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Grade Level:       Type of Work           Subject/Topic is on:
 [ ]6-8                 [ ]Class Notes    [The Case for the        ]
 [ ]9-10                [ ]Cliff Notes    [Existence of God        ]
 [x]11-12               [x]Essay/Report   [                        ]
 [ ]College             [ ]Misc           [                        ]

 Dizzed: 10/94  # of Words:6377  School: ?              State: ?
ФФФФФФФФФ>ФФФФФФФФФ>ФФФФФФФФФ>Chop Here>ФФФФФФФФФ>ФФФФФФФФФ>ФФФФФФФФФ>ФФФФФФФФФ
                   THE CASE FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
                                   by
                          Bert Thompson, Ph.D.

                              Introduction

    Either God exists or He doesn't.  There is no middle ground.  Any
attempt to remain neutral in relation to God's existence is automatically
synonymous with unbelief.  It is far from a "moot" question, for if God
does exist, then nothing else really matters; if He does not exist, then
nothing really matters at all.  If He does exist, then there is an eternal
heaven to be gained (Hebrews 11:16) and an eternal Hell to be avoided
(Revelation 21:8).  The question for God's existence is an extremely
important one.

    One might wonder why it is necessary to present evidence for the
existence of God.  As Edward Thomson so beautifully stated it:

    "...the doctrine of the one living and true God, Creator, Preserver,
    and Benefactor of the universe, as it solves so many problems, resolves
    so many doubts, banishes so many fears, inspires so many hopes, gives
    such sublimity to all things, and such spring to all noble powers, we
    might presume would, as soon as it was announced, be received by every
    healthy mind."

Some, however, contrary to their higher interests, have refused to have God
in their knowledge and thus have become vain in their reasonings and
foolish in their philosophy (Romans 1:21,22,28).  They do not see the folly
(Psalm 14:1) of saying there is no God.

    The Christian has not only the obligation to "give answer to every man
that asketh you a reason concerning the hope that is in you..."  (I Peter
3:15), but an obligation to carry the Gospel message to a lost and dying
world (Mark 16:15-16, et al.).

    There will be times when carrying the Gospel message to the world will
entail setting forth the case for the existence of God.  In addition, we
need to remember that Christians are not agnostics.  The agnostic is the
person who says that God's existence is unknowable.  As difficult as it is
to believe, some Christians take that same stance in regard to God's
existence.  They assert that they "believe" there is a God, but that they
cannot know it.  They state that God's existence cannot be proved.  `This
is false!'  God's existence is both `knowable' and `provable.'  Acceptance
of God's existence is not some "blind leap into the dark" as so many have
erroneously asserted.  The Christian's faith is not a purely emotional,
subjective "leap," but instead is a `firm conviction' regarding facts based
upon reasonable evidence. God's existence can be proved to any fair-minded
person. Granted, we do not mean by the word "proved" that God's existence
can be scientifically demonstrated to human senses as one might, for
example, prove that a sack of potatoes weighs ten pounds.  But we need to
be reminded (especially in our day of scientific intimidation) that
empirical evidence (that based solely upon experiment and/or observation)
is not the only basis for establishing a provable case. Legal authorities
recognize the validity of a `prima facie' case.  Such a case exists when
adequate evidence is available to establish the presumption of a fact
which, unless such can be refuted, `legally stands as a fact'.  Inferential
proof (the culmination of many lines of evidence into only one possible
conclusion) is an invaluable part of a `prima facie' case which simply
cannot be refuted.  But an important question which serves as a "preface"
to the case for God's existence is this:  "From whence has come the idea of
God in man's mind?"  The inclination to be religious is universally and
peculiarly a human trait.  As one writer observed, even today the evidence
indicates that "no race or tribe of men, however degraded and apparently
atheistic, lacks that spark of religious capacity which may be fanned and
fed into a mighty flame." If, therefore, man is incurably religious--and
has the idea of God in his mind--and if we assume that the world is
rational, it is impossible that a phenomenon so universal as religion could
be founded upon illusion.

