Photo by Timothy Eberly on Unsplash
It’s been a debacle existing from time immemorial – is God real? Without solely depending on one’s belief and faith, how can his existence be proven?
“To see is to believe.”
Whenever someone says something remotely bizarre or unbelievable, the most rational thing people are expected to do is to question. It could be fundamental human nature, but nobody immediately jumps on board with another and believes whatever they hear.
Perhaps, people are skeptical in nature. They ask for evidence, any proof for what another asserts, before trusting their word. Unless they see solid evidence, it’s hard for them to believe in anything they can’t see. Claims are merely words until one sees something to back them up. After all, it’s easier to believe what once was unbelievable than to fix a broken trust or stop believing in something one had previously thoroughly believed in.
But What if the Only Evidence Is One’s Belief?
It’s been an ongoing discourse ever since time and society existed.
There are billions in the world, all of whom share common questions about their existence, the whys, and hows of their lives: Why do they exist? How did they exist?
Aside from the desire to determine the purpose of their lives, humans have also taken a step back and wondered about their and the world’s origin. How did everything come to be? In the biological aspect, there’s no questioning of how people are made. But this explanation doesn’t fulfill the mind’s philosophical quest to explain and understand the very root of things.
“Is God real?”
This question is often at the height of all these inquiries. Does He exist? And how can people prove his existence? The search for whether He exists has always been relevant and prevalent throughout generations. But it’s an issue time can never settle. The attempt at proving God’s existence through logical reasoning and arguments has always been labeled the most ambitious intellectual endeavor one will ever undertake because it can’t be proven through physical evidence.
It’s easy for people to claim they have faith and believe in God’s existence. But when one asks for proof, nothing can be provided. And while faith can move mountains, it’s not enough to turn others’ minds and satisfy those that believe He doesn’t exist.
Is God Real? Answered
Author and previous Peace Corps volunteer Gary Lindberg has provided his best answer to the long-standing question, is God real? In his book “God’s Existence: Truth or Fiction?” Lindberg approached the question through the lens of different sciences to arrive at an answer.
Going beyond belief and faith, Lindberg dug through the most credible source: the sciences, and attempted to provide reasonable enough proof. Through this scientific study, people have inched closer to discovering the truth behind His existence. The book reviews existing theories and concepts revolving around life, from Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, showing people’s need to believe in a superior being, to the Big Bang theory. It considers every approach that has been used to define humanity and create a connection to spirituality and God.
The Ontological Argument
In his argument using Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, Lindberg posits that it’s self-contradictory to people’s needs to deny the existence of a superior being. It’s essential for human development and self-fulfillment to trust that everything will work in their favor regardless of their current situation.
An external factor can be crucial to keep everyone sane and not drowning in self-doubt and blame. When things aren’t going well, it pays to be reassured that someone “behind the scenes” is making the decision and that people aren’t entirely to blame for things going awry. They can then claim to be redirected in life and not necessarily failures.
And whom other can they trust to help them flourish through life than an overseeing being? This makes God’s existence a necessary truth that everyone must believe in. Hence, “Is God real?” is already a counterstatement to humanity’s need to believe in something or someone.
Gary Lindberg’s explanation can be associated with the Ontological Argument conceived by Proslogium. He states that the very fact that people have heard about a superior being in possible existence means it can’t exist through understanding alone. It should also be conceived in reality, canceling any doubt of its existence. This makes God a superior being, a conceptual truth.
The Cosmological Argument
In relation to Gary Lindberg’s usage of the Big Bang Theory to prove that God is real is the existence of the Cosmological argument. This argument places God at the center of everything, the ultimate cause of why everything exists. Just as the Big Bang Theory explains the birth of the universe, Cosmological observation argues that nothing should’ve also existed without the help of a superior being.
Unlike the Ontological argument, which banks on the human’s need for fulfillment, an invisible, understandable proof, the Cosmological argument uses the world’s empirical observation. There are causes, motion, planets, physics, and the sciences because there is God. Everything works the way they are and can be explained through comprehensive observation because God has made it that way.
The fact that people have the consciousness to wonder and question if God is real should already be enough proof that He indeed does. Consciousness isn’t a matter of physical, biological, or chemical processes. Instead, it can be used as a confirmation that a transcendent nature of matter and the physical world exists beyond what’s physically observed.
“Is God real?”
Trying to answer this and provide solid evidence to back it up will still be challenging. But the very fact that consciousness and the soul exists should be enough to stop this ever-growing debate.
