Is it possible to prove that there is
a God?
I would say no, it's not possible, if
by proof you mean scientific proof.
What scientific test could anyone use anyway?
Litmus paper?
Spectrograph?
Geiger counter?
No, but it is possible to show that
faith in God is most reasonable, and that
alternative views are less reasonable.
But how may we do so?
Everyone knows that in intelligent discussion, one must
start with a measure of agreement.
I remember when our children were very much
younger, hearing an argument between my son and
daughter.
Said my daughter, I tell you it is.
And my son retorted, I tell you it's
not.
She said, but it is.
And he replied, but it isn't.
So my daughter observed, you know nothing.
And my son repeated, you know nothing.
Said she, listen to the copycat.
And he chortled, listen to the copycat.
Then she said, oh shut up.
And he replied, you shut up.
And I said, both of you, shut up.
They weren't trying to discover any truth, they
were just arguing.
And many such arguments occur among grown-up
people too.
When I was crossing the Pacific Ocean with
8,000 American soldiers bound for Guadalcanal, I
was involved one night in an argument with
a rude atheist from Brooklyn.
I can stand atheists, and I can stand
people from Brooklyn, but atheists from Brooklyn are
very hard to take.
Go on chaplain, he said, you don't believe
all that, do you?
Of course I do, I said.
Then I added, do you believe in the
Bible?
The Bible is only a book, he replied.
It's an inspired book.
He said, that's what you say.
Well then, I said, do you believe in
Christ?
He said, Christ is dead.
He rose again from the dead.
He said, that's what you say.
Well, said I, do you believe in God?
No, he said, I'm an atheist.
What do you believe in then?
He said, I believe that all religion is
a racket.
No, it's not, I said.
Yes, it is, he said.
That's just what you say, I retorted.
There we were, just like a couple of
kids arguing about nothing.
Now, let's suppose we engaged in a debate
with an unbeliever, rather in this manner.
Now, sir, we differ on many points, don't
we?
But we ought, as you agree, to have
an exchange of views.
Isn't there anything that we can agree on?
Where would we best begin?
Surely there are common grounds somewhere.
Now, the very first point of agreement is,
I think, the axiom of existence.
I believe that I exist, and my friend
believes that he exists.
This is an axiom, a truth so self
-evident that no amount of reasoning can make
it any plainer.
I was speaking at California Polytechnic when a
student rose to say that he did not
accept existence as an axiom, but rather as
an illusion of the five senses.
That's strange, said I, that you should come
all the way from your home to study
here in California, and you're not sure whether
you're here or not.
But I knew what he meant.
One of our planes crashed at Morotai.
It was my sad duty to bury some
of the men who were killed, as well
as to help some of those who were
badly burned.
One man was dying, and I was reading
to him from the 23rd Psalm, when suddenly
he called out, Open the window, doc.
It's awful stuffy here.
The poor fellow was out in the open
air in a temporary casualty ward of the
hospital.
He had not heard me because he was
deaf.
He had not seen me because he was
blind.
Presumably he'd lost a sense of smell and
taste.
The only sense left to him was a
sense of touch which he was fast losing,
for he soon lapsed into a coma, and
that was the end of this life for
him.
He was still alive, but life did not
mean a thing to him.
So in one sense we are prisoners of
our five senses.
Can we go any further?
Can a believer and an unbeliever find common
ground?
Yes, we believe in the fact of design
or order or pattern in the universe.
Every great scientific achievement of recent years has
been planned on the premise of design.
It was necessary to study the ordered movement
of the moon in order to launch a
rocket in that direction.
It runs like clockwork, just as the tides
do.
We find this design everywhere we look around
us, whether with microscope or with telescope.
Of course there are some people who question
this universality of design.
At the University of Adelaide, the President of
the Rationalist Club asked me, Sir, are you
not just choosing facts that suit your argument?
Is there not a great deal of chaos
in the universe?
For example, in the air in this room
the molecules are bombarding each other in every
possible way in the most chaotic fashion?
On the contrary, I said, this very chaos
in diffusion of gases is an argument for
design.
If it were not for such diffusion of
gases, all the carbon dioxide would collect around
me and I would drop dead while talking
to you.
If it were not for the diffusion of
gases, certain gases poisonous to human life would
collect in one place and life would be
an impossibility.
This is an argument for purposeful design.
Now, an axiom is universally accepted and a
fact may be observed or demonstrated, but what
hypothesis may we use to explain the fact
of design?
Is it necessary to explain the fact of
design?
I have a wristwatch bought in Brazil during
the spiritual awakening there in 1952.
It has a second hand, a minute hand,
an hour hand and an alarm.
Would anyone believe that this all happened by
chance?
During World War II, our military organization moved
out of Sansepur in New Guinea.
We left behind us a jeep.
A Papuan native who had never seen a
jeep before came down the mountain.
