And the answer is the first point on the outline. God's self-revelatory character. God reveals himself as he is. God reveals himself to exist. And he does that through nature and through scripture, where he declares that he brings real people and real things into being, simply because he exists. He is real. Now, in terms of nature, the simplest answer, of course, of scripture is Genesis 1.1. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And so, as we open the Bible, the answer to this stupendous question of European philosophers is written for us on the very opening words of scripture. Here's the answer. in the beginning God? And the answer lies also in the New Testament, in the beginning of the Gospel of John, which I read to you. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him, and without him was not anything made that was made." So what scripture is saying is that if we are to know anything in its ultimate context, we must know it in the context of the Creator. That is to say, anything that we know in this world we know in relationship to God. If we know it rightly, it's rooted in our having a right knowledge and by extension, a right relationship with God. So in the Bible, the question, the ultimate question is not, why is it that there's something and not nothing? But the ultimate question is, well, since God is there and since God is the creator, how is God known? A much better question. And the answer to that question in the Bible is, God is known because he's revealed himself. In fact, he's revealed himself in a way from which no man can escape. Now, biblical theology then works out this principle of the inescapable God in some rather striking ways. For scripture, The knowledge of God, as important as it is, is not the terminal point of our epistemology, that is, our way of knowing. You see, that would be, in a sense, characteristic of the philosophical, theological quest that has really bedeviled the Western world, that the knowledge of God is bound to stand at the terminal point. But scripture reverses that whole process and says that the knowledge of God is not the terminal point, rather the knowledge of God is the beginning point, or we could say the a priori point of the epistemological quest. That is, it comes from God to us. This knowledge is of divine origin and God communicates it to us. It's not a posteriori, going from us to God. It's coming from God to us. And Genesis 1.1 sets the context for this. But also Genesis 1.26 and 27, that God made man in his image. So from the opening chapter of the Bible, everything that is, bears the stamp of createdness. Createdness. So nothing that is, lacks the hallmark of God's fingerprints. Hermann Bavink in your reading states that well, he says, according to the scripture, the entire universe is a creation and therefore the entire universe is a revelation of God. Nothing is atheistic. Nothing is atheistic in the absolute sense of the term. That's beautiful. So what Bavink is doing is he's drawing out of the principle of creation in Genesis 1. which is true of the creation as a whole and every element of the creation. So divine revelation, divine disclosure, that's what revelation is, is the inescapable a priori of all our cognitive experience, all that we can think about. So there's no escape from God, even if we don't have a Bible. Isn't that what Romans 1 teaches us? That even the natural man is confronted with God everywhere. He suppresses that knowledge, to be sure, but it's still there. It's what we call general or natural revelation. And Paul says in Romans 1 that this revelation is actually clear. It's not sufficient to salvation, but the man who rejects it is inexcusable, Paul says, for rejecting this knowledge of God. But for millions of people on this globe, millions upon millions of people, we have, in addition to this natural revelation, the proof that God is by his own supernatural revelation deposited in the Holy Scriptures. And to reject this disclosure of God in the Bible, the Bible says is to bring down God's wrath upon us and to ripen ourselves for condemnation. I don't want to go further into this area here, because we get into the whole doctrine of revelation in Prolegomena. But let me just stress this, that the Bible reveals God in ways, particularly covenantal ways and Christological ways, that nature does not and cannot. The Bible shows us that God is a covenant God. The Bible, which of course is God's book to begin with, is really a covenant document. It's written primarily to a covenant community that we today might call the people of God. Gospels are written for the church. Paul addresses his epistles to the saints in various places. and so on. So the Bible isn't designed, or its primary purpose isn't to deal with all kinds of metaphysical and philosophical problems raised by the opponents of Christianity, or by atheists. The Bible assumes the basic Christian theistic stance. that God is. And it puts that theistic stance in covenantal framework. So, the Bible not only goes far beyond the questions being asked by the atheists and the philosophers, and sort of, well, just kind of wipes away their questions with a swipe of the hand, as it were. Of course God exists, and here he is. But the Bible actually goes beyond that and actually defines what the real questions are. Ask the right questions. Questions about our relationship with God. And so the Bible confronts us with something far beyond, far beyond what science