How To Prove God's Existence To An Atheist

BobRyan

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I think Paul is wrong in that the knowledge of G-d is not plain to see particularly at the time Paul was writing and even today it is not obvious. I cannot believe that all non-Christians are knowingly rejecting G-d.
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Jay Sea

The other option is that you are wrong and Paul is right.

Jesus says He "convicts the WORLD of sin and righteousness and judgment" John 16 - not "just believing Christians".

Paul says "all the world is convicted" of it - in Rom 3:19-20 and Romans 1.

Even atheists admit that their most nagging issue is a "fear of hell" even for atheists who have rejected God for 50 years.
 
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covid-19v1

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When I was a young atheist, God gave me a "clue" by showing to me that demons exist. No science books ever tried explaining the demons and other evil spirits.

Now that I'm a Christian, I simply prove to atheists that life as a result of random, miraculous accidents is mathematicallly impossible. Once you have proven life could have only resulted from an intelligent design, proving the truth about the existence of God is inevitable.

But simply knowing there is God does not make a person any better than the devils.

James 2:19
Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.
 
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Jay Sea

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The other option is that you are wrong and Paul is right.

Jesus says He "convicts the WORLD of sin and righteousness and judgment" John 16 - not "just believing Christians".

Paul says "all the world is convicted" of it - in Rom 3:19-20 and Romans 1.

Even atheists admit that their most nagging issue is a "fear of hell" even for atheists who have rejected God for 50 years.
What do you mean by believing?? Do you mean trusting in G-d and Yeshua or simple believing words on a scroll or paper etc. I prefer to trust in an all merciful and compassionate G-d that Yeshua expected us to follow in being also forgiving, compassionate and merciful etc. as his disciples. We are to live as in his "Kingdom Now" that is among us. Fear of Hell does not bring a person to G-d, that is an easy road but the way of love your enemies is a hard road, perhaps because, hard, many feet have gone that way.
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Jay Sea
 
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BobRyan

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What do you mean by believing?? Do you mean trusting in G-d and Yeshua or simple believing words on a scroll or paper etc. I prefer to trust in an all merciful and compassionate G-d that Yeshua expected us to follow in being also forgiving, compassionate and merciful etc. as his disciples. We are to live as in his "Kingdom Now" that is among us. Fear of Hell does not bring a person to G-d, that is an easy road but the way of love your enemies is a hard road, perhaps because, hard, many feet have gone that way.
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Jay Sea

There is no "bridge" in the solution you offer. It would be a like a capitalist saying "you have to first BE a capitalist to agree with it" - as if there were no bridge at all from communism to capitalism even though millions of communists opt to leave communism and go to a capitalist country.
 
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BobRyan

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When I was a young atheist, God gave me a "clue" by showing to me that demons exist. No science books ever tried explaining the demons and other evil spirits.

Now that I'm a Christian, I simply prove to atheists that life as a result of random, miraculous accidents is mathematicallly impossible.

Amen! there is an example of a bridging argument where an atheist can go from atheist to at least considering a better alternative.

Every journey begins with the first step. The Bible says "one man plants, another waters, and another harvests". We can't get too excited/animated by the fact that the first step is not also the last step.
 
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Fervent

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There is no "bridge" in the solution you offer. It would be a like a capitalist saying "you have to first BE a capitalist to agree with it" - as if there were no bridge at all from communism to capitalism even though millions of communists opt to leave communism and go to a capitalist country.
There is only one "bridge" between faith and unbelief...the preaching of the gospel.

Now, this can be audience sensitive, hitting on the things that believing anything but Christ robs a person of and how they are recovered in Christ. For example, there is no avenue to knowledge without God and so the atheist who believes that what is found in secular universities is knowledge must be walked with to show them how empty that promise is. The search for knowledge without God begins and ends in the same place, uncertainty that anything outside our own existence is true at all.

The bridge, though, is not the arguments. The arguments prepare them for the bridge, which is the declaration that we can know God through Jesus Christ, and in that knowledge we have a basis for developing trustworthy knowledge about creation.
 
