The Existence of God (For Teens)

Existence of God Handout

Objectives

• Students will be able to argue for the existence of a divine being.
• Students will be able to argue that the divine being is active in the world today.
• Students will be able to argue that the divine being is the God of the Bible.

Introduction

Apologetics = Defending Our Faith

• Suppose someone asked you to prove that God exists. How would you respond?

• Suppose someone told you that they believe God created the universe but that God is no longer involved in the universe today. How would you respond?

• Suppose that someone told you that God is everything, that is God is the universe itself. How would you respond?

Christianity holds that there is a transcendent, immanent God. That is, God exists, is distinct from the created realm, and has a close relationship/involvement in His created realm.

Main Body

Positive Apologetics

Positive Apologetics refers to the practice of defending the faith by arguing that Christianity is the only reasonable choice.

The Cosmological Argument

• Why is there something rather than nothing?
  • Everything that is in motion must have a cause
  • The Universe is in motion
  • There must exit and unmoved mover that set the Universe in motion.

The Teleological Argument

• If you were walking on the beach and you saw the message "John loves Susan." What assumptions would you make?
  • The most fundamental assumption you would make is that someone wrote the message. In other words, if something looks to be designed then we assume there was a designer.

Revelational Apologetics

• What does Psalm 19:1-6 together with Romans 1:20 demonstrate?
  • Creation itself demonstrates the Creator. This supports the Teleological argument for the existence of God.

• What argument is made in Hebrews 3:4?
  • God is the architect and no thinking person would look upon a building and dismiss it's creation.

The Ontological Argument

• • People can think of an infinite perfect ring.
  • People are finite and imperfect.
  • In order for a finite to think of an infinite, the infinite must actually exist.

• Mathematically this is something like. In order to construct an infinite set from a finite set, an infinite process must be invoked.

This argument requires a fairly rigorous understanding of logic and so probably should not be covered with most groups.

Negative Apologetics

Negative Apologetics refers to the practice of defending the faith by removing obstacles to faith by showing that criticisms of the Bible are wrong.

• If there is an almighty God of the universe, why is there evil?
  • Romans 9:14-17
    • What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? Certainly not! For He says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion.” So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy. For the Scripture says to the Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I may show My power in you, and that My name may be declared in all the earth.”

• • Romans 9:22,23
    • What if God, wanting to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, and that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had prepared beforehand for glory,

Evil is a state of finitude while good is a quality of the infinite.  Therefore, good and evil cannot exist in a dichotomous state.

Conclusion

• Don't lose sight of Romans 10:17 "So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." What is the single greatest tool we have in our toolbox?
  • The word of God. If we prove that God exists but fail to give the gospel we have accomplished nothing. In fact,
• According to Hebrews 1:2-3, what is God's means of showing Himself to his creation?