and philosophy and other disciplines are asking. For the Bible presents us with the real problems as well as the real answers. And the real problem, of course, is our rebellion against God. If we understood the very question rightly, does God exist? The very question is audacious. So man's problem is the ethical problem of rebellion against God, apostasy from God. So, you see, the Bible, the Book of the Covenant, handles this whole thing far differently than we would. It doesn't get down on an eye-to-eye level with the atheist and say, you know, you've got a really good question there, let's talk this over. But the Bible brings life-giving truth. It says to the atheist, you're a fool for not believing in God. And this God has claims on you. If you don't repent and believe, you're on your way to hell. So the Bible sets forth this God not as some philosophical ground of being, but it presents him as a personal God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the God with whom we have to do. And therefore, When we engage in the study of systematic theology and we look at the doctrine of God, we're not engaging in some kind of neutral, objective science that has nothing to do with us, some kind of rational equilibrium whereby we in a profound way come to a conclusion, well, God exists. But the outcome of our labors as we look at the doctrine of God ought to be doxological. as we sing in our Psalter book, all people, all people that on earth do dwell, sing to the Lord with cheerful voice, him serve with mirth, his praise foretell, come ye before him and rejoice. This is a God of relationship, not just a God that barely exists. So we don't believe that God exists because we're assuming something or presuming something. Ultimately, we believe that God exists because we believe God's revelation concerning himself, not only in nature, but preeminently in scripture. Now that means then that our belief in the existence of God is ultimately not a matter of presumption, but a matter of faith, a matter of faith. So when we say the Christian accepts the truth of the existence of God by faith, this is a statement that presupposes in a sense, the existence of God. So we don't spend our time scratching our head and saying, I just wonder if that God is real. Faith knows he's real. Paul says in Romans 4.16, therefore it is of faith that it might be by grace. to the end that the promise might be sure to all the seed not to that only which is of the law but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham who is the father of us all you see it is by faith in order that it might be by grace so by the grace of God we believe what God says about himself And this is very important, because we live in a very feeling-oriented society today, and a lot of people say, well, the way I want God to be is... But by faith means that your God is not your autonomous decision, but your God is everyone's God, because God is real over all the earth, And your faith means that God has worked a transformation within you so that the scales could fall from your eyes and you could perceive what he has said about himself in the Bible. And you've embraced that and attested to it. Now, that's God's self-revelatory character. You see how it turns the table on man? Does God exist? And it really asks the question, not only do I exist, but what is your relationship with me? Do you believe my revelation to you? So it turns the table and puts the responsibility on us. Now it's time to get more focused. Just how does the Bible speak about the existence of the true and living God? I move to part B on the outline now. The true and the living God. The Bible does indeed speak about the being of God. I suppose the most basic doctrinal affirmation in all of scripture is simply, God is. God is. Now that, you might say, is the most foundational truth for our lives as well. But we need to set that truth in the context of biblical patterns of thought to see how the Bible approaches all of this, how the Bible would have us understand the doctrine of the being and the existence of God. Lewis Berkoff is correct when he says this, the assumption of God or the assumption of the Bible is not merely that there is something or some idea or some ideal or some power or some purposeful tendency to which the name of God may be applied, some superior being. The assumption is that there is a self-existent self-conscious, personal being, who is the origin of all things and who transcends the entire creation, but is at the same time imminent in every part of that creation. Well, that is all true, what Burkhoff says. And I think that's a good way of putting it to one extent, but the Bible actually goes even further. The Bible doesn't simply put in these kind of rationalistic categories that God exists, but the Bible particularly sets forth the existence and the being of God under the rubric of this point I'm bringing you. Namely, that He is the true and the living God. It's not in dry philosophical categories. but it's in warm, personal truth. You see, when we think of the being or the existence of God, too often we are prone to think of this doctrine in kind of reserved and cold and static ways. Some kind of rationalistic inference or deduction from a collection of facts or data. And too often, too often these terms have been used precisely that way. Even in systematic theology. And even among some reformed theologians. You'll find this section of dogmatics to be incredibly dry. But