The One True God as Described in the Christian Bible Exists

The issue of God’s existence is arguably the most important one in the world, and I therefore desire an intelligent, informative, and respectful debate on the subject. Unless you are able to facilitate such a discussion, do not accept this debate. Another disclaimer: This will be a primarily philosophical debate, focused on conceptual arguments rather than statistical analyses. So while statistics and other factual claims do of course have their place, my opponent should know that the emphasis of this debate will be on more philosophical arguments. And so, again, if you not prepared to debate in this manner, do not accept this debate. Finally, a few preconditions to facilitate healthy and informative debate: Drops count as concessions. No new arguments will be allowed in the final round. And with that, I will present my affirmative case: INTRODUCTION Nearly every argument I have heard for the nonexistence of God consists of some archaeological fact or another, immediately followed by a conclusion: “X, therefore God doesn’t exist. I win. VOTE CON! ” However, in this debate, I will prove the existence of God by proving that knowledge of any kind is impossible without first assuming God’s existence, I therefore present the following contentions: CONTENTION 1: THE UNIFORMITY OF NATURE CAN ONLY BE ACCOUNTED FOR IN A BIBLICAL WORLDVIEW. The study of science is based on the assumption that nature, to a certain extent is uniform. If experiments performed exactly the same way under the exact same conditions sometimes produced one result, and sometimes another, contradictory on, science would be pointless; it would be impossible to prove anything by it. And so for anything to be scientifically concluded, we must first assume the uniformity of nature. The Christian has a legitimate, coherent reason to make that assumption: It is laid out in the Bible. “(God), being the brightness of his glory and the express image of his person, upholding all things by the word of His power…” –Hebrews 1:3 (emphasis added) “God [is] not a man, that He should lie, Nor a son of man, that He should repent. Has He said, and will He not do? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good? ” –Numbers 23:19 “While the earth remains, Seedtime and harvest, Cold and heat, Winter and summer, day and night Shall not cease. " –Genesis 8:22 From these verses, we can clearly see that God upholds the processes of the Earth by his power, and that he does so consistently, as he promised us in his Word, thus giving the Christian more than enough reason to believe in the uniformity of nature, based on a Biblical worldview. However, the atheist is not in such a convenient position. As I have previously said, nearly all of the arguments against God’s existence have relied on a scientific conclusion. And so I find it ironic that, in reality, the atheist has absolutely no basis for belief in the uniformity of nature, the foundation of science. Christians have the Supreme Being to tell them why they can expect nature to be uniform, but what does the atheist have? Nothing. There is literally no reason whatsoever for nature to be uniform absent God’s existence. The only thing an atheist could say in his defense is “nature has obviously always been uniform in the past, and therefore there is adequate reason to believe it will be uniform in the future. ” This may seem reasonable, but upon closer examination, it becomes apparent that this argument commits the fallacy of begging the question. I will grant that there has been uniformity in the past, but how can we know that there will be uniformity in the future, unless we have already assumed that the future will reflect the past (i. e. uniformity). In other words, this argument ultimately boils down to: “Uniformity exists because uniformity exists. ” And so, in conclusion, the practice of Science has a valid foundation only in a Biblical worldview that assumes the existence of God. The atheistic worldview can provide no such foundation, and so scientific arguments that supposedly disprove the existence of God can actually only be valid if God does in fact exist. CONTENTION 2: THE LAWS OF LOGIC CAN ONLY BE ACCOUNTED FOR IN A BIBLICAL WORLDVIEW. Logic is absolutely essential in any argument. No conclusions or arguments could be made without it. This may seem absurd, but the fact is, even factual statements imply certain logical steps. For instance, even the seemingly basic fact of the law of gravity rests on the conditional syllogism: If I am pulled back to the ground when I jump, gravity exists. I am pulled back to the ground when I jump. Therefore, gravity exists. All coherent arguments and conclusions rest on the laws of Logic, and thus, any coherent worldview must be able to legitimately account for them. The Biblical worldview, which assumes God’s existence, can do this. How? Again, the Bible gives us more than adequate reason to believe in Logic. “Therefore be imitators of God as dear children. ” –Ephesians 5:1 “If we are faithless, He remains faithful; He cannot deny Himself. ” –II Timothy 2:13 “In whom (God) are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. ” “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. ” –John 14:6 (emphasis added) “(God), being the brightness of his glory and the express image of his person, upholding all things by the word of His power…” –Hebrews 1:3 (emphasis added) “God [is] not a man, that He should lie, Nor a son of man, that He should repent. Has He said, and will He not do? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good? ” –Numbers 23:19 From these verses we can conclude that all truth consists in God, who cannot contradict himself. Logic is our representation of how God thinks, derived from our mandate to imitate Him, and since God is omnipresent and always consistent, Logic applies everywhere and does not change, thus giving the Christian an completely adequate reason to believe in the laws of Logic, based on a Biblical worldview. However, as with the previous example, the atheistic worldview cannot possibly provide the kind of foundation for Logic offered by the Biblical worldview. For example, apart from the Bible, how could we know that contradictions are always false? We could only say that they have been false in our experience. But our experiences are very limited, and no one has experienced the future. So if I were to claim that this argument was simultaneously true and false, the atheist would have no basis for dismissing such an assertion. Only the Biblical worldview for the law on non-contradiction, or for that matter, any of the laws of Logic at all. Since it is impossible to know anything without fact (primarily obtained by some type of scientific inquiry) or logic, I present the following valid conditional syllogism to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Resolution is true: If the God of the Bible did not exist, it would be impossible to know anything. We can know something. Therefore, the God of the Bible does exist. In conclusion, the above syllogism uses the laws of logic (which, by the way, my opponent cannot possibly account for), to prove that the Resolution is true, to prove that The one true God as described in the Christian Bible MUST exist. The only possible way that my opponent might disprove this ultimate and unavoidable conclusion is to assert that Logic and Science are possible without God. These assertions have no basis in truth and I am more than prepared to combat them.