Question: I have struggled with this thing called “faith” all of my
life. I want to “believe” in God and the Bible but can’t make myself do
it. I keep having these nagging doubts. What am I supposed to do?
Response:
By all means, don’t “make” yourself believe in God or the Bible. Let
me suggest that you begin by facing the logical necessity of God’s
existence. Without God, neither the universe nor we ourselves would
exist, and there would be no purpose or meaning for anything. The Bible
begins like this: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the
earth” (Genesis:1:1).
It doesn’t argue God’s existence, because that fact is self-evident
from the universe we see around us and has been implanted by God in
every person’s conscience.
The Bible unapologetically declares, “The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God” (Psalm:14:1;
53:1). Any thinking human being must agree with this pronouncement.
Only a fool could believe that the universe came into existence by
chance. Just one living cell in the human body is, according to Nobel
Prize winner Linus Pauling, “more complex than New York City.” To
imagine that life itself (which is a mystery beyond the capability of
science to fathom) and the incredible complexity of matter that sustains
life could happen by chance is absurd.
All the Evidence Points to God
Suppose two survivors of a ship that sank have drifted for days in a
life raft across the South Pacific and at last are washed ashore on an
island. Their great hope, of course, is that the island is inhabited so
they can find food, medical attention, and a means of returning to their
distant homes. Pushing their way into the jungle, they suddenly come
upon an automated factory operating full tilt. Though no person is
visible, products are being manufactured, packaged, and labeled for
shipping.
One of the parties exclaims, “Praise God! The island is inhabited! Someone must have made and oversees this factory!”
“You’re crazy,” replies his companion. “You’ve been out in the sun too
long. There’s absolutely no reason to believe that this thing was
designed and put together by some intelligent being. It just happened by
chance over who-knows-how-many billions of years.”
The first man looks down at his feet and sees a watch with a broken
wristband lying in the dirt. Again he exclaims, “Look! A watch! This
proves the island’s inhabited!”
“You’ve got to be kidding,” retorts his companion. “That thing is just a
conglomeration of atoms that happened to come together in that form by
chance plus billions of years of random selection.”
No person in his right mind could imagine that a factory or a watch
could just happen by chance. Then how could any rational person insist
that the universe came into existence by chance, much less that the
complex life forms on earth did so! A single cell in a leaf or in an
animal’s body is thousands of times more complex than the factory and
the watch put together. The human body consists of trillions of cells,
thousands of different kinds, all working together in perfect balance.
Our top scientists can’t produce a human brain even with all of the
computers and technology that exist today. Only God could do so. Chance
certainly could not!
Nor does it make sense that God would create man without having a
definite purpose for him. Nothing is so frustrating to an intelligent
person as having no purpose in life. Yet the very idea of purpose could
not arise by chance, for purpose and chance are opposites. There can’t
be design without a designer. We know, therefore, that God had a purpose
for creating us. And if so, He must have a way to communicate that
purpose.
The Bible claims to be the Word of God to mankind and explains God’s
purpose and plan. We are not expected to believe that claim without
sufficient evidence, but in fact that claim is supported by a vast body
of evidence, much of it held in museums around the world and so
irrefutable that no one capable of reading the Bible has any excuse for
doubting its claims. We will present many such proofs throughout this
book.
The major proof of God’s existence that the Bible offers is the fulfillment of hundreds of specific prophecies. In Isaiah:46:9–10, God says that He will prove His existence by telling what will happen before it happens. In Isaiah:43:10,
God tells Israel that she is His witness, both to herself and to the
world, that He is God. How is that so? Because of the many prophecies
God made concerning Israel that have come to pass: that the Jews would
be scattered to every nation on earth; that they would be hated and
persecuted and killed as no other people (anti-Semitism); that they
would be preserved in spite of a thousand Hitlers trying to exterminate
them; that they would be brought back to their land in the last days . .
. and many other prophecies that have clearly been fulfilled and are in
the process of being fulfilled before our very eyes.
We won’t go into these details here because we have dealt thoroughly
with prophecy in other books. The point, however, is that no one should
believe anything without a solid reason for doing so, and the evidence
compelling mankind to believe in God and the Bible is absolutely
overwhelming.
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