what I want to suggest to you is that the Bible is much more dynamic on this doctrine. And perhaps one of the best texts in which this is grounded is in Hebrews 11, verse 6. But without faith it is impossible to please him, for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is the rewarder of them that diligently seek him. Key words here, of course, being must believe that he is. So in the context, the writer is elaborating on this theme of faith. The whole of Hebrews 11, you recall, is given to a description of faith and of believers. And this is a reflection of the concluding verses in chapter 10, where the author introduces a subject of saving faith. and that saving faith is a reflection back into the Old Testament as you know of that famous text Habakkuk 2 verse 4 where we're told that the just shall live by faith. So at the heart of this faith is this living dynamic that God is, and that we believe that he is, not only, but that he's the rewarder of those that seek him, that there's a vital relationship here between God and us. God blesses those who seek him. Now, there are many other texts that take this dynamic and carry it further. For example, Exodus 3.14, we would be remiss not mentioning this classic text. And God said unto Moses, I am that I am. Thou shalt say unto the children of Israel, I am has sent me unto you. Well, for Moses and for Israel, this is not a static, dry truth. This was their deliverance, the I Am, the God who exists, the God who exists everywhere. The God is not just a local deity, Moses would say, but the God of the heaven and earth, the true and the living God, who reveals himself here by his covenant name. the I was that I was, the I am that I am, the I shall be that I shall be, the unchangeable covenant keeper, this God is. Three chapters later, Exodus 6 verse 3, I appeared unto Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob by the name of God Almighty, but by my name Jehovah was I not known to them. You see, God is identifying. who he is by his very existence. Now this saving faith in this God who is takes on even a more powerful dynamic because he is who he is in Jesus Christ. And that's why Jesus could also use this language of I am, not only in all the I am's of the Gospel of John, but particularly in that one in the Gospel of John, which defines himself so graphically as a God who's ever lived. John 8, verse 58, Jesus said unto them, verily, verily, I say unto you, before Abraham was, you'd expect him to say, I existed, but he says, I am. I am. You catch the dynamism of this. I'm the eternally existent, covenant-keeping, unchangeable, faithful God, the Lord of the Covenant, I am. Now, over against all this data, Scripture presents us with the opposite side, which also is a proof in a way. It's the fool, the unbeliever, who denies this existence of God. Psalm 10, verse 4, the wicked through the pride of his countenance will not seek after God. God is not in all his thoughts. Psalm 14, verse 1, the fool has said in his heart there is no God. They are corrupt. They have done abominable works. And Psalm 53, verse 1, Corrupt are they, and have done abominable iniquity, there is none that doeth good. Now these texts must not be misconstrued. They are not technically theological, rationalistic proofs of the non-existence of God. But rather, they're an affirmation of practical, practical atheism. Because they're motivated by rebellion. The fool says, there's no God. I don't have to reckon with God. I don't have to take him into account for all practical purposes. He doesn't exist in my life. You see, the fool pushes him away, marginalizes him, wants to push him over the cliff and say, I can live by myself without this God. So practical atheism is really the antonym of practical theology. in the wide sense of the word. Narrow sense of the word, of course, when we think of practical theology, we think, technically, don't we, of the discipline of how to be a minister, how to do worship, and so on. But we think of practical theology in the wider sense of the word. We think about how to live as a Christian. And the difference here, you see, is the fool says, God is not in any of my thoughts, and the wise man says, God is in all my thoughts. He's the true and the living God with whom I must always contend, always go to. So to affirm the being of this God that is not static but is alive and dynamic and enters into relationship with us through the Lord Jesus Christ is to affirm that every day, every hour, every minute of the day, whether I realize it or not, I'm in a vital relationship. with this God. And you see, once you follow this chain of reasoning, then this doctrine isn't so dry, dull, and static, is it? And then the contrast between the practical believer and the practical atheist is very, very strong. Paul reminds the Gentiles of what their condition was namely practical atheism, before they came to Christ. He says, at that time you were without Christ, Ephesians 2.12, aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers from the covenant of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world. I want to point out to you a couple of other things that also stress this existence of God, this true and living God. Two other ways in scripture and then we'll move on. The first is God himself affirms this through the oath expression. He often takes concerning himself the oath expression. Hebrew is translated in the King James Bible as, as I live. You're familiar