Bible -- Theology; Theology, Doctrinal -- Popular works
The Scriptures further recognize that men not only know of the
existence of God, but have also a certain circle of ideas as to
who and what He is (Rom. 1:18-19).
No one but a "fool" will deny the fact of God. "What! no God? A
watch, and no key for it? A watch with a main-spring broken, and
no jeweler to fix it? A watch, and no repair shop? A time-card and
a train, and nobody to run it? A star lit, and nobody to pour oil
in to keep the wick burning? A garden, and no gardener? Flowers,
and no florist? Conditions, and no conditioner?" He that sitteth
in the heavens shall laugh at such absurd atheism.
2. THE ARGUMENTS FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD.
[Footnote: A fuller and complete presentation of these arguments
for the Existence of God may be found in the works of Dr. Augustus
H. Strong and Dr. Francis L. Patten, to whom the author is here
indebted.]
These arguments may not prove conclusively that God is, but they
do show that in order to the existence of any knowledge, thought,
reason, conscience in man, we must assume that God is (Strong).
It is said of the beautiful, "It may be shown, but not proved." So
we say of the existence of God. These arguments are probable, not
demonstrative. For this reason they supplement each other, and
constitute a series of evidences which is cumulative in its nature.
Though taken singly, none of them can be considered absolutely
decisive, they together furnish a corroboration of our primitive
conviction of God's existence, which is of great practical value,
and is in itself sufficient to bind the moral actions of men. A
bundle of rods may not be broken even though each one separately
may; the strength of the bundle is the strength of the whole. If in
practical affairs we were to hesitate to act until we have absolute
and demonstrable certainty, we should never begin to move at all.
Instead of doubting everything that can be doubted, let us rather
doubt nothing until we are compelled to doubt.
Dr. Orr, of Glasgow, says: What we mean by the proof of God's
existence is simply that there are necessary acts of thought by
which we rise from the finite to the infinite, from the caused to
the uncaused, from the contingent to the necessary, from the reason
involved in the structure of the universe to a universal and eternal
reason, which is the ground of all, from morality in conscience
to a moral Lawgiver and Judge. In this connection the theoretical
proofs constitute an inseparable unity--'constitute together,'
as Dr. Stirling declares, "but the undulations of a single wave,
which wave is but a natural rise and ascent to God, on the part of
man's own thought, with man's own experience and consciousness as
the object before him."
Religion was not produced by proofs of God's existence, and will not
be destroyed by its insufficiency to some minds. Religion existed
before argument; in fact, it is the preciousness of religion that
leads to the seeking for all possible confirmations of the reality
of God.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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