Dear Rachel,
How do you know that God is real?
– Stephanie
Stephanie,
Great question! In our own quest to prove the existence of God, a friend and I recently researched this topic together, and here’s what we found.
I. Scientific Evidence
A.Archaeological Evidence
1.Dead Sea Scrolls
The Dead Sea Scrolls consist of roughly 1,000 documents, including texts from the Hebrew Bible, discovered between 1947 and 1979 in eleven caves in and around the Wadi Qumran on the northwest shore of the Dead Sea. The texts are of great religious and historical significance, as they include practically the only known surviving copies of Biblical documents made before 100 AD. Amazingly, they matched exactly with the Bible we have today (Mk. 13:31).
2.Walls of Jericho (Joshua 6:1-20)
It was found with the walls having fallen outward, a feat that architects had previously thought impossible.
3.The Hittites were once thought to be a Biblical legend, until their capital and records were discovered in Bogazkoy, Turkey.
4.It was once claimed there was no Assyrian king named Sargon as recorded in Isaiah 20:1, because this name was not known in any other record. Then, Sargon’s palace was discovered in Khorsabad, Iraq. The very event mentioned in Isaiah 20, his capture of Ashdod, was recorded on the palace walls. What is more, fragments of a stela memorializing the victory were found at Ashdod itself.
B. Natural Evidence
1. Nature
William Paley, a theologian of the 18th century, became well known for his argument concerning the existence of God based on nature.
The works of nature want only to be contemplated. When contemplated, they have everything within them, which can astonish by their greatness; for, of the vast scale of operation, through which our discoveries carry us, we see an intelligent Power. Every organized natural body, in the provisions which it contains for its sustentation and propagations, testifies a care on the part of the Creator. We are on all sides surrounded by such bodies; examined in their parts, wonderfully curious; compared with one another, no less wonderfully diversified. There is no subject of which, in its full extent, the latitude is so great, as that of natural history applied to the proof of an intelligent Creator (Natural Theology).
God has revealed Himself in nature––a fact that the Bible also supports. In Romans 1:20, Paul writes to acknowledge the evidence of God in nature.
“Since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse” Romans 1:20.
2. The Big Bang Theory
A well-known scientific law is that from nothing, can come nothing. It’s a law, not a theory, which means that it has been proven. The Big Bang theory transgresses their laws. It has never been proven and probably has more evidence against it than for it.
C. Our Bodies
1.Our bodies are too amazing and complex to have happened by chance. Brad Harrub, a neurobiologist, said:
You can’t have a poem without a poet, or a house without a house builder. You can’t have design without an intelligent Designer. The complexity within a cell, the complexity of Earth’s atmospheric conditions, the distances between the planets, everything was put here for a purpose. If we look at the human nervous system, for example, we see that it is composed of billions of cells, and that it was purposely arranged to be able to conduct a nerve signal from one part of the body to the other. On a microscopic level, we see that a single cell has ion-gated channels, voltage-gated channels, and a membrane potential. It was specifically designed to do one thing, carry a nerve impulse from one cell to another. When you look deep inside the cell, you find the DNA, the biological code of life that allows the cell to perpetuate itself. Within the cell, you have an incredibly complex biochemical code, and yet we are expected to believe that it “just happened by chance”? Over and over again, as you look throughout nature, you see what is almost like a “neon arrow” pointing to a Creator, an intelligent Designer. That designer is God.
II. Biblical Evidence
A.The Earth is spherical and hangs on nothing. The Bible recorded these facts long before men commonly regarded them as facts (Job 26:7; Is. 40:22).
B.The Bible also records paths of the water, meaning currents. Matthew Maury (1806-1973) is considered the father of oceanography. He was bed-ridden during a serious illness and asked his son to read a portion of the Bible to him. While listening, he noticed the expression “paths of the sea” in Psalms 8:8. Upon his recovery, Maury took God at His word and went looking for these paths. We are indebted to his discovery of the warm and cold continental currents.
C.The Bible also reveals the water cycle. The water cycle was not fully understood until about 30 BC by a Roman engineer named Marcus Vitruvius. Yet every aspect of the water cycle was fully revealed in the Old Testament. The Bible’s description is in perfect harmony with modern science (Ecc. 1:6-7; 11:3; Job 26:8; Amos 9:6).
“He wraps up the waters in his clouds, yet the clouds do not burst under their weight” (Job 26:8, NIV).
“He draws up the drops of water, which distill as rain to the streams; the clouds pour down their moisture and abundant showers fall on mankind” (Job 36:27–28, NIV).
“The wind blows to the south and turns to the north; round and round it goes, ever returning on its course. All streams flow into the sea, yet the sea is never full. To the place the streams come from, there they return again” (Ecclesiastes 1:6–7, NIV).
III. God Is Creator
A.We have an intelligent Creator and He is God! (Acts 17:22–26; Gen 1:1)
B.“He is One Who cares for us. He provides for us. He provides for our needs, both physically and spiritually. He sends the rain on the just and the unjust. He sent His Son to die for all who were unjust, that we might become His children. Having the ability to go to live with Him forever in His house is beyond our ability to comprehend. The term ‘Father’ conjures up in our minds the idea of a loving family.” -B.J. Clarke, Minister
IV. Conclusion
A.There are many more examples, both scientific and biblical, that we did not mention.
B.Through scientific, natural, and biblical evidence, God is screaming that He exists. But what does that evidence say about Him? It says that He is an intelligent Designer who is capable of creating and sustaining the universe. It tells us that He is a Creator of amazing organisms and intricate systems. It tells us that He is much greater, and more powerful, than any force we could ever imagine.
Visit ChristianAnswers.net for more archaeological information.
Visit Bible.ca for more scientific information.
Stephanie, we hope this helps you believe He Is, so you can begin or strengthen your relationship with Him.
By: Rachel Conley and Rebekah Davis
This post, in my opinion, is one of the best. Many people question the existance of God and this post really show’s how much evidence there is for God.