Evidence for God exists all around us, and yet many people struggle with knowing if God exists. Is it ignorant to accept that God exists, as is often suggested in university circles? How is it possible there are such mixed opinions on this matter? For centuries, philosophers and theologians have considered this profound question. The subject interests everyone at some point in their life. Younger people do not always feel the existential tug to discover God until later in life, but eventually everyone wonders why am I here and is there a God above. It has tremendous influence on our lives and is worth investigating. This is a brief article exploring some evidence for God’s existence.
Let’s begin with the Cosmological Argument. This argument asks why anything at all should exist. Why is there something rather than nothing? Our experience teaches us that all change requires direction and cannot be purely random. Change inherently implies direction and often design. Even when change is involuntary, it is seen to have a source and a trajectory. Therefore, since there is change, there must have been something that initiated the first change.
A First Cause
The cosmological argument begins by recognizing that some being must have initiated this first change. An often-cited analogy is a chain of dominoes lined up to fall—the cosmological argument seeks first to answer who pushed the first domino. However, this only implies a linear chain of events and is an incomplete explanation. The one who pushed the first domino was not just first—He was independent of the dominoes. He was superior in nature. Fully understood, the cosmological argument recognizes that for change to occur, there must be an unchanging entity initiating this first change.
A Necessary Being
Aristotle, Aquinas, and Leibniz all classically expressed this argument, seeking to find a valid reason why anything at all should exist.¹ ² ³ Each of these significant philosophers maintained that the existence of a being surpassing the contingent and temporal characteristics of the universe was essential. This being is necessary, while all others are fluctuating and contingent. Let’s call this being God. Without God, the domino chain would regress infinitely, and there would be no logical explanation for why any domino should have ever fallen. Without this being, there is no explanation for why anything at all should exist. Nothing at all should exist without first this necessary being existing outside of and above our known universe.
An Infinite Series
Sometimes science has proposed that only the material world exists and that it stretches back in time in a continuous sequence, eventually leading to our present moment. However, both mathematics and physics challenge the idea that an infinite series of past events could actually bring us to today.⁴ While infinity can be imagined and discussed, it does not seem to exist in the real world. It remains a metaphysical concept that cannot be observed. In short, claiming that the universe is infinite requires infinity to exist in the real world—which is neither logical nor supported by observation. William Lane Craig and James Sinclair explore this in depth in their treatment of the Kalam Cosmological Argument in The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology.
Let’s consider some observable phenomena that demonstrate our universe has an obvious starting point.
The Second Law of Thermodynamics
The second law of thermodynamics states that all energy degrades progressively as it is transferred. Energy never disappears, but its usefulness dissolves.⁵ Just like a brand-new car gradually decreases in function, so does the energy in our universe. Picture a swinging pendulum: it begins with great force but eventually dissipates energy until no useful motion remains. The pendulum will not swing forever or suddenly surge into more energy without intervention. The universe operates like this pendulum. If it had existed forever, we would experience a universe devoid of any transferable energy—no stars, no life, no motion. That we do not experience this reality is evidence that it has not forever existed. Since we have not reached the point of complete entropy, it cannot be true that the universe has existed forever. There must have been a moment of cause, and it must have come from something greater than the transferable energy around us.
The Expansion of the Universe
A second observation is the expansion of the universe. Edwin Hubble was the first to discover that galaxies are moving away from each other, indicating that the universe is expanding like a balloon.6 It indicates that at one point all the universe was condensed in a single point and then exploded out into expansion. The explanations for this big bang are varied and inconclusive but the evidence for this beginning is observable. This discovery implies a beginning—a moment when all matter, space, and time came into existence. The expansion and second law of thermodynamics both point toward an eventual heat death, when all usable energy will be exhausted. These observations make it widely accepted that the universe had a beginning.
Conclusion
Both reason and observation reveal why the universe and all in it had a beginning. This beginning had to come from something greater than the matter and energy that exist within the universe. This necessary being is God—existing before and outside of our existence, in a superior and independent nature.
Despite the cosmological argument’s validity, it raises as many questions as it answers. It establishes a foundation for an introduction to God. It makes it reasonable to admit his existence while not indicating much about his person. It is necessary we prepare to address these subjects with the world. For many centuries Science has attempted to explain through natural processes everything that exists. However, this is simply not honest to the observable facts. Science does not have all the answers. When exposed it provides Christians an opportunity to make the reality of God scientificly logical and satisfying. This logical explanation for God will not bring anyone to the personal experience of God through Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit. While logical arguments can make our worldview intelligible, it is only the validation provided under the conviction of the Holy Spirit that draws people into right relationship with God. This is a brief explanation to provide some evidence that exposes the insufficiency of science to explain life. It is my hope this evidence will allow opportunities to share the gospel with intelligence and respect with those who hold doubts about God's existence.
Footnotes
1. Aristotle. (n.d.). Metaphysics (Book XII). In J. Barnes (Ed.), The Complete Works of Aristotle (Vol. 2). Princeton University Press.
2. Aquinas, T. (1274/1947). Summa Theologica (Fathers of the English Dominican Province, Trans.). Benziger Bros.
3. Leibniz, G. W. (1710/1985). Theodicy: Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil (A. G. Langley, Trans.). Open Court Publishing.
4. Craig, W. L., & Sinclair, J. D. (2009). The Kalam Cosmological Argument. In W. L. Craig & J. P. Moreland (Eds.), The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology (pp. 101–201). Wiley-Blackwell.
5. Craig, W. L. (2008). Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics (3rd ed.). Crossway Books.
6. Hubble, E. (1929). A relation between distance and radial velocity among extra-galactic nebulae. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 15(3), 168–173. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.15.3.168
