Walk With Me
Christian discussion of biblical topics, and a dose of daily application. Yes the Bible is still relevant, and we find out more and more each day how relevant it has always been.
Walk With Me
Faith vs. Doubt: Examining God's Existence
Hello everybody and welcome to today's episode of Walk With Me. I'm your host, jj. We're coming back with another episode. I hope each and every one of you have had a great week or a great time from the last time we spoke together. Big thanks to our shout out, thanks to our sponsors Two Bars of Lyricist, exquisite Creations, iron Gate Ministries. Hopefully a few more sponsors coming on soon. Can't wait.
Speaker 1:We'll see what God is going to do, but thank God for each and every one of you, thank God for the word of God, thank God for loving God, thank God for each and every one of you for liking and sharing and commenting and asking questions and things of that nature. I, believe it or not, I absolutely love it. I do, I do, I um, and it's not because I think I know, so I got I think one guy was saying all that stuff but it's not because I think I know so much. Actually, I feel like I know very little, um about the word of god. Like I, if you were to put just to kind of make it a size comparison if you were to put, like a drop of water, you put it in a spoon and then you turn it around and put that spoon in a bucket and then put that bucket in the middle of a lake, that I believe would be that drop of water, would still represent what I think I know about the Bible. So we are exploring this thing together, you and I. So thank you for joining us. Thank you. Now there are some things I do know and there's some things that I don't know and things I don't know. I'll tell you that I don't know. If there's something that I have to give an opinion on, I'll tell you it's my opinion, because I don't want you to think I'm God, because I know I'm not God and I'm thankful at least twice a month that I am not God. Maybe twice a week. A couple times I've been thankful twice in a day that I wasn't God, because what I thought about a situation was completely wrong. But I don't want to get off in the weeds with that. Thank you all so much for liking and sharing. You've been listening to this podcast. I can't thank you enough. I can't thank God enough for bringing you here, for bringing us together, so we're just going to jump right into it. We've got a little ground to cover, so I just want to get right into it okay into it. We got a little ground to cover, so I just want to get right into it, okay Now.
Speaker 1:Last week we were talking about who spoke the word of God and that inspired the question well, who is God and does he really exist and believe it or not? We could have 36 podcasts on this subject and have and have it turn out 36 different ways because, believe it or not, there are so many different um avenues that try to express, like, a disbelief in god, like an atheist um atheism perspective where, hey, there's no such thing as a higher thing, but then they don't even realize that to have that belief is atheistic belief and we'll go into that. But understanding that these things come from the universal belief, the universal acceptance somewhere deep down in our soul that we know that God exists, that there is a God that exists, I mean you could be like the agnostics where they kind of believe that, yeah, we know God exists, but it's so ridiculously overwhelming that the puny human brain could never have never comprehend any of it, whereas the atheist kind of believes like, well, no, we just sort of showed up here out of nowhere and we don't believe in God and we're not going to try to believe in God, because if we do, our brains will explode. Try to believe in God because if we do, our brains will explode. And then you have other people who worship different things as God or different spirits, stuff like that, like spirituality. You worship spirituality as it's God. Then you will tell yourself that it's not a religion that you're not worshiping and because of the contradiction that you set up in your mind, you think that this is true. So this belief, this universal thing, this universal drive to worship a higher being or a god, proves that god does exist.
Speaker 1:Now we use a little few extra words here. You say what is the argument of cause? Now, by that means there's a cause for everything. Like how did it happen? Are man and the universe effects of something, which we are? But if we are the effects of something, because cause comes before effect, then there must be a cause. I'll say that again because it seems a little confusing. If everything we see is an effect and everything we go through is a cause and an effect, what was the original cause? God would have had to have been the original cause.
