There are many good reasons to believe in God and more specifically in Jesus Christ. Individually these reasons are compelling; collectively, they make a powerful case for Christianity. I want to highlight in this post some of the top arguments for God. I have written about these individually before, so this post will go over the arguments briefly with links to longer discussions for those who want to take a deeper dive. The arguments build on each other, and develop from reasons to believe in an all-powerful, all-loving God to reasons to believe in His Son Jesus Christ.
1. The argument from efficient causality: This argument, from Saint Thomas Aquinas’ five ways to God, states that, if everything in the material universe has a cause, there must be a First Cause, an Uncaused Cause, to bring everything else into existence, and this First Cause is God. Here we have one of several arguments from reason to show that God exists.
2. The “kalam” cosmological argument states that the universe must have had a beginning; that everything that has a beginning has a cause; and that only God could be the cause of the universe. This argument from reason has been significantly bolstered by the development of the Big Bang Theory which demonstrates that the universe as we know it, even time and space, had a beginning 13.77 billion years ago.
3. The argument from the fine-tuning of the universe: Where the first argument was based on pure reason, and the second argument flowed from reason supplemented by modern science, the argument from fine-tuning comes exclusively from recent scientific discoveries. Science has discovered that it is extraordinarily unlikely that our universe just happens to exist, because the various constants that govern the physical universe are precisely calibrated to a staggering degree.
To give one example, if the gravitational constant and the weak force constant varied from their precise values by one part in 10 to the 50 – that is, if they were off by 0.00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001 – then either the universe would have catastrophically collapsed immediately after the Big Bang, and the known universe would never have been, or the universe would have continued in its rapid expansion too long for any stars or planets to form, much less for life forms to develop.
Atheists will counter that perhaps ours is just one of a massive number of universes (“the multiverse”). But these other universes are by definition undiscoverable, whereas we have evidence that God exists (see above and below!). All of the arguments for God working together make a much more powerful case.
4. The argument from the Resurrection of Jesus: Simply put, we know that Jesus lived in Galilee in the first century AD, we know He was crucified in Jerusalem, and we know His apostles believed He had risen from the dead, to the point that they willingly gave up their lives rather than renounce their beliefs. What can account for these facts, other than the truth that Jesus did in fact rise from the dead? And if He did, then He must be who He says He is: the Son of the living God.
5. The evidence from miracles: God has sustained the faith of His people by working miracles throughout the ages. The most compelling arguments here are going to be more recent miracles that have been subjected to scientific scrutiny. The Miracle of the Sun at Fatima was witnessed by around 70,000 people and documented in the secular press of the time. The miraculous tilma depicting Our Lady of Guadalupe defies scientific explanation. There are 70 documented miraculous healings from the waters at Lourdes; the medical records are available for anyone to review. There have been multiple Eucharistic miracles in the past 35 years.
Saint Peter counseled the early Church to “sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts. Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope, but do it with gentleness and reverence, keeping your conscience clear, so that, when you are maligned, those who defame your good conduct in Christ may themselves be put to shame” (1 Peter 3:15-16). There is no substitute for our personal testimony, about how God has revealed Himself to us personally. But we also have strong reasons to give, such as those cited above, as defenses of our faith, and reasons for our hope.
Pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet every day for the salvation of souls.
