Some people think that to believe in God is an intellectual suicide or an abduction of reason. Still others would think that God is only for the superstitious. But, the truth is, the belief in the existence of God is one of the most reasonable concepts of all.
The principle of "to see is to believe" that is used by some to justify their disbelief is actually the one that is quite unreasonable. Has anyone seen an electron or a proton? No one; and yet, science knows there are such particles. They were known indirectly through observation and rational thinking. Through the same method, we are able to know that God exists. How?
A simple illustration may help:
Let's say you want to have a copy of the book Divine Comedy by Dante but it was long out of print and you just have to borrow it from somebody. You borrowed from your friend and he said that, yes, he can lend you a copy but he has to borrow it from his friend. His friend said that he can lend one but he has to borrow it from another friend and so the series of borrowing continues.
My question is: If the borrowing goes on endlessly, will you have a copy of the book? The answer is obviously, "No". But if, one early morning I saw you walking down the road having a copy of the book in your hand, is it unreasonable for me to conclude that the series of borrowing had an end? No, in fact that's a necessary conclusion. And, another logical necessity is that there must have been one person who really had a copy of the book and did not borrow it from another. We call him the First Lender.
Ok. Here's my point. Your (and my) existence is a borrowed one coz you did not cause yourself to exist (or, did you?). So, we say that we came from our parents, and your parents came from their parents and so on. Evolutionists might say that our first parents came from the apes; the apes came from lower forms of life; and the lower forms of life came from spontaneous assemblage of atoms and molecules; and so on. Will this series go on endlessly? You know the answer, it's "No". Reason tells us that there should be an end to the series. There must be one that has existence in itself or himself and did not borrow it from another. It/He is the First Cause or Uncaused Cause.
Materialists would say Amen up to this point. They will say that the First Cause was matter (atoms and molecules, which materialists say were already present from eternity). But, the problem is that, matter is dead, it has no intellect. Can dead and impersonal matter design itself and can it cause more complex things to arise? It is well to remember a fundamental law of causality: "No effect can be greater than its cause". A dead and impersonal matter without intellect can never account for the complexity and design of the universe.
The conclusion is clear. The First Cause is a living, personal being that has intellect. The First Cause is "He" and not "It". We, Christians, call him God. Moreover, you cannot deny God and admit that you exist. The fact that you exist proves that there is a First Cause (God); just as, in the illustration I gave, the presence of the book proves that there was a First Lender.
Will the materialists out there say Amen?
