Evidence of the existence of God
Order demands an intelligent mind - it doesn't come from chance. If the universe was started from a single atom in the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago, God created the atom and the lightning strike.
Life always comes from life. You don't get life from non-life. In the beginning, it is more likely that we came from an eternal God than an impersonal, lifeless process that somehow produced living, conscious beings from nothing.
Moral argument. There are some moral absolutes. Our conscience and God's standards.
Love. Love is crucial to us. More than matter and energy. Atheists, agnostics, and all of us desire love.
Jesus
Order
Beauty
Complexity
Love
God’s Existence - Thomas Aquinas
All in motion, must have 1st mover
First cause, (seed > plant)
Contingency, world hasn’t vanished
Gradation, good/better/best/perfect
Intelligent designer (gravity, weather, wildlife, etc.)
How to Know God - Catechism
Creation
Human Person
Reason & Divine Revelation
C.S. Lewis contended that innate human desires (e.g., for justice, meaning) imply a transcendent source capable of fulfilling them.
God's Existence - Peter Kreeft
Historical Accounts of Jesus
While not direct proof of God, widespread scholarly consensus acknowledges Jesus as a historical figure, with accounts of miracles and resurrection forming the basis of Christian theology.
Anecdotal Evidence
Personal experiences (e.g., answered prayers, transformative encounters) are frequently cited as subjective evidence, though they lack empirical verification.
Origin of Life: The complexity of life cannot be explained by random processes alone.
Consciousness and Intelligence: The existence of consciousness and intelligence in humans points to a higher intelligence.
Historical & Experiential Evidence
Historical Jesus: The life, teachings, and reported resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Miracles: Reports of supernatural events throughout history.
Personal Experiences: Many people claim to have had encounters with God.
Religious Texts: Sacred writings like the Bible are considered by some as evidence of divine revelation.
Natural World Observations
Beauty and Complexity in Nature: The awe-inspiring aspects of the natural world suggest a creator.
Uniformity of Natural Laws: The consistent behavior of the universe implies a lawgiver.
Human Personhood: The existence of self-aware, rational beings suggests a personal creator.
Philosophical Considerations
Existence of Abstract Concepts: The reality of abstract ideas like love, justice, and truth may point to a transcendent source.
The Argument from Reason: The human ability to reason and discover truth suggests a rational source of the universe.
Pascal's Wager: The pragmatic argument that belief in God is rational even if His existence cannot be proved.
The Argument from Creation
The existence of the universe itself is seen as evidence for a Creator. The Bible states that "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" (Genesis 1:1), which aligns with scientific observations that the universe had a beginning. The complexity and vastness of the cosmos, as revealed by instruments like the Hubble telescope, are viewed as pointing to an intelligent designer rather than random chance.
Fine-Tuning of the Universe
Scientists have discovered that the universe appears to be finely tuned for life. There are approximately 30 independent constants and laws of physics that are precisely calibrated to allow for a life-sustaining universe. This level of fine-tuning is seen as evidence of intentional design by a supreme intelligence.
The Existence of Natural Laws
The presence of consistent, mathematical laws governing the universe is considered evidence for a logical lawgiver. These laws, which were in place from the beginning of the universe, are seen as too orderly and precise to have arisen by chance. The Bible refers to God establishing "ordinances of heaven and earth" (Jeremiah 33:25), which some interpret as referring to natural laws.
The Law of Biogenesis
This scientific law states that life always arises from preexisting life, which is consistent with the biblical account of God creating the first life forms. This is contrasted with the idea of spontaneous generation of life from non-living matter, which has not been observed.
The Argument from Design
The complex and interdependent systems found in nature, from the cellular level to entire ecosystems, are viewed as evidence of intelligent design rather than random processes. The harmony and order observed in the natural world are seen as reflecting the nature of a rational Creator.
Fr. Mike Feb. 16, 2025
Well documented
Criterion of embarrassment – who told the story of the resurrection? Who failed Jesus the most – the disciples. Why would they leave embarrassing moments?
Women had no status in the culture. Why would they make up the story of a women discovering that Jesus was resurrected.
The apostles preached that Jesus rose from the dead in Jerusalem – where Jesus had just been crucified. Instead of going far away and making up a story to non-eyewitnesses.
No one claims that Jesus’ body was still in the tomb. The guards said it was stolen to keep their jobs. The apostles lost all they had and were later killed. None of them wavered.
The historical case for Jesus’ resurrection. The vast majority consensus is that at a bare minimum, Jesus was seen after his death by the twelve (but definitely Peter, James, and John), by Mary Magdalene and other women, by James the brother of Jesus (who did not follow Jesus before his death), and by Paul (who was an enemy of Christianity) AND that all/most of these people were willing to die horrible deaths for these beliefs without any clear benefit.
The origins of the universe. This argument takes a couple of different forms, but it basically boils down to the fact that we have strong philosophical and scientific evidence that the universe (space time) began to exist at some point, which leave for something immensely powerful and outside of time to make it begin (create it). It has also been phrased as the idea that everything has something that caused it, so at the beginning of that chain, there must be an uncaused cause.