     The question is highly appropriate therefore:  what is the source of
this religious tendency within man?   Alexander Campbell, in his celebrated
debate April 13-23, 1829 in Cincinnati, Ohio with Robert Owen, provided the
answer to this question in a very positive fashion. He asked Owen from
whence the idea of God had come in man's mind.  Owen (and all skeptics) had
(have) stated that the idea of God has not come from reason (skeptics hold,
of course, that the concept is unreasonable), and that it has not come from
revelation.  Campbell pressed Owen to tell him from whence the idea of God
`had' come.  Owen retorted, "by imagination."  Campbell then quoted both
John Locke and David Hume, two philosophers who are highly respected in the
secular community.  Hume stated that the "creative power of the mind
amounts to nothing more than the faculty of combining, transposing,
augmenting and diminishing the materials afforded to us by sense and
experience." The imagination, it turns out, has `no creative power'.
Neither reason nor imagination create.  Reason, like a carpenter's
yardstick, is a measure, not an originator.  Imagination works only on
those items already in the mind;  it does not "create" anything new.
[Sigmund Freud, German psychoanalyst of the first part of the 20th century,
attempted to explain God's existence by stating that man had indeed formed
the "heavenly father" from the idea in his mind of his "earthly father."
But this idea will not suffice either.  Is the God of the Bible the God man
would "invent" if asked to do so?  Hardly.  Look around at the "god" man
invents when left to his own devices--the "god" of hedonism, epicurianism,
subjectivism, or the "god" of "if it feels good, do it."  The God of the
Bible is not the God man would invent, if left to his own devices.  Freud's
attempt to explain the idea of God in man's mind failed miserably.]
Campbell pointed out to Owen, in a very forceful way, that the idea of God
in man's mind could only have come through revelation.  There is no other
choice.  The concept of God, therefore, though greatly perverted in heathen
hands, is ultimately traceable to an original communication between the
Creator and the creature. There is no other alternative, all the
disclaimers of the atheist notwithstanding.

    But suppose the unbeliever objects:  "If the idea of God is basic to
human nature, we would not be able to deny it; we do deny it, however;
therefore it is not intuitive."  It is sufficient to observe in rebuttal to
such a claim that man, under the enchantment of a deceptive philosophy, can
deny the most obvious of things.  Those deluded, for example, by "Christian
Science" religion deny the existence of matter and death.  Some today deny
that the earth is spherical or that man has ever been to the moon.  But a
denial of facts does not automatically negate the facts.  Man's attitude
toward Truth does not change Truth.

    Can God's existence be proven?  Can we `know' God exists? The answer is
a resounding "YES!"  The psalmist said, "Be still and `know' that I am God"
(Psalm 46:10) as he echoed the Creator's sentiments to man.  The allusions
to th e manifestations of Deity in the created world are profuse.  David
exclaimed, "O Jehovah, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the
earth, Who has set thy glory upon the heavens?" (Psalm 8:1).  In the same
psalm, the inspired writer was constrained to say that the heavens are "the
work of thy fingers" and the moon and stars "thou hast ordained" (Psalm
8:3).  Later David was to utter the beautiful words of Psalm 19:1--"The
heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handiwork."
Isaiah graphically portrayed the majesty and power of nature's God when he
wrote that God "hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and
meted out heaven with a span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a
measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance"
(40:12).

    Dr. E.A. Maness once remarked, "If the word God were written upon every
blowing leaf, embossed on every passing cloud, engraved on every granite
rock, the inductive evidence of God in the world would be no stronger than
it is." John C. Monsma, in the text which he edited entitled, `The Evidence
of God in an Expanding Universe' (which is a compilation of testimony from
forty outstanding American scientists), affirmed "that science can
establish, by the observed facts of Nature and intellectual argumentation,
that a super-human power exists." . Dr. A. Cressy Morrison, former
President of the New York Academy of Sciences, affirmed that "so many
essential conditions are necessary for life to exist on our earth that it
is mathematically impossible that all of them could exist in proper
relationship by chance on any one earth at one time." Dr. Arthur H.
Compton, Professor of Physics at the University of Chicago and Nobel
laureate, wrote: "It is not difficult for me to have this faith, for it is
incontrovertible that where there is a plan there is intelligence--an
orderly, unfolding universe testifies to the truth of the most majestic
statement ever uttered--`In the beginning, God.'" .

