The Bungee Cord. 11-19-24
Hello,
Does God exist?
When I hear people talk of their disbelief in God, I hear reasonable reasons. Some say that the presence of evil and tragedy convince them that God doesn’t exist. Some say that God is merely the transference of human fears and doesn’t exist. Some say that God is the answer to things we don’t understand and God’s reality wanes with every scientific discovery.
Over the centuries, there have been theologians who have tried to “prove” the existence of God. They contend that there must be an unmoved mover of all things. Others point to the intricacy of the creation, from its vastness to its minuteness. However, their proofs do not seem to carry much weight to those who have concluded God’s nonexistence. The unconvinced hold to a spontaneous and ongoing development of creation. They summon math formulas to deal with the existence of time and space. They use science and reason to undergird their disbelief, and I find myself agreeing with non-God believers that God’s existence cannot be proven by reason or science.
As a Christian, I am one who believes in the existence of God, but my belief in God is not founded on any “proof” of God. Actually, I do not think that the Christian faith begins with the belief in God. Even the Bible speaks of the things that non-God believers say. When tragedy happens in the Bible, often the ones who suffer say in disbelief, “Where are you, God?” Instead of beginning with the assertion in God’s existence as the prerequisite to Christian faith, I find that my belief in God is preceded by something that has happened in the universe: the death and resurrection of Jesus.
If Jesus died and rose from the grave, and that is the witness that has passed down from the first Good Friday and the first Easter, then there must , or at least I think so, have been some force or power whose limits are beyond time and space. There is only one reason that I believe in God: Jesus.
Of course, there are those who say that the cross and resurrection did not happen, and to counter such thinkers Christians have sought to prove its place in history by finding “artifacts”. Pieces of wood from the cross, the shroud of Turin, and on and on, and maybe they are. Some Christians claim to have seen holy visions, and maybe they have. But such proofs do not carry much weight for me.
The thing that breaks the camel’s back of doubt for me is the witness of a couple of women who recounted their discovery of the empty tomb out of which came a message, “He is not here. He has risen from the dead.” Because of that, I do not see myself as one whose task is to logically or empirically prove the existence of God, rather I find myself to be one who has been blessed to receive the witness of those women, and I seek to pass that witness on to those around me.
Of course, the witness that I have received does not come to me in a vacuum. I experience the true hope that that witness brings into my life. I see the power of that witness to break open my heart to others. I feel the peace that surpasses all human understanding embodied in that witness. I find that witness to be the seeds of faith that grow and blossom in my life. It is that witness and the repercussions of it in my life that leads me to believe in God.
There are those who disbelieve that astronauts landed on the moon…even though the witness was made on a TV screen. There are those who disbelieve that dinosaur ever roamed this earth….even though their bones bear witness to their existence. There are those who believe all sorts of things even though witness and evidence has been laid out before them. So, I understand that some may continue to disbelieve in the existence of God, despite the witness of those women, but as with all those other witnessed things that people disbelieve, the only thing that I can do is continue to be one who passes on those women’s witness, sharing the love that has come to me with everyone else….whether they believe the witness or not.
Have a great day.
God’s grace and peace, (ggap)
Pastor Jerry Nuernberger