work, scientists still don’t have a clue about how all these coding systems originated, which Flew concluded do point to a Superior Intelligence at work. 

He asked: “So how do we account for the origin of life? The Nobel Prize-winning physiologist George Wald once famously argued that ‘we choose to believe the impossible; that life arose spontaneously by chance.’ In later years, he concluded that a preexisting mind, which he posits as the matrix of physical reality, composed a physical universe that breeds life . . . This, too, is my conclusion. The only satisfactory explanation for the origin of such ‘end-directed, self-replicating’ life as we see on earth is an infinitely intelligent Mind” (pp. 131-132).

Did something come from nothing?

Flew’s third line of evidence is the very existence of the universe.

In his early years, Flew believed that the universe had always existed, a popular belief at that time. If something had always been around, he reasoned, there was no need to bring up a Creator to explain it. But new scientific discoveries made him question this premise and whether something could come out of nothing.

“In fact,” he related, “my two main antitheological books were both written long before either the development of the big-bang cosmology or the introduction of the fine-tuning argument from physical constants. But since the early 1980s, I had begun to reconsider. I confessed at that point that atheists have to be embarrassed by the contemporary cosmological consensus, for it seemed that the cosmologists were providing a scientific proof of what St. Thomas Aquinas contended could not be proved philosophically; namely, that the universe had a beginning.

“When I first met the big-bang theory as an atheist, it seemed to me the theory made a big difference because it suggested that the universe had a beginning and that the first sentence in Genesis (‘In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth’) was related to an event in the universe . . .

“If there had been no reason to think the universe had a beginning, there would be no need to postulate something else that produced the whole thing. But the big-bang theory changed all that. If the universe had a beginning, it became entirely sensible, almost inevitable, to ask what produced this beginning. This radically altered the situation” (pp. 135-137).

Of course, atheists and secular scientists came up with counterarguments for the growing evidence for a universe with a beginning. Over the years all kinds of unlikely explanations have appeared.

“Modern cosmologists,” he pointed out, “seemed just as disturbed as atheists about the potential theological implications of their work. Consequently, they devised influential escape routes that sought to preserve the nontheist status quo. These routes included the idea of the multiverse, numerous universes generated by endless vacuum fluctuation events, and Stephen Hawking’s notion of a self-contained universe” (p. 137).

Flew found all these arguments to be desperate attempts and quite unconvincing.

He concluded: “The three items of evidence we have considered in this volume—the laws of nature, life with its teleological [or purpose-exhibiting] organization, and the existence of the universe—can only be explained in the light of an Intelligence that explains both its own existence and that of the world. Such a discovery of the Divine does not come through experiments and equations, but through an understanding of the structures they unveil and map” (p. 155).

Thus the existence of a divine Creator is a certain fact of logic. As Scripture attests: “From the beginning, creation in its magnificence enlightens us to His nature. Creation itself makes His undying power and divine identity clear, even though they are invisible; and it voids the excuses and ignorant claims of these people [who would deny Him]” (Romans 1:20, The Voice).

Professor Flew died in 2010, but his intellectual and philosophical pursuit led him to accept the existence of an intelligent Creator—a surprising outcome for him, but one that was based on his lifelong premise that one should follow the evidence wherever it leads.

We hope his example, as well as the irrefutable evidence he was compelled to examine, will help others resolve the question of whether God exists. And by answering in the affirmative, it is the natural starting point for one’s journey of faith in developing a relationship with this awesome God who made us!

Darris McNeely

Darris McNeely works at the United Church of God home office in Cincinnati, Ohio. He and his wife, Debbie, have served in the ministry for more than 43 years. They have two sons, who are both married, and four grandchildren. Darris is the Associate Media Producer for the Church. He also is a resident faculty member at the Ambassador Bible Center teaching Acts, Fundamentals of Belief and World News and Prophecy. He enjoys hunting, travel and reading and spending time with his grandchildren.

 
Atheism
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Beyond Today -- Enemies of Evolution

Enemies of Evolution

Evidence against the theory of evolution continues mounting up. Who are among its principal challengers? It is scientists!