    Louis Agassiz, M.D., Ph.D., Harvard University (and a life-long
opponent of Darwinian evolution), made these remarks:..

    "Though I know those who hold it to be very unscientific to believe
    that thinking is not something inherent in matter, and that there is an
    essential difference between inorganic and living and thinking beings,
    I shall not be prevent ed by any such pretentions of a false philosophy
    from expressing my conviction that as long as it cannot be shown that
    matter or physical forces do actually reason, I shall consider any
    manifestation of physical thought as an evidence of the existence of a
    thinking being as the author of such thought, and shall look upon
    intelligent and intelligible connection between the facts of nature as
    direct proof of a thinking God....` All these facts in their natural
    connection proclaim aloud the one God whom man may know, adore, and
    love, and natural history must in good time become the analysis of the
    thoughts of the Creator of the universe' as manifested in the animal
    and vegetable kingdoms."

Lord Kelvin, the famed English thermodynamicist once said,

    "I cannot admit that, with regard to the origin of life, science
    neither affirms nor denies Creative Power. `Science positively affirms
    Creative Power'.  It is not in dead matter that we live and move and
    have our being, but in the creating and directing Power which science
    compels us to accept as an article of belief.... There is nothing
    between absolute scientific belief in a Creative Power, and the
    acceptance of the theory of a fortuitous concourse of atoms....  Forty
    years ago I asked Liebig [famed chemist Justus von Liebig--BT], walking
    some-where in the country, if he believed that the grass and flowers
    that we saw around us grew by mere chemical forces.  He answered, `No,
    no more than I could believe that a book of botany describing them
    could grow by mere chemical forces'.... Do not be afraid of being free
    thinkers!  `If you think strongly enough you will be forced by science
    to the belief in God', which is the foundation all religion.  `You will
    find science not antagonistic but helpful to religion.'"  .

    One cannot help but wonder what has caused many of the most prominent
and brilliant minds of both days gone by and of our day to make such
statements.  No doubt, at least a partial explanation lies in the fact that
they saw a few, or many, of the thousands of "signposts" or "ensigns"
scattered throughout the natural world which point clearly to the unseen
Designer of nature.  These "signposts" are multitudinous in our world, and
plainly obvious to those whose minds have not been blinded by the "god of
this world" (II Corinthians 4:4), "refusing to have God in their knowledge"
(Romans 1:28).  An examination of these "ensigns" makes for a profitable
and edifying study.


                      NATURE'S HOME: THE UNIVERSE

    When the writer of Hebrews stated that, "...every house is builded by
someone..." (Hebrews 3:4), he suggested the well-known principle of cause
and effect.  Today the Law of Causality is the fundamental law of science.
Every effect must have an adequate cause. Further indicated is the fact
that no effect can be qualitatively superior to or quantitatively greater
than the cause.  The universe is here, and is a tremendous effect.  Hence,
it must be explained in terms of an adequate cause.

    There are four possible explanations for the universe.  (1) It is but
an illusion, and does not really exist.  This is hardly worthy of
consideration.  (2) It spontaneously arose out of nothing.  This view is
absurd, and cannot be entertained scientifically.  Dr. George E. Davis,
prominent physicist, has declared:"No material thing can create itself." .
(3) It has always existed.  This theory, though held by many atheistic
scientists of our day, is scientifically untenable. Many evidences (e.g.,
the Second Law of Thermodynamics) reveal that the stars are burning up, the
sun is cooling off, the earth is wearing out, etc.  Such facts indicate
that the universe had a beginning; otherwise it would long ago have already
reached a state of deadness. Dr. Robert Jastrow, of NASA, states in his
book, `God and the Astronomers :

    "I am fascinated by some strange developments going on in astronomy....
    The essence of the strange developments is that the Universe had, in
    some sense, a beginning--that it began at a certain moment in time....
    And concurrently there was a great deal of discussion about the fact
    that the second law of thermodynamics, applied to the Cosmos, indicates
    that the Universe is running down like a clock. If it is running down,
    there must have been a time when it was fully wound up....The
    astronomer comes to a time when the Universe contained nothing but
    hydrogen--no carbon, no oxygen, and none of the other elements out of
    which planets and life are made.  This point in time must have marked
    the beginning of the Universe."