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BobRyan

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There is only one "bridge" between faith and unbelief...the preaching of the gospel.

One man plants, another waters , another reaps the harvest.

Paul does not start with a "quote Moses" to the pagans on Mars Hill. He builds a bridge. He finds something they as pagans can relate to.

Notice in Acts 17:22 So Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, “Men of Athens, I see that you are very religious in all respects. 23 For while I was passing through and examining the objects of your worship, I also found an altar with this inscription, ‘TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.’ Therefore, what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you. 24 The God who made the world and everything that is in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made by hands; 25 nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things; 26 and He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, 27 that they would seek God, if perhaps they might feel around for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; 28 for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we also are His descendants.’ 29 Therefore, since we are the descendants of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by human skill and thought.

Even when addressing His own disciples - he says - "12 “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. " John 16:12
 
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Fervent

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One man plants, another waters , another reaps the harvest.

Paul does not start with a "quote Moses" to the pagans on Mars Hill. He builds a bridge. He finds something they as pagans can relate to.

Notice in Acts 17:22 So Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, “Men of Athens, I see that you are very religious in all respects. 23 For while I was passing through and examining the objects of your worship, I also found an altar with this inscription, ‘TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.’ Therefore, what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you. 24 The God who made the world and everything that is in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made by hands; 25 nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things; 26 and He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, 27 that they would seek God, if perhaps they might feel around for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; 28 for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we also are His descendants.’ 29 Therefore, since we are the descendants of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by human skill and thought.

Even when addressing His own disciples - he says - "12 “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. " John 16:12
Yes, Paul preached the gospel in a way that was audience sensitive. But he didn't create a bridge to the gospel, the nucleus of his message is the same it is just wrapped in a different package.
 
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BobRyan

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Yes, Paul preached the gospel in a way that was audience sensitive. But he didn't create a bridge to the gospel, the nucleus of his message is the same it is just wrapped in a different package.

So then as Paul did - we will "package" the message in a form that an atheist can agree with step by step from where they are to where they need to be - as noted by this former atheist.

covid-19v1 said:
When I was a young atheist, God gave me a "clue" by showing to me that demons exist. No science books ever tried explaining the demons and other evil spirits.

Now that I'm a Christian, I simply prove to atheists that life as a result of random, miraculous accidents is mathematicallly impossible.
 
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Fervent

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So then as Paul did - we will "package" the message in a form that an atheist can agree with step by step from where they are to where they need to be - as noted by this former atheist.
As long as you get to the part where you're saying something like "31 because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”" as Paul in Acts 17:31. Fall short of that, and you're not giving them much of anything.
 
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dms1972

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I think Paul is wrong in that the knowledge of G-d is not plain to see particularly at the time Paul was writing and even today it is not obvious. I cannot believe that all non-Christians are knowingly rejecting G-d.
In Love
Jay Sea

The thread is about atheists. The Apostle Paul was writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit - the Spirit of Truth. The Bible says at some point, the fact that there is a Creator, becomes plain to people (once someone comes to be aware of themselves as responsibly intelligent) then it is suppressed, or clouded by false philosophies and theologies. For humans in rebellion, the truth of God gets exchanged for a lie - and then people say its not obvious. It ceases to be obvious once one exchanges the truth of God for a lie.

As an historical example (in reverse - ie. of someone coming back to acknowledge the Creator): the 15th Century Incan leader Pachacuti - began to question why Inti (the Sun) whom they worshiped only ever did the same thing in its daily course across the sky, he noted how it never did a new thing. He also noted and wondered about its power, if its rays could be so easily blocked by a cloud - he concluded from this that Inti was not God, and it was later revealed in a dream to him who God was. In earlier times Pachacuti's ancestors had worshiped Viracocha - Creator of all things. There was later a degeneration to the worship of the Sun. But they had known in earlier times of the Creator, whom they called Viracocha. This didn't mean they didn't need to hear the Gospel. We find the same in places of the New Testament (eg. in some of Paul's sermons in Acts) - there were "God-fearing" people whom the Apostles preached to.
 
