God Is

by Dee Bowman
Southside Church of Christ
Pasadena, Texas

Christians are considered by the intellectual community as a group of superstitious, non- informed peoples who are wedded to an antiquated system of morality and who are clinging to an ineffective code of moral ethics. Phillip E. Johnson, in his work Reason In The Balance, says, “The most influential intellectuals in America and around the world are mostly naturalists who assume that God exists only as an idea in the minds of religious believers.” If that is true, he suggests, “then mankind invented God—not the other way around.”

Is it true that God is a figment of men’s imagination? Is the Darwinian theory of evolution correct? Did we come from a piece of protoplasm that suddenly was jarred out of a bog of chemical nothingness and, over millions and millions of years, became a man?

Man, in this age, worships himself. He subscribes to a method of morality which is totally subjective. Truth is defined by what each man believes. Nothing is wrong unless it infringes upon the “rights” of another. And why not? If we are merely biological creatures, how could there even be any such thing as right or wrong? If we are merely a higher form of animals, what is wrong with sexual perversity, what is wrong with stealing? In fact, if there is no such thing as an objective standard of truth, what is wrong with anything?

The evolutionist cannot explain the structure of the universe. According to him, it all just happened. He has theories. And they are just that—theories. Not one of them has been proven. He suggests, for instance, a “Big Bang” theory. I heard Jack Holt once say, “If there’s a big bang, where’s the big Banger?” He has a point. All the naturalist’s theories seem to me to require more faith that I could, in a lifetime, muster. Where did gravity originate? If there is such a thing as the “law of nature,” who made the law? Did the law of gravity just happen one day? Did a woodpecker have a headache for about a million years while he was evolving to a woodpecker?

To say that the universe “just happened” is like a person walking through a field and finding a wristwatch. Picking it up, he exclaims, in wonder, “Look at what happened?” Design necessarily suggests a designer. The laws of chemistry serve a purpose. So do the laws that govern the function of the human body. Law always suggests a law-giver. Law suggests intelligence.

Take the human foot, for example. How do you explain how it works? The human foot contains 26 bones, half the number in the entire human body. It has 107 ligaments and 19 muscles attached to it. When the body tilts, sensors send a message to the brain; the brains sends back messages to certain parts of the foot, commanding that it compensate for the change by tightening some muscles and loosening others in order to retain the previous balance. The human foot can balance a 190 pound man and, upon command from the brain, tell him to move the metatarsal bones to thrust the foot forward so that the man can walk. And it does that over and over as he takes each step. And that just happened? Surely, “I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”

And what about blood flow, cellular development, digestion, healing, and a thousand other things the body does? Do you think that all that just happened? Each one over millions of years? Surely you jest!

Explain man’s moral nature. Everywhere, in every society, there is a code of ethics, some sort of acceptable standard that identifies what is considered to be right or wrong. Where and when did man develop that propensity? “If anyone will take the time to compare the moral teaching of the ancient Egyptians, Babylonians, Hindus, Chines, Greeks, and Romans, what will strike him will be how every much alike they are to each other, and to our own.” (C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity).

Every society, no matter how un-informed it is, has a standard for right and wrong. Where, for example, is it right to steal, or to engage in child abuse? Even in a society which accepts polygamy , it’s wrong to take another man’s wife.

And how do you explain man’s aesthetic nature. Why does he love music and art? When did he develop a love for order, color, scenery; and when did he decide that a minor chord suggests a different mood than a major one? Why does he regard a beautiful sunset and cherish the thematic of a musical score? How did that evolve? What caused it? And what purpose does it serve?

“In the beginning, God…” That’s the answer. The Bible, another of the wonders that are inexplicable for the naturalists, teaches us about God. The world around us declares Him (Psa. 19), but it is the Bible that identifies Him and informs us as to how we can please Him (2 Tim. 3:16-17). The fact that man has rejected Him shows man’s rank ignorance (Rom. 1:18-22; Isa. 40:12), albeit his deliberate choice to be so. The Bible tells us who we are, why we are here, where we’re going. No other source is available. Man has sought in vain to explain himself. God tells us in simple, emphatic terms—“Let us hear the conclusion to the whole matter. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good or evil” (Eccl. 12:13-14).

God is! And that, my friend, with all that that statement suggests, is the end of the matter.

Copyright (C) 2002-2006 Southside Church of Christ
All rights reserved.

Send Comments or Questions to:
Dee Bowman
2229 W. Clare
Deer Park, TX 77536
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