(4) It was created.  This is the only remaining alternative and the only
reasonable view of the origin of the universe.  Since our finite, dependent
(and contingent) universe (of matter/energy) did not cause itself, it was
obviously caused by an infinite, independent, eternal Mind.

    God, speaking through Moses (Genesis 15:5) and Jeremiah (33:32),
mentioned that "the host of heaven cannot be numbered, neither the sand of
the sea measured ...."  Little did we know how true those statements were.
Johann Bayer (1603) devised a system to indicate the brightness, or
magnitude, of the stars, using the Greek and Roman alphabets to denote
their brightness.  [Remember Paul's statement to the Corinthians (I
Corinthians 15:41): "...for one star differeth from another star in
glory."]  Men before and after Bayer tried to count the stars.  Hipparchus
the astronomer, in 128 B.C. counted the stars and said there were 1,026.
In 150 A.D., the famous astronomer Ptolemy counted the stars and arrived at
the number of 1,056.  Years later, in 1575 A.D., the renowned Danish
astronomer, Tyco Brah, counted the stars and said there were 777.  In 1600
A.D. the German astronomer Johannes Kepler counted the stars and gave the
number 1,005.  At last counting (and we are nowhere near finished yet) the
number of stars stood at `25 sextillion'.  That's a 25 with twenty-one
zeroes after it!  There are an estimated one billion galaxies,.  and most
of them contain billions of stars (the Milky Way galaxy in which we live,
for example, contains over `100 billion stars').  It is so large that
travelling at the speed of light (186,317.6 miles per second) it would take
you 100,000 years to go across just the diameter of the galaxy.  Light
travels in one year approximately 5.87 x 1O.MDSU/12' miles.  In 100,000
years, that would be 5.87 x 1O.MDSU/17' miles, or 587+ quadrillion miles.
Our nearest neighboring galaxy is the Andromeda galaxy, which is an
estimated 2,000,000 light years away.  That's so far that a radio wave
which goes around the earth approximately 8.2 times in one second would
require over 1 million years to get there, and a return message would take
another 1+ million years.  The observable universe has an estimated
diameter of 20 billion light years.

    But it isn't simply the size of the universe that is so marvelous. The
size is important, of course, but so is the `design'. The earth, for
example, in orbiting the sun, departs from a straight line by only
one-ninth of an inch every 18 miles--a very straight line in human terms.
If the orbit changed by one-tenth of an inch every 18 miles, our orbit
would be vastly larger and we would all freeze to death.  If it changed by
one-eighth of an inch, we would come so close to the sun w e would all be
incinerated..  Are we to believe that such precision "just happened by
accident"?  The sun is burning at approximately 20 million degrees Celsius
at its interior..  If we were to move the earth `away' 10%, we would soon
freeze to death. If we were to move the earth `closer' by 10%, we would
once again be incinerated.  The sun is poised at 93 million miles from
earth, which happens to be just right--by accident?

     The moon is poised some 240,000 miles from the earth.  Move it in just
onefifth, and twice every day there would be 35-50 feet high tidal waves
over most of the earth's surface.  The distance of 240,000 miles happens to
he just right--by accident?  And consider these facts: the earth is
rotating at 1,000 miles per hour on its axis at the equator, and moving
around the sun at 70,000 miles per hour (approximately 19 miles per
second), while the sun with its solar system is moving through space at
600,000 miles per hour in an orbit so large it would take over 220 million
years to complete just one orbit.  [Remember the psalmist's statement
(Psalm 19:61) about the sun--"his circuit is from the ends of the
heavens."]  What would happen if the rotation rate of the earth around the
sun were halved, or doubled?  If it were halved, the seasons would be
doubled in length, which over most of the earth would cause such harsh
summer heat and winter cold that not enough food could be grown to feed the
world's population.  If it were doubled, no single season would be long
enough to grow the amount of food necessary to feed the world's population.
[Remember God's words to Moses:  (a) "Let there be lights in the firmament
of heaven to divide the day from the night: and let them be for `signs and
for seasons', for days and for years" (Genesis 1:14, emp. added), and; (b)
"While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and
summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease" (Genesis 8:22).]
Then there is this matter:  from where does our day come?  It comes from
the earth's rotation once approximately every 24 hours on its axis.  From
where do we get our month? It comes from the moon circling the earth once
approximately every 28 days.  From where does our year come?  It takes the
earth approximately 365.26 days to go around the sun.  `But where do we get
our week?'  There is no purely natural explanation for the week.  The
explanation, instead, is found in Exodus 20:11 (cf., Exodus 31:17): "for in
six days Jehovah made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is,
and rested on the seventh day...."  The week is an entirely universal
phenomenon.  Yet there is no purely natural explanation for it.  Little
wonder Isaiah wrote (40:26): "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."

