Published on 10/10/2007

Hard disks and iPods have won two scientists the Nobel Prize in Physics. Today's New York Times reports that Albert Fert and Peter Grunberg will share the $1.5 million prize. We assume that such technology did not just "happen." Did the universe?

Commentary

If God made us and our world, why aren't we more sure of his existence? It would seem that no question on the subject would be feasible. As atheist Christopher Hitchens likes to say, the absence of evidence is the evidence of absence. My response is to answer the question with a question: how could God make his existence more obvious? What would we like him to do that he has not already done? He made a world which bears remarkable evidence of creative power and designing genius. Yes, we can explain life through adaptation, but that very adaptation is part of his brilliant plan.

He has stepped into his creation on numerous occasions. He sent angels to men and women. He revealed himself in dreams and visions, and continues to do so today. He then entered the human race, reducing omnipotence down into a fetus and becoming a man like us. He proved his divinity by rising from the dead and returning to heaven. He gave us a book which records these events in remarkable and trustworthy detail.

What more would we like him to do? He could appear to you as you read these words, just as he appeared in the flesh 20 centuries ago. But many did not believe in his divinity even when they saw his miracles and knew about his resurrection. In the same way, you could dismiss your experience as a hallucination or dream, concluding that your senses were deceiving you. The only way you could be absolutely sure that God exists would be to stand in his presence on Judgment Day. One day you will.

Christianity will in fact be verified with absolute certainty. One day in the future you will know beyond any doubt that God is real and Jesus is Lord. But God is graciously giving you another day to trust in him, another day to step into a personal relationship with him and experience the verification which comes to those who meet God for themselves. One day time will run out, and every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Philippians 2:10-11).

Until that day, there is nothing more a supernatural God can do to prove his existence through natural means. Asking the infinite, perfect God of the universe to prove himself to our finite, fallen minds is like asking him to make a square circle. Even God is not obligated to do what is logically impossible. Let's continue in the morning.