Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Logic

I've heard atheists say before that no rational person would believe in a God. They say theists believe in a higher power because they want to believe there is more to life than this Earth. They say that only the unwise would truly think there is a great being in the sky watching over us. They say Christians are illogical and unintelligent, for how else could they believe such foolishness? They call them delusional, senseless people.

I know I live in a world where some people look down on me for what I believe, but I don't really care. I don't believe what I believe because it makes me look a certain way to the world, nor do I believe it because it makes me feel a certain way. I don't believe it due to a desire for peace or contentment. While an atheist may read this and still think I'm delusional, I believe in a God due to something they believe Christians to be incapable of: logic. For even if I had not had "God moments" throughout my life, where God made his reality obvious to me, there would still be the underlying fact that I find the idea of this universe having no God to be completely illogical. It makes no sense.

The theory that this universe created itself is illogical. No matter how many millions and billions of years you go back, there has to be an ultimate origin. We could talk specifics of the Big Bang, evolution, and other scientific theories. Yet such things are mere details, for if this universe is merely physical, then it must have a beginning. If it has a beginning, there must have been a time when there was no universe. If there is no universe at all, there is no matter, there is nothing in existence to take its progression to the next step. It is illogical to think that the universe sprouted from nothingness into something. There must be something more, something higher, something eternal. I do not believe this because I want to or because I feel like it should be true, I believe it because logic forces me to do so.

I do not know all the details of how God created the universe. There are debates on the literal Genesis creation story and theistic evolution, and while such debates are interesting and of some value, the truth remains that, however the universe came to be, that it was God doing the creating and not merely the physical universe. If we evolved from single-celled organisms, then it was God that authored and guided that process, it did not simply happen of its own accord. Whether God created the universe in six days or gradually over billions of years, the end result is the same: the universe is God's creation.

In short, I believe what I believe because of logic, not despite logic. I know atheists will still call me foolish, but I will not change what I believe simply to fit in to the world.