Anonymous Asks (339)

“Is there a conclusive argument for the existence of God?”

Sadly, there is no conclusive argument either for the existence of God or anything else. The reason is unbelief. Perhaps I should not use “reason” and “unbelief” in the same sentence. They are in fact mutually exclusive. The unbeliever refuses compelling arguments, persuasive evidence, and even the science he claims to worship when any of these do not agree with his predetermined position.

For such a man, literally nothing is ever conclusive.

A Problem Bigger Than Argumentation

In argumentation, “conclusive” means decisive, a stroke of logic that puts an end to all debate. The existence of God can neither be falsified nor strictly proven by human argumentation until God himself sees fit to put an end to all discussion on the subject, and then every knee shall bow. At that point, the conclusive argument will be “Look, there he is.” Even if the unbeliever rubs his eyes enough times to wear off his lashes, there the Almighty will remain, glorious and unanswerable. That’s a conclusive argument, but it depends on conditions that do not currently exist and will not until Christ’s millennial reign.

But the problem of conclusions is bigger than argumentation. Do you remember the famous speech in Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol? Jacob Marley is dead as a doornail, so when Marley passes through a door into the bedroom of his business partner Ebenezer Scrooge and appears to him in spirit form, Scrooge goes into full rationalization mode to explain away what he is experiencing:

Marley: “You don’t believe in me.”

Scrooge: “I don’t.”

Marley: “What evidence would you have of my reality beyond that of your senses?”

Scrooge: “I don’t know.”

Marley: “Why do you doubt your senses?”

Scrooge: “Because a little thing affects them. A slight disorder of the stomach makes them cheats. You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. There’s more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!”

If you’ve seen the movie, you’ll know that in the end it’s not the argument that wins; it’s the big scare Marley puts into Scrooge when he comes over all ghostly. So then, no evidence is good enough for the man who will accept no evidence, even the evidence of his own eyes. When Marley cannot convince Scrooge with words, he simply shrieks.

Back from the Dead

If that scene seems unlikely to you, consider this one from Luke 16:

The Rich Man in Hades: “I beg you, father Abraham, to send Lazarus to my father’s house — for I have five brothers — so that he may warn them, lest they also come into this place of torment.”

Abraham: “They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.”

The Rich Man: “No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.”

Abraham: “If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.”

Here we have it from the mouth of the Lord Jesus Christ himself: unbelief is so powerful that it can cause men to deny their own rightly functioning senses. Scrooge eventually believed he was seeing Marley, but not everyone would. Christ has risen from the dead and appeared on multiple occasions to as many as 500 witnesses, yet more people disbelieve than believe.

So then, if the most compelling proofs possible are insufficient to conquer unbelief, how could a mere argument ever be conclusive?

Convicting the World

There is one thing that can conquer unbelief, and it is not our arguments but rather the conviction brought about by the Holy Spirit of God. “He will convict the world,” said the Lord Jesus to his disciples, “concerning sin and righteousness and judgment.” In some small number of cases, yes, the Holy Spirit may do this through our dialectical arguments, but it is not the argument winning the day; it is the Lord. Much more often, in my experience, he does not win by being technically correct or logically sound, but by moving the heart to simply accept a truth so glaring it cannot reasonably be disputed.

An example: I know a dozen good technical arguments against the validity of evolution by natural selection, all of which imply the existence of God by default. But I see my Father’s creative power far more compellingly in the hands of a squirrel, which bear the unmistakable marks of impeccable design. Their pseudo-thumbs are not truly opposable, so they will never hold a pen, but the structure as a whole has a unique flexibility, delicacy and strength entirely suited to a squirrel’s environment. For me, that little half inch of skin, hair, bone and sinew is an argument no evolutionist will ever answer, and it has no words at all; it’s purely a visual impression. Our own combination of fingers and thumbs cannot begin to mimic the facility of that paw, and no mind-boggling accumulation of eons can explain its existence purely by chance.

I rejoice every time I look at one of these little creatures doing what they do so perfectly. Can I explain that to anyone convincingly? Not a chance. But the emotion those tiny digits inspire in my heart is more powerful than anything a series of science teachers and high-IQ writers ever taught me.

Until the Spirit does his work in a man’s heart, unbelief will prevent any argument, however crafty or logical, from conclusively demonstrating God’s existence. Thankfully, that is not the end of the matter.