A number of answers can be given to this, one of the biggest questions ever posed by humanity. In a way, all answers deal with the question - if God existed, what would the world be like? or if God didn't exist, would the world be like this?

We could consider the Bible as evidence for God. After all, if God existed, we would expect Him to speak to us in some definitive form and the Bible certainly makes the claim to be the very words of God.

We could look at Jesus as evidence of God. After all, He is considered to be the incarnation of God by Christians and obviously if this is true, then God must exist. The central claim by Christians since the beginning of Christianity for the divinity of Jesus has been the resurrection and if this really happened then we have powerful evidence for Jesus really being God.

We could also look at the paranormal as evidence for a 'spiritual' realm, or consider the human conscience as a pointer to some absolute law, or the uniqueness of humans as spiritual beings.

Other sections consider the above signs for Gods existence. Here we will deal with a third 'sign' - that of design.

It would seem only reasonable that as the Bible says:

"since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities-- his eternal power and divine nature-- have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse." Romans 1:20

For to not provide evidence of His existence, God would be unjust in condemning people for what they didn't know. And the same goes for the issue of "How do we know the Bible is the Word of God?" It is reasonable to expect sufficient evidence for a just God to hold us accountable to.

Whether one accepts the existence of God or not inevitably results in two basic world views. Either we the product of creation by God, or our origin is purely naturalistic, based soley on stochastic chemical processes devoid of the supernatural.

What are the implications of these two positions?

If our origin is purely naturalistic, then what is the basis upon which we derive concepts of justice and human rights and love or even hate, for that matter? These would have to be essentially man-made and subject to the opinions of the individuals or the ever changing cultures in which we live. I find it strange, therefore, that most people have very strong convictions concerning these subjects even though there really is no basis for saying anything absolute about, for example, the meaning and purpose in life. For if we are not created, then we have no meaning and purpose in an absolute sense.

But if our origin is one born of creation by God, then God defines our meaning and purpose, as any designer defines such for what he has designed. Under such circumstances, concepts of justice, human rights, love and hate can be thought of in an absolute sense, if we have God's opinion on such matters.

So the first "evidence" of God's existence I would point out, is the testimony of those who even reject the existence of God. For many, if not all, live a life of philosophical hypocrisy, declaring the God doesn't exist, yet having absolute standards of right and wrong; while declaring that man is purely a product of chemical processes, yet reluctant to convince the woman they love that their love is nothing more than chemistry. Even the declaration that God doesn't exist, being an absolute statement, is inherently self-contradictory. There are also those who say that God's existence contradicts science and therefore, even if He does exist, they won't believe unless given evidence in the form of scientific proof. Yet again this is inherently self-contradictory, for to only believe those things which can reproduced in the laboratory is to deny the existence of history itself. For history cannot be reproduced as time always progresses forward. Yet no doubt these same people do believe in the existence of history. And yet again, the concepts of justice and love and even the tenets of science itself cannot be "proven" using the scientific method.

Yet it seems that with most things, people really don't require "proof" in an absolute or even "scientific" sense (as many so often use the phrase). Even in science itself intuition is often used in developing a hypothesis which can then be tested. But where does the hypothesis come from? Often a scientist will take limited information and using his intuition infer other information.

This explains the apparent contradiction in Romans 1:20, quoted above. That "God's invisible qualities ... have been clearly seen". How can something invisible be clearly seen? Simply by using one's intuition. Intuition is highly valued quality in the society, and is used by all of us every day in most aspects of our lives. So to consider "evidence" which may be of an intuitive nature as purely irrational by those who demand absolute proof, may be yet again another example of philosophical hypocrisy.

Consider two people stranded on a desert island. One sees a footprint in the sand that doesn't belong to either of them. He then tells his friend that someone else has been there. "How do you know someone has been here?", says his friend, "Have you seen anyone else?" The man replys, "No, but I have found a footprint in the sand." His friend, being a skeptic, examines the "footprint" and says, "It could have just been made by the wind blowing the sand around." The man replied, "That's unlikely." But the skeptic said, "Well unless you show me the exact probability calculation of this not being made by the wind, I won't believe that it is a man's footprint."

This kind of objection against evidence of design in nature is often proposed by those who hold a purely naturalistic view of our origin. For what seems "obvious" and "reasonable" to one, may not be so to another. What if instead of a footprint, writing were found in the sand? Would that be more convincing? What if not just a few words, but volumes of coded information we impressed within the sand? At what point would it seem "reasonable" and "intuitively obvious" that such was of intelligent origin, without having to calculate the exact probability?

Consider coded information. In astronomy, the SETI program (the search of extraterrestrial intelligence) presumes that coded information implies intelligence. For radio telescopes around the world are "listening" for such from the far reaches of space. Yet look at nature itself. Every organism has contained in it, the DNA code - volumes of coded information concerning the construction and maintenance of the organism. What should we infer from that? To some it's intuitively obvious.

taken from the Boston Chinese Bible Study resources