God Is
Q: What is God?
A: God is the creator and sustainer of everyone and everything. He is eternal, infinite, and perfect in his goodness, wisdom, and power. Nothing is outside of his control.
In 2004, the famous philosopher and one of the foremost defender of atheism, Antony Flew, shook the world of philosophy and science by declaring that he was now convinced that science demonstrates the existence of a God.
In his book There is a God he writes, “I now believe that the universe was brought into existence by an infinite Intelligence. I believe that this universe's intricate laws manifest what scientists have called the Mind of God. I believe that life and reproduction originate in a divine Source. Why do I believe this, given that I expounded and defended atheism for more than a half century? The short answer is this: this is the world picture, as I see it, that has emerged from modern science.”
While Dr. Flew believed in the God of Genesis 1:1 who “created the heavens and the earth”, he did not believe in the God of Genesis 3:8 who was “walking in the garden in the cool of the day” amidst his creation. His god was a god who created and abandoned his creation rather than the God of the Bible, who reveals himself and is still actively involved in creation and in history.
We know God through his revelation of himself. He describes himself to Moses as the “I Am” and to the Christians in the Book of Revelation as “the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End”. In other words, he is eternal and infinite.
We also know God through how he is revealed through his actions. His goodness is shown by his hatred of injustice and his plan to rescue humanity from sin and sin’s corruption. We know his wisdom through his plan of salvation by choosing the nation of Israel to bring about the birth of the Savior, Jesus who is God-With-Us. We know his power by his raising of Jesus from the dead, and by his renewal of sinful humanity to become children of God.
Apart from God’s self-revelation and his activity, we could hardly know anything about God. Flew’s god is distant, shadowy and unknowable. But the God revealed by Jesus is good, personal, loving, caring, and redemptive.
Still, there is enough evidence in nature to demonstrate the existence of an infinite intelligence. Dr. Flew writes, “We have all the evidence we need in our immediate experience and that only a deliberate refusal to ‘look’ is responsible for atheism of any variety”. Dr. Flew was attempting to grasp with his intellect what has already been revealed by sheer grace.