What You Have to Prove

It’s been my experience from the past thirty-plus years that there are two things Protestants and Catholics must prove before they can make rational converts, and an additional thing that Catholics must prove to do the same. The inability to prove these three things—particularly in our modern prevailing culture—conversions to Christianity, regardless of the flavor, are rare.

The two things that both branches of Christianity must prove are the inspiration of scripture and the existence of God. Protestants rarely can do either. The extra thing Catholics must be able to prove is that Jesus Himself established the Catholic Church, which of course implies that all men must belong to her in order to be saved. This article will focus on using logic and reason to prove God’s existence.

While there are empirical evidences for the existence of God, those evidences would be too long for an article such as this. After all, this thing’s long enough as it is! Consequently, I’ll recommend to readers a book by Kenneth Fredrickson called Killing Atheism: Powerful Evidence and Reasons to Believe Jesus. It’s published by Resource Publications, and it’s available on Amazon.

When you ask the average Christian how he knows that God exists, more often than not you’ll get that deer-in-the-headlight look. When the person being questioned finally manage to gather at least some of his wits, he’ll begin making feckless, nonsensical answers. He’ll say things like, “The Bible says so,” or “I can feel Him.” Neither of those answers proves a thing. Feelings are emotion, and emotions—100 % of the time—will betray you. To cite the Bible as proof of God’s existence is equally feckless.

You know, actually a seven year old child has better proof for the existence of Santa Claus than the average Christian does for God’s existence. Ask a seven year old whether he believes in Santa and you’ll get an eager answer in the affirmative. Ask that same seven year old why he believes in Santa and he’ll tell you that he knows Santa exists because every Christmas the jolly old elf brings him toys. The child is drawing a conclusion based on only partial information, but it’s a pretty doggone good conclusion for a seven year old. 

Christians usually can’t offer evidence this good about God. But Christians better get started learning ways to demonstrate God’s existence, because this modern culture and society doesn’t believe in Him at all. As Christians, we have a moral obligation to explain and defend God’s existence.

If a moral obligation to explain God doesn’t motivate you, how about just being plain stupid? Think about it: Does it make sense to claim belief in a divine Being when you can’t prove His existence? That would make you pretty stupid, wouldn’t it? It’s tantamount to being a member of the Flat Earth Society.

Don’t hold me to it, but I believe it was St. Robert Bellarmine who came up with twelve proofs for the existence of God. We’re only going to talk about three. The thing that’s important to remember is that these proofs of God’s existence require the use of logic and reason.

Modern scoffers of God’s existence will tell you that nothing can be proven through logic and reason. When they tell me that, I’m always tempted to say, “Oops! Your ignorance is showing!” And it is.

Every scientific discovery began as a theory. Then the theorist will proceed to prove his theory with logic and reason—usually by engaging in Socratic method—until he’s actually able to produce empirical evidence of the already proven theory from logic and reason. A case in point is the discovery of DNA.

Scientists theorized the existence of DNA in the 1950s. They had used logic and reason to prove the existence of DNA in the early 1970s. But it wasn’t until twenty years later that they actually discovered empirical evidence for the existence of DNA. They knew that DNA existed—proven through logic and reason—a full two decades before they were actually able to show a strand of it. Therefore, yes, God’s existence can be proven through logic and reason.

The first evidence we’ll look at is called the Argument Through Design. It’s clear that nature gives us endless examples of proofs for the divine. We can show through nature that nature itself is the result of an Intelligent Cause—God. Mere chance, for example, can’t account for the complex arrangement of the countless parts that combine to make up the retina of the human eye, or for the complex make up of a bird’s wing.

Getting as primary as we can get, let’s look at the food chain. The tiniest microscopic organism is food for the next largest organism, is food for the next largest organism, and so on. This is the way the food chain moves up the line until we eat a pork chop or drumstick. We digest the food, evacuate the waste, then the process begins all over again with the tiniest microscopic organism.

We’re surrounded by trees. Trees “inhale” carbon dioxide, and “exhale” oxygen. We inhale oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide. We can’t live without the trees, and they can’t live without us. Coincidence? Evolution? Hardly. These processes are entirely too logical to be an accident. There had to be Intelligent Design.