with it. As I live saith the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked. One example. But God is reinforcing in all the examples you could find in the concordance. He's reinforcing the truth of what he's talking about in that particular context by referring to his own life. I want you to think about that. My wife knows very much that I love her. I just love that woman so very much. So if I wanted to say something was really, really true, there's no doubt at all, it would really work for me, at least in my relationship with her. I hope you can say the same thing if you're married. I could say to her, if she was in doubt about something, look honey, as surely as I love you, this is true. That would be a good argument for her, because she knows I love her. That's what God is doing here. As I live, as surely as I live, and you know that I live, X, Y, or Z is true. So you see, God is saying my being, my existence, It's not dry, not static, and it's not something I'm going to belabor in the Bible to prove, because you know it deep in your conscience anyway, and I'm confirming it for you every day. Therefore, I can even use it as an argument for the truth of other things, because this is the foundational truth of everything that God lives. The point of this, that God lives, even that is not dry and static in relationship to us because clearly when God says, as I live I have no pleasure in your death, God is saying the fact that I live is something you have to reckon with. Every knee will bow to me. You have to reckon with it. either for well or for woe. For well, if you believe. For woe, if you persist in impenitent unbelief. So Romans 14 verse 11 says, For it is written, As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God. And you know Romans 14 actually is an offshoot here of Isaiah 45 verse 23. Isaiah 45 verse 23, I've sworn by myself the word is gone out of my mouth in righteousness and shall not return that unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear And secondly, the other form I want to mention of this is not only that God uses the expression, as I live, but also that the Bible often refers to God as the living God or the true God. A couple examples you can look up here. Jeremiah 10.10, 1 Thessalonians 1, verse 9. The living God and the true God. That is applied to a host of different things. It's the living God who made the heavens and the earth, we're told in Acts 14 verse 15. It's the living God who punishes sin, we're told in Deuteronomy 5 verse 26. It's the living God into whose hands we must fall negatively if we're unbelievers. Hebrews 10 verse 31, it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. And if we're believers, it's the living God who's the redeemer of his people. Even Darius. had to confess that when he recognized the protecting presence of God with Daniel. Cast into the lion's den, Daniel 6 verse 26, you worship the living God. And so even the heathen ought to recognize it and take account of it. The heathen God said, And we may know this living God again through Jesus Christ to be the living God. And that's why when Jesus said to Peter, who am I? Who do you say that I am? He said, you are the Christ. What? The son of the living God. The son of the living God. The Church of Jesus Christ is also called the Church of the Living God, 1 Timothy 3, verse 15. And at least three places in the Bible, conversion is described as a matter of turning from idols to serving the living and the true God. Acts 14, verse 15. And 1 Thessalonians 1, verse 9. So let this suffice then to answer the question of how the Bible presents the existence of God. It's a dynamic, living, true God that we're presented with, a God who's alive not only, but a God with whom we have to do Hebrews 4, verse 13, for all things. are naked and open before this living God with whom we have to do. Now that leads us then to a brief discussion, and I will keep it brief, and the so-called proofs of the existence of God. Hopefully by now you realize that these proofs really aren't essential because of what we have already talked about in the Bible and in nature. And yet, it's good to talk about the proofs and have a basic understanding of them. But before we get into proofs, let me ask you if you have any questions on part A and B on the outline. Yes, sir? I don't understand the term terminal point. Does that just mean beginning? Ending point. It's not just the ending point. The ending point is not, an epistemological quest is not just to say, God is, and then we're done, like in philosophy. Because God has relationship. He's the living God. So, really, where philosophy ends is where theology begins. Yes, God is, theology says. Of course he is. In the beginning, God. Now, since you and I have to do with this God, there's a lot more to be said, a lot more to be known. Other questions? All right, let's jump into the proofs of the existence of God. And my goal is to actually make it through this section in the remaining time so we don't I mean, we could spend hours and hours on the proofs of the existence of God. Personally, I don't think it's that profitable, but some basic thoughts are needful and helpful. Most theology texts develop this section at considerable length, especially 19th century ones. and you can read more in them if you desire. This is your cup of tea. But often, not so much anymore, I think most theologians today realize that we can put too much weight on this, but often in the