Is Belief In God Reasonable?

In a previous article I addressed the question of proof for the existence of God. People will often ask for proof, but whatever evidence is offered is usually dismissed with a comment along the lines of, “but there’s another, more reasonable, explanation for that phenomenon”, whether ‘that phenomenon’ be the existence of the universe, order in the universe, life, intelligence, morality, or whatever.

In some quarters it is even considered that belief in God, per se, is unreasonable, and that anyone who was properly educated, and understood the latest discoveries of science, would abandon any such hopeless idea at once and embrace the glorious, liberating truth of atheism.

In this article I am setting out to demonstrate that, far from being unreasonable, belief in God is not only reasonable but provides the most satisfactory explanation for the important questions of life and the universe in which we live.

But, let me first of all come clean by making a confession. I have never read Professor Richard Dawkins’s book ‘The God Delusion’.

Now that may not seem like a cardinal sin, and neither is it. I do confess that I have read other books by him, but not that one. And the reason that I am making my confession is that I am going to make reference to a question that he posed in that book. As I did not read it, I cannot quote him verbatim, but my understanding is that the question he posed was this: “Who created the creator?”.

In my view, this is a very important question. In fact, I asked the same question myself, though in different words, when I was a boy. I can’t remember what age I was at the time – perhaps 10 or 12 – but I asked my mother, who regularly took us to church, “Where did God come from?” Her answer was brief: “That’s what we don’t know”. She then got on with whatever it was that she was doing, and the matter was not pursued.

I was not satisfied with her answer.

So, let’s consider that important question now.