In several recent talks on modern skepticism, we have been trying to show evidence from many angles that God is just exactly what the Bible claims Him to be. Not one word of Scripture has ever been broken and disproven by generations of critics. All the latest facts of true science coincide with the Bible record. God does exist, and He still functions as the mighty Sustainer of the Universe He created, in spite of the modern blasphemy of theologians and scholars.
There are those who tell us that they do not believe in the existence of God simply because no one has ever seen such a Being. In other words, they would have us think that they believe in only that which they have the ability to see. However, human experience daily teaches us that we actually believe a great many things which we do not see nor understand. Take, for instance, gravitation, electricity, air, thought. No one has ever seen these forces and yet we know that they exist because of what they do and accomplish. The Scripture declares: "The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork." Psalm 19:1.
That is to say, as we view His created works we may clearly see and understand that there must be an invisible Being, namely God, who has brought all these things into existence. To illustrate, we understand that there is a skywriter in the clouds when we see the skywriting, even though our limited vision may be unable to penetrate the distance and see the one who does the writing. In both cases to disbelieve would be utter foolishness.
There is such abundant and conclusive evidence in the heavens of the existence of a Supreme Being, that no unbiased person can consistently deny it. The sublime pageant of the heavenly bodies in their orderly march through infinite space, testifies of the Deity. Says the prophet: "Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who hath created these things, that bringeth out their host by number: he calleth them all by names by the greatness of his might, for that he is strong in power; not one faileth." Isaiah 40:26.
Our finite minds are incapable of comprehending the vastness of the universe. Astronomers tell us that all the grains of sand on all the beaches of the world would scarcely equal the number of the stars in the universe. Dr. Howard Shapley, noted American astronomer, estimates that there are 200 billion galaxies or island universes each of which contains billions of stars or suns. All these stars are in perpetual motion. Countless billions of these blazing suns plow their way through limitless space, orbit intersecting orbit like the links of a chain, and yet there is no conflict, no collision! What mathematical Genius has conceived, planned, made and coordinated all these worlds?
"The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God." Psalm 14:1. Such an one may ascribe the existence of this infinitely complex universe to chance, but chance cannot invent, organize, or plan. Chance cannot even make a watch. Each little wheel, spring, jewel, or cog in the watch has its place. Were we to place the parts of a watch, its jewels, wheels, and springs, in a container, and shake them together ever so vigorously for a million years, those parts would never of themselves make a watch. Only an experienced mind, and skilled hands can fit those parts together. A prominent businessman, a manufacturer of cutlery, who had been delivered from the soul destroying influence of skepticism, and who became a firm and ardent believer in the existence of God, was asked to give one reason for his strong and unyielding faith in the God of the Bible. His answer was as follows: "It takes a girl in our factory about two days to learn to put the seventeen parts of a meat chopper together. It may be that these millions of worlds, each with its separate orbit, all balanced so wonderfully in space, it may be that by a billion years of tumbling about they finally arranged themselves. I don't know, I am merely a plain manufacturer of cutlery. But this I do know, that you can shake the seventeen parts of a meat chopper around in a wash tub for the next seventeen billion years and you will never make a meat chopper."
Dr. Compton, nationally known physicist, believes in God, and assures us that his faith is a very real thing to him. Answering his own question as to what faith is, he says: "For myself, faith begins with the realization that a supreme intelligence brought the universe into being and created man. It is not difficult for me to have this faith, for it is incontrovertible that where there is a plan there is intelligence, and an orderly, unfolding universe testifies to the truth of the most majestic statement ever uttered: ‘In the beginning, God. ...'"
Let me ask you, Do you know of anything that is superior to your mind? Look at the planets coursing through the sky. Behold, in all its splendor the entire cosmic universe with its suns, its nebulae and galaxies. Yet they are inanimate. They have no mind, no intelligence. They cannot do what you can do, think, reason, plan, and carry out plans according to private volition and will. The human mind can think, reason, plan, and push those plans into action. It can invent and produce instruments by which it gathers a knowledge of the vast universe. Through radar man has now been able to send a signal to the moon and command it to return. He can control waterfalls and make them serve his needs, cause rivers to run backward, turn the forces of nature to serving the needs of mankind. And now he has learned how to break down the atom, and utilize a power so vast that man is able finally to annihilate all life from the earth.