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BobRyan

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As long as you get to the part where you're saying something like "31 because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”" as Paul in Acts 17:31. Fall short of that, and you're not giving them much of anything.

Even when addressing His own disciples - he says - "12 “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. " John 16:12

If Christ could not tell certain truths to disciples personally trained by Him for 3.5 years - how many "more things" might one not be able to say to an atheist on "day one".
 
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Fervent

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Even when addressing His own disciples - he says - "12 “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. " John 16:12

If Christ could not tell certain truths to disciples personally trained by Him for 3.5 years - how many "more things" might one not be able to say to an atheist on "day one".
"Day one?" There certainly are many things that cannot be said, but given that there is no guarantee of a day two giving gospel messages has to be priority 1. It can't wait until they're ready, the sower of seed didn't inspect the soil he just sows his seed. And so too, we must simply sow the seed and let it take where God has prepared.
 
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Davy

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Even if we could convince an atheist that there is a G-d how do we prove that G-d is a relatable person orientated G-d and that he spoke only to Jews and Christians and that he is not also a G-d of all religions from primitive man onwards up until now. I don't see How.
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Jay Sea

Er..., you sound like you've been listening to one of the secret societies, as they do believe and teach ALL religions are equal. Most of them also deny that Jesus of Nazareth died on the cross, but instead teach false 2nd century Gnosticism, saying that Jesus lived to old age, married and had children. Some of them even go so far as to say Jesus was one of them, i.e., like that initiate fraternity actually trained Him, and that for the missing 18 years of His life, He traveled to the Far East, Egypt, and Greece, and was initiated in the ancient 'mystery schools'. However, that is just not so.

Acts 4:8-14
8 Then Peter, filled with the Holy Ghost, said unto them, Ye rulers of the people, and elders of Israel,
9 If we this day be examined of the good deed done to the impotent man, by what means he is made whole;
10 Be it known unto you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by him doth this man stand here before you whole.
11 This is the stone which was set at nought of you builders, which is become the head of the corner.
12 Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.

13 Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marvelled; and they took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus.
14 And beholding the man which was healed standing with them, they could say nothing against it.
KJV


The devil well knows that if he can get the deceived to believe that Jesus of Nazareth was not God come in the flesh, but was instead just a prophet like Mohamed, Moses, Zoroaster, Krishna, etc., THEN... one might believe that Christianity is no different than any other religion.

Thing is, Christianity is NOT a religion. Lot of people call it that, but it's not. What it is, is the Truth.

The devil also knows that if he can get the deceived to believe Jesus' death on the cross meant nothing, then there would be no salvation. God's Word is the Witness that Jesus died on the cross, and The Father raised Him from the dead on the third day.
 
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Davy

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The thing about apologetics is it isn't about proving God, but proving that belief in God is reasonable. Proving God is impossible because God is an ontological ground, the basic brute fact by which all other things are interpreted. Evidence follows ontology, and so the best we can do is prove that God either exists or is impossible which the logical proofs accomplish. If someone assumes God impossible, there is no rectifying that assumption through argument because everything that follows is deemed contradictory evidence.

Well... like the science behind the Hebrews 11:3 and Romans 1:19-21 reveals, the world of natural physics well knows that that material matter did not create itself.

So what did create matter? Aliens, like the head atheist in Britain suggested, which Ben Stein interviewed in his Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed video? Problem with that silly suggestion is, if aliens exist, they also are made up of material matter. So what made them?

The ONLY solution to the creation of the material universe is that something, or someone of a different dimension created the material universe. And at THAT... point, the atheist shows their system of no God is just following a theory they cannot prove with science, which means their 'belief' actually has NO basis at all.

But the Witness of God's Holy Writ provides MUCH basis for His existence and creation of the worlds, and that He is a Spirit, and not of this material world.
 
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