The fine-tuning of the universe for life. It is a well-accepted fact that any slight change in the constants of our universe (gravity, weak nuclear force, etc) would lead to a universe that would not allow life. The chances are crazy if you look into them. This seems to point towards a creator that intended for life to exist.
The moral argument. It seems clear that there are evil actions (rape, racism, child abuse) and good actions (carrying for the poor, showing love). But if you prove harder, it becomes incredibly hard to justify why anything is “good” or "bad" you don't believe in some sort of supernatural (God) reason for it.
Well documented miracles. There are many, many, many (an unbelievable amount) of well documented (even medically documentation) miracles that have happened since the death of Jesus all the way to modern times. If even one of these are legitimate, God must exist. If you want to learn more about these read Craig Keener's book.
Fulfilled prophesies. The Bible has many prophesies that have been fulfilled and I find them very compelling. This ranges from Old Testament prophesies about the fall and invasions of kingdoms, to very specific prophesies about Jesus, to Jesus’ predictions that the temple will be destroyed, to small things like the prediction that the gospel will be taken to the entire world.
The trustworthiness of the Bible. The Bible is extremely accurate and written very close to the life of Jesus (closer than almost any other biography in ancient history, and there's four of them!). The details the Bible gets right are astonishing, and they have clear markers of having access to the original events (look into undersigned coincidences for more information). Additionally, the books of the Bible are some of the most well copied and preserved documents in human history.
Near death experiences. There seems to be some very interesting cases of people who were clinically dead knowing information they should not have known, like what was going on in the room while they were out. As far as I've heard there are no good naturalistic explanations of this.
Beauty. It doesn't seem immediately obvious on a naturalistic worldview why things would be beautiful. Especially things that are dangerous like lava, lightning, or tigers. This does however make sense with God.
The transforming power of a Christian life. Studies have shown intrinsically religious Christians are happier, less likely to commit crimes, and take care of their community.
Consciousness. It is almost inconceivable to me that random matter happened to come together through no purpose or design to create the rich conscious experience that humans go through.
Spiritual experiences. I haven't looked into this much, but apparently these are widespread and have a measurable effect on your brain.
Differences between humans and animals. Animals are so different from us that we do not hold them culpable for doing evil. No one would blame a wolf for eating a squirrel for instance.
The origin of life. Right now (as far as I am aware) there are no good theories for the original life on our planet which eventually evolved into all of us. In addition research has found it is next to impossible that non life could have turned into life. (see James Tour for more info).
(Fr. Mike paraphrase) We love others not out of animal instinct, but out of the heart God gave us and the love God has for us.
Christians have reasons for believing, including but not limited to the following:
numerous contemporary eyewitness accounts of a risen Jesus
the martyrdom of the early church founders for their faith
the apparently fulfillment of prophecy throughout history (e.g. Ezra’s prediction of the destruction of Northern Israel, later fulfilled by Assyria; Jesus’ prediction of the imminent destruction of the Hebrew Temple later fulfilled in AD70, or even the reestablishment of a Jewish state 2,000 years later)
virtual academic consensus even amongst atheists scholars that Jesus of Nazareth lived, died by Roman crucifixion, and the sincere beliefs by his contemporaries that he raised from the dead
attestation from Jesus’ enemies that no body was found in his tomb
the inexplicable conversion of Saul of Tarsus
centuries of archaeological evidence that corroborate ancient biblical accounts
more esoteric reasons such as logical syllogisms about the origins of life and the universe (e.g., the modern Big Bang theory comporting nicely with the spirit of the Genesis account of creation)
an intuition for objective moral law
even an explanation for why laws of logic or mathematics are viable and trustworthy ways of understanding reality (they otherwise have no basis in a purely naturalistic world without some higher plane of objective truth).
If you choose to be a materialist and an atheist, God won’t stop you. If you want to assume that the physical universe is nothing but atoms and forces, then you can succeed at looking at the whole universe and seeing nothing but atoms and forces. You can even do something that looks like science with that assumption. But by assuming that only atoms and forces exist, you’ll miss out on things like beauty, truth, and love. You’ll miss out on the very things that make you want to do science in the first place. Jesuit Brother Guy Consolmagno
Entropy (from Physics)
a thermodynamic quantity representing the unavailability of a system's thermal energy for conversion into mechanical work, often interpreted as the degree of disorder or randomness in the system. (2nd law of thermodynamics)
lack of order or predictability; gradual decline into disorder.
https://scienceforthechurch.org/2021/08/10/what-kind-of-god-entropy/
Entropy dominates because disorder is statistically more probable than order. Grains of sand won’t build a sand castle.
Butterfly: Can we take a moment to appreciate how utterly bizarre insect metamorphosis is? A caterpillar munches happily along on the plant it hatched on, then, after a few weeks, gets the urge to crawl up something, hang upside down, glue its butt to the something, make a little sleeping bag under its skin, and wiggle its skin off. Then it dissolves into goo in his little sleeping bag. Then spends a few weeks reassembling itself into something that isn’t even remotely like the worm it was before. Then it emerges from its sleeping bag, with a GPS in its head that it threw together from the goo, in addition to wings, etc. The dude then flies 3,000 miles to hang out in a forest in Mexico!
But what about...