If You Can Prove God's Existence, Who Needs Faith?

Gary: Now, Contending for the Faith…. Here is this week’s question: “Dear Mr. Hunt, I’m puzzled by a statement that I heard you make on one of your programs. You said something to the effect that a person couldn’t seriously be an atheist, and that you could prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that God exists. I always thought that God could only be known by faith. In your zeal for proving something to nonbelievers, aren’t you pushing reason beyond what the Bible allows?”

Tom:  Well, Dave, you can see, this is to you. Go for it.

Dave:  Right. You can’t seriously be an atheist, because nobody can seriously believe that everything came from nothing. Life and intelligence sprang spontaneously from dead, empty space. And we know that there was a time when there was “no thing,” because “things” wear out, Second Law of Thermodynamics, it’s that simple. The Law of Entropy…

Tom: What about the human cell?

Dave: Well, wait a minute. We haven’t gotten to that. You’ve got to get the uterus here before you can get a human cell.

Tom: Okay. Move us right along, Dave!

Dave: Yeah, well, you know me, Tom.

Tom:  No, I love this stuff, so I’m kidding. Go ahead.

Dave: Yeah. But there was a time when nothing—no thing—was here because things wear out. It’s just that simple. Now, you’ve got a conflict between the First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics. The first one, the Law of the Conservation of Energy, says, “Energy can neither be created nor destroyed.” But the Second Law says that it wears out! How come it’s still around? If it can’t be created or destroyed, how could it be here forever? It couldn’t be! It had to have been created. It had to have a beginning! But you can’t create it or destroy it. It can’t create or destroy itself. Someone  had to be here who had the capability of creating everything, okay?

So, you can’t be a serious atheist and really honestly believe that. And in your heart you know! And then when you see the…you get to the cell, as you said…

Tom: So, we have the universe, we’re talking about. Now we have something…

Dave: We have life…

Tom: Life.

Dave: Where did life come from?

Tom:  Something so small that it takes an electron microscope to really see how incredibly complex it is.

Dave: And in DNA, the size of a pinhead, you have enough information, if you put it in books, it would take a stack of books 500 times as high as the distance from here to the moon to contain it. Now, put all that together by chance? That’s incredible enough. But it is more incredible—we’re talking about information. And Einstein said that he knew of no way that physical things could come up with information. Information obviously has a nonphysical intelligent source!

Tom: Now, Dave, I want to stay with you on this. When you say “information,” spell that out a little more clearly.

Dave: Well, we’re talking about…

Tom: …language? Or…

Dave: It is a language. The DNA has a language. In fact, it is coded, and it must be decoded by protein, so these are enzymes…

Tom: So these are instructions!

Dave: These are words!

Tom: Instructions.

Dave: Instructions for building the human body. We all begin with one cell, and that cell has on it the manufacturing, the construction, instructions…

Tom: The blueprints, the…every detail…

Dave: Every detail for every cell! And it is replicated by the DNA to every cell…

Tom: So, the cell begins. It’s one cell.

Dave: One cell, right.

Tom: …in the human body, but aren’t there…

Dave: Trillions.

Tom: Ten trillion cells in the human body? So you start with one, you have to…

Dave: Right. And there are all different kinds of cells. And each cell knows what it’s supposed to do!

Tom:  Nerve cells, for example, that have to do with the brain, and…

Dave: That’s one of the reasons, the many reasons, why you couldn’t have evolution, because the only way to get evolution would be to have a fowl-up in the DNA, because the DNA perfectly replicates itself. So there’s no basis for evolution there.

Tom: So when it fowls up, it basically destroys itself.

Dave: That’s what cancer is. So, you would only go down, you wouldn’t go up. But the information, the language, the instructions, the words, the grammatical rules, even—it’s coded, and it has to be decoded, so you couldn’t possibly…

Tom: So that involves intelligence. It couldn’t…

Dave: Well, Tom, we each have a… I’ve got a Bible in front of me; you’ve got a Bible, you’ve got a book, you’ve got a piece of paper out of a computer that has words on it. Now, it has nothing to do with the paper or the print. That didn’t originate this message that’s contained in these words. The message has a source other than the material. I don’t care what you write it on—sand or glass or a skywriter in the sky—whatever you’re writing it on and with, that did not originate the message. You cannot escape the fact that this language that is on the DNA—or any language written anywhere—has a nonphysical intelligent source! That’s what Einstein said. He said, “I know of no way that matter can create language!” It can’t do it. So, however you want to look at this, and there are many ways we can look at it, God exists! And He is a personal Being of intelligence, capability.

