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How Do We Know God Exist?
How, in fact, do we know anything? How do we know that when we
drop a stone it will fall to the ground and not fly up and hit us in
the face? The answer is simple, we know it from lifelong personal
experience. If for some strange reason we had not yet had the personal
experience of seeing a stone drop, we could still believe that it does
from the study of physics and Newton's laws of gravity. Even for those
of us who had seen a stone drop, the study of these laws would enhance,
strengthen and deepen our knowledge and allow us to more fully
appreciate the reality of a dropping stone.
Our knowledge of God is similar. The
deepest knowledge of God and of the certainty of His existence comes
through the personal experience of Him in our lives. What we will try
to show, in the sections that follow, is a summary of the ways in which
reason can help us also, to appreciate the reality of God.
There are two possible
ways to describe the world. The first way is that it follows the design
of a supreme intelligence while the second way says that it came to be
what it is strictly by chance.
No rational person
seriously believes that great art such as Michelangelo's David or
Beethoven's symphonies arises as the result of a random series of
hammer blows or a randomly produced sequence of notes. We simply know
from experience that these beautiful creations are the result of an
artist and could never come into being randomly or by chance.
Both the universe and
human intelligence, are far more complex and more beautiful than either
of these examples of art and music, so it is only reasonable to expect,
based on the simple experience of our lives, that they must have had a
supremely intelligent designer or God. So if a person does not believe
in a God as a creator, that person has to then believe that the
scientific laws governing the universe and also our intelligence are
only the result of a chance occurrence. The probability of such a
random occurrence actually happening is so infinitely small as to defy
all reason.
We all know that in
real life everything that exists has a cause. We were born because of
our parents, as they in turn were born because of theirs, and so on
back to our first parents. The thought that something occurs without a
cause is not seriously accepted by anyone. When a child comes home with
a black eye we know and believe that there had to be a cause for it and
we will not accept an explanation that"it just happened". When we apply
the same reasoning to the universe we can see that like the black eye,
it did not just happen but had a cause and that first cause was God.
Each individual event
in the universe arises from a previous event. The stream of events
either had a beginning or they did not. All logic points to a beginning
event and that event was caused by God. The first proof dealt with the
design of nature as described by its laws, such as those which govern
the falling stone, and perceived by our senses. The second proof shows
us how the whole wonderful design of nature was set in motion. It shows
us how the falling stone of the first proof was formed in the first
place and then, in the illustration we are using, set on its falling
journey.
We all know, from what
we call our conscience, that it is right to do good and wrong to do
evil and we sense that we have an obligation to act according to the
ordering of our conscience. Even in a materialistic and humanistic
society almost all people, Christian or not, believe that a person
should follow the dictates of their conscience. Those few people who do
not have this awareness of conscience are considered by this same
society to be mentally ill.
This conscience is not
just a feeling within us but extends to our human intellect being
applied to the knowledge base that we have acquired during our lives.
Conscience not only tells us what we should do but sets before us an
obligation that we are required to carry out if we are to remain at
peace with ourselves. Conscience is the voice of God speaking to our
souls.
However, if God does
not exist and we are only here by chance, so that there is no meaning
to our existence, what obligation can there be to follow our conscience
or anything else. Our sense of obligation towards doing good is only
logical if there is a fundamental morality that transcends human
existence and which has the power and right to demand moral obedience.
The people who knew
Christ best were his disciples and their immediate descendants who
formed the early church. They were so convinced by the truth of the
Christian teaching that they had received that they were willing to
accept the vilest persecutions in witness to their faith.
Most of the apostles
and their immediate disciples were martyred, including St. Paul. The
Roman persecutions of the early Christians led to over one hundred
thousand of them choosing a martyrs death as a witness to their faith
in God rather than to deny their conscience in order to escape these
persecutions.
The first thirty one
bishops of Rome from St. Peter down to St. Eusebius who died in 309
A.D., all died for their faith in Christ. This heroic witness to the
faith of believers has continued down through the centuries. In more
recent time this has included persecutions by the Nazi and Communist
regimes under whose cruel authority tens of thousands died for their
faith. Even in the present day the bloody martyring of Christians goes
on in parts of Africa and Latin America.
For almost 2,000 years
countless people have lead joyful and often heroic lives firm in their
belief in God. Were all these people deluded or insane? Or were they
right?
Pascal was a
seventeenth century philosopher, scientist and mathematician who argued
the existence of God in terms of a wager. He based his wager on the
fact that a normal, rational man will, when given two possible choices,
choose the one with the best chance of obtaining a reward.
For instance, if
someone says that your house is on fire, it could be or it could not.
The cost of finding out if it is, such as looking to see if it is, is
small compared to the potential loss of not bothering to look and
finding it burnt down. It would be utter foolishness for you not to
take that look to see if your house is on fire.
In the same manner, we
are all forced to face the fact that one day we are going to die. At
that moment of our death we will be faced with the fact that either God
exists or He doesn't. If He doesn't exist, then it will not matter
whether or not we had thrown our lot in with God during our lives. If
on the other hand though, God does exist and we were faithful to Him,
we will receive an infinite reward. In the same way, if he does exist
and we were unfaithful during our lifetime, we lose everything.
So if we bet that God
exists and we were right we win everything. In the same way, if we bet
that God exists and we are wrong and he does not exist, we have lost
nothing.
If we now look at it
from the other side and at the start of our lives bet that God does not
exist and are right then we win nothing. In the same way, if we bet
that God does not exist and are wrong then we lose everything. So the
only sensible wager is the bet that God exists. With such a wager we
have everything to gain and nothing to lose.
If we accept the
fact that God exists and that he created the universe and man with a
conscience and a free will, to choose from right or wrong, it is
unreasonable to expect that having created us he would not want to
communicate with us and show us his desires for us.
Over the millennia
this communication has taken place within our conscience, other early
religions, Judaism and ultimately His Son Incarnate, Jesus Christ. The
communication through Christ is revealed to us in the scriptures and
through tradition and is interpreted by the teaching authority of the
Roman Catholic Church.
How then do we move
from intellectual assent to a personal knowledge of God? Our
relationship with God moves through stages. The first is when we seek
him. Once we seek Him we already have found Him. Next we get to know
Him through study, prayer and the church. Finally, through
faithfulness, prayer and meditation our relationship turns to one of
love.
If you would like to
learn more about God and the Roman Catholic faith you are invited to
simply phone the rectory of the Catholic Church nearest to you and ask
to speak to the Pastor. If he is unavailable, explain to the person who
answers the phone that you are interested in finding out more about the
Catholic Church and they should be able to help you.
We have another
leaflet that you might find helpful called "Approaching the Catholic
Church for the First Time." We would be happy to send it to you by mail
or you can read it on our Internet web site, both addresses are on the
back of this leaflet.
W. Craig
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