Devon Dick
IN THIS Advent season when one remembers that God appeared as flesh in Jesus the Christ, it is appropriate to examine the claims of the Christian faith vis-à-vis those who claim that there is no God.
Those who claim that there is no God have not proven, scientifically, their assertion. And how does God prove his/her existence? Does God have to appear as some genie or a mermaid? Or as a spirit like a wind? Would a loud voice from the sky suffice? If someone was healed or a hurricane diverted, would that satisfy the atheist. There is nothing that God could do or no form in which he/she can appear or exist that would convince non-believers.
LAZARUS
There is a parable in the Bible about Lazarus and the rich man. The rich man died and went to hell and he wanted to go back to earth to warn his five brothers about the reality of hell and heaven. Abraham told the rich man that his request will not be granted because they have Moses and the prophets and yet they did not believe. The rich man insisted that if someone should come from the dead then surely they would believe. Abraham replied and said that if they did not believe Moses and the prophets then they will not believe even if someone should rise from the dead.
Almost two thousand years later, some people do not believe the resurrection of Jesus. And if someone should be raised from the dead, you can bet that they would say the person was in a coma. Nothing God does will convince some people.
And some atheists point to the various religions and claim that human beings have created God in their own image. There is a delightful exhibition at the Institute of Jamaica's museum, which celebrates our Indian heritage. There is a section on Indian religion, which speaks to the belief about God becoming man and also to a 'trinity' concept of God. Some atheists would therefore claim that the Christian faith was just borrowing myths from other faiths such as the Indians'.
Atheists, however, have a difficult task of explaining how the world came into being because evolution just does not 'cut' it. Christian apologist, Rev. Clinton Chisholm, asserted that to move from a simple cell to a complex cell is not easy and mutation does not help because information would be lost in the process.
BIG BANG THEORY
But even if it were possible to move from a simple cell to a more complex cell the issue still remains, from where did the first simple cell come? Believing in the big bang theory is like believing that a tornado could blow together all the parts to form an airplane.
An airplane has a builder and so too this wonderful earth and vast universe has a builder, who is God. Someone might ask, so who made God? But anyone who made God must be greater than God so the idea must be that God is self-made. The concept of God is the uncaused cause. One has to start with a given just like all scientific experiments.
However, the challenge is whether God became flesh. How could there be a conception between God and a woman that excluded a man? But the greater miracle was the birth of a baby caused by fusion of an egg from a woman and the sperm from a man. That sounds ridiculous and incredulous. However, if there were a God then surely he or she would be able to exist in any from without the agency of a man.
Well, will this convince atheists? As the Psalmist said, the fool has said in his heart, there is no God.
Rev. Devon Dick is pastor of Boulevard Baptist Church and author of 'Rebellion to Riot: the Church in Nation Building'.