past, particularly evidentialists, who are not presuppositionalists, tended to belabor these proofs. extensively, and I think put too much weight on them. I need to say one thing before we get to the so-called five classical proofs, which I've got on the outline there for you under point two. I need to say one thing under point one, that for believers, the best proof is the revelation of God in Jesus Christ. The Word was made flesh. and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory. The glory is of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." John 1, 14. That's the best proof of the existence of God. Jesus Christ Himself is the proof of the existence of God, for He is God. And we come into personal relationship with Him. Hebrews 1, verses 2 and 3, puts it so well, God has in these last days spoken unto us by his son, whom he has appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds, who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high. So God is saying, I've not only spoken through my son, but my son is the radiance of my glory. And my son is the exact representation of my nature. So how could there be more convincing proof of the existence of God than this? the word which God has spoken, the very person of Christ in the flesh, the exact representation of the Father, dwelt among us and is revealed to us in the Holy Scriptures. Well, that's the best proof for believers. Now, what do you do with the classical arguments or proofs? We're going to look at these briefly for two reasons. Number one, they played a considerable role in the systematic theology tradition of the Western world. And number two, It's helpful to look at them because they help us put these arguments into a broader context and framework within which the scriptures invite us to operate. So let's look at them one by one. And let me also add that in your apologetics class, you'll be looking at these, no doubt, at greater length. The first is the so-called ontological argument, which in classical theology is associated with the name of Anselm. Anselm, the Archbishop of Canterbury, His life spans the last two-thirds of the 11th century and runs into the beginning of the 12th century. Now, there are various forms of this ontological argument, but the most classic one is the one presented by Anselm, so I'll just give you that one. In Anselm's argument, he reasons from the necessary existence of God as the highest conceivable idea. In the version of the argument which he employs in his little book, Pros Logion, the gist of the statement is that God is the one than whom no greater can be conceived." God is the one than whom no greater can be conceived. Anselm argues that it follows from this that if God did not exist he would not be that one which nothing greater can be conceived for the reason that that would then leave room for the conception of something greater. And there's nothing greater than God. And so he concludes by the end of chapter two of his book that God is so great that no greater can be conceived. and cannot exist. Therefore, he cannot exist. Therefore, just in our understanding alone, he must really exist. Consequently, his conclusion is that he supposes that that which nothing greater can be conceived might lack existence is self-contradictory. God is the greatest possible thing that can exist, necessarily exists. Now the most famous version of this argument, since Anselm, is of course the one offered by Rene Descartes. a 17th century philosopher, and his philosophy is often referred to as Cartesianism. Descartes basically says that, For me to think, for me to know that I am, is to know that something greater than I must exist, because if I can think that I am and I really am, and then I think that God is, God must be. So both Descartes and Ansem have this aha moment, aha experience in which through thinking they come to the conclusion of the being or the ontological idea of God. The problem with all these arguments lies in the area of the way in which the argument moves from the idea of God to the being of God. without a full justification of the transition. That's why Immanuel Kant, for example, criticizes the way in which the argument wrongly treats existence, as though it were an attribute or a predicate, along with other attributes or predicates. when existence itself is the basis for all predication. Now, there are various forms and refinements of this argument and different ways of looking at it. Last century, Karl Barth, for example, and others as well concluded that since the whole context in which Anselm is using this argument is the context of faith, the context itself then, in which he's doing the theology, is the context of faith seeking understanding. So Anselm really as he presents this argument is standing within the world of faith. And that's why believers may find this compelling, but the unbeliever who is standing outside the world of faith, you see, will need a clearer proof of how he moves from the idea of God to the being of God. So the problem here is that the opening statement of Anselm's argument appears, because it's coming from within the context of faith, it appears to presuppose its ultimate conclusion, namely, that God is that than which nothing greater can be conceived. Now, other arguments. come from an a posteriori direction, that is, moving from us to God, moving from the nature of the universe or from the nature of thought. So let's look at a second argument, often called