When it comes to giving us evidence for the existence of God I think that there is a fine line between giving us too much evidence versus giving us not enough evidence. If God didn’t reveal Himself through nature as He does or give us His written word we wouldn’t have much to go on to believe that He exists. This clearly would not only be unfair, to then hold us accountable to know He exists but would go against His real purpose which is that He wants to have a relationship with us.
If the evidence is too sparse then we wouldn’t know He exists and no relationship would be possible. On the other hand, if He overwhelmed us with too much evidence for His existence, such as to perform daily miracles, or speak to us with an audible voice from heaven, we would be compelled to believe He exists; and that type of relationship is not what God wants. He wants a relationship based on faith and trust not one based on being compelled to believe because the evidence is so overwhelming.
Having total evidence for belief takes faith out of the equation and trust would no longer be based on the nature and goodness of God but on compulsion. I also believe that God often gives each person just enough evidence to take the leap of faith needed to come into a relationship with Him; and it can vary from one individual to another.
Some skeptics may need more evidence from science and history and often God will use apologetics to share that information. To another skeptic He may reveal Himself through a supernatural dream. For example, in some Arab countries, where the Gospel is prohibited from being shared, I have heard of stories that Jesus revealed Himself to an honest seeker in a dream. In the end, I believe that God is always fair and He will provide enough evidence to the honest seeker to allow them to know that He is real. But He always leaves faith and trust in that evidence up to us.
If I Only Saw a Miracle!
Miracles on the surface would seem to present us with a very compelling case on why they would be the greatest evidence of God’s existence. However, even occasional miracles still won’t cause most people to believe that God exists. The classic case is the 40 years of wilderness wandering by the Israelites during the time of Moses.
Many, before they hit the wilderness, saw the miraculous ten plagues in Egypt and then the parting of the Red Sea. And during their wilderness wanderings saw the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night, manna from the sky, and water from the rock, and yet most never came to believe in the one true God. You see despite the clear evidence that God exists, the people in the wilderness clearly acted as if He didn’t. Someone said it well when they said that it took God one day to get Israel out of Egypt but it took Him 40 years to get Egypt out of Israel. To me miracles clearly give us solid evidence for God’s existence, yet for the Israelites it didn’t do them any good for most were laid low in the wilderness. You see man’s desire to sin often will outweigh the clear signs that God gives all of us for His existence.
God, I believe, gives each of us just the right amount of evidence for His existence. But there is a fine line here. God must give us enough evidence that it will convince us that He is real, and that we are sinners in need of Him, but not so much that we would be compelled to believe He exists, because He wants us to freely come to Him and worship and love Him.
Also, people often miss the point on why God performed miracles in the Bible. It was mostly to arrest the attention of those who saw the miracle to listen to the message of the one (usually a prophet in the Old Testament or an apostle in the New Testament) giving it. The message was often to either listen to what God was saying or believe that Jesus was God. And in the case of the miracles of Jesus it was to attest to His deity. Today, we don’t often see miracles because we have the complete Bible. And for anyone with an open heart the evidence contained in the Bible is more than enough evidence to come to a saving knowledge of Jesus. And once one comes to the Lord, God will open their eyes to see that the Bible is a miraculous book indeed!
In tomorrow’s part II of this devotion, we will see that God wants a relationship built on trust, not just proof.
The word “evidence” is used some 18 times in this article, 19 if you count the title. Evidences are not self-revealing but must be interpreted. That is done by the presuppositions which make up our worldview. Since man is depraved and is at enmity with God, true knowledge about anything is first dependent on repentance which is a gift of God and not a product of our reasoning power 2Tim 2:25. As CS Lewis said, when we make man the judge of evidences, we put God in the dock. We let man be the final arbiter of what passes as sufficient evidence. This is not a Christian apologetic. Without God, you cannot prove anything. The atheist can count but he can’t account for his counting. He must borrow from Christian capital to make his argument against Christianity. He has to use logic to make his argument but logic is immaterial and cannot be accounted for in an materialistic worldview.
Knowledge of God is plain to the unbeliever and no amount of evidence is necessary to convince him that God exists.
“by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.” Rom.1
It’s not a lack of knowledge that must be overcome with our evidences. It’s an unrighteous suppression of the truth that is the problem. It’s a moral problem, not a knowledge problem.
A prime example of this knowledge vs moral difference is the resurrection. Some have tried to use the resurrection as evidential proof of the deity of Christ but Jesus himself spoke of the futility of this apologetic approach when “he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.” Luke 16
Of course, we don’t shy away from evidences, because they declare the glory of God but an unbeliever will twist himself in knots to deny any evidence as proof of God’s existence. Our point of contact with the unbeliever is not mounds of never ending evidences but the image of God in man and the power of the Holy Spirit to grant repentance that leads to knowledge of the truth. The unbeliever will never reason his way to God or as one theologian put it, The God of Christianity is not a “god” that you can reason to, He is THE God that we can’t reason without.