You remember one that I like, Tom, when you and I were both boys—of course, I’m older than you are—the big conundrum was, “What came first, the chicken or the egg?” Well, obviously…

Tom: We’re still trying to figure that out.

Dave: …you’ve got to have a chicken to have an egg. And you have to have an egg to have a chicken. So they had to be created simultaneously.

But the big one now is, “What came first? Protein or DNA?” Because it takes protein to make DNA, but it takes DNA to make protein.

Tom:  So one couldn’t have evolved into the other.

Dave: Absolutely impossible. And you don’t evolve language and information, and it is all there.

Tom: Dave, I get really excited about this. But the questioner says, “Wait a minute. Aren’t you getting excited about your reasoning of this as opposed to faith?

Dave: I understand that. And we have to beware that we don't elevate reason beyond where it should be, because there… See, faith has to have a reason.

Tom: Mm-hmm.

Dave: Why do I believe what I believe? I don’t just take a leap into the dark. But faith leads me beyond my reason. It leads me to things…: Hebrews 11—it says, “By faith, we believe that the worlds were framed by the Word of God so that the things that are seen are not made of the things that do appear.” That’s beyond me! I can’t fathom that. The scientists can’t fathom that. We don’t know what gravity is. We don’t know what electricity is. We don’t know what an atom is. We don’t know what an electron…  We don’t know anything! But the Bible has told me—I have enough prophecy, I have enough things that I can verify, that when God says something, I have absolute confidence in it. So, faith takes a step beyond reason at times, because God is bigger than I am. He can’t explain everything to me, but faith only takes that step in the direction that all the evidence as pointed.

Now, if I’m going to be an atheist, I’ve got all the same evidence, and I’m going to take a step in the opposite direction—that’s irrational. So God does say, “Come now, let’s reason together,” sayeth the Lord. So, we can prove it, but it is beyond our proof as well.

Tom: And we can cry out with David, “How fearfully and wonderfully made we are,” because here’s the evidence.

Dave: Absolutely.

Tom: It’s fantastic!

Gary: Now, Contending for the Faith…. Here is this week’s question: “Dear Mr. Hunt, I’m puzzled by a statement that I heard you make on one of your programs. You said something to the effect that a person couldn’t seriously be an atheist, and that you could prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that God exists. I always thought that God could only be known by faith. In your zeal for proving something to nonbelievers, aren’t you pushing reason beyond what the Bible allows?”

Tom:  Well, Dave, you can see, this is to you. Go for it.

Dave:  Right. You can’t seriously be an atheist, because nobody can seriously believe that everything came from nothing. Life and intelligence sprang spontaneously from dead, empty space. And we know that there was a time when there was “no thing,” because “things” wear out, Second Law of Thermodynamics, it’s that simple. The Law of Entropy…

Tom: What about the human cell?

Dave: Well, wait a minute. We haven’t gotten to that. You’ve got to get the uterus here before you can get a human cell.

Tom: Okay. Move us right along, Dave!

Dave: Yeah, well, you know me, Tom.

Tom:  No, I love this stuff, so I’m kidding. Go ahead.

Dave: Yeah. But there was a time when nothing—no thing—was here because things wear out. It’s just that simple. Now, you’ve got a conflict between the First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics. The first one, the Law of the Conservation of Energy, says, “Energy can neither be created nor destroyed.” But the Second Law says that it wears out! How come it’s still around? If it can’t be created or destroyed, how could it be here forever? It couldn’t be! It had to have been created. It had to have a beginning! But you can’t create it or destroy it. It can’t create or destroy itself. Someone  had to be here who had the capability of creating everything, okay?

So, you can’t be a serious atheist and really honestly believe that. And in your heart you know! And then when you see the…you get to the cell, as you said…

Tom: So, we have the universe, we’re talking about. Now we have something…

Dave: We have life…

Tom: Life.

Dave: Where did life come from?

Tom:  Something so small that it takes an electron microscope to really see how incredibly complex it is.

Dave: And in DNA, the size of a pinhead, you have enough information, if you put it in books, it would take a stack of books 500 times as high as the distance from here to the moon to contain it. Now, put all that together by chance? That’s incredible enough. But it is more incredible—we’re talking about information. And Einstein said that he knew of no way that physical things could come up with information. Information obviously has a nonphysical intelligent source!