The pseudo-intellectual will point out that the complexities of the human retina and a bird’s wing, or the simplicity of the food chain, are the consequence of evolution. 

Evolution is a theory, and it’s a theory that’s never been proven. In fact, it can’t be proven. The theory of evolution can’t be proven because it violates certain established, proven laws. One such law is found in thermodynamics, which says that the universe is entropy; the universe is in a constant state of decay. How in the world can evolution from a lower life form to a higher life form take place if the universe is in a perpetual state of decay? It can’t.

Another evidence of God’s existence is found in the human conscience. This is called, oddly enough, the Argument by Conscience. 

We all have a conscience. No scientist nor neurologist can tell us what part of the brain contains the conscience, because conscience doesn’t come from the brain; it’s a movement of the soul.

The same pseudo-intellectual who defends evolution also says that conscience comes from a cultural and religious influence. The problem with that is, cultural anthropologists disproved that idea many years ago.

In the 19th and early 20th centuries when Africa was still being explored, cultural anthropologists would discover tribes of indigenous people that had never before had contact with the outside world. They found that these tribes had their own set of moral norms. These people had a god, or supreme being, who they believed was the creator of all things, and they intuitively knew that some things were always right or wrong. They intuitively knew that murder was wrong, stealing was wrong, dishonesty was wrong, et cetera. Yet none of these tribes had had any interaction with any sort of Judeo-Christian teachings, never heard of Jesus Christ, and had no idea of Christianity. No, all they had was natural law, or what Paul said about the laws of God written on the hearts of men in Romans 2:15.

In all of my evangelistic work I’ve never met one, but a genuine atheist tends to live a much better life than most Christians. Why? The genuine atheist lives his life by natural law. He intuitively knows it’s wrong to kill, wrong to lie, wrong to impede pregnancy, wrong to engage in any form of sex where procreation isn’t possible, and wrong to steal. This natural law implies a law giver. Who else can that be but God?

The third proof of God’s existence that I like to use is one I call the Bad-Man, Mad-Man Argument. It’s not an intellectual argument, but it is one that seems to consistently work well with the average Joe on the street.

(FULL DISCLOSURE: In my arrogance and pride, I thought that I came up with this argument on my own, and I was giddily happy with myself. Later I learned that the first recorded example of this argument was from some obscure saint in the third century. With a two-thousand year old Church, what can I possibly come up with that’s new?)

For this argument to work we must make stipulations of certain facts. The first stipulation is that the Old Testament is ancient Hebrew literature. We’re not saying that it’s God’s inspired word, or that it’s even true. Only that it’s ancient Hebrew literature. Anyone who might buck the idea that the Old Testament is ancient Hebrew literature would either be intentionally thick, or truly ignorant.

The next stipulation we want to make is that Jesus of Nazareth is a true historical person. We’re not saying he’s the Son of God, God, the redeemer, or anything else at this point. All we’re saying is that he is an historical person who lived in Palestine 2,000 years ago.

My experience has been that some people want to say the the stipulation can’t be made because the only historical record we have of his existence is the Bible. Certainly Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and Acts are historical records that attest to Jesus’ existence, but they’re not the only sources.

Contemporaries of Jesus who prove he existed are Pliny, Tacitus, Suetonius, and Flavius Josephus. These are found in their extant writings.

Pliny, Tacitus, and Suetonius were all pagans of stature in their time and society, and certainly not friendly toward Jesus and his teachings. They acknowledge the existence of Jesus by writing about how to bring about the demise of his followers.

Flavius Josephus, on the other hand, was much like Paul: he was a Jew and a Roman citizen. He wrote an historical tome called The Antiquities of the Jews, in which he made two references to Jesus. He was most certainly no friend of Jesus, yet he talked about him this tome.

So we not only have Matthew, Mark, Luke and John to attest of Jesus’ existence, but we also have Pliny, Tacitus, Suetonius, and Flavius Josephus as historical witnesses. That’s more than enough evidence for any skeptic.

With these stipulations made, we’re now ready to move on to the argument.

