Is belief in God rational? Can it be proved beyond reasonable doubt? The ancient philosophers agreed, with both Plato and Aristotle holding that the existence of a transcendent God is a matter of solid logical reasoning. However, modern thinkers since the 17th and 18th century Enlightenment have challenged this claim.
The Bible seems to say yes: ‘What can be known about God is plain to people,’ writes St Paul in Romans 1.19-20, ‘because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made. So they are without excuse.’
The ancient philosophers agreed, with both Plato and Aristotle holding that the existence of a transcendent God is a matter of solid logical reasoning.
Modern thinkers since the 17th and 18th century Enlightenment have challenged this claim, arguing that God’s existence can be known only by a leap of faith, if at all. However,
Bible-believing Christians have generally stuck by the classical and biblical view that the existence of God is something for which sufficient reasons are supplied by the light of nature.
Hence the common use of apologetics in evangelism – reasoned efforts to convince sceptics that belief in God does not require a person to believe, like Lewis Carroll’s White Queen, ‘six impossible things before breakfast’.
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