Tom: Now, Dave, I want to stay with you on this. When you say “information,” spell that out a little more clearly.

Dave: Well, we’re talking about…

Tom: …language? Or…

Dave: It is a language. The DNA has a language. In fact, it is coded, and it must be decoded by protein, so these are enzymes…

Tom: So these are instructions!

Dave: These are words!

Tom: Instructions.

Dave: Instructions for building the human body. We all begin with one cell, and that cell has on it the manufacturing, the construction, instructions…

Tom: The blueprints, the…every detail…

Dave: Every detail for every cell! And it is replicated by the DNA to every cell…

Tom: So, the cell begins. It’s one cell.

Dave: One cell, right.

Tom: …in the human body, but aren’t there…

Dave: Trillions.

Tom: Ten trillion cells in the human body? So you start with one, you have to…

Dave: Right. And there are all different kinds of cells. And each cell knows what it’s supposed to do!

Tom:  Nerve cells, for example, that have to do with the brain, and…

Dave: That’s one of the reasons, the many reasons, why you couldn’t have evolution, because the only way to get evolution would be to have a fowl-up in the DNA, because the DNA perfectly replicates itself. So there’s no basis for evolution there.

Tom: So when it fowls up, it basically destroys itself.

Dave: That’s what cancer is. So, you would only go down, you wouldn’t go up. But the information, the language, the instructions, the words, the grammatical rules, even—it’s coded, and it has to be decoded, so you couldn’t possibly…

Tom: So that involves intelligence. It couldn’t…

Dave: Well, Tom, we each have a… I’ve got a Bible in front of me; you’ve got a Bible, you’ve got a book, you’ve got a piece of paper out of a computer that has words on it. Now, it has nothing to do with the paper or the print. That didn’t originate this message that’s contained in these words. The message has a source other than the material. I don’t care what you write it on—sand or glass or a skywriter in the sky—whatever you’re writing it on and with, that did not originate the message. You cannot escape the fact that this language that is on the DNA—or any language written anywhere—has a nonphysical intelligent source! That’s what Einstein said. He said, “I know of no way that matter can create language!” It can’t do it. So, however you want to look at this, and there are many ways we can look at it, God exists! And He is a personal Being of intelligence, capability.

You remember one that I like, Tom, when you and I were both boys—of course, I’m older than you are—the big conundrum was, “What came first, the chicken or the egg?” Well, obviously…

Tom: We’re still trying to figure that out.

Dave: …you’ve got to have a chicken to have an egg. And you have to have an egg to have a chicken. So they had to be created simultaneously.

But the big one now is, “What came first? Protein or DNA?” Because it takes protein to make DNA, but it takes DNA to make protein.

Tom:  So one couldn’t have evolved into the other.

Dave: Absolutely impossible. And you don’t evolve language and information, and it is all there.

Tom: Dave, I get really excited about this. But the questioner says, “Wait a minute. Aren’t you getting excited about your reasoning of this as opposed to faith?

Dave: I understand that. And we have to beware that we don't elevate reason beyond where it should be, because there… See, faith has to have a reason.

Tom: Mm-hmm.

Dave: Why do I believe what I believe? I don’t just take a leap into the dark. But faith leads me beyond my reason. It leads me to things…: Hebrews 11—it says, “By faith, we believe that the worlds were framed by the Word of God so that the things that are seen are not made of the things that do appear.” That’s beyond me! I can’t fathom that. The scientists can’t fathom that. We don’t know what gravity is. We don’t know what electricity is. We don’t know what an atom is. We don’t know what an electron…  We don’t know anything! But the Bible has told me—I have enough prophecy, I have enough things that I can verify, that when God says something, I have absolute confidence in it. So, faith takes a step beyond reason at times, because God is bigger than I am. He can’t explain everything to me, but faith only takes that step in the direction that all the evidence as pointed.

Now, if I’m going to be an atheist, I’ve got all the same evidence, and I’m going to take a step in the opposite direction—that’s irrational. So God does say, “Come now, let’s reason together,” sayeth the Lord. So, we can prove it, but it is beyond our proof as well.

Tom: And we can cry out with David, “How fearfully and wonderfully made we are,” because here’s the evidence.

Dave: Absolutely.

Tom: It’s fantastic!