Prove God
October 12, 2007
What the Church says: God is. He just exists. There is no ‘definition’ of who He is and His ways are supreme, righteous, and warrant no challenges; after all, the Bible says that we should only test the Lord in our tithes and offerings. God does not have to prove himself and, in fact, to do so would be to challenge who he is. That being said, the Bible itself proves the existence of the Almighty anyways so why question who He is?
What they say: How can you use the book that publishes God as the creator to justify who he is; moreover, how do you prove ‘God’ with… ‘God?’ Specifically, the Bible is the one that establishes God as the Judeo-Christian entity that we have ‘accepted’ and now ‘challenge,’ but in order to validate it’s claims, the Church tells us to…look…in…it. Moreover, if I created a text that established that Muskucs exist in captivity and that for proof of their existence, I ask you to look to my writings…which first establish their existence and nature…have I not then created for you a circular logic that will only leave you at step one over and over again?
But say we accept the writings of the Bible on the character of God; not accept who He is perse, but rather what is written in the Book. How, then, are we supposed to ‘accept’ this version of God when what we see in our world totally contradicts the existence of a benevolent deity? We are supposed to accept that God is loving when children are being abused and killed daily; we are supposed to believe that God answers prayers when our mothers, fathers, and spouses die of cancer. We are supposed to accept that God exists in a world full of suffering, pain, evil, and despair. Because this book tells us. And never mind that we can’t question why or how He exists in such a state of contradiction, but that we should walk in faith. Seems all too self-fulfilling for the prophets and a cop-out for modern man.
What I say: When you were born, the hospital created a record of your birth and issued your parents a birth certificate which they used to obtain a social security card for you. When you hit adolescence and needed your driver’s permit, you had to provide these things to the DMV as proof of who you were. Did they ask you to prove who you are? Moreover, did they ask you to perform selfless acts of love to prove that you are a loving person? Or to save a child from a murderer’s hands to prove that you are merciful? Did you have to do anything more than present these papers backing up your claims of being ‘you’? Why, then, do we ask the same of the Creator? He cannot be just as we are? Are you any more of a John or Jane because you can perform spectacular sights on command; more specifically, are you defined by what you do rather than your inherit nature or being? Yet we as the inferior man presume to put standards on the superior God?
At the point where we grant that what the Bible teaches is accurate, we grant that God is. Why? Because that is what the Bible says. We cannot take parts of the Bible to suit our needs; it’s an all or nothing deal. Why? Because the Bible says! At the very minute that we concede the Bible, we concede God; or rather, the idea of God– not necessarily the Judeo-Christian God. Meaning, we concede that there is a God so the next step is to determine who He is. Moreover, is he the God represented in the Bible, the Qur’an, or the Torah? Yet how can we question who he is when we have already accepted that the Bible is an accurate source? It would seem the paradox that we created would lead to the assumption that there is no answer and/or that God is a nice idea albeit an illusion.
But the ‘logic’ does not have to be so circular; we go to the Bible and hear about this ‘God’, we read further to find out more about this ‘God’ and who He is, we become to know ‘God.’ The issues in the whole ‘prove God in relation to the world’ debate, is not whether or not he exists (that is for another debate), but that his existence contradicts what is written about him and the way the world operates. However, they also use this contradiction to then say that He does not exist which doesn’t work because in order to initially say that He contradicts the nature of the world, we have to concede who he is! It’s like law: you cannot establish motive after the fact.
Semantics and logic aside, we should not be challenging the ‘who’ of God, but rather the ‘why.’ Why do we deserve such a merciful Father? Why is He always in our court? Why does he love me uniquely? It would seem that in light of the world, why is God still the unchanging lover that He is?
Again, I would like to note that this is but the mere tip of the iceberg, but that it is also from my stream of consciousness alone. Til next post…
Tags: question, God, prove, Judeo-Christian
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2 Responses to “Prove God”
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A question for you: if the Bible is, as you say, “an all or nothing deal” and we cannot pick and choose from it, then I wonder - would you kill your neighbor for wearing clothing of mixed fibers as commanded in Leviticus? Would you kill your child for disobeying you? Would you stone an adulterer to death as commanded in the Bible?
If it is “an all or nothing deal”, then you must obey it _all_ - or none of it. “Because the Bible says!”
First off, let me start by saying that I do believe the Bible is all or nothing. If you read my other posts on different matters, you will see that I use the same general argument you use here to attack those who do pick and choose from the bible.
Second off, if you do read the Bible as a whole, you would know that Leviticus and the Old Testament are the Old Laws. When Jesus came in and died on the cross, the New Law was borne. Hence why we do not do animal sacrifices and such. Additionally, the New Testament commands us to obey the laws of the land. As our government says that killing is wrong, then no, I would not kill my child. As assault is against the law, no I would not stone an adulterer. Even Jesus himself did not stone the adulteress woman (a law in those days) in the New Testament. Does that then mean that he has gone against God? Thereby going against himself (being God)? That’s illogical! So as note in other posts where I use a very similar argument as you have laid out here, we cannot interpret the Bible for our own gains and it is not always as black and white as ‘do this, do that.’
The New Testament suggests that I gouge my eye out if it offends me; is it speaking literally? Of course not. If I want to be so ignorant as to insist that it does, then I have shown just that: my ignorance.
Additionally, with the free will that God grants us, we are free to go against what is written in the Bible. So even if I accept at face value everything that is written, I can choose not to obey it. Even if I reject the New Covenant that Jesus brought in, I can choose not to obey the Old Law. So whether or not I accept something that is written in the Bible to be true or not has no bearing on what choices I make. I can still accept it as truth and do something that is against it (hence why we are all imperfect humans). I mean do we not daily go against the teachings of the Bible when we lie, have sex outside of marriage, and judge our brothers? Does this mean we do not believe what the Bible has told us? No.