Existential evidence for God’s existence deals with the subjective evidence of one’s personal experience of God. This episode contains powerful testimonies of God’s intervention in people’s lives and also analyses the relevance and reliability of such testimony.
VIDEO & AUDIO LINKS
VIDEO: Episode 19, Existential Evidence
AUDIO PODCAST: Episode 19, Existential Evidence
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TRANSCRIPT
Welcome to Episode 19 of Evidence For Belief, a series which examines the evidence for the existence of God. In this episode we are going to move on from the realms of science and history to examine evidence of a much more personal and intimate nature: Existential Evidence. By this I am referring to the personal experience of God in one’s own life. Of course, in discussing this, we are no longer dealing with verifiable, empirical evidence, but as I’ll explain shortly, that doesn’t mean that this category of evidence should be completely discounted.
Let me start by recounting an experience I once had of God’s miraculous power.
It was Christmas holidays, 1985. I was about to commence my fourth and final year of my Bachelor of Theology. My wife and I were on holidays on the Central Coast of NSW and it was the last day before we headed back home for me to recommence my studies. It was a beautiful sunny day and we went to the beach for the morning. The northern end of the beach, where the lifeguards were patrolling, was quite crowded with swimmers, body surfers and board riders all vying for a share of the waves, but at the southern end of the beach about 900 metres away (which is the photograph below) there was literally no one. Not wanting to contest the waves with a zillion other people, I left my wife at the patrolled end of the beach and jogged down to the southern end with my board. I spent about an hour in the surf, enjoying a nice surf break which I literally had all to myself.
Then disaster struck. I wiped out badly and my board smashed violently into my leg. Immediately, I knew I was in trouble. The pain was excruciating, shooting up from my leg and seeming to envelop my entire body. I was instantly sure I had broken my leg. I was in so much pain I couldn’t move and couldn’t get back onto my board. All I could do was cling onto the board and let the whitewash of the next few waves gradually wash me into shore. When I finally reached the shallows, I managed to reach the dry sand by shuffling myself backwards out of the water while sitting on my bottom and trailing my legs behind me.
When I finally reached dry sand, I looked down at my leg. There was a large purple swelling on my shin where the board had smashed into me and the leg looked strangely distorted. The pain was intense and, having broken a number of other bones over the years (sporting injuries!), I was sure that my leg was broken. I was also sure there was no way I was going to be able to get back to the northern end of the beach where everyone else was, because I couldn’t bear to even put my foot to the ground. I was completely isolated at the southern end of the beach: the nearest people were nearly a kilometre away. I knew I couldn’t possibly hop for a kilometre while carrying a surfboard, so I decided to sit on the sand and hope that someone would eventually come along to help me.
I have to confess that, at first, I was angry with myself and incredibly frustrated because I knew I was facing many weeks with my leg in plaster. I wouldn’t be able to run (as I did every day). I wouldn’t be able to ride my bike. And I would have lots of trouble at College because all my lecture rooms were on the 2nd floor and there were no lifts in the building.
After a while I began to feel convicted about my anger and frustration. I realised that it was pointless being angry about something that I couldn’t change and that would only be a temporary nuisance. I also realised that I had very little to complain about compared to many people in the world who endure terrible hardship every day of their lives. I asked God to forgive me for my attitude and I began to think of all the blessings I should be thanking God for, instead of whingeing about a broken bone that would soon be fixed. As I reflected on these things, a simple worship song came to mind and there, on that lonely stretch of beach, I started to sing it.
I figured I was going to be waiting for a while before someone came along who could help me, and I ended up singing several worship songs. But after a while it suddenly dawned on me that my leg wasn’t hurting anymore. I looked down at it. The huge, ugly purple swelling was completely gone. Maybe I was looking at the wrong leg? I glanced at the other leg. No. I was definitely looking at the correct leg. I looked back at the ‘injured’ leg. There was absolutely no sign of any injury. I poked and prodded the area where the injury had been. No pain! Feeling absolutely stunned, I stood up, initially standing only on my uninjured leg and holding my injured leg off the ground. Then I tentatively place that foot to the ground, ever so gently. No pain! I placed all my weight on my injured leg. No pain! I started jumping up and down on my injured leg, trying to find any vestige of pain. None!
