Introduction
Either God exists or He doesn't. There is no middle ground. Any
attempt to remain neutral in relation to God's existence is automatically
synonymous with unbelief. It is far from a "moot" question, for if God
does exist, then nothing else really matters; if He does not exist, then
nothing really matters at all. If He does exist, then there is an eternal
heaven to be gained (Hebrews 11:16) and an eternal Hell to be avoided
(Revelation 21:8). The question for God's existence is an extremely
important one.

One might wonder why it is necessary to present evidence for the
existence of God. As Edward Thomson so beautifully stated it:

"...the doctrine of the one living and true God, Creator, Preserver,
and Benefactor of the universe, as it solves so many problems, resolves
so many doubts, banishes so many fears, inspires so many hopes, gives
such sublimity to all things, and such spring to all noble powers, we
might presume would, as soon as it was announced, be received by every
healthy mind."

Some, however, contrary to their higher interests, have refused to have God
in their knowledge and thus have become vain in their reasonings and
foolish in their philosophy (Romans 1:21,22,28). They do not see the folly
(Psalm 14:1) of saying there is no God.

The Christian has not only the obligation to "give answer to every man
that asketh you a reason concerning the hope that is in you..." (I Peter
3:15), but an obligation to carry the Gospel message to a lost and dying
world (Mark 16:15-16, et al.).

There will be times when carrying the Gospel message to the world will
entail setting forth the case for the existence of God. In addition, we
need to remember that Christians are not agnostics. The agnostic is the
person who says that God's existence is unknowable. As difficult as it is
to believe, some Christians take that same stance in regard to God's
existence. They assert that they "believe" there is a God, but that they
cannot know it. They state that God's existence cannot be proved. `This
is false!' God's existence is both `knowable' and `provable.' Acceptance
of God's existence is not some "blind leap into the dark" as so many have
erroneously asserted. The Christian's faith is not a purely emotional,
subjective "leap," but instead is a `firm conviction' regarding facts based
upon reasonable evidence. God's existence can be proved to any fair-minded
person. Granted, we do not mean by the word "proved" that God's existence
can be scientifically demonstrated to human senses as one might, for
example, prove that a sack of potatoes weighs ten pounds. But we need to
be reminded (especially in our day of scientific intimidation) that
empirical evidence (that based solely upon experiment and/or observation)
is not the only basis for establishing a provable case. Legal authorities
recognize the validity of a `prima facie' case. Such a case exists when
adequate evidence is available to establish the presumption of a fact which,
unless such can be refuted, `legally stands as a fact'. Inferential proof
(the culmination of many lines of evidence into only one possible
conclusion) is an invaluable part of a `prima facie' case which simply
cannot be refuted. But an important question which serves as a "preface"
to the case for God's existence is this: "From whence has come the idea of
God in man's mind?" The inclination to be religious is universally and
peculiarly a human trait. As one writer observed, even today the evidence
indicates that "no race or tribe of men, however degraded and apparently
atheistic, lacks that spark of religious capacity which may be fanned and
fed into a mighty flame." If, therefore, man is incurably religious--and
has the idea of God in his mind--and if we assume that the world is
rational, it is impossible that a phenomenon so universal as religion could
be founded upon illusion.

The question is highly appropriate therefore: what is the source of
this religious tendency within man? Alexander Campbell, in his celebrated
debate April 13-23, 1829 in Cincinnati, Ohio with Robert Owen, provided the
answer to this question in a very positive fashion. He asked Owen from
whence the idea of God had come in man's mind. Owen (and all skeptics) had
(have) stated that the idea of God has not come from reason (skeptics hold,
of course, that the concept is unreasonable), and that it has not come from
revelation. Campbell pressed Owen to tell him from whence the idea of God
`had' come. Owen retorted, "by imagination." Campbell then quoted both
John Locke and David Hume, two philosophers who are highly respected in the
secular community. Hume stated that the "creative power of the mind
amounts to nothing more than the faculty of combining, transposing,
augmenting and diminishing the materials afforded to us by sense and
experience." The imagination, it turns out, has `no creative power'.
Neither reason nor imagination create. Reason, like a carpenter's
yardstick, is a measure, not an originator. Imagination works only on
those items already in the mind; it does not "create" anything new.
[Sigmund Freud, German psychoanalyst of the first part of the 20th century,
attempted to explain God's existence by stating that man had indeed formed
the "heavenly father" from the idea in his mind of his "earthly father."
But this idea will not suffice either. Is the God of the Bible the God man
would "invent" if asked to do so? Hardly. Look around at the "god" man
invents when left to his own devices--the "god" of hedonism, epicurianism,
subjectivism, or the "god" of "if it feels good, do it." The God of the
Bible is not the God man would invent, if left to his own devices. Freud's
attempt to explain the idea of God in man's mind failed miserably.]
Campbell pointed out to Owen, in a very forceful way, that the idea of God
in man's mind could only have come through revelation. There is no other
choice. The concept of God, therefore, though greatly perverted in heathen
hands, is ultimately traceable to an original communication between the
Creator and the creature. There is no other alternative, all the
disclaimers of the atheist notwithstanding.

