In Chris’ second video on the history of God, Atheism, A History of God (B), he ponders the different ideas about God, held by people in the world today and throughout history. He began by looking through the eyes of “P”, the priest of JEDP, and noted the Biblical God is portrayed as a Reality that cannot be fully known or grasped (cf. Exodus 33:18). God cannot be seen or comprehended in his essence by human beings, as we are now. We are able to see only his manifestations in our reality, but Chris thinks that this type of God was generated from the ideas of polytheism.
Some would say that God is the “ground of all being”, but, as Chris asks in this video, what would that mean? It means different things to different religions. So Chris asks:
“Is God the world we see, or beyond the world we see? Did reality emanate from God or is God reality itself? Was God the creative forces of the universe or the basic laws upon which those forces were based? Did God live through human beings, or was God a reality outside of humans? Was God simply everything, or was God something specific that we were seeking after? Was God the grounding that made our actions possible, or was God the energy with which we acted? All of these conceptions of the non-theistic God were different, and they all meant different things. Maybe God was what we called things, we just don’t understand.”
Chris then wondered if God might be something we experienced within our hearts and minds instead of what was outside of us. Perhaps God was nothing more than ‘powerful emotions’ like our sense of belonging to a group of people, or the sense of wonder and awe, as we take in the beauty that surrounds us. Perhaps, it is our sense of mystery, concerning what we don’t understand about our world. Nevertheless, even these things, mysteries and wonder, some had called God and are mere representations of our physical reality.
Chris finally recognizes the real problem with all these thoughts of God, and that is evidence. He correctly concludes, “None of these conceptions of God were motivated by verifiable and binding evidence. Without evidence, we might as well be debating about how many angels could fit on the point of a pin.” If God is the name, we give things, we have evidence for (pantheism etc.), then what is the purpose of calling it God, since it has no metaphysical powers? God is physical reality and nothing more. One may as well say God is irrelevant.
If God is something outside our universe, what evidence do we have of this? If he is something beyond our understanding, how can we know that is true? How can we know something beyond our understanding actually exists? After all, if it is beyond our understanding, what can we know?
My own conclusion is that I am right with Chris on this one, until we come to the God of the Bible. Chris is correct in saying, there is absolutely no evidence for the gods of this world, and the Bible correctly calls them no gods at all. Chris’ problem, as I see it, is that he has accepted JEDP, without any evidence to back up their post enlightenment and out of date conclusions. On the one hand, Chris tells us there is no evidence for any of these gods, but he looked to the authors of the JEDP hypothesis to give him an ‘accurate’ history of the God of the Bible.
We have evidence for the Judeo-Christian God, because he is the God, who intervenes in the course of human events. He has made himself known to humanity through different people in the Old Testament, and during those times evidence of him was verifiable, in that what his prophets said were realized. The people then knew he existed. But, what is that to us? They lived then, and we live now.
Many people have been able to understand God exists and verify that through answered prayer, but Chris has cut himself off from this method of proving God’s existence, saying God’s omniscience prevents the possibility of answered prayer. Another proof of God is the personal relationship, we have with him through the power of the Holy Spirit, but Chris has also cut himself off from this verification of God’s existence, concluding that all those thoughts or conversations, he had within himself, were generated by his own mind. So, is there nothing else? What about objective verifiable evidence?
Chris’ worldview seems to begin and end in science. All things must be sifted through this sacred cloth of understanding, before it reaches him. His Christian worldview had been destroyed, and, understandably, he doesn’t want to walk through those dark waters again. Now everything must be objective and verifiable. Where can we begin to find the spiritual, metaphysical God here? Without a direct intervention from God to people like Chris, is there any hope of finding God?
Actually, there are very good reasons to believe God exists by simply accepting scientific principles and doing that without fail. For example, science claims the Big Bang is responsible for everything in our universe. Fine, (without conceding its legitimacy) what must science ultimately conclude about this action? It had to have had a cause! The laws of physics tell us that for every action, there must be a cause, and this law is verifiable every day. But, Chris concludes in his video that the cause cannot be known and, therefore, must be rejected as proof of God. No, this isn’t true. By his own admission in a video outside this series (HERE), Chris says science concludes membranes caused the Big Bang. Nevertheless (and without conceding to the legitimacy of the membrane theory), in this same video Chris paints himself in a corner by showing that, if time is infinite, we could never have come to our own time. Therefore, time must have a beginning, whether it began with us or x number of membranes before us, the first one had to be caused. Who or what caused it? Science, therefore, points to God—the un-caused Cause of all things.
Science also shows us, and we verify this every day, that only life can produce life. Science has yet to show us how life could come from non-life, and how that could successfully blossom into what life is today. All of the claims of the evolutionary theory are without basis in objective, verifiable evidence. Nothing in nature and nothing in any current scientific formula show us life comes from anything but another preexisting life. Therefore, science points to God—the Eternal Life Giver.
Finally, science shows us, and this is also verifiable every day, that intelligence points to a maker or a cause of something or a creator. If I was hiking in the forest and noticed a bottle cap in my path, I would immediately understand that someone was here before. The bottle cap is evidence of the presence or former presence an intelligent being. If I play a game on my computer, the software points to a maker or creator, or intelligence behind it. It didn’t simply create itself, even though the computer contains ‘intelligence’ in its composition. The DNA molecule also points to Intelligence, and that intelligence is far beyond our own. Yet, the theory of evolution would have us believe that this intelligence that makes up the things of life evolved, mutated and came into being all by itself. What evidence do we have that this has ever occurred? And, how is it the sole exception to the basic rule that intelligence doesn’t just happen by itself? My computer program points to a brilliant creator, but my DNA program points to… what? Unless we are able to say it points to God, we have to conclude that nothing in life has any meaning. The greatest love story, or the most courageous act, or the greatest advance that science has ever made, has no more real meaning than a worm crawling across the asphalt on a rainy day.
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