Not only had he never seen a jeep,
he had never seen a wheelbarrow.
His wife asked him, what is this?
He replied, I don't know.
What is it called?
I don't know.
What does it do?
I don't know.
Where does it come from?
He replied, I don't know, but whoever made
this thing must be a lot more intelligent
than I am.
Of course, it should be admitted that a
savage could be educated to understand the workings
of an automobile.
He could, even with the help of others,
become skilled enough to build one.
Our scientists, likewise, have become more informed about
the workings of the universe and more ingenious
in inventing things within its laws.
But they lack the supreme intelligence and mighty
power of God.
We look at the universe and all we
can say is that whoever made it must
be a lot more intelligent than we are.
A lot more intelligent than the population of
this city.
A lot more intelligent than the population of
this country.
A lot more intelligent than the population of
this world.
In fact, this supreme being who brought the
universe into existence must be much more intelligent
than all the human race combined in all
their millions.
Some people call him the great architect.
Others call him the first great cause.
We call him God.
And this is the most reasonable of the
explanations of the a designer.
Someone may say that to follow an axiom
and a fact with an hypothesis is weakening
the argument.
Quite the contrary.
Most scientific discoveries are made on the basis
of hypotheses.
This hypothesis of a designer is most reasonable.
There is not any explanation more reasonable.
Nevertheless, agreement upon the reasonable hypothesis of a
designer by no means solves the problem for
an inquirer.
Some who believe the fact of a designer
are very vague indeed about his nature.
Let's consider some of these ideas.
Now some people believe that God is nothing
more than an intelligent and voluntary but wholly
impersonal substance identified with the totality of the
universe.
That's the meaning of the word pantheism, meaning
that all is God.
An Indian said to me once, of course
I believe in God.
God is the all in all things.
God is light and God is darkness.
God is warmth and God is cold.
God is near and God is far.
God is good and God is evil.
All that exists and everything that happens is
God.
You mean, said I, that God is the
universe?
Is the universe eternal?
How then do you account for the second
law of thermodynamics?
Is the universe perfect?
How then do you account for the evil
every one of us can see?
If all things are equally expressions of God,
all things should be equally admirable.
Every day we see around us actions good
and commendable, reflecting God.
But when we see actions we cannot but
describe as wicked and deplorable, we cannot blame
a perfect God.
My Indian friend protests that he did believe
in infinite God, yet I said you lock
him up in a finite universe.
Besides, if I were to judge from the
world around us, I would say that your
pantheist God is not yet made.
He's still in the process of being manufactured,
just as the world is going along.
You say that we're all parts and particles
of God, yet I'm quite sure that I'm
not God.
My conscience protests against such a presumption.
God is over all and in all, that's
true.
Therefore he cannot be the universe that he's
over.
He must be distinct from the universe he
moves in, as I am distinct from the
shoes I walk in.
Could an impersonal God produce self-conscious beings
free like myself?
If the creator includes in himself all good
and evil, why should any creature be held
responsible for his actions?
It was not difficult to tell my inquiring
Indian friend that I'd always held Mahatma Gandhi
in greatest respect.
Then how could I believe in a God
inferior in morality to Gandhi, as do some
who hold this pantheistic interpretation?
In India, there are people living in strictest
honesty, but there are also folks who worship
God by thieving.
They're called thugs.
There are people of the highest sex purity,
but there are those who worship God by
debauchery.
When pantheism is allowed to prevail, it soon
degenerates into idolatry.
People begin to worship the God of the
sky, and the God of the wind, and
the God of the sea, and the God
of health, and the God of disease, and
the God of purity, and the God of
impurity.
The worshiper kneels before a gaudy wooden idol.
The idol seems so near, yet the God
is so far away.
The true God seems so far away, yet
he is truly near.
Pantheism begets idolatry and degradation.
Anyone can see that for himself as he
travels around the world.
On the other hand, there are some people
who do grant the existence of God, but
they deny that he's knowable or approachable.
On one occasion, I'd been conducting divine service
on board a landing ship, first of all
for the Protestant men, then for the Roman
Catholic men, by an unusual papal dispensation.
There was a colonel of the United States
Army leaning over the tafril of the invasion
ship, discussing the address given.
I enjoyed your talk, chaplain, he said.
You know, I believe in the existence of
God, but I don't believe in Jesus Christ
or in prayer or anything like that.
I believe that God created the universe.
He set the ball rolling, so to speak,
but I don't believe that God interferes in
things.
He delegates his authority to nature in a
sort of chain of command.
The colonel was quite pleased when I said,
well, that's the same point of view as
Thomas Jefferson.
He was what you call a deist.
Well, said the colonel, I'm glad to hear
that I'm in such good company, but now
let me explain, chaplain.
General MacArthur is in full command of this
theater of war.
Now supposing Sergeant Joe Blow wants a fellow
to go to San Francisco to see his
girlfriend, he won't get past his captain, let
alone see General MacArthur.