But suppose the unbeliever objects: "If the idea of God is basic to
human nature, we would not be able to deny it; we do deny it, however;
therefore it is not intuitive." It is sufficient to observe in rebuttal to
such a claim that man, under the enchantment of a deceptive philosophy, can
deny the most obvious of things. Those deluded, for example, by "Christian
Science" religion deny the existence of matter and death. Some today deny
that the earth is spherical or that man has ever been to the moon. But a
denial of facts does not automatically negate the facts. Man's attitude
toward Truth does not change Truth.

Can God's existence be proven? Can we `know' God exists? The answer is
a resounding "YES!" The psalmist said, "Be still and `know' that I am God"
(Psalm 46:10) as he echoed the Creator's sentiments to man. The allusions
to th e manifestations of Deity in the created world are profuse. David
exclaimed, "O Jehovah, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth,
Who has set thy glory upon the heavens?" (Psalm 8:1). In the same psalm,
the inspired writer was constrained to say that the heavens are "the work
of thy fingers" and the moon and stars "thou hast ordained" (Psalm 8:3).
Later David was to utter the beautiful words of Psalm 19:1--"The heavens
declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handiwork." Isaiah
graphically portrayed the majesty and power of nature's God when he wrote
that God "hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out
heaven with a span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure,
and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance" (40:12).

Dr. E.A. Maness once remarked, "If the word God were written upon every
blowing leaf, embossed on every passing cloud, engraved on every granite
rock, the inductive evidence of God in the world would be no stronger than
it is." John C. Monsma, in the text which he edited entitled, `The Evidence
of God in an Expanding Universe' (which is a compilation of testimony from
forty outstanding American scientists), affirmed "that science can
establish, by the observed facts of Nature and intellectual argumentation,
that a super-human power exists." . Dr. A. Cressy Morrison, former
President of the New York Academy of Sciences, affirmed that "so many
essential conditions are necessary for life to exist on our earth that it
is mathematically impossible that all of them could exist in proper
relationship by chance on any one earth at one time." Dr. Arthur H. Compton,
Professor of Physics at the University of Chicago and Nobel laureate,
wrote: "It is not difficult for me to have this faith, for it is
incontrovertible that where there is a plan there is intelligence--an
orderly, unfolding universe testifies to the truth of the most majestic
statement ever uttered--`In the beginning, God.'" .

Louis Agassiz, M.D., Ph.D., Harvard University (and a life-long
opponent of Darwinian evolution), made these remarks:..

"Though I know those who hold it to be very unscientific to believe
that thinking is not something inherent in matter, and that there is an
essential difference between inorganic and living and thinking beings,
I shall not be prevent ed by any such pretentions of a false philosophy
from expressing my conviction that as long as it cannot be shown that
matter or physical forces do actually reason, I shall consider any
manifestation of physical thought as an evidence of the existence of a
thinking being as the author of such thought, and shall look upon
intelligent and intelligible connection between the facts of nature as
direct proof of a thinking God....` All these facts in their natural
connection proclaim aloud the one God whom man may know, adore, and
love, and natural history must in good time become the analysis of the
thoughts of the Creator of the universe' as manifested in the animal
and vegetable kingdoms."

