As I discussed in The First Principle, I do believe that all opinions are based on a basic faith–whether that’s faith in something that we just believe in or faith in something that we sense with our senses.

That leads me to the second principle.

2. There is a creator who designed this universe and particularly our world.

We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn’t know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see the universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws but only dimly understand these laws.
– Albert Einstein

I believe in God. I believe without reservation or (as far as I can imagine) any possibility of truly recanting. My belief in God is a part of me and it informs and determines everything that I do, say, believe, think and, to a lesser extent, feel. This is the basis for my worldview: “He Is.” (or more properly, “I Am.” as stated by God.) He exists without reference or regard to anything else that exists. Everything does not make Him or influence His being. He exists apart from and independent of it except as He chooses to be influenced.

…But. …Just saying I believe it isn’t enough for me. I have questioned that belief, deeply. In doing so, I have found what I find to be a logically unassailable argument for His existence.

(I would also note that I need to write a post on worldview and how it determines the nature of our thought and how deeply it influences what we believe. Objectivity is a myth. …Also “except as He chooses to be influenced” is a phrase that sets me apart from as much as half of the people who consider themselves to be Christian. That, too, is worth exploring.)

At any rate, moving on to why I think that God cannot possibly not exist.

The concept behind this is actually so simple that it can not rightly be expressed, only grasped, like a rope thrown to a drowning man by the hand of God himself. I use that analogy because without God opening our eyes, I don’t believe we can actually understand concepts like this one. We might nibble around the edges of it, but it takes divine inspiration to grasp it, and even once grasped, it cannot be fully understood, because the reprocussions of such a thoroughly simple concept are too massive for the mind to comprehend.

It is impossible to see that something exists without something that is else to contrast it with.

An easy example is light and darkness (or light and the absence of light, to be exact). If one of those two concepts was not real, then how would you know that the other was real? If everything was totally without light, how would we know that there was such a thing as light? …If everything was totally lit, how could it be possible that there be an absence of light?

Taking the first example: If there was no light in the world, then how could we conceive of such a concept as darkness? Without something that is different to compare the darkness to, it may exist, but it simply can not be compared, and so cannot be understood or expressed.

It seems obvious to us that everything around us is constantly changing. From something as small as a dust mote floating through the air to something as massive as the planets in the solar system, change is everywhere.

A friend of mine once remarked, while we were in the depths of a discussion on just this subject, that he believes the only true constant in reality is change. My response (muddled at the time) was the question: If there is no great constant that is not change, then how could we even understand that change existed? Without anything to compare to, how could one conceptualize change?

He said, after some consideration, that he admitted, there was no place in his conception of reality for such an immutable constant.

And that, in my mind, is the crux of the matter. If such a force exists, it must be something that we would perceive as God–and, logically and reasonably, it seems to me that God must exist. (His nature is another question–one that I suspect I will spend my entire life exploring.)

Incidentally, at that point, I thought that my friend was admitting that his perception of reality did not mesh with what reality must be (I still think so, though I’m not so sure now that he was saying so.) And so, as Ayn Rand wrote, “To arrive at a contradiction is to confess an error in one’s thinking; to maintain a contradiction is to abdicate one’s mind and to evict oneself from the realm of reality.”

Another, derivative argument is somewhat less cerebral and theoretical and more practical.

We can observe that in this reality in which we live, systems tend toward chaos rather than order. Some call it entropy. It is enshrined in the second law of thermodynamics (Though the law falls short of the “Truth” itself somewhat, it does pull out an essential part of it.) This is so true that any system in which energy is not spent constantly to bring about order, chaos immediately destroys everything that is ordered in the system. You can see it in anything from nature to government.

…And yet, all around us is order. The universe is divided into galaxies, which are composed of stars and planets and, in our case a world and civilization that is incredibly complex and ordered–it has to be in order to survive.

I know this point is often used in the “creation/evolution” debate, and so be it, but the point that is missed (intentionally and willfully in my opinion) is that the SCALE of the order that we see in reality requires a force of unimaginable magnitude to build it. Any action causes an equal and opposite reaction. Corollary: Any ordered system requires a creative force of requisite magnitude to build it.

The bottom line is that, looked at from a high-level perspective, it is not possible to have such a marvelously, intricately ordered reality without some force to create the order.

This goes beyond the simple, obvious manifestations of planets rotating around stars into the very laws that govern the universe. This is a case of having light and no darkness to compare to, but bear with me. What determines the freezing and boiling temperatures of water? (They are a basic part of the nature of reality as we understand it.) …But what if they were different? What if the percentage of heat absorption (albedo) of a certain color were slightly less? What if there was no such state as solid, but only liquid and gas and plasma? What if…

The “Ifs” are innumerable. The question is simple. What could possibly create so much order in a system that demonstrably and inexorably devolves into chaos? …What could create the rules that order such a system? Wouldn’t the rules themselves tend to fall to chaos? Simply stating that the rules exist as an aspect of the nature of reality isn’t enough. WHY?

^“He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.” Colossians 1: 17

Make no mistake, this is not strictly deductive logic. In both the former case, of universal constants, and this case, order vs chaos, taken from a rational perspective, the only likely (and arguably the only possible) cause for such order is a Creator, namely God.

Also, don’t lose yourself in the “what if.” Instead ask “what IS?” In the “what if” mindset, of course you can conceive of God not existing and even argue for that, but to do so is to avoid considering fully what IS real and what you can see and hear and taste and understand about what IS. There are complexities and subtleties in the very fabric of reality that would simply be impossible without intelligent, intentional outside influence.

This is a similar argument to that of irreducible complexity. It asks for a creator because no force short of an intelligent designer is capable of creating something that shows the characteristics of intelligent design.

Circular reasoning should teach us something

Is the reasoning circular? At base certainly, but so is any reasoning. Nothing can be “proved.” The only proof-positive test is the “I believe” test, and simply believing something leaves us, as human beings capable of reason and rationality, so far short of our potential. …So think, reason and understand. Be honest and refuse to look away from reality. Everything I’ve experienced in life suggests to me that a really honest look at reality requires us to acknowledge its creator.

…Of course the simple fact that we can choose to live in a realm different from reality (and we can, obviously) should tell us something about reality itself, like what defines the nature of what is in the first place.