Whose God?
Wow! Have you got 1,000 pages and years of studying available? Theologians, scholars, scientists, and philosophers have debated since the beginning of time over this very question. Before diving in, I want to address two main issues and questions.
God is the creator of the universe – full stop.
- What is your definition of God?
- What is your level of evidence required?
Opinion Article
Definition Please
Simply by asking the question, we each have a concept of who or what God is. When I declared myself an atheist in college, I wanted proof of God, not the Christian God, or the Jewish God, or some other personal Being. So for me to answer that question, let me provide my working definition.
Not even the creator of man. I did not want to get tied down by evolution. I wanted to start from the beginning. I had never read the bible. Oh, my mom made me go to church, but it was years later when I realized.
The 1990 me understood, start from the simple beginning. This led to some postulates I will expound on later. If you want to understand your search for Truth and God, start simply, especially to rid yourself of bias and anger as I had.
The Search for the “Creator of the Universe.”
Sure we could dive into “the Big Bang,” astrophysics, cosmology, and philosophy, but two questions convinced me.
- Do you think everything in the universe ordered itself with no intelligent involvement?
- Do you think you will ever have enough knowledge to absolutely say there is NO GOD?
That is what a friend asked. I can still see myself deep in the corner first-floor lounge of Holmes Hall discussing this issue. I was aghast!!
The Second Question, First – How much knowledge?
On this quest, I realized that no matter how much I combed through millennia of data and arguments, the truth about whether God exists might never be found.
Even if I determined that all earthly religions are false, at the end of the day, I could never, ever say that God DID NOT create the universe. I simply lacked enough knowledge. I became an agnostic that day.
Who ordered the universe?
My definition of God was straightforward. I knew enough about astronomy to realize the universe is vast. I knew enough about particles and physics’s complexities to know that something cannot come from nothing, and that without an outside force, entropy moves matter from order to disorder.
Although this image was not present in 1990, we knew the universe was vast. This image, called Hubble deep space, contains around 10,000 galaxies. Can I get an exploding brain emoji? Just one area of the sky!!!
Either an intelligence ordered the universe or non-intelligence
How did intelligence arise from NO Intelligence?
The universe looks ordered; it looks like there is an intelligent designer, but who is the designer? A force, a power, random chance, or any other fluctuations is simply non-intelligence; therefore, all creation would be a random accident and unorganized. Here I have a choice of intelligence or non-intelligence?
Since I have intelligence, and I know any creation on earth, whether book, art, computer or car, takes intelligence, to me anything complex must have a designer, ney a creator – that is the route I took when evaluating truth claims.
Truth over Desire
I decided I don’t care whether I am right, but let the TRUTH win. Second, if I decided at this stage that God did not exist, I still must fend off the nagging question of whether I had enough knowledge.
Therefore declaring myself an atheist, I felt I would forever fend off a perpetual agnostic position, wondering what new knowledge will unseat my position.
Knowledge and Revelation – A Realization.
So, I formulated my SECOND POSTULATE – “The only way to know God is for Him to reveal Himself.” Just like needing to flee my atheistic state to agnosticism, knowing that I can never disprove God’s existence, the opposite also became abundantly clear.
I, with my own limited faculties, poverty of perceptive abilities, and woeful ignorance of the universe, would forever flounder, flapping on the shore doubt and skepticism.
Does God Exist?
Did I think God existed based on the evidence? YES. But I had to be honest then, and I will be honest now. Did I and do I believe in natural theology? Yes, but that still only takes us so far.
Without God’s revelation, I could never know if God exists!
Summary
Though I am now a Christian, I have not always been and honestly wrestled with these ideas. I came away from the question, “Does God exist?” with these thoughts.
- I will never have enough knowledge – so I must be an agnostic, not an atheist
- The universe appears to have a designer/creator
- The only way to know God is for Him to reveal Himself
Next Steps
Just a few steps into the search for God, there are so many paths to choose. You can spend more time reviewing belief systems and atheism, including evolution. You might want to revisit the decision tree.
Ready to Review extant religions – check out my postulates.
Convinced that atheism is unsustainable – check out What is agnosticism?
Who is Jesus?
What Next?
- What is the crucial concept?
- Why is that significant?
- If you agree, the next steps.
- If you disagree, please consider reading.