Still feeling completely stunned, I picked up my board and ran all the way back to my wife. When I arrived there, she was lying on her towel, having just come out of the water. I stood over her, panting after my run, trying to think of how to explain what had just happened to me. In what I would later come to regard as the understatement of a lifetime, I simply said, “I think I’ve just been healed!”
Now, most of you don’t know me, personally. For all you know, I could be just another religious nutter with a self-deluded story of a miracle. After all, there are a lot of nutters out there who are convinced of all sorts of things!
The thing about self-delusion, however, is that it usually occurs when there is a pre-existing expectation of something. You want so badly, you want to believe that something will happen, that you convince yourself that it actually has happened. I once met a man who claimed he had been healed of a cold – yet he was still coughing and wheezing and his nose was running and he looked terrible, but according to him, he had been healed. He was self-deluded and, quite frankly, in denial of his ongoing sickness.
In my case, however, I had NO expectation of being healed. In fact, quite the contrary. My healing took me completely by surprise. So much so, that it took me a while to be convinced it had actually happened. It took several minutes of poking and prodding and jumping before I finally became convinced that something miraculous had occurred. (If someone had been able to see me jumping up and down on the sand as I was testing my leg, they would have thought I had ‘lost the plot’!)
This is certainly my most ‘spectacular’ encounter with God’s miraculous power, but it is by no means the only one. I experience God’s intervention in my life on a regular basis, often in much more mundane ways. I regularly experience his peace in times of difficulty, his guidance in times of uncertainty and his provision in times of need. Allow me to briefly give you another example.
In 2018, after publishing three books on theology and philosophy, I was mid-way through writing my first science fiction novel. I was enjoying writing the novel and I felt that it was a good story, particularly as it subtly and sensitively portrayed a Christian worldview while still offering readers what I believed was a cracking yarn. But part-way through the novel I began to have doubts. Was writing a fiction novel too frivolous? Did God want me to be writing more serious books? Was I being self-indulgent? I became so plagued with doubts that I stopped writing. I prayed about the issue for several days, but no bolt from the blue hit me. Then, one morning, I sat at my desk and prayed very specifically, asking God to make it abundantly clear whether he wanted me to continue writing the novel. I promised God that if he asked me to lay it aside I would do just that.
Only about an hour later I received a curious email. It was from a teacher at a local Christian High School where I had previously taught Biblical Studies and Studies of Religion for 15 years. She told me that she had set an assignment for her gifted students asking them to research the scientific challenges facing mankind in seeking to travel the vast distances to other solar systems and possibly colonise other planets. Her students needed to describe each of the challenges and evaluate the various proposed future technologies that are currently being researched in order to overcome those challenges. At the end of her lengthy explanation of the student’s assignment task, the teacher then asked me if I would be interested in coming and speaking to her class about these issues or, at the very least, did I have any helpful information that I could send to her students?
I was absolutely staggered by her email, for several reasons.
Firstly, I had always been a Bible teacher while at that school. I had never taught science or anything remotely connected with cosmology or space travel.
Secondly, the challenges of space flight and the colonisation of exoplanets was EXACTLY the topic of my science fiction novel. In fact, I had spent many, many hours researching exactly those issues in order to start writing the novel.
Thirdly, the teacher who sent me the email could not have had ANY idea that I was writing such a novel, because I had told NO ONE at that stage.
Fourthly and finally, the timing of her email was incredible: it arrived just an hour after praying for a clear sign from God. In fact, I can tell you that in my 60 plus years of life, I have NEVER received an invitation to speak about the challenges of interstellar space travel EXCEPT on the very day when I asked God to confirm if he wanted me to continue writing my novel about interstellar space travel! The statistical improbability of this ‘coincidence’ must be staggeringly high.
