Science and the Existence of God

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Science and God’s Existence

The Existence of God

The idea that the Bible is inspired by God requires that God exists, and that he intervenes in the world from time to time. This is opposed by Atheists who assert that there is no God.

Atheists frequently claim that there is no evidence to support the idea that God exists. This is clearly wrong; there is in reality an abundance of such evidence. Some of the evidence includes:-

The Big Bang: The fact that the universe came into existence at a creation event shows the existence of a creator.
The existence of design in nature: Any designed object requires an intelligent designer.
Fine Tuning: The fact that the laws of nature are very finely adjusted to allow the existence of life
Biological Design: There are features of living organisms which cannot simply be accounted for by chance and natural law.
Rational Laws: The universe contains laws of nature which require explanation and can be understood rationally. Such laws imply a lawgiver.

Other reasons for the existence of God do not involve science, but are nonetheless powerful. These include the existence of right and wrong, the existence of beauty, and the existence of purpose. The existence of miracles is also a testimony to the existence of God.

Contingent and Necessary

The simplest argument for the existence of God comes from the ideas of contingency and necessity.

Contingency: An entity is contingent if it could be different from what it is. Any contingent entity could be different, or could even not exist at all. Any contingent entity requires something to explain it; it can’t explain itself. One could say that science is about the explanation of contingent entities and that the success of science is a testimony to the fact that contingent entities require explanation.

Necessity: An entity is necessary if it logically requires no explanation or cause. A necessary entity must be as it is.

The ideas of contingency and necessity form part of several lines of reasoning which demonstrate the existence of God. They appear in ideas of the creation event, in the existence of laws of nature, in considerations of a multiverse and even in questions of ethics and morality.

The Argument from Contingency

This is an argument which shows the existence of God.

Contingent entities exist (this is obvious - we see entities that are not infinitely old every day)
Any contingent entity requires a cause or an explanatory factor. Something determines that the contingent entity exists, and why it is as it is. This is the idea behind science.
An infinite regression of contingent entities is no explanation. Any sequence of contingent entities is contingent. Adding another contingent entity to the sequence makes no difference; the sequence is still contingent. One can continue to add contingent entities for as long as one likes; the sequence will never become necessary. The only way to make a necessary sequence is for a necessary entity to be present in it.
There must therefore be a necessary entity which explains and causes the contingent entities. Effectively this is the only possible conclusion from step 3.
This necessary entity is God.

The God of the Bible is a being who is outside the universe and created it. The Bible describes God as being from everlasting to everlasting; as being the entity who accounts for everything else, and as the originator of the laws that govern the universe.

Most telling, the God of the Bible describes himself as “I am that I am” (Exodus 3:13-15) The idea of a necessary entity was understood and proclaimed in one of the earliest books of the Bible. The idea of necessity was not invented until the late middle ages, but is found in a book from the Bible written in the middle bronze age. Truly the Bible is a book ahead of its time!