But there remains one thing no man ever has been or ever will be able to do. He cannot build, produce, or create anything that is more intelligent than himself! A man can take existing materials and out of them build a house. But it requires intelligence and power superior to the house to produce the house. An automobile is almost a living thing, but the intelligence and powers required to invent and produce it are superior to the thing produced. To suggest to you that anything you could invent or bring into being could be superior in intelligence and ability to you and your mind would certainly insult your intelligence!
Now let me ask you, Do you honestly believe that any power or force which is inferior to your mind could have produced you? If you do not believe in God, then you have only the alternative of believing that something less than your intelligence produced you, that dumb, purposeless unintelligence brought into being your intelligence! The only rational possibility is to confess that the very presence of the human mind is proof that the Great First Cause is also the supreme intelligence, infinitely superior to the wisdom of mortal man!
Now take a look at the miracle proof of created things. It matters not whether we study a distant sun through the telescope, or a tiny cell through the microscope, we will find law, design, and purpose pervading every atom in infinite space. The protons and electrons in the smallest atom are just as definitely governed by law as are the greatest suns in distant space. Wherever laws exist, there must of necessity be a lawmaker. Many scientists agree that it is impossible to explain the behavior of nature aside from God.
William Ritter, former director of the Scripps Institution for Biological Research, University of California, says: "Seeing God in the universe is no more difficult than seeing electrons there," while Pasteur, French scientist and father of bacteriology, declared: "Posterity will one day laugh at the sublime foolishness of the materialistic philosophy. The more I study nature the more I stand amazed at the work of the Creator. I pray at work in my laboratory." If I had the very finest railroad watch made, it would not keep perfect time. Once or twice a week I would have to adjust it a second or two. If I want to be sure it is accurate to the second, I set it by the master clock of my city, or any city, which is always found at the Western Union. But even this clock does not keep perfect time. Once or twice a week it must be adjusted a second or two by the master clock of the nation, by telegraph, from the Naval Observatory, Washington, D. C. There at the Naval observatory is the Master Clock of the U.S.A. But this great Master Clock of the nation is not perfect, either. It, too, must be adjusted and corrected occasionally.
Yes, it is corrected by the Master Clock of the Universe, up in the skies, by astronomers! Up there in the heavens is the great Master Clock that never makes a mistake, is always on time, never off a fraction of a second, the heavenly bodies coursing through the skies!
Now, if I show you my fine factory precisioned 23-jewel railroad watch and tell you that it was not made by any watch company at all, in fact, it was not designed or put together by any watchmaker but that it just sort of happened, would you believe that? The iron ores just brought themselves up out of the ground, refined themselves, formed and shaped themselves into the delicate little cogs and wheels and other pieces. Would one person accept my story that the silicon just came of its own accord out of the earth and turned itself into the glass crystal, or that the gold case just refined itself, shaped itself. Then suppose I asserted that the cogs and wheels and scores of little parts just assembled themselves together in that case, wound themselves up, and started themselves to running and keeping almost perfect time, well, if I should try to tell you anything like that, you would tell me I'm crazy or a fool, would you not?
Certainly! You know that the presence of that watch is positive proof of the existence of a watchmaker who thought it all out, planned it, put it together, and started it running.
But then you look up into the great vast sky at that Master Clock of the universe, which never misses a second, the perfect watch by which we must constantly set all our imperfect man-made watches, and you tell me, "That all just happened? There was no Great Watchmaker! No master mind thought out and planned that complicated universe, brought it into being, set each star, sun and planet in its own precise place, and finally started the countless heavenly bodies speeding through space, each in its prescribed orbit." Do you tell me that it just fashioned itself, put itself together, wound itself up, and started itself running? There was no Intelligence, no planning, no creation, no God!