I remember the day I first heard about killdeer. What a strange name. Perhaps it refers to a predator? The picture that came to my mind is that of a wolverine. With a name like killdeer, how could it not be a vicious predator? As often happens, it turned out I was wrong. Killdeer aren't mammals like wolverines, they're little birds. Rather adorable birds at that. To this day, I still have no clue why they're called killdeer.
My initial misunderstanding about what a killdeer is highlights a problem with discussing theology. If I'd been told about killdeer, not looked them up, and then seen a killdeer in real life, I'd never have made the connection. I literally would not have known a killdeer if it jumped up and pecked me in the face. This mirrors a number of atheists perfectly. Specifically, it is analogous to those atheists who insist that there is no evidence of God's existence.
When you speak to atheists, you'll find that very few of them actually understand the faith they're attacking. A simple way to test this is to ask them what exactly would count as evidence for God? Often, they'll freeze up. They'll pause, they'll stutter, they'll use words like "well" and "um" quite a lot, and finally they'll admit that they just have no idea. So, the reason they claim there is no evidence for God is not that there genuinely is no evidence for God, but because they don't know what the evidence for God would look like.
As an example, the majority of atheists will hone in on science. Is there any scientific evidence for God? There are two ways to answer this question. The first is that yes, ultimately, all academic fields point to God if you understand how. But the answer is actually no, science can't even study God. Science deals with natural phenomena, which ultimately means it is limited in its scope. Nature is the creation, God is the Creator.
An analogy could be drawn between Karl Benz and the first car. There is car-tific (yes, I know that's not a word, but work with me) evidence that Karl Benz existed. It's simple: Cars do not get built on their own, they need some intelligent mind to create them. Therefore, a human must have existed to create the first car. Then you get into the nitty gritty about how do you know it was specifically Karl Benz who invented them etc., but you get the point: The car itself is evidence for Karl Benz. However, Karl Benz is not integral to the car, and thus the only way to use the car to prove Karl Benz' existence would be if he were sat in it during the study. Even then, Karl Benz' nature is different from the nature of the car, and thus you would need a little more than a basic knowledge of engineering to study Karl Benz.
The same exact logic applies when talking about science and God. Science itself is evidence that God exists, not just because we can prove that the universe must have had a supernatural origin outside of both time and space, but because even then it is ordered in such a way that only an intelligent mind could have done it (and that is an assumption that both pioneered and sustains science today). We can argue until we're blue in the face about who God is, but it is scientifically impossible that the universe can exist without some form of God. Also, like Karl Benz, God is not an integral part of His creation. He can enter and leave His creation at any point, He can meddle with it in ways it otherwise would not behave, but ultimately we cannot expect science to tell us any more about God than we can expect a car to tell us about Karl Benz.
You see, then, that an atheist who says "there is no scientific evidence for God" is asking for the wrong type of evidence. It's like asking me to prove whales exist by handing me a telescope and pointing me to the moon. So, what exactly would be evidence of God? If I was to try to prove God to you, how would I go about it? Well, first, as I've already stated, science does offer some evidence for God. It's just not in the way people would expect. You can't put God in a test tube.
What you can do is show that the first law of thermodynamics dictates that the total amount of matter and energy in the universe remains the same at all times, and that the second law of thermodynamics dictates that the matter and energy in any closed system (such as the universe) will eventually reach its most probable distribution. This means that the universe is actually heading towards what's called a "heat death". But if matter and energy are eternal, that means the universe should have suffered that heat death not decades ago, not centuries ago, but an infinite amount of time ago. Yet here we are. One of the logical conclusions for this is that neither the first nor the second laws were in force in the universe at some finite time in the past. Shall we say, about 6,000 years ago? When God created the heavens and the earth?
Now of course, it could have been another god. God, after all, is not the only divine being who claims to be eternal, omnipotent, and omniscient. But not even the Bible puts forward just one piece of evidence. There are four main evidences the Bible offers for itself. We've just looked at creation, but the other four are about to follow.
