them because he sees the effects produced by these unseen things. Invisible electric current produces heat and light; unseen radio waves produce sound and pictures; minute particles within the atom can be made to release tremendous power.

But what does this have to do with belief in God? It has a great deal to do with God, for just as the effects produced by invisible electricity, radio waves and atomic particles prove that these things exist, so the fact that there is an invisible Creator, an Almighty One whose name is Jehovah, is proved by the equally clear observable effects of his power. What effects? The following article answers.

Why Believe in God

Is that belief logical? What are the evidences for it? Why should you accept the Bible as being God’s Word?

SOME people say they believe only what they can see. We reply most emphatically: Believe it! Yes, believe what you can see! The apostle Paul said the visible creation shows God’s power: “For his invisible qualities are clearly seen from the world’s creation onward, because they are understood by the things made, even his eternal power and Godship.” (Rom. 1:20, NW) Most people do believe that the things they see are proof of God’s existence. A Gallup Poll survey showed that even in presumably “materialistic” America 96 percent of the people interviewed said they believe in God. They have looked at the order and majesty of the world around them, at the existence of man and at the Bible itself and have seen convincing arguments that God does exist.

One writer put it this way: “If we start with an open mind, ready to believe or not believe according to the evidence, it is quite probable that we shall discover that it is easier to believe in God than to decide that plants, animals and man himself, body and mind, had their origin as the product of blind, purposeless chance. It is perhaps fitting to add that many persons do not wish to believe in God. They realize that it would rebuke their past and change their future to an unpleasant degree if they did.”a

What do you think about the origin of the universe itself? Was it pure chance, just an accident, a combination of many fortuitous events? Or does it bear witness to the existence of another mind that is higher, more intelligent, and that existed long before man did? Remember that the universe is not chaos, as it might well be if it were accidental, but is in order. Does this indicate to you that conscious thought is responsible for it? that it was designed by an intelligent creator?

Are the orderly laws that extend from the light-year expanse of the starry heavens to the tiny atoms that compose all matter just an accident? Are the exact motions of the heavenly bodies that form the standard for our timepieces an accident? Did accidents produce earth and man and all living creation—not just one such accidental occurrence, but a whole series of thousands of millions of them that marvelously combined, without other accidental happenings occurring that would destroy it all?

Is a power greater than chance involved in the universe’s origin? Scientist Arthur H. Compton said of the parts of the tiny atom: “If the simple yet prolific set of pushes and pulls to which the electrons are subject result from pure chance, then chance is more ingenious than the most clever of our scientists.”b

Not only do the origin of matter and the order in the universe present problems for those who deny the existence of a Creator, but there is the far greater problem of the origin of life itself. There was a time when spontaneous generation (called abiogenesis, meaning origin from nonlife) was believed to produce life. Worms developed out of putrid flesh, lice from dirt, frogs from the mud of pools, etc. But Pasteur’s experiments of nearly a hundred years demolished that theory. If it is argued that abiogenesis does not occur now but did occur in bygone ages, that is merely speculation. It is not a scientific argument, since it would not be based upon observation and experiment, but rather upon blind assertions that can neither be observed nor proved. Dr. J. Gray, a leading experimental zoologist, explained: “The spontaneous origin of living from inanimate matter must be regarded as a highly improbable event, and as such can be assumed not to have occurred.”c

The question is simple: Did matter, order, the marvelous universe and the unexplainable miracle of life occur purely through the outworkings of chance, or were they produced through the design of a great Creator? The former is so implausible that it takes more faith to believe in the materialistic theory of evolution than it does to believe in God! It remains true that “the heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.”—Ps. 19:1; Job 9:8; Isa. 40:26; Jer. 10:12.

EVEN GREATER MARVELS

But there is much more to be considered. Man, through the diligent use of his intelligence, has attained great accomplishments, but even in simple things nature’s wisdom came long before man’s. Aeons before man developed levers they existed in animals’ bodies. Unknown time before man made his first force pump the heart existed. Further, valves to control the movement of fluids exist in the heart and veins. Brushes to remove mucus are found in the windpipe. Electric batteries have been the possession of eels from time immemorial. Heatless light is manufactured by glowworms and fireflies. Heavier-than-air flying has long been the prerogative of birddom. Were these things just accidents, just the outworkings of chance, or is there an intelligence behind them that is far greater than man’s? That they were an accident is far more difficult to believe than is the Christian view that they were created!

Further, man’s intelligence lets him plan for the future. But how