As I reflected on the extraordinary timing of the email, I concluded that God was telling me that he was happy for me to continue writing the novel – which I finished and published soon after, along with, eventually, a further seven fiction novels.
At the risk of boring you to tears, allow me to give you one further example of God’s intervention in my life.
One weekend in 2001, my wife and I and our two kids were staying for a few days with my parents at Forster, Australia. Late one afternoon, my young daughter suddenly realised that her watch was missing. She remembered taking it off while we were at the beach earlier that day. She had placed it in her towel while she went for a swim but couldn’t remember seeing it after that. We concluded that it must have fallen out onto the sand when she unwrapped the towel to dry herself. The watch had sentimental value and my daughter was very upset.
We immediately rushed back to the beach, which was only 5 minutes away. Above is the photo of the spot. When we got there the sun was setting and the beach was completely deserted. The lifeguards had long since packed up and left, and there was literally no one on the beach. We stood looking around trying to gauge roughly where our towels had been, but it was impossible to tell without the lifeguard flags with which to orient ourselves. We ended up standing in the middle of a vast stretch of beach staring hopelessly at the sand around us. I remember saying to my wife, “It’s hopeless. We’ll never find it.” My wife, however, refused to give up. “Let’s pray and ask God to help us,” she suggested.
I remember thinking, “I’m sure God has much more important issues to be dealing with than finding a young girl’s watch!”, but I didn’t dare say it aloud. Not wanting to seem unspiritual, I agreed to lead our family in a brief prayer. We held hands and I simply asked God if he would help us find the watch. I have to be totally honest with you at this point: I did not believe that God was going to answer that prayer. Even as I prayed, I was already starting to formulate in my mind a logical, reasonable explanation to give to my wife and children as we drove home empty-handed. I would explain to them that God doesn’t always answer our prayers the way we would like. I would explain that God is much more concerned with transforming us and changing us on the inside than in helping us keep track of our possessions.
I was completely unprepared for what happened next.
As soon as I finished praying and we all said, “Amen”, my wife bent down, plunged her hand into the sand at her feet and squealed. I thought she had been bitten by a crab! She hadn’t. She drew her hand out of the sand and held up my daughter’s watch! It had been buried under about 10cm (4 inches) of sand. It was literally the very first plunge of my wife’s hand. In all that vast, empty beach, we had somehow come to stand precisely where our towels had been and, even more amazingly, my wife’s hand had zeroed in on the watch like a radar-guided missile. To say that I was surprised would be a complete understatement.
Someone could claim that finding my daughter’s watch in that way on the very first plunge of a hand was simply a fluke – a product of brute chance. But what kind of fantastically small probability are we talking about? We had absolutely no idea where our towels had been. For all we knew we could have been 50 or more metres away from our previous spot on the beach.
Please don’t misunderstand me here. I am not claiming that God always acts in this way – that he is our celestial vending machine to grant all our wishes and help us find small items of lost property. As a general rule God has much bigger and more important issues to be concerned about. He is not a convenient celestial “Find My” app. But on this occasion, God apparently had mercy on a small girl who was heartbroken at the loss of something precious to her.
I could multiply these stories a hundredfold – instances from my own life and the life of my family where we have seen God’s gracious, caring, miraculous hand at work. Only very occasionally have they been spectacular miracles, like the healing of my leg. Mostly, in fact nearly always, they have been much more mundane things; the tiny details of everyday life that God mysteriously “tweaks” when we ask for guidance or help of some kind.
Of course, the problem with testimonies of miracles such as these, is that you have no way of corroborating them. In the case of the healing of my leg at the beach, you weren’t there. You didn’t see my original injury. You didn’t feel the pain. You didn’t witness the healing. All you have is my word for it. For all you know, I could be making up that whole story. I could be making up all of these stories. And I can’t help you with that. I don’t have video footage that I can post on social media. I don’t go through life with a video camera strapped to my head just in case a miracle happens.
