The basic question which has plagued the minds of thinking people down through the ages is, "Does God exist?" Very often a parent has been faced with this very important query by the child: If God made everything, who made God?

I want to look at this question from two angles. One can be called a scientific approach and the other a philosophical approach. The answer from the scientific point of view has two divisions - the cosmological and the teleological. The philosophical approach can similarly be divided into the rational and the moral arguments in favor of the existence of God.

Grasping the Infinite with the Finite

Before I go into the detailed answer to these questions, I want to make one important qualification: In God, we are dealing with the One Who is infinite and eternal. We are using methods which are necessarily finite and which come within the compass of the human mind. We should therefore be prepared to admit that no final proof for God as such can exist through either of these two approaches. This is understandable because we are dealing with an infinite God and we are using finite means. Some one can say, "If you can precipitate God in a test tube and establish that He exists, then I will believe in Him". I will have to say "Sorry" to that kind of an approach because God is not 'matter' which can be precipitated in a scientific manner as a result of a chemical experiment in the laboratory.

Similarly, using the 'logic' branch of philosophy, a person may require us to produce God as the conclusion of a deductive logical argument.

Logic falls into two categories - the deductive and the inductive. In deductive logic, we start with universals and proceed to particulars. For instance, a librarian can introduce a particular section as containing science books. If I take one book from any one of those shelves I know that, it would be a science book. My argument will go something like this:

First premise - All books in this section are science books.
Second premise - This book is from this section.
Conclusion - This book is a science book.

You will notice that the conclusion is a certain one in this deductive argument because it started with the universal of all books in the section being science books as a given premise. On the other hand, if I went into a library and nobody told me what was in a particular section and I took one particular book and I found that to be a science book and if I conclude that all the books in that section are science books, my argument would be an inductive argument:

First premise - This book is from this section.
Second premise - This book is a science book.
Conclusion - All books in this section are science books.

Now you will definitely agree with me that the conclusion of this inductive argument is not a certain conclusion. It a probable conclusion because the more books I sample and find them to be science books, the more probable my conclusion would be. We should remember that when we deal with God, we are starting with particulars and we are moving towards universals because God is the ultimate Universal and the particular that we are examining is nature (Romans 1:19,20). We work backwards to the universal who is God Himself. So we notice that this is a situation where we use inductive logic. God can never be the conclusion of a deductive argument. Whether we use the scientific or the philosophical approach to the existence of god, we reach conclusions which are of high probability. That which bridges the gap between high probability and certainty is what we call "Faith."