God

Before I begin, full disclosure that I am a Christian, so I may be admittedly biased on this topic.With that said, I do intend for this to be more philosophical than trying to witness. Spoiler alert: I don't believe that I can absolutely prove that God exists let alone prove in a blog that Jesus is the savior of mankind. My intent is to at least show it is plausible. The most intellectual position on God is truthfully agnosticism. But before I begin, allow me to share a quote that I think sums up my feelings on the existence of God.

"But a man is not really convinced of a philosophic theory when he finds that something proves it. He is only really convinced when he finds that everything proves it. And the more converging reasons he finds pointing to this conviction, the more bewildered he is if asked suddenly to sum them up. Thus, if one asked an ordinary intelligent man, on the spur of the moment, 'Why do you prefer civilization to savagery?' he would look wildly round at object after object, and would only be able to answer vaguely, 'Why, there is that bookcase... and the coals in the coal-scuttle... and pianos... and policemen.' The whole case for civilization is that the case for it is complex. It has done so many things. But that very multiplicity of proof which ought to make reply overwhelming makes reply impossible." ~ Orthodoxy, "The Paradoxes of Christianity."

This is not a compelling argument, but the quote beautifully captures the frustration that a believer has when trying to explain his faith with a nonbeliever. After deeply analyzing my own beliefs, even I have to accept that my belief in God rests entirely on faith. I will give some reasons why God is more credible than say unicorns, but just like with reality there is a seemingly compelling force that convinces me that God exists.

The Uncaused Cause

To me this is probably the most compelling reason for belief in the existence of God. The argument is as follows:

1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
2. The Universe began to exist.
3. Therefore, the Universe had a cause.

This argument can be worded differently, but I thought this was simple enough. I doubt anyone would disagree with premise 1. It seems pretty inherent. You and I came from our mothers. A watch was made by a watchmaker. Premise 2 made be harder for a nonbeliever, but I will simply state that all current physics points to a beginning which is commonly known as The Big Bang Theory. Now where both sides will disagree comes with the conclusion. Now both will agree with the conclusion but will disagree on its implications, and that is the point I was trying to make earlier. The cosmological argument -at best- only really implies the existence of God. While more complicated, there are theories involving multiverse that theoretical physicists use to answer this question too. I only like bringing this up because it defeats the notion that some atheists will say about only stupid people believe in God, and it gives a good sound reason why God is more believable than unicorns.

Thanks to the popular television show. Pictures like these are harder to come by.

Life

This would be at best considered an a posteriori argument, but the existence of life - especially solely existing on Earth- is probably the strongest reason I believe in God from a pure logical perspective. Life is truly an extraordinary miracle that occurs in nature. So extraordinary that it is just hard for me to believe in abiogenesis which is the hypothesis that life sprang from non-life. Definitely more an emotional argument than a logical argument, but I think even nonbelievers can appreciate this. What I think gives the intelligent design notion (purposely avoided the term theory) is that we can't find life any where else in the universe. We have microbes on this planet that can survive the most inhospitable conditions, yet we can't even find a single microbe in the cosmos. While this is falsifiable, it still doesn't prove anything, but again, I consider it a strong implication.

The Soul

Belief in an afterlife may also compel belief in a god.

I don't believe in ghosts, but my reasons for not believing in ghosts are irrelevant to this topic. What is relevant is the notion of consciousness. Some dub this as the greatest scientific mystery. I -like many other believers- do believe in a human soul meaning that I am more than simply the collection of my parts. Not just a scientific mystery it is also difficult to define, but I will try to define it as being aware of the world around you versus simply responding to stimuli. I would also define it as having a sense of self. Most people would agree that by this definition that they are indeed conscious. Being creative and having an imagination are probably the greatest evidence of a soul. There is no survival need for art, yet we have an imagination for it or at the very least can appreciate it or enjoy it. It seems appropriate to refer to poetry as music of the soul. As with life, consciousness doesn't necessarily prove a soul, but it's harder for me to believe that something with no survival need could just spring up naturally.

Now why this is important to the topic at large is that if a soul does exist, then what does it comprise of? If we are more than the sum of our parts, then that would imply that the soul is not physical which would be it's very definition mean that it is something supernatural. Going back to the uncaused cause argument, something supernatural has to come from somewhere and there is only one conclusion - God.

Despite all of these points ...

Like with reality, there is a compelling force that compels me to believe in God and ultimately Jesus that transcends logic. In the Lutheran tradition, I would call this force the Holy Spirit. While I have made some non-biblical reasons as to why I believe in God, I still think this force is what ultimately compels me to believe. With that said, I still think my reasons are better reasons than simply saying, "The Bible says so" when asked why you believe in God because it begs the question for the only reason you would believe in the Bible is because it is God's Word. Definitely a critique of Sunday School, and ultimately the reason why so many people lose their faith when confronted with this obvious error in logic. Even faith still needs to have a reason behind it even if you cannot fully determine its truth.