Now General MacArthur is ultimately responsible for Sergeant
Joe Blow, but General MacArthur is too big
and too busy to be bothered with Joe
Blow and his affairs.
Don't you agree?
I'm sure you do.
When I noted the colonel went on, now
that's my idea of God.
God is ultimately responsible for all of us,
but he has delegated his authority to nature,
therefore he could not be interested in our
petty affairs.
He's much too big and too busy.
Colonel, said I, there's a young fellow named
Arthur MacArthur, and I'm quite sure he has
the right to go to see his father
anytime he desires, and even if his father
were busy, he would say, gentlemen, I would
like you to meet my son, Arthur.
He is his child, and the great message
of Jesus Christ is simply that God is
our father, and that we may have access
to God through him.
Deism denies the imminence of God, just as
pantheism denies God's transcendence.
In other words, deism denies God's nearness, just
as pantheism won't allow that he is above
and beyond us.
Deism and pantheism discourage real fellowship with an
intelligent and loving creator.
Now, there are other systems we could consider,
but they're not very popular among western people,
so we don't need to go into details.
So we come to another question.
If there is a supreme being, as the
majority of the world's inhabitants believe, could he
communicate with me?
Could a supreme intelligence communicate with a minor
one?
Well, why not?
When I address English speaking students, I use
the English tongue, but whenever I speak to
students unfamiliar with English, I use an interpreter.
Likewise, some people have been more aware of
God than others, and divine revelation has been
written down for us and translated into a
multitude of tongues.
The Old Testament tells us preparation of a
chosen people.
The New Testament records the life and teachings
of Christ.
A sergeant asked me once what I meant
by the revelation of God in the scriptures.
Isn't the Bible only a book, he said?
So I told him what happened when I
visited Soviet Russia in 1935.
A man could get married on the tenth
of the month, take his wife to a
hotel for the honeymoon, kiss her goodbye on
the morning of the 13th, go down to
the divorce bureau and divorce her.
He didn't even need to go back to
tell the girl because the office sent a
postcard.
Twelve years later, a professor from behind the
Iron Curtain came to visit me at Oxford
University, and he told me it had become
extremely difficult for anyone to get divorced in
Russia.
Why?
Why the change?
Well, girls had been committing suicide, babies were
being abandoned, social diseases were increasing, and the
children were turning into juvenile delinquents by the
million.
The Soviet government wisely put a stop to
the abuses and decreed an end to this
easy divorce.
All governments agree that marriage must be protected
to ensure a happy society.
But thousands of years ago, Moses said, thou
shalt not commit adultery, and this stressed the
sanctity of the marriage relationship.
A family should be a closed unit.
A man should be loyal to the woman
who bears his children, and a woman should
be loyal to the man who fathers her
children.
In 1935, during that visit to Russia, I
noticed that one day in seven was not
kept as a holiday.
Instead, workers took off the sixth, the twelfth,
the eighteenth, the twenty-fourth, and the thirtieth
of any month.
Why?
The French revolutionists tried one day in ten
for much the same reason, and this was
a blow at organized religion, because in Russia,
Muslims could not go to the mosque on
Friday more than eight times a year, and
Jews couldn't go to synagogue on Saturday more
than eight times a year, and godly Christians
could not go to church on Sunday more
than eight times a year.
But now the Russians have returned to one
day in seven.
Why?
During the Blitz, the Royal Factory Commission in
Britain was trying to discover a way of
obtaining maximum efficiency from willing workers.
They found that men who worked six days
and took one day off did better work
than men working in any other pattern whatsoever.
But the Bible taught long ago, sixth day
shalt thou labor and do all thy work,
the seventh is the rest of the Lord
thy God.
We here Christians believe that God has revealed
himself primarily in Holy Scripture, supremely in Jesus
Christ.
The greatest figure of history was no ordinary
man.
He revealed the character of God in a
way utterly unsurpassed, certainly never matched in any
other religion.
Of course there's a great deal of confusion
about the world's religions.
We can say quite kindly and quite firmly,
Confucianism is a code of ethics devised by
a great teacher.
Buddhism is a philosophy of life propounded by
a great thinker.
But the revealed religions of the world are
Judaism, regarded by Christians as a preparation for
Christ, and Christianity itself as the revelation of
God in Jesus Christ, followed by Islam, regarded
by Christians as an aberration of Judeo-Christianity.
So we're going to put this to the
final test.
We've talked about an axiom, a fact, an
hypothesis, a question, and now is there a
test?
The test is the test of experience.
Whoever comes to God must first believe that
he exists and that he rewards those who
diligently seek him.
Those who have taken the trouble to put
this to the test have found it to
be true.
It has brought us into fellowship with the
maker of the cosmos.
If there is a supreme being, our relationship
to him is the most important question in
life.