    The fundamental law of science, we repeat, is the Law of Causality
which states that every effect must have an adequate cause.  There is no
known exception.  The universe is admittedly a known effect.  [Note Dr.
Robert Jastrow's statement in his book, `Until The Sun Dies': "The Universe
and everything that has happened in it since the beginning of time, are a
grand effect `without a known cause'." .  The question is: `What is the
adequate cause?'  The atheist/agnostic has no answer, as Dr. Jastrow has so
well explained.  The Christian, of course, does. `God is the First Cause',
and has left the evidences of His existence so evident that they are
incontrovertible.


                     NATURE'S HUMAN INHABITANT: MAN

    "Men go abroad to wonder at the height of mountains, at the huge waves
of the sea, at the long courses of the rivers, at the vast compass of the
ocean, at the circular motion of the stars; and they pass by themselves
without wondering."  So stated Augustine many years ago.  So many people
fail to see one of the most powerful arguments possible for God's
existence--their own selves!  Consider, for example, the "earthly
tabernacle" (II Corinthians 5:1) that we call the human body.  It is comp
osed of 30+ different kinds of cells, totalling over `100 trillion' cells
when all added together to make up the human adult..  These cells come in
all different sizes and shapes, with different functions and life
expectancies. For example, some cells (e.g., male spermatozoa) are so small
that 20,000 would fit inside a capital "O" from a standard typewriter, each
being only 1/20th mm long. Some cells, put end-to-end, would make only one
inch if 6,000 were assembled together.  Yet all the cells of the human
body, if set end- to-end, would encircle the earth over 200 times.  Even
the largest cell of the human body, the female ovum, is unbelievably small,
being only 1/1OOth of an inch in diameter. Yet each cell is composed of a
lipo- protein membrane lining (lipids/proteins/lipids) which is
approximately 6/100-8/100 fm (4 atoms) thick.  Yet it allows selective
transport outside the cell of those things that ought to go out, and
selective transport into the cell of those things that ought to go in.
Inside the cell's three-dimensional cytoplasm there are over 20 different
chemical reactions going on at any one time, with each cell containing five
major systems: (1) communication; (2) waste disposal; (3) nutrition; (4)
repair, and; (5) reproduction.  The endoplasmic reticulum of the cell
serves as a transport system.  The ribosomes produce protein, which is then
distributed around the body as needed by the Golgi bodies. The mitochondria
(over 1,000 per cell) are the "powerhouses" of the cell, producing the
energy needed by the body. The nucleus, of course, carries the genetic code
in its DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid).  Red blood cells (there are
approximately 30 trillion of them) live about 120 days; white blood cells
(the blood's defense system) live about 13 days; platelets (which help
blood to clot) live about 4 days; nerve cells may live over 100 years.  In
any given 60-second period, approximately 3 billion cells die and are
replaced in the human body through the process we call `mitosis', whereby
the standard chromosome number (in the human, 46) is faithfully reproduced.
A single cell contains a strip of DNA (placed in the nuc leus in a
spiral-staircase configuration) which is about one yard long, and which
contains `over 6 billion biochemical steps'. Every cell of the body
contains such DNA--over a billion miles total in one human. How powerful is
the DNA?  It provides, in coded form, `every physical characteristic of
every living person'.  How many people are there on the face of the earth?
There are a few more than 5 billion.  It took two cells (a male
spermatozoan and a female ovum) to make each one of these people. If there
are roughly 5 billion people on the earth, and it took two cells to make
each of them, that's approximately 10 billion cells (remember: this is the
DNA it took to give every living person every physical characteristic he or
she has), and that DNA would fit into no more than `1/8th of a cubic inch'!
Does that tell you how powerful the DNA is?  Are we to then understand that
this kind of design came "by accident"?  Hardly!  The Hebrew writer was
correct when he said, "For every house is builded by someone; but he that
built all things is God"(3:4).