Speaker 1:Oh well, then when you start talking about that, people start saying, well, the Big Bang. And OK, well, how did the Big Bang happen? Oh, because, and OK, so, and if, if the one Big Bang happened and what you have is an entire group, an entire universe of, of material or matter, how did you get any matter? Oh, um, okay, it was all one spec and then it exploded, right? So you mean to tell me that the building blocks of human existence existed in the one atom of matter at the center of the universe? Once you start picking this stuff, it starts to fall apart. So, um, we have to understand that the world did not just come into existence by itself. The bible didn't write itself.
Speaker 1:And it would be more sensible to have a situation where you walk into a library and then claim that there were no authors in the world who wrote these. That would actually make more sense Than to try to think that this world wasn't created, that the universe wasn't created. Everything you see on this planet, everything you experience, was created. Walking into a library and saying there's no such thing as an author, it would make more sense, but that absolutely makes no sense because it's an illogical thing, right? Man exists, we all exist, you, I exist, and I know that sometimes your existence may be good, sometimes it may be not so good, sometimes it may be bad, sometimes it may be horrible, but we all owe our existence to some cause. We are the effect. We did not always exist. We will. Some of us will cease to exist on this plane, and that means we were created, and we were created by God.
Speaker 1:Now, there's a design argument too, and I like this design argument and basically how the argument works is that you take this watch right. The watch proves that not only there is a maker of a thing, or the person that thought it out, but also someone who designs it. The universe and nature, in this regard, proves that there is a superintending intelligence. Now, I know I used a very racist set of words to say that was God, but it's important that we level the groundwork, lay the groundwork first, to understanding what a design argument is. This is a design argument, and there's several different arguments.
Speaker 1:And then there's, like, the being argument, which is one of the ones that I like to deal with, because you can go down a rabbit hole quickly. Now, this means this is basically from an ontological point of view, okay, this means that we have an area, have an idea, rather than you know, of an infinite and perfect being. Now, how would we generate that sort of thought that there was an infinite and perfect, that that existed outside of ourselves? I mean, it couldn't have come from ourselves. Therefore, that being has to exist and it can't be just a mere thought, because it kind of was inspired on us and it's something that is so far down into our psyche that we, even if we try to hide it, we sort of accept, even if that acceptance takes a different form, we'll get into that. Um, then there's like the moral argument. That is also a very interesting one, and especially in the last three or four years, where we try to accept the fact that morality is obligatory, it's not an optional thing.
Speaker 1:You have to do this. You will see somebody look someone dead in their face and say, well, you have to do this. Clearly, they don't have to do stuff. No, you have to put that hammer down. No, I don't have to do something now. You have to put that hammer down. No, I don't. I could take this hammer and do things that I'll regret later, but I can still do them.
Speaker 1:When they, when people speak like that, they're speaking of morality and what it is that we as men have an intellectual and moral nature, like a conscious and emotional nature, which is not only like a being of good power, love and wisdom and holiness, but that is how our nature is, kind of subscribing to God's nature, right, and it's at least on a subconscious level and I say subconscious I mean way deep down that it acknowledges the being, it acknowledges the supreme being, it acknowledges the judge and it acknowledges the lawgiver. Now, notice, I used the term supreme being. It acknowledges the judge, it acknowledges the law giver. I noticed I used the term supreme being. We're talking about God. I don't want to get that confused Right Now.
Speaker 1:Here's the most difficult and sort of kind of fluid argument to make and I say fluid in quotation marks, and basically it's called a congruity argument and and you probably want to take notes on these I probably should have said that at the beginning. Right, the congruity argument. Now, what that means is you take the key, you put it in the lock and you and if it turns you have the right keyief in is sort of a self-existent personal. God is in harmony with our mental and moral nature of being self-sufficient and thinking that we're good people and then we. This is why we initially we talk about being naive. This thing sort of goes into how we look at the world around us. We believe people that we shouldn't believe. We disbelieve people that we should.
Speaker 1:So if God exists, then all questions regarding the creation, religion, nature, human history would be answered. You wouldn't have to make thousands of books trying to figure it out. Now, atheism leaves all these matters without explanation. Basically, they just kind of say, well, these things just showed up out of nowhere. But then he asked them what is showing up now out of nowhere? They can't answer that.
