Over the past year I created a little text file on my computer listing the reasons why I think God exists. Whenever I think of another good reason I add it to the list, and the same is true whenever I stumble across another good reason in my day to day, mostly while browsing Christian websites. I refer to my list whenever I start to doubt and it's actually been very useful for me because it means I can treat God's existence as a given and move on to more important things, like living the Christian life and working with the Spirit, who is no doubt amused when I load it up.
Some of the reasons on my list are really, really good. For example, it's fair to say that God almost certainly exists philosophically speaking. Other reasons are simply based on observations and high probability. For example, Israel's regathering is a pretty powerful statement in discussions about the modern fulfilment of ancient Bible prophecy. Finally, some of my reasons are rather personal, perhaps a bit contrived, yet useful to me even though they can seem a bit daft to others. For example: numerical calculations and colours of flags as evidence of the fulfilment of Bible prophecy.
I think it's time to publish this list and therefore provide what is essentially a very brief but hopefully compelling proof for the existence of the Christian God. I won't be the first to do so, it's been donebeforebymanypeople, some compelling and some not.
It is my intention to write about some, if not all of these points in much greater detail in subsequent articles.
So, on to my list:
The moral, fine-tuning and cosmological arguments for God's existence are quite convincing.
C. S. Lewis' argument from desire is emotionally convincing.
A belief in Jesus' resurrection is a reasonable conclusion for anyone who sincerely considers it a possibility and then thoroughly analyses all of the available evidence.
Daniel 9 gives a specific, dated prophecy about the appearance of Jesus and the destruction of Jerusalem, which no reasonable scholar would deny actually happened.
Jews are a civilization that maintained their identity for 2,000 years, without land or leadership as per Hosea 3:4.
After 70 AD, Jerusalem was conquered many times by many different civilizations as per Luke 21:24.
The Balfour Declaration in 1917 is similar to the commands to rebuild Jerusalem in Ezra (particularly chapter 7) and Nehemiah.
Possibility of 50 year gap between 1917 and 1967 being a "jubilee".
Israel was regathered from all nations, a second time, as per Isaiah 11:11.
Declaration of independent state of Israel seems to fulfil the prophecy of Israel being born in a single day as per Isaiah 66:7-8. News report of the day actually uses the term "born", likely unintentionally.
Ezekiel 4 specifies 430 years of punishment for Israel but Israel only served 70 years in exile. It's worth considering the possibility that the remaining 360 years, multiplied by 7 (as per Leviticus 26), takes us to 1948.
There were 19 years between declaration of state in 1948 and the capture of Jerusalem in 1967, which is the same amount of time between Babylon conquering Israel and capturing Jerusalem.
Interestingly, Israel's most important recent war was the Six Day War in 1967 which only lasted six days and ended on a Sabbath. Jerusalem was conquered almost "accidentally" in 1967.
Israel has survived multiple wars from coalitions of surrounding enemy nations and in fact has prospered in defensive war, almost entirely without external support.
Israel has existed for less than 50 years yet is at the front of technological advancement, and is a desirable place to live when considering the surrounding nations.
Israel and the Jews generally attract an unusual amount of contempt that is not easily explained. It can be said objectively that the UN is heavily biased against Israel.
God now wants to be known for His regathering rather than the original Exodus as per Jeremiah 23:7-8.
The east gate in Jerusalem remains closed.
Hebrew is the official language of Israel as per Zeph 3:9. Christianity may have been the strange bedfellow to ensure its survival.
The colours of the four horsemen of the apocalypse (white, black, red and green) are the exclusive colours of the flags of Islamic nations surrounding Israel today.
The Christ/Antichrist relationships in Islam and Revelation are set up so perfectly many can be easily deceived by Islam during the end times.
One of the few distinct earthquake fault lines run through the right side of Israel, especially over the Mount of Olives (Zech 14:4).
Consciousness is baffling.
The bible states things that were only recently known scientifically (i.e. Isa 42:5, especially Job 38:31).
There is no objectively good evidence that aliens exist.
Regular, accurate and impossible-by-human-means exhorting prophetic ministry by the likes of Shawn Bolz.
It's hard to completely disown the sheer number of people who claim to have experienced a miracle.
The terse nature of this bullet-point list does not do the arguments justice, but each is worth considering. As I said earlier, I therefore intend to explore some or all of these points in future articles!
I've opened up comments on this article. Why do you think God exists?