And, of course, the scepticism of the atheist community regarding supposed miracles is given a great deal of fuel because of the prevalence of fakes and frauds. Sadly, there are people who falsely and deliberately claim miracles – they make up stories of miraculous healings and even set up fraudulent healings at rallies in order to increase their fame and rake in more money. They will have to give account to God one day for their deceptive practices.
But the existence of fakes and frauds does not disprove the existence of the real thing. There are plenty of fake Rolex watches in the marketplace, but that doesn’t mean the real thing doesn’t exist.
In my own life, I regularly experience the very real presence of God, as he guides me and strengthens me and provides for my needs. And all I can do is testify to my experience of God’s reality. And in doing so, I acknowledge that my testimony does not constitute objective evidence. It is subjective. It is my own experience of God.
But we shouldn’t dismiss subjective testimony as unimportant. In a court of law, subjective testimony often makes a valid and significant contribution to the establishment of a verdict. When two or more people testify that they saw or heard something, it is considered to be powerful legal evidence, even though there may be no corroborating objective evidence such as video footage.
In the “legal case” regarding the question of God’s existence, not only do we have loads of objective evidence but we also have the corroborating testimony of billions of ordinary Christians like me who testify to the reality of God’s presence in their lives.
So all I can do is give my testimony and assure you that I am not a nutter. I am not a person who is given to gross exaggeration or is carried away by emotions and hype. In fact, those who know me well will testify that I am a very logically-driven person who analyses everything carefully and demands unequivocal evidence before believing something. I am not easily fooled or self-deluded.
But I am convinced of the existence of God, not merely because of the observable, measurable, evidence of science and the verifiable evidence of history which we’ve already examined in this video series, but also at a much more personal level because of my daily experience of God in my life. Beyond the more spectacular interventions that I have shared with you in this episode, I have a strong sense of God’s presence in my life every day in subtle ways. And I’m not the only one. As I said, billions of Christians all over the world will testify to the same thing.
If you’re not yet a believer, you probably won’t find this area of evidence convincing at all. The typical response of sceptics to the kind of testimony I’ve presented in this episode is to point out how easily human beings are fooled into believing they’ve experienced all kinds of ridiculous things. Atheists would tell me I am deluded and that it’s all just wishful thinking.
Maybe that’s your response too. And if it is, I can’t help you with that. All I can do is honestly testify to my own undeniable experience of God in my own life.
There’s a verse in the Bible that speaks of this personal experience of God and which invites you to open your heart to experience the goodness of God for yourself: “Taste and see that the Lord is good” (Psalm 34:8)
Notice it doesn’t merely say, “believe that the Lord is good” It says, “taste and see that he is good”. It invites us encounter God personally, experientially; to move beyond mere intellectual belief and open our hearts to his life-changing presence.
You see, evidence-based belief can only take you so far. It can bring you to the point where you may concede that God’s existence is more probable than his non-existence. But you will never reach certainty of faith based on evidence alone. What we all need is to encounter God personally. And for those of us who do, who take that step to open ourselves to God’s presence, to taste and see as the Bible urges us to do, only then do we reach a surety of faith that surpasses mere intellectual assent.
It’s the undeniable presence of God in my own life, as I encounter his goodness daily that makes me absolutely convinced of his reality. And God invites you to encounter him in the same way. He promises: “You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.” (Jeremiah 29:13)
It’s my hope and prayer that you will find God for yourself, when you seek him with all your heart.
We haven’t quite finished this series. There are a few more important episodes to go. So hang in there just a little longer! In particular, can I urge you not to miss the next episode, which is a staggering story of a miracle of God on a national and international level. I think you’ll find the next episode fascinating and compelling.