Lord Kelvin, the famed English thermodynamicist once said,

"I cannot admit that, with regard to the origin of life, science
neither affirms nor denies Creative Power. `Science positively affirms
Creative Power'. It is not in dead matter that we live and move and
have our being, but in the creating and directing Power which science
compels us to accept as an article of belief.... There is nothing
between absolute scientific belief in a Creative Power, and the
acceptance of the theory of a fortuitous concourse of atoms.... Forty
years ago I asked Liebig [famed chemist Justus von Liebig--BT], walking
some-where in the country, if he believed that the grass and flowers
that we saw around us grew by mere chemical forces. He answered, `No,
no more than I could believe that a book of botany describing them
could grow by mere chemical forces'.... Do not be afraid of being free
thinkers! `If you think strongly enough you will be forced by science
to the belief in God', which is the foundation all religion. `You will
find science not antagonistic but helpful to religion.'" .

One cannot help but wonder what has caused many of the most prominent
and brilliant minds of both days gone by and of our day to make such
statements. No doubt, at least a partial explanation lies in the fact that
they saw a few, or many, of the thousands of "signposts" or "ensigns"
scattered throughout the natural world which point clearly to the unseen
Designer of nature. These "signposts" are multitudinous in our world, and
plainly obvious to those whose minds have not been blinded by the "god of
this world" (II Corinthians 4:4), "refusing to have God in their knowledge"
(Romans 1:28). An examination of these "ensigns" makes for a profitable
and edifying study.


NATURE'S HOME: THE UNIVERSE

When the writer of Hebrews stated that, "...every house is builded by
someone..." (Hebrews 3:4), he suggested the well-known principle of cause
and effect. Today the Law of Causality is the fundamental law of science.
Every effect must have an adequate cause. Further indicated is the fact
that no effect can be qualitatively superior to or quantitatively greater
than the cause. The universe is here, and is a tremendous effect. Hence,
it must be explained in terms of an adequate cause.

There are four possible explanations for the universe. (1) It is but
an illusion, and does not really exist. This is hardly worthy of
consideration. (2) It spontaneously arose out of nothing. This view is
absurd, and cannot be entertained scientifically. Dr. George E. Davis,
prominent physicist, has declared:"No material thing can create itself." .
(3) It has always existed. This theory, though held by many atheistic
scientists of our day, is scientifically untenable. Many evidences (e.g.,
the Second Law of Thermodynamics) reveal that the stars are burning up, the
sun is cooling off, the earth is wearing out, etc. Such facts indicate
that the universe had a beginning; otherwise it would long ago have already
reached a state of deadness. Dr. Robert Jastrow, of NASA, states in his
book, `God and the Astronomers :

"I am fascinated by some strange developments going on in astronomy....
The essence of the strange developments is that the Universe had, in
some sense, a beginning--that it began at a certain moment in time....
And concurrently there was a great deal of discussion about the fact
that the second law of thermodynamics, applied to the Cosmos, indicates
that the Universe is running down like a clock. If it is running down,
there must have been a time when it was fully wound up....The
astronomer comes to a time when the Universe contained nothing but
hydrogen--no carbon, no oxygen, and none of the other elements out of
which planets and life are made. This point in time must have marked
the beginning of the Universe."

(4) It was created. This is the only remaining alternative and the only
reasonable view of the origin of the universe. Since our finite, dependent
(and contingent) universe (of matter/energy) did not cause itself, it was
obviously caused by an infinite, independent, eternal Mind.

God, speaking through Moses (Genesis 15:5) and Jeremiah (33:32),
mentioned that "the host of heaven cannot be numbered, neither the sand of
the sea measured ...." Little did we know how true those statements were.
Johann Bayer (1603) devised a system to indicate the brightness, or
magnitude, of the stars, using the Greek and Roman alphabets to denote
their brightness. [Remember Paul's statement to the Corinthians (I
Corinthians 15:41): "...for one star differeth from another star in
glory."] Men before and after Bayer tried to count the stars. Hipparchus
the astronomer, in 128 B.C. counted the stars and said there were 1,026. In
150 A.D., the famous astronomer Ptolemy counted the stars and arrived at
the number of 1,056. Years later, in 1575 A.D., the renowned Danish
astronomer, Tyco Brah, counted the stars and said there were 777. In 1600
A.D. the German astronomer Johannes Kepler counted the stars and gave the
number 1,005. At last counting (and we are nowhere near finished yet) the
number of stars stood at `25 sextillion'. That's a 25 with twenty-one
zeroes after it! There are an estimated one billion galaxies,. and most<...