    Consider the skin of the human.  It is a nearly waterproof layer,
enclosing the body's contents, almost 60% of which is water.  It prevents
the exit or entrance of too much moisture, and acts as a protector for the
rest of the body. At the same time it is both a radiator and retainer of
heat, helping to regulate the body's temperature in conjunction with the
two hypothalamus glands in the brain.  Skin may be as thick as 5/16th of an
inch (e.g., the eyelid). The skin contains over 2,000 sweat glands which
form one of the most ingenious air-conditioning systems ever known to man.
Skin acts as a barrier to protect the sensitive internal organs, and even
has the power to regenerate itself.

    Consider the skeletal system of the body.  It is composed of 206 bones,
more durable and longer lasting than man's best steel.  Each joint produces
its own lubrication and the system as a whole is able to provide not only
structure, but great protection (e.g., the 24 ribs guarding the internal
viscera).  There are 29 skull bones, 26 spinal vertebrae, 24 ribs, 2 girdle
bones, and 120 other bones scattered over the body.  The bones range in
size, from the tiny pisiform bone in the hand, to the great femur (over 20
inches long in the thigh of an average man). Yet in a man weighing 160
pounds, the bones weigh only 29 pounds.  [Remember Paul's comment about
"all the body fitly framed and knit together through that which every joint
supplieth, according to the working in due measure of each several part,
making the increase of the body into the building up of itself..."
(Ephesians 4:16).]  And consider, of course, the muscles.  There are over
600 of them in the human, with the function of contraction and release.
From the smile on the face of the newborn baby to the legs of the marathon
runner, the muscles are in charge.  They are placed, however, into two
systems--the `voluntary system' over which you have control (reach out and
grab a ball), and the `involuntary system' over which you have little or no
control (try stopping a kidney).  Are we to believe that the skeletal and
muscle systems, in all their complexity, "just happened"?  No one could
ever convince you that, for example, a Cadillac limousine "just happened."
Yet something infinitely greater in design and structure-- the human
body--we are asked to believe "just happened."  What kind of incongruous
logic is that, to reach such a conclusion?  As G.K. Chesterton once said:
"When men stop believing in God, they don't believe in nothing.  They
believe in `anything!'" How true.  One does not get a poem without a poet,
or a law without a lawgiver.  One does not get a painting without a
painter, or a musical score without a composer.  And just as surely, `one
does not get purposeful design without a designer!'

    Consider, for example, the human ear and the human eye.  The average
piano can distinguish the sounds of 88 keys; the human ear can distinguish
over 2,500 different key tones.  In fact, the human ear can detect sound
frequencies that flutter the ear drums as faintly as one- billionth of a
centimeter (a distance one-tenth the diameter of a hydrogen atom)..  The
ear is so sensitive that it could even hear, were the body placed in a
completely soundproof room, the blood coursing through the veins.  Over
100,000 hearing receptors in the ears are sending impulses to the brain to
be decoded and answered.  The human eye is the most perfect camera ever
known to man.  So perfect is it that its very presence caused Charles
Darwin to say, "That the eye with all its inimitable contrivances...could
have been formed by natural selection seems, I freely confess, absurd in
the highest degree." Darwin also commented: "If it could be demonstrated
that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed
by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely
break down." The eye, as it turns out, is such an organ, and Darwin's
theory, as such, has broken down.  Each human eye is composed of over 107
million cells with 7 million cones (allowing the eye to see in full, living
color) and 100 million rods (allowing the eye to see in blacks, whites, and
greys).  The eyes are connected to the brain by over 300,000 nerves, and
can detect light as feeble as 1/100 trillionth of a watt. How is the eye
supposed to have "evolved"?  What "intermediate state" between no eye and a
perfect eye could nature have "selected" to be passed on to successive
generations?  As Mark Twain once c ommented, "It's amazing what men will
believe, so long as it's not in the Bible!"

