Can Science Prove God's Existence?

2/13/16                     Wing Ho                     late 20's

Reaching out with the gospel leads me to conversations with a variety of interesting people, such as a young man I met on the sidewalk named Wing Ho, who turned to be an astro-physicist doctoral student from an atheist Chinese family.

Wing Ho was clearly out of my league when it comes to discussing recent discoveries in science. But could it be possible for a layman like myself to present the Gospel as anything but intellectual suicide to someone so used to the logic and proofs of science? I believe it is, even in a short sidewalk conversation, for several reasons.

First, I think it is important to emphasize that the Christian faith is, indeed, a faith. We can’t prove it is true, like one might try to prove a scientific fact. It is a faith, but it need not be a blind faith. There may not be absolute proof, but there is plenty of evidence to say that it is not a blind faith but a very reasonable faith.

However, ultimately we will never be able to “prove” the Gospel, because faith is pleasing to God – Hebrews 11:8 tells us that “without faith it is impossible to please God”. There is a body of evidence that favors the believer, and a body of evidence that favors the skeptic, and there is no undeniable "proof" either way. We will always need a certain amount of faith to believe the Gospel, and skeptics will always need a certain amount of faith to deny God's existence as well.

Second, though at first glance the universe might seem random and chaotic, I reminded Win ho that science owes its very existence to the order of the universe. The scientific method relies on experiments that provide repeatable results, based on the order and consistency of physical laws like Einstein’s theory of relativity, recently verified by the detection of gravitational waves. It doesn’t take an astro-physicist to know that where there is a brick wall, there must have been bricklayers. Where there is design, there must have been a designer. Where there are laws, there must have been a lawgiver.

Third, what is greater, law or lawgiver? Creation or Creator? Must the Creator of the laws be beholden to the laws of science He created? Should we require or expect science to prove God? Science requires a repeatable and consistent outcome on which to base it's claims. The laws of science can't dictate God's behavior, because if they did, God would not be God. In fact, if scientists could indeed "prove" God, I would take that as evidence AGAINST whatever "god" it is they are claiming to prove!

The existence of the laws of nature might not prove anything to a skeptical scientist, but as a part of God’s ordered creation it gives evidence for the Creator’s existence that is so simple a child can understand it, and so complex that an astro-physicist can appreciate it.