Jesus is proclaimed as the messiah. If we were to take a whiteboard or a chalkboard or even a pad of paper and list all of the prophesies related to the messiah on one side, then list on the other side how Jesus fulfilled those prophecies, what would that prove? Well, it certainly wouldn’t prove that he was the messiah. Logically, it would only prove that he was one of three types of person: a bad man, a mad man, or who he said he is.

Could a bad man—a criminal imposter—wake up one morning and say that he is the messiah? Could a bad man decide that he could fulfill the messianic prophecies so he could be proclaimed the king of the Jews, raise an army to rid Palestine of its Roman rulers, gain untold wealth and power, et cetera? Certainly he could! But where this scenario breaks down is in the prophecy that the messiah would have to die.

Criminals are narcissistic—all about themselves. I know from the experience of working in prison apostolate for more than two decades that no criminal would work to accomplish becoming king and all that comes with it just give it up by going to his death. Therefore, Jesus of Nazareth couldn’t have been a bad man.

Could he have been a mad man? Could a crazy person wake up one morning thinking he heard God speaking to him, telling him that he needed to fulfill the prophecies because he’s the messiah? Certainly he could! And a mad man would even be willing to die, if he really thought that he was really talking to God. But where does this argument break down? In a word, consistency. A mad man can’t remain consistent long enough to pull off such a thing.

A case in point is Adolph Hitler. There’s no question in anyone’s mind that Hitler was a mad man… a mad man who just happened to be winning the biggest war in human history. Hitler had the best, most effective army in the world. Indeed, it was the greatest army in world history! His army was so good that during the first two years we fought Germany, we didn’t win a single significant battle. We won some battles, but none were significant. Hitler was winning the war.

Then something happened. As long as Hitler listened to his generals, he won. But as his syphilis-driven insanity became worse, he began listening to his astrologers instead of his generals. Thanks to the inconsistency of his insanity, we won World War II.

Since a mad man couldn’t possibly remain consistent long enough to pull of fulfilling all of the messianic prophecies, we must conclude that Jesus wasn’t mad. But if Jesus wasn’t a mad man, and he wasn’t a bad man, only one other possibility exists: He had to be who he said He is.

Who did Jesus say He is? He said He was God, of course. He made this claim repeatedly throughout the gospels, but my favorite example comes from John 8.

The pharisees were arguing with Jesus, and they finally asked Him who He claims to be. “Jesus answered, ‘If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father who glorifies me, of whom you say, “He is our God.” But you have not known him. I know him. If I were to say that I do not know him, I would be a liar like you, but I do know him and I keep his word. Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.’ So the Jews said to him, ‘You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?’ Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.’ So they picked up stones to throw at him” (John 8:54-59).

Jesus final statement enraged the pharisees so much that they attempted to stone Him, but why? In order to answer that we have to go to the book of Exodus. When Moses was standing before God in the burning bush, God gave him his marching orders to free the children of Israel. “Then Moses said to God, ‘If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, “The God of your fathers has sent me to you,” and they ask me, “What is his name?” what shall I say to them?’ God said to Moses, ‘I AM WHO I AM.’ And he said, ‘Say this to the people of Israel: “I AM has sent me to you”’” (Exodus 3:13-24).

I AM: the descriptive statement of the all-eternal. In Jesus’ day, every Jew had to memorize the entire Pentateuch—the first five books of what we call the Old Testament. So the pharisees understood exactly what Jesus was telling them when He said, “…before Abraham was, I am.” They knew that he was telling them that He is God.

Therefore, if Jesus couldn’t have been a bad man, and if He couldn’t have been a mad man, and He had to be who He said He was, and He said He was God, we must conclude that God exists!

At the beginning of this article, I told you there are three things that we all must be able to prove if we’re to fulfill the mission Jesus gave us. One of those things is to prove the existence of God. I’ve given you three arguments to prove His existence, and there are many others you can find with a little dab of research.

The other two things that we must be able to prove are the inspiration of the Bible, and that Jesus established the Catholic Church as the one true Church. I’ll be writing future articles about these at the appropriate time. For now, though, re-read and study these arguments. Then you be better prepared to share Catholic truth, as we’re all morally obligated to do.