Hello

I’d like to suggest that there may be clear evidence that God exists. I am going to look at two situations where evidence is used to demonstrate a truth: a court of law, and science.

 

Providing evidence that God exists in a court of law.

In a court of law testimony is evidence. If you get a number of credible people to stand up in court and say, “This is what I witnessed”, the judge or jury may be convinced and deliver their verdict accordingly. I have met many people who believe that they experience a very real divine presence in their lives and are willing to say so. I am confident that there are millions more out there. (And I suspect there are millions more who are not willing to say so for many reasons including fear of ridicule or persecution.)

Some people who believe that they experience the presence of God in their lives are, undoubtedly and unfortunately, suffering from mental illness, but most that I’ve met appear to be sensible, ordinary, honest, intelligent people, many of whom hold responsible positions in society and who, therefore, would make very credible witnesses in a court of law. Importantly, their experiences of God are similar. If they stood up in a court and stated how they experienced God, they might well convince an independent-minded judge that their experiences are real and, therefore, that God exists.

I’d like to make a very important point here. You can’t prove a negative. In other words, it is not possible to show any evidence that something does not exist. For example, I do not believe in unicorns. I’ve never seen one and I’ve never seen any convincing evidence that unicorns do exist, but I cannot show you one piece of evidence that they do not exist, because there is no such evidence: you can’t prove a negative. The same is true of trying to prove that God does not exist. It can’t be done. There is not and never can be any evidence that God does not exist. So, if you have a pair of scales to weigh the evidence as to whether God exists or not, the scale for the evidence that God does not exist will always remain empty. Any evidence that God does exist will tip the scales, and there is plenty of evidence from reliable witnesses that our loving, heavenly Father is a very real presence in their lives. I would therefore confidently state that any independent-minded judge would have to find that God does exist, based on the evidence presented to them.

Whenever someone calls me a “person of faith”, I correct them. I am not a person of faith; I am a person of experience. My experience of the presence of our loving Father is very real to me. I have experimented with that presence over many decades now and am more certain than ever that this presence is real. My fellow humans who think of themselves as atheists are persons of faith, because they have faith that God does not exist. But they cannot show one piece of evidence to support their view.

 

Providing evidence that God exists using the scientific method.

“Science is the pursuit and application of knowledge and understanding of the natural and social world following a systematic methodology based on evidence.” The Science Council

I love science. And I’ve thought a lot about whether God’s existence could be proved scientifically. I think scientists should give it a try.

I was discussing this with another friend, not a Christian, who pointed out that science is based on observation, evaluation and experimentation and that the spiritual experience cannot be tested in this way. I disagree. I pray, and through prayer I experience God. I have observed, evaluated and experimented with my personal experience of the presence of our loving, heavenly Father as objectively as I can, and I’ve been doing this for more than 60 years now. I’ve concluded that my experience is real; so real that I now allow that experience to guide my entire life. Also, and most importantly, I’ve learned to trust God and my trust in God is also based on observation, evaluation and experimentation. Early on in my walk with God, I trusted God a bit and found that I was safe doing so. So, I trusted a bit more. I experimented with trust in God and found that trust in God worked.

In the scientific method, it is important that an experiment can be replicated. Can my experiments in praying, and trusting God, be replicated? I think it’s happening all the time. I regularly meet sensible, intelligent people who carry out the same experiments and get the same results. Indeed, I myself am replicating experiments carried out by many others over thousands of years. I could list many, many people whose experiments I have replicated with the same happy results. King David and C S Lewis to name but two.

Science studies things for which there is no clear and obvious explanation and tries to find an explanation. There is no clear and obvious explanation for the millions of people on this planet who sincerely believe that they experience a loving supernatural presence. I’m not aware of any rigorous, systematic, scientific investigation into this phenomenon but, if any suitably qualified scientists are reading this, I’d be very happy to be a subject for study.

 

May our loving, heavenly Father bless us and be a real, loving presence in our lives.

Peter O

 

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“A theory of creation”

 

 

 

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