    There are so many systems in the human body that could be discussed,
but since space precludes discussing them all, it is now to the brain that
we turn our attention.  The brain, of course, regulates the rest of the
body.  It contains over 10 billion nerve cells, and 100 billion glia cells
(which provide the biological "batteries" for brain activity).  These cells
float in a jellied mass, sifting through information, storing memories,
creating what we call consciousness, etc..  Over 120 trillion connections
tie these cells together.  The brain sends out electrical impulses at a
speed of 393 feet per second (270 mph), and receives nerve impulses being
produced at a rate of over 2,000/second.  The brain receives signals
continuously from 130,000 light receptors in the eyes, 100,000 hearing
receptors in the ears, 3,000 tastebuds,  30,000 heat spots on the skin,
250,000 cold spots, and 500,000 touch spots.  The brain does not move, yet
consumes 25% of the blood's oxygen supply.  It is constantly bathed in
blood, its vessels receiving 20% of all the blood pumped from the heart.
If the blood flow is interrupted for 15-30 seconds, unconsciousness
results. If blood is cut off to the brain for longer than 4 minutes, brain
damage results.  Four major arteries carry blood to the brain as a sort of
"fail-safe" system.  And, the brain is protected from damage by not one,
but three major systems: (1) the outer skull bone; (2) the `dura mater'
(Latin for "hard mother"--the protective lining around the brain), and; (3)
the absorbing fluid, which keeps the brain from hitting the inner skull.
With the brain properly functioning, all the other body systems (hormones,
circulatory, digestive, reproductive, etc.) can be overseen and controlled.
Are we, as Dr. George Gaylord Simpson of Harvard stated some years ago, "an
accident in a universe that did not have us in mind in the first place"?
Or, are we created "in the image of God" (Genesis 1:26,27)?

    Sir Isaac Newton once said, "In the absence of any other proof, the
thumb alone would convince me of God's existence."   How much more, then,
should the cells, the brain, the lungs, the heart, the reproductive system,
etc.,  be shouting to us that `there is a God, and He is not silent.'  As
the psalmist so well said, "I praise you because I am fearfully and
wonderfully made" (Psalm 139:14). Or, as Imogene Fey has observed: "The
birth of every new baby is God's vote of confidence in the future of man."
Dr. Lewis Thomas, the renowned medical doctor and author of `The Medusa and
the Snail', commented in that work about the "miracle" of how one sperm
cell forms with one egg cell to produce a single cell that will, nine
months later, become a new human being. His conclusion:

    "The mere existence of that cell should be one of the greatest
    astonishments of the earth.  People ought to be walking around all day,
    all through their waking hours, calling to each other in endless
    wonderment, talking of nothing except that cell.... If anyone does
    succeed in explaining it, within my lifetime, I will charter a
    skywriting airplane, maybe a whole fleet of them, and send them aloft
    to write one great exclamation point after another around the whole
    sky, until a ll my money runs out."

Yet we are told that such a "miracle" has "just happened."  Carl W. Miller
once stated: "To the reverent scientist...the simplest features of the
world about us are in themselves so awe-inspiring that there seems no need
to seek new and greater miracles of God's care."

    In order to get a poem, one must have a poet.  In order to have a law,
one must have a lawgiver.  In order to have a mathematical diagram, one
must have a mathematician.  A deduction commonly made is that order,
arrangement, or design in a system suggest intelligence and purpose on the
part of the originating cause.  In the universe, from the vastness of
multiplied solar systems to the tiny world of molecules, marvelous design
and purposeful arrangement are evidenced. In the case of man, from the
imposing skeletal system to the impressive genetic code in all of its
intricacy, that same design and purposeful arrangement are evidenced.  The
only conclusion that a reasonable, rational, unbiased mind can reach is
that the existing systems of our world, including all life, have been
purposefully designed by an Intelligent Cause.  We call that Cause "God."