the cosmological argument for the existence of God. Cosmological. Certainly in the Western world, this argument actually predates the Christian faith. It goes back into the classic Hellenistic philosophers, then comes into the Christian faith in a more perfected form through Aquinas via Aristotle. And this proof deduces the existence of God from an empirical observation of the universe. An empirical observation of the universe. In other words, we look around the world and we see the principle of cause and effect. Cause and effect operating in the world. And on that basis, when we come to the ultimate object of our observation, namely the world in its entirety, we say, this too must be the effect of some cause greater than itself. The world itself must be caused, and therefore there must be a Supreme Being, there must be a God. who brought the world into being. Now again, like the ontological argument, the cosmological argument has been placed under the microscope of a myriad of theologians and philosophers over the century. And it, too, faces a few problems. First, it faces the problem, the objection, that the implier of the argument is artificially and a prioristically determining for himself or herself the terminal point, the end point, of the extension involved in the argument. In other words, If we say everything that is affected has a cause and we go back and we go back and back and back and back all the way till we get to the entire world and then we go back beyond the world and we get to God, why isn't there another step beyond God? So again, it's almost as if we're presenting this argument from within the world of faith and saying this is a convenient stopping point, this is the way the unbeliever would look at it, you're making a convenient stopping point with God. What caused God? In other words, in metaphorical terms, we cannot arbitrarily declare that our train stopped in the place where the train reaches its final destination just because that is where we get off. Maybe the train has other stops to make beyond where we get off. So the unbeliever accuses the believer here of a kind of intellectual convenience factor on the part of theism. It's convenient for us to say this is where the chain stops because this is really what we want to prove to begin with, that God exists. And then more broadly, and this is true particularly since the time of the Enlightenment, the transfer from what happens in various parts, various parts of the recognizable order of the universe, to the entirety of the universe, often involves a leap which is not intellectually or logically necessary. In other words, is it absolutely necessary to have something beyond this world? Maybe this world, this universe, is the last cause, the unbeliever would say. So this argument, though it makes good sense to us from within the world of faith, that there must be someone that made the world, and that God being God is the end point. It makes perfect sense to us. But if you don't believe the Bible, and you don't believe in the existence of God, this probably isn't going to do it for you. Number three. The teleological argument. Since things demonstrate evidence of order and purpose and design, the great orderer must exist. That is, the one who ordered all this must exist. And he must be greater than all that exist. Therefore, he must be God. This too is a classic medieval proof of various theologians. Probably the most famous of whom is, or who at least gave the most famous version of the argument, is William Paley. Paley's most famous illustration of this, and you've heard this before I'm sure, is that of the watch and the watchmaker. So let's say you're wandering along the shores of Lake Michigan, and you see a beautiful, beautiful watch laying in the sand. And, by George, the thing is still ticking. And you pick it up, and you notice that Well, this is a beautiful watch in all its parts, in all its order, and it functions well. So you turn it over in your hand, and what do you say? You don't say, do you? Well, what a gratuitous concourse of atoms have come together by chance in this watch. You don't say that. You look at the watch and you deduce from the design of the watch, and if you took off the back and looked at the works of the watch, you deduce the harmony. The harmony of all its parts. And you would conclude from that. Someone in Switzerland or somewhere else in the world, who is a watchmaker, has designed this watch and brought it into being. The watch has a watchmaker. There's too much order here. There's too much design for this to happen by chance. So Paley and the theologians in general who employed this argument did so in a myriad of different ways, but this is really the basic thought of it. Design and functionality and symmetry and purposefulness abound in our universe. And this just could not fall this way by chance or develop this way by chance. Now this is a favorite argument, of course, of 18th century deism. Deism says, don't you see how beautifully designed the creation is to work the way it works? Paley, for example, makes a great deal of the fact that, the striking fact, he thinks, that animals require sleep and that every day there's not only a period of light in which to be awake, but a period of darkness which is conducive to sleep. Well, at first sight, that all seems pretty good, but it's not that simple. For one thing, when I was recently in South Africa and we went out at night with a bright light just to