This talk was delivered at a Youth Club in Sunderland in May '08
Contact? - Prove it!
Part 1
Watch clip from 'Contact' - 1:09:36 - 1:11:56
Ellie Arroway, played by Jodie Foster, raises an interesting question doesn't she. From her perspective one of two things is true. Either a God exists who has decided not to give any proof of his existence or their is no God at all. And from where she is standing, the second is more likely than the first. What about you?
Palmer Joss disagrees with her, and in order to make his point he asks her to prove her love for her Father. The problem is, I'm not really sure what point he is trying to make. Is it that there are somethings in life that are true but you just can't prove? Or maybe that a need for God is evidence that he exists just like we all need to love and be love. To be honest I'm not really sure.
But the question is valid, and aksed time and time again. If their is a God why doesn't he just show himself! He has made contact? Why doesn't he prove it!
The problem is, why should he? Why does he have to prove to you and I that he exists? And who do we think we are to demand that of him anyway?
He has shown himself.
Despite the arrogance of the question, has he proved himself?
To ask someone to prove something is unreasonable. You can't prove anything. In the British law courts you don't prove, you prove beyond reasonable doubt. So has God proved himself to exist beyound reasonable doubt?
Evidence
Evidence is found in 4 areas.
- Creation
- Ourself
- History
- Bible
We are going to think briefly about the first 2 of these this week, and then the others over the next 2 weeks.
Creation & Man
- Creation -
The evidence for God is a little like a building a bridge over a river. One wooden plank spanning the river will not lead to much security, but the more planks the more effective bridge. So it is as we look at the evidence for God. The more we consider, the more certain we can be.
Just look at the world around. It is not proof, but certainly no coincidence that, until the enlightenment most people believed in some form of creator, even if thesy disagreed over who he was. They just had to look at the world around and ask the question 'where did it come from'. It is only in relatively recent years that some people have sought to answer the question by saying that it doesn't necessarily require a creator. People see something in creation that makes them look outside of themselves.
Paul, one of the churches foremost early leaders wrote this -
'From the time the world was created, people have seen the earth and the sky and all that God made. They can clearly see his invisible qualities - his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse whatsoever for not knowing God.' Romans 1:20
Recently of course, science has discovered more about our created universe than we had ever previously known, and some have therefore claimed that science has disproved God. But is this true?
At the very most it has constructed a theory that means we don't need a God, and at least it has begun to describe more of what God has made - but either way if science claims to disprove God, it has stepped out of the bounds of science into a belief system. How can you scientifically (empirically) prove a negative?
Enough of that for now.
- Man
One of the greatest poets the world has ever known - Solomon wrote about the human heart. He said -
'God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God's work from beginning to end.' Ecclesiastes 3:11
Eternity planted in human hearts. That is why people feel a need to believe in something outside of themselves. God has put the desire their in order that people would question and search. Nowadays people try to fill this eternal hole with many things, searching for fulfillment from drink, sex, drugs, money and power. But the heart is made for relationship with the eternal God, and will never be satisfied until it finds it.
Now, neither of these on their own would convince many today of the existence of God (although they should go some way to it) so remember we have 2 key pieces of evidence coming up. bu already we begin to answer Ellie Arroway's question - 'How do you know you are not deluding yourself?'
Come back next week for some really interesting and important evidence from history that builds a great case for not only God's existence but his care for us too!