Exodus 3:13-14 "And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them? And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you."

In Hebrew times the name of a person was always descriptive of the person.  The title God gives Himself, YHWH, or I AM, shows His infinity or eternal nature. God was not created by man, but has always been in existence. He is the great I AM.  Man did not create the idea of God to cover up his own scientific ignorance, for there are many historical proofs that man has never been unintelligent.  There are proofs that man, even before the time of Christ, understood creation and his relationship to it.  If Joseph did not understand the virgin birth as contrary to nature, then why did he seek to divorce Mary, believing her pregnancy to be the result of sexual promiscuity?  If man did not know that the sun normally rose in the East, then why would he have been interested in it once rising in the West? (Isaiah 45.6)

C. S. Lewis "The religion in the world that gives its followers the greatest happiness is, while it lasts, the religion of worshipping oneself."

"We are gods" has been the cry of mankind ever since the Tower of Babel.  Atheism has always been a blind faith in the falsehood that God is not there.  There are more proofs for God in nature alone than the atheist can ever hope to disprove.

THE PATTERN OF NATURE: In nature there's a pattern, a design, a system of order.  A design shows purpose, which in turn points to an intelligent Designer.  When you look at a house you know that an intelligent builder made it. You know that it would be preposterous to say, "That house just came into being. It evolved from a speck of wood dust into what it is today."  When you honestly look at the world around you, you know that an intelligent God created it.

THE EFFECT OF NATURE: Nature is an effect, so what is the first cause?  Scientists can explain links in the natural chain that lead up to an event, but cannot explain the first cause of it all.  The actual existence of the chain is totally unexplainable unless you accept that it was created by God.

C. S. Lewis "The the law of physics .... When one pool ball (A) sets another ball in motion (B) the momentum lost by (A) is equal to that gained in (B).  This is the law.  But this is only provided that something sets (A) into motion.  The law does not set the ball into motion.  But if on a ship with the pool table, and the same occurred, it was not the law that did this, the wave caused the incident. The wave was moved according to the law but not moved by them. However far you trace back, the laws of nature never causes anything."

To sum up Lewis, we can see the effect, but must attribute the cause to something else other than man, nature, or the laws of physics.  If the naturalistic idea of evolution is true, and mankind sprang up from the beginnings of chaos, then every particular thought of man is not intelligent but flawed because of our source. Thought born of irrational causes must needs be flawed itself, totally untrustworthy.  If we accept the humanist theory of creation we make our own theory error in the first place.

There are two proofs of God found in human nature.  They are (1) the intuitive proof and, (2) the moral nature of mankind.

C.S. Lewis "I could not believe that 999 religions were completely wrong, and the remaining one true.  In reality Christianity is primarily the fulfillment of the Jewish religion: but also the fulfillment of what was vaguely hinted at in all other religions at their best."

All men to a degree, whether consciously or unconsciously, believe in a Creator, an intelligence higher than themselves.  "There are no atheists in foxholes".  If you and I both jump out of a jet plane flying thousands of feet above the earth without parachutes, I am certain I could claim your soul for Christ before we hit the ground.

The moral argument for the existence of God relates to the conscience of man.  The conscience of all men expresses a moral viewpoint in relation to the knowledge that we have.  The human race has a sense of morality and order that could only have been given to us by a moral God.  If a man at one point history had said, "You know, it would be nice if we had a sense of order", then that man would in reality have already had that sense in place prior to his statement.

Why do men have a sense of right and wrong, good and evil?  If good is what man makes it, then why is it not good to murder?  There is indeed a Higher Being who  instruct us all in what is good and what is evil through our conscience.

The proofs of God that we have seen so far, that scientific witness,  is what is known theologically as the General Revelation of God.  These proofs are limited in their use because of the Fall of man.  When Adam fell he caused all of creation to fall with him.  When the master falls (as Adam was, by decree of God), so falls the  servants.

God's creation suffered the corruption of sin, just as Adam did, when he disobeyed God. Because nature is corrupted by sin we often get a clouded view of the Creator when we look at this spoiled handiwork. We ask "How could a loving God allow such cruelty and suffering?". Nature gives us the wrong idea that the Creator is brutal, torturous, when in reality the corruption we see in nature is a result of Adam's failure. Nature does not tell us that we are unrighteous, unable to get into Heaven on our own. But nature does clearly reflect that it was made by a Creator:

Romans 1:20  "For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse"..

In order that man understand God and what He expects of us, He has revealed Himself to us through Special Revelation.  What are the characteristics of any true Special Revelation from God?

1.  It must supply reachable answers to solve man's problems.

2.  It must rationally describe God to man.

3.  It must explain the justice and mercy of God, and harmonize these two characteristics of Deity.

The Bible is this Special Revelation from God.  It supplies the answers to man's problems in the atonement of Christ.  It describes God to man by the use of easily understood relationships.  It harmonizes the justice and mercy of God in the event of the Cross of Calvary.

The Bible itself claims to have certain necessary knowledge of God, and describes the necessary knowledge of what God expects of man:

2 Corinthians 5:20-21 "Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God.  For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him."

Romans 3:21-26 "But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference:  For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus."

There are external proofs that the Bible is the Special Revelation of God to man. These proofs are furnished in the Person and historic authenticity of Jesus Christ.

(Watson) .. "No one has ever discovered the words that Jesus ought to have said ....  No action of His shocked our moral sense ....  Some have puzzled us ....  None have fallen short of the ideal ....  He is full of surprises, but they were always surprises of perfection."

There are about 60 major prophecies concerning the Messiah in the Bible, and Jesus fulfilled them all.  All of the prophecies concerning Christ were written before 450 B.C.  These 60 prophecies had 270 minor details that had to be fulfilled perfectly in the true Messiah.  The probable fulfillment of just eight of these being completed in one man's lifetime are one in every 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.  This proves two points: (1) When Jesus fulfilled all 60 prophecies verbatim, this stands as a testament that Jesus was indeed Messiah, and conversely (2) By accurately foretelling these 60 prophecies we can say this stands as a testament that the Bible is indeed the Word of God. The chances of the various writers of Scripture "just stumbling" on this information is so astronomical that you cannot even assign a probability to it. You have a better chance of guessing the winning lottery number on the first try!

The Scripture, by its fulfilled prophecies, shows it emanates from the very hand of God. The prophecies of Ezekiel 25-26 were fulfilled in their entirety less than twenty years after the text was penned. The Prophecies of Daniel 2 were also fulfilled less than 100 years after its foretelling. These are powerful proofs that the Bible is God's Special Revelation to us, a revelation we should diligently study if we would understand our Creator.

The Scientific Witness of General Revelation will show you that there is a Creator, but you must understand the Witness of Special Revelation, the Holy Bible, if you are to see Him clearly. In our next section we will study our Maker as He is portrayed by Special Revelation. God Bless!

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