                               Conclusion

    Alan Devoe significantly writes, "Some naturalists have become
convinced that there is an `unknown force' at work--a force that guides
creatures by influences outside the entire sphere with which science
ordinarily works."   We would prayerfully urge those who speak of this
`unknown force' to turn to the "God that made the world and all things
therein" (Acts 17:24), and ascribe honor and glory to Him.  The revelation
He has left of Himself in nature simply could speak no louder of His
existence than it already does.  Furthermore, this examination of arguments
for God's existence has not even touched upon the "historical" arguments
which come to bear on the case.  For example, the historical Christ, the
resurrection, the Bible, the system of Christianity, and other such
arguments are equally as important. The arguments from historical fact are
additional proof that there is a God, and He is not silent.  That Christ
existed cannot he doubted by any rational person.  His miracles and other
works are documented, not only in biblical literature, but in profane,
secular history as well. The empty tomb stands as a silent but powerful
witness that God does exist (Acts 2:24; Romans 10:9) and that Christ is His
Son.  The Bible exists; therefore, it must be explained.  The men who wrote
it were either deceivers, deluded, or telling the truth.  What do the
evidences say?  The internal and external evidences are enough to tell the
story of God's existence, and the fact that He has spoken to us from His
inspired word.  Additional evidences are available at every turn. Little
wonder Paul stated that "in him we live, and move, and have our being..."
(Acts  17:28). Moses' statement still stands as inspired testimony to the
fact of the existence of God:  "In the beginning, God created the heavens
and the earth" (Genesis 1:1).


                                ENDNOTES

1.  Thomson, Edward. `Evidences of a Revealed Religion'.  Hitchcock and
    Walden. Cincinnati. 1872. p 1.

2.  Dummelow, J.R. (Editor). `The One-Volume Bible Commentary'.
    MacMillan.  New York. 1944. p vi.

3.  Hume, David. Quoted in: `The Campbell-Owen Debate'. Gospel Advocate
    Co.  Nashville Tennessee. 1957. p 124.

4.  Monsma, John C. (Editor). `The Evidence of God in an Expanding
    Universe'. G.P.Putnam's Sons. New York. 1958. p 12.

5.  Morrison, A. Cressy. `Man Does Not Stand Alone'. Revell.  Westwood,
    New Jersey. 1944. p 13.

6.  Compton, Arthur H. `Chicago Daily News'. April 12, 1936.

7.  Agassiz, Louis. `Contributions to the Natural History of the United
    States'.  Boston, Massachusetts. 1857. Vol. 1. p 298. Emp. added.

8.  Kelvin, Lord. `Nineteenth Century and After'. June, 1903. LIII. pp
    1068,1069.

9.  Davis, George E. `IN: The Evidence of God in an Expanding
    Universe'.  John C. Monsma, Editor. G.P. Putnam's Sons. New York.
    1958. p 71.

10.  Jastrow, Robert. `God and the Astronomers'. W.W. Norton & Co. New
     York.  1978. pp 11,48,110.

11.  `Science Digest'. Jan/Feb. 1981.  p 98.

12.  `Ibid'. p 105.

13.  `Ibid'. p 124.

14.  `Ibid'. p 102.

15.  Jastrow, Robert. `Until The Sun Dies'. W.W. Norton Co. New York.
     1977. p 21.

16.  `Science Digest'. Sept/Oct. 1980. p 49.

17.  `Ibid'. p 52.

18.  `Ibid'. p 118.

19.  Brand, Paul and Philip Yancey. `Fearfully and Wonderfully Made'.
     Zondervan. Grand Rapids, Michigan. 1980. pp 24,25.

20.  Darwin, Charles. `The Origin of Species'. J.M. Dent & Sons.
     London. 1956 edition. p 167.

21.  `Ibid'. p 170.

22.  `Fearfully and Wonderfully Made'. pp 188,189.

23.  Newton, Isaac. Quoted in: `Fearfully and Wonderfully Made'. p 161

24.  Thomas, Lewis. `The Medusa and the Snail'. Viking Press. New York.
     1979. pp 155-157.

25.  Miller, Carl Wallace. Quoted in: `The Encyclopedia of Religious
     Quotations'. Frank S. Mead, Editor.  Revell. Westwood, New Jersey.
     1965. p 179.

26.  Devoe, Alan. `IN: The Marvels and Mysteries of Our Animal World'.
     Readers Digest Association. Pleasantville, New York. 1964. p 232.
     Emp. added.

NOTE: The author gratefully acknowledges permission to use in this
manuscript materials by Wayne Jackson which were previously published
in his monthly journal, `The Christian Courier'.






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