look at the animal kingdom down there at night, I didn't think we'd see a thing. You know, we saw more animals at night than we did during the day. The animal kingdom out there, at least, seems to sleep more during the day than the night. Well, that's just one symptom of the problems. You see, what happens with this whole argument is that there are a lot of things that are chaotic. There are a lot of things that are disorderly. Now, we know, of course, from the Bible that the explanation of these things is because sin came into the world. But again, if you don't believe the Bible, if you're an unbeliever, you'd say something like David Hume said in response to this argument, how odd to use this argument when one man infers God from the apparent interruptions of order and another man infers God from the order itself. So how do you fit this in when you're an unbeliever and you look around and you see that there are all kinds of problems in the world, all kinds of disorder, confusion, chaos, so much seems random. The fourth argument is called the historical argument. In some ways, this argument is really not an argument per se, but a statistical conclusion. And what this argument does, is you look over the history of the world, and you discover, the statistics are pretty good, they're actually 100%, that at all times, in all places in history, men and women have believed in God, some kind of supreme being, that is. But this is to say, you won't find anywhere in the world, even in a self-enclosed valley, any tribe of people that don't believe in some kind of superior being. Well, that's, again, a very powerful argument for those of us who are believers. The problem with it, as a purely rational argument, is, of course, the problem that our objective consciousness may not be an accurate reflection of reality. We need something more than this to employ a full statistical argument. For example, you may take an exam and you may leave it thinking you've bombed out. You're sure you've bombed out. you're sure you got less than 50% you're going to fail and lo and behold you get the paper back and you got an 82 and you're amazed you see your first conclusion was a subjective impression or you can do it the other way around you can think that you got an A and you can walk out with great confidence and you get it back and you got a 55 and you were mistaken So we can look around and see all these people groups that have some kind of belief in a supreme being and conclude there must be a God, but part of that is subjective. You can also look at these groups and say, wow, how varied their beliefs are. There must not be a God. Again, if you don't believe in the Bible, you don't believe in sin and the corruption of the views of God. So again, it's more designed for believers than unbelievers. Finally, the last argument is the moral argument, used by a great variety of people, both before and after the Enlightenment. The argument here is that universally, everyone has a conscience. a kind of sense of right and wrong, and that conscience reflects a right and wrong giver. Since there is no culture in which this distinction fails to be made, therefore there must be a God. Probably the man who made the most of this argument in the 20th century was C.S. Lewis, at least the most popular employer of this argument. Lewis argues that in some cultures it may be wrong to have more than one wife. Other cultures a man can have as many wives as he wants, but in no culture may a man just simply go out and take any woman he wants as his wife. So even in polygamous cultures, there is still a conscience about life-taking. So Lewis is saying there are elements of truth planted by God throughout the whole created order. And within the context of these divergencies, there is this one common factor that everywhere there's a sense of right and wrong, a sense of oughtness and ought-notness. and that the universality of that argues, therefore, a universal source of obligation, which we call God, who, therefore, is the author, the universal author of the moral ought of which we are all conscious. Well, again, if you're a believer, that's pretty persuasive. You've got the Bible to back you up on this and so on. But if you're an unbeliever, You tend to focus probably more on the moral confusion than the moral harmony. In Irian Yaya, Indonesia, it's perfectly all right in the conscience of the people to steal, except if you get caught. Then it's wrong. If you go out and steal 20 of my yams and I don't catch you, or we'd say 20 of our potatoes and I don't catch you, you're a hero. in the local community, man, you got those 20 years from that guy and he didn't catch you, great. Now we're probably moving towards that heathenistic philosophy in our society as well. People are saying more and more, aren't they, in our society, as long as you get away with it, whatever you do, it's all right. So your conscience gets retrained. Now we believe in the Bible simply say, well, you're suppressing. what's truly right and wrong, you're distorting what God has originally given. But again, the unbeliever doesn't have that. So he looks at all this confusion and says, this conscience thing, seems like everyone just develops their own conscience, doesn't prove there's anything higher than the person with a conscience. Every man does that which is right in his own eyes. The whole philosophy of the book of Judges. So when it comes to evaluating the proofs, and I'm gonna move now to