The Great Doctrines of the Bible | Page 3

unity--'constitute together,' as Dr. Stirling declares, "but the
undulations of a single wave, which wave is but a natural rise and
ascent to God, on the part of man's own thought, with man's own
experience and consciousness as the object before him."
Religion was not produced by proofs of God's existence, and will not
be destroyed by its insufficiency to some minds. Religion existed
before argument; in fact, it is the preciousness of religion that leads to
the seeking for all possible confirmations of the reality of God.
a) Universality of Belief in the Existence of God.
(1) The fact stated and proven:
Man everywhere believes in the existence of a supreme Being or
Beings to whom he is morally responsible and to whom propitiation
needs to be made.
Such belief may be crudely, even grotesquely stated and manifested,
but the reality of the fact is no more invalidated by such crudeness than
the existence of a father is invalidated by the crude attempts of a child

to draw a picture of its father.
It has been claimed by some that there are or were tribes in inland
Africa that possessed no idea or conception of God. Moffat,
Livingstone's father-in-law, made such a claim, but Livingstone, after a
thorough study of the customs and languages of such tribes,
conclusively showed that Moffat was wrong.
Nor should the existence of such few tribes, even if granted, violate the
fact we are here considering, any more than the existence of some few
men who are blind, lame, deaf, and dumb would make untrue the
statement and fact that man is a seeing, hearing, speaking, and walking
creature. The fact that some nations do not have the multiplication table
does no violence to arithmetic.
Concerning so-called atheists in Christian lands: it may be questioned if
there are really any such beings. Hume, known as a famous sceptic, is
reported to have said to Ferguson, as together they looked up into the
starry sky: "Adam, there is a God." Voltaire, the atheist, prayed to God
in a thunderstorm. Ingersoll, when charged with being an atheist,
indignantly refuted the charge, saying: "I am not an atheist; I do not say
that there is no God; I am an agnostic; I do not know that there is a
God." "I thank God that I am an atheist," were the opening words of an
argument to disprove the existence of God. A new convert to atheism
was once heard to say to a coterie of unbelievers: "I have gotten rid of
the idea of a supreme Being, and I thank God for it."
(2) Whence comes this universal belief in the existence of God?
aa) Not from outside sources, such as reason, tradition, or even the
Scriptures.
Not from reason or argument, for many who believe in God have not
given any time to reasoning and arguing the question; some, indeed,
intellectually, could not. Others who have great powers of intellect, and
who have reasoned and argued on the subject are professed disbelievers
in God. Belief in God is not the result of logical arguments, else the
Bible would have given us proofs.

Nor did this universal belief come from tradition, for "Tradition," says
Dr. Patton, "can perpetuate only what has been originated."
Nor can it be said that this belief came from the Scriptures even, for, as
has been well said, unless a man had a knowledge of the God from
whom the Scriptures came, the Revelation itself could have no
authority for him. The very idea of Scripture as a Revelation,
presupposes belief in a God who can make it.--Newman Smith.
Revelation must assume the existence of God.
bb) This universal belief comes from within man.
All the evidence points to the conclusive fact that this universal faith in
the existence of God is innate in man, and comes from rational
intuition.
(3) The weight and force of this argument.
The fact that all men everywhere believe in the existence of a supreme
Being or beings to whom they are morally responsible, is a strong
argument in favor of its truth. So universal an effect must have a cause
as universal, otherwise we have an effect without any assignable cause.
Certain is it that this argument makes the burden of proof to rest upon
those who deny the existence of God.
b) The Argument from Cause: Cosmological.
When we see a thing we naturally ask for the cause of that thing. We
see this world in which we live, and ask how it came to be. Is it
self-originating, or is the cause of its being outside of itself? Is its cause
finite or infinite?
That it could not come into being of itself seems obvious; no more than
nails, brick, mortar, wood, paints, colors, form into