Speaker 1:So it's important to understand the difference of why atheism is a religion of faith, believe it or not, it is a believer of faith. Is a a religion of faith, belief system of faith? I was trying to say belief and religion at the same time. I didn't know. Now, these, what we talked about were arguments of logic and, believe it or not, some of the worst things you can do is go into the Word of God with pure logic. And the reason why that is is because if you argue the existence of God from a logical perspective, all the arguments for the existence of God from a logical perspective, all the arguments for the existence of God are all sound. They sound great, they are, they make sense, but the only problem is the argument. Same argument made in reverse would also make sense. If you're going from a purely logical position, then the arguments against God would also make the same sort of sense.
Speaker 1:So what the writers tend to do in the Bible is they write from what's called the personal experience, and this is a different argument from any of the other ones we talked about before and where you know everybody, everybody that's in church, everybody that's had a miracle happen to them. They could, we could testify that, hey, I was praying and god, this thing for me, I was going through this and this happened for me, you know. So this is a thing right, and how that works out is that when we testify about these experiences that we've had at a personal level with a personal and living God, then it provides us sufficient proof by itself that God lives. Now these experiences could be divided under several different ways, under several different teachings. Like you know, god asks for prayer, god saves someone. We know, hey, listen, this guy's really been going through it, god, I've been praying for him to get the Holy Ghost, to get the Holy Ghost, and we say, oh yeah, god exists. And then we have our grandmother there, our grandfather there, who will pray for somebody, whose offspring will pray for them to get well. They've been sick for a long time. And we find out that God, that their bodies are just miraculously healed, and they go back to the doctor. The doctor says man, I can't find any reason why you were sick anymore.
Speaker 1:These miracles that take place can't help but explain the presence of a uh, an omnipotent God. And when we have our fellowship with God, when we pray to God and we worship Him, and we feel Him coming, you know, we feel Him coming inside and we just sort of, and it sort of feels electric. That's all the food we need Me Y'all. I'm going to tell you walkers, I'm going to tell you just like this I have been doub. All the proof. We need Me Y'all. I'm going to tell you what? Because I'm going to tell you just like this I have been doubting the existence of God for a long time, a long time.
Speaker 1:But two things happened that absolutely solidified my belief in God. Number one the devil came and said what if God ain't real? Okay, well, if God ain't real, you ain't real. And I'm having a hallucination, which I'm not, so therefore we aren't. So then the other one was what if heaven didn't exist? So if heaven doesn't exist and hell doesn't exist, this is a problem. So you have to really take into consideration what you are experiencing right now when it comes to doubting whether God exists. Your fellowship with God proves that God exists, exist.
Speaker 1:Now, just to understand that we are able to experience the real presence of God in his soul leaves no room for further argument. It's kind of like when you're speaking to an atheist that really don't understand that. Now the best argument I have found to talk to an atheist about it is ask him what has being atheist done for them? Now they'll say well, you know, I, I didn't spend my money in tithes and I didn't do this and that. Third, and I didn't, uh, I didn't spend all this time in church and I'm not church-heard anymore and I'm free. But you will find out, especially that last observation about being free they are not free. They are not free, they think they're free. And this is where the atheist has more faith than the Christian, because some atheists you cannot, you cannot shake them from that faith, and some of the biggest atheists you will find used to be Christians, because some atheists you cannot. You cannot shake them from that thing, and some of the biggest atheists you will find used to be Christians Say that again Some of the biggest atheists you will find used to be Christians.
Speaker 1:With that said, we're going to wrap up a little early. Today Got a big event coming up. I got to get ready, ready for. But I love each and every one of you. Thank you all so much for joining. If you see anybody, hear anybody talking about a podcast, share it to them. Uh, let them know, just give them a listen. Um, love each and every one of you. Hope to see you on the next one. Tell somebody you love them.