number three and conclude this lecture in just five or 10 minutes here. When it comes to the evaluation of these proofs, we need to ask ourselves a couple of things. Number one, what do we really mean when we speak about proofs for the existence of God? If we mean strict logical proof, coherent, independent, even independent of scripture, systemic thought, that's an ironclad case that can prove in black and white that God exists, these arguments appear to lack that independent coherence. And the fact that there are five of them to reinforce each other doesn't hold weight either. If you've got one bucket that has holes in it and it can't hold water, having five buckets with holes in it isn't going to hold any more water. That's the point. So, we cannot put too much weight on these proofs for the existence of God. Now, secondly, we must also reckon with the fact that these proofs have been used by God to convince many people that God is God. So, within the context of a biblical approach, to the knowledge of God. We need to distinguish the proof or argument itself from the materials out of which that argument has been formulated. Paul, for example, doesn't say that because General Revelation cannot save us, we should ignore it. No, he finds some good in General Revelation. In fact, he grounds our inexcusability in General Revelation's fullness and clarity, as we've seen. So he uses General Revelation in a different way from the manner characteristically used by evangelicals. That may be one reason why we have a hard time using general revelation in our contemporary world. You see, we've often tried to use general revelation, or rather, non-presuppositional Christians have tried to use general revelation to move from general revelation to special revelation. from the world to the church, from engaging the culture to defending ourselves against the culture. Now it's important for us not to throw out the baby with the bathwater here, and to recognize that the materials out of which these arguments have been composed are in fact the materials of divine revelation. So we don't confuse the truth of these raw materials contained in these five arguments with the weakness of the arguments for the unbeliever. In other words, for the believer, these arguments hold a lot of weight because they're manifesting, for the most part at least, scriptural truths. After all, scripture does say in one way or another, doesn't it, that no one greater than God can be conceived, that God is God over all, that God is the great orderer, that God is the first cause, that God is the lawgiver, that God forms the conscience, and that there is a universal sensus divinitatis, a universal sense of deity. So we keep the arguments for the existence of God as believers and say they can help us strengthen our faith because they consist of the raw materials of biblical data. Now, what about cases where they do help unbelievers believe? Well, if they do help unbelievers believe, God could use these proofs of course, to confirm for an unbeliever what the unbeliever's conscience is already saying to him. So even if you're not a presuppositionalist and you're an evidentialist and you think you can use these proofs to really persuade people, you might be successful sometimes. Not because the proofs themselves are ironclad proofs for the unbeliever, but because the unbeliever already has a penchant to move in the direction of believing that God exists because he's suppressing the knowledge. And so our conclusion is these proofs can have some value for a believer, reinforcing what the believer already knows and strengthening his faith. And for the unbeliever, though they're not ironclad proofs in themselves, independently, God can even bless them for an unbeliever in cases where the unbeliever is just suppressing the knowledge of God and really there's something in him deep down that wants to believe in God. Then they can be helpful. Alright, that leads us then to this conclusion that though a significant number of people have been converted, so to speak, to believing in God through these arguments, That still doesn't change our mind about the arguments' validity within themselves for unbelievers. People can come to you and say, you know, I got converted through reading Lewis's Mere Christianity, and there are people that have. His arguments for the existence of God in that book just blew me out of the water, and I came to faith in Christ. Well, you don't say to such a person, well, you know, you really can't be a Christian because these arguments in themselves really don't prove the existence of God and therefore you're mistaken. No. You recognize that this person probably came to Lewis's book in the beginning struggling with the idea, did God exist or not, with a conscience saying yes and desires perhaps saying no. And so God used a somewhat crooked stick to make things straight. in that unbeliever's life. God's doing this all the time. This shouldn't surprise us. Think of how many people have been converted under Armenian preaching. Much was wrong about the preaching and yet God used it. And then they discovered sounder truth later and they became Calvinistic. So God has ways of taking things that are a bit crooked and using them for straight purposes. And does that in our own lives as well. All right, that's my lecture to you today on the existence and being of God, and then next week we're going to pick up on the knowability and the incomprehensibility of