These are:
- Prophecy
- Miracles
- Witness testimony
- History
Prophecy
A unique skill God has is telling the future. He lives outside time, after all, so the future is, for lack of better term, His "present". Don't try to get your head around that, you won't succeed any more than you can comprehend infinity. The point is, God knows the future, and He uses this to verify His identity. Now, human beings are able to predict the future. We can predict small things like who will win an election, or what the weather will be like in the morning. Derren Brown is even able to predict the lottery numbers using some highly intricate techniques.
But human prophecies have several differences from God's prophecies. Human predictions are often (though not always) vague, having enough details to be fulfilled, but not enough to be disproven. Human prophecies are also often wrong. Human prophecies are often inevitable, or at least so diverse that in any group of people commenting on the same issue, one of them will get it right.
None of this is the case with God. God's prophecies always contain perfect details, i.e. just enough details to be proven wrong, just enough details to be recognised upon fulfilment, and just few enough details that they can't be fully recognised (or sabotaged) until the time is right. God's prophecies are never inevitable, often containing details that might seem, or might even actually be impossible. Most importantly, God's prophecies are never wrong! You will not find a single prophecy in the Bible that has failed, only prophecies that are (currently) unfulfilled. The latter is not a failure, simply because if God says a thing will happen at 12:00 on Sunday, it makes no sense to say it failed at 9:00 the previous Monday.
Miracles
A miracle is defined as the temporary suspension of a natural law by a supernatural agent. This doesn't always have to be God, but God's are by far the most spectacular. More importantly, they are miraculous. God does things that no one else, not even Satan, can do. God's proof of His identity is His absolute power over His creation.
Witness testimony
In a court case, witness testimony is often key. None of the lawyers, jury, or judges witnessed the event, but a witness, by definition, did. Any witness testimony is evidence that a historical event happened, but multiple, corroborating witness testimony is far more powerful. If Dodgy Dave the con man tells you he saw aliens while he was high one night, that's not very powerful evidence that there were aliens, but if 12 people all appear, giving you numerous different corroborating accounts, you know that whether or not they saw aliens, they saw something that would appear to be aliens. No one can experience the same hallucination.
Another type of witness is hostile witness: Someone who has motive to deny, yet confirms anyway. As an example, I remember seeing a clip of a man who was accused of stealing a purse. The claimant told the judge the purse included $50, giftcards, ID, an earpiece and a calculator. The defendant, rather than deny that he stole the purse, told the judge "there was no earpiece in there, Ma'am." The defendant's confession was proof that he had stolen the purse because rather than denying the purse, he denied only one object within it.
History
History ultimately combines all of these things. We can compare Biblical prophecy with their alleged fulfilment in history and see that yes, the prophecies of the Bible were fulfilled in exactly the way the Bible says they would have been. We can verify miracles in a number of ways, whether through physical leftovers, such as fossils being left by the flood, or by witness testimony. Witness testimony abounds for the Bible's accuracy, and in fact the Bible itself is the testimony of witnesses, all confirming each other.
By far the greatest, and well attested miracle in the Bible is the resurrection. The resurrection is prophesied repeatedly throughout the Bible (e.g. Psalm 16:9–11 cf. Acts 2:31), both in the Old Testament and the new. The resurrection was a miracle; only God, and those to whom He gives it, can raise the dead. The resurrection is attested to by multiple witnesses, both friendly (e.g. 1 Corinthians 9:1; 1 Corinthians 15:3-8) and hostile (e.g. Matthew 28:12). To deny God, in light of all of this evidence, is utter folly!
So when people claim there is no evidence for God, it's not because there isn't. It's because they simply aren't aware of it yet. They don't know there is evidence for God because even if they did see it, they wouldn't know they'd seen it. But there is evidence for God, sufficient even to pass any fair test. All you need to do is look.