Even for the majority of people who do believe in God, the question – does God exist – still will creep into their minds occasionally. For others who do not have a firm believe in God this question in even more important. Below is an excerpt from my book God for Grown Ups on this enduring question:
For me this ultimate question really came down to
something fairly simple, which is that this universe that we are in is
either a creation or an accident. It is either something that has a
conscious creation behind it or it is something that just came together
out of basically random coincidences.
Now some would argue that the universe and nature began to order
itself and that then order was created out of chaos, but there was no
original force or intelligence behind the resulting order.
However, that is really just a variation on the random chance
argument since it would be just as likely that no order was created –
without any guiding principle behind it the fact that the universe was
able to order itself would still be just dumb luck. If order was
inevitable then there was something else going on that made that
order inevitable.
If in fact the entire creation including life itself is an accident, if the
formation of galaxies upon galaxies and universes upon universes is
just an accident, and if the formation of life itself is just a random
event of some cells that came together and created life and then
evolved all the way up to human beings, then that is it. In that case
you don’t really need to look any further. There is no need for any
spiritual seeking; we live in a random universe. We live and then we
die – end of story.
That would also mean that human consciousness is nothing more than
an effect of our brains which have also evolved over time, because
there would be no reason or sense for consciousness to exist apart
from the physical aspect of the brain.
On the other hand if it does not seem like life and all of existence is
simply accidental, what are the implications of that conclusion? Is
there any proof to support that position? It is beyond the scope of this
book to cover all the areas in science that have shown us the
incredible connections and synchronicities that exist in our world and
our universe. But we can see some very clear cases that support this
idea.
For example – we know the conditions necessary for life to form are so
amazingly narrow that for life to have actually happened seems to be
more than just a random coincidence. We know that scientists have
not been able to recreate any conditions that allow a group of
chemicals to jump the gap into being alive – so how did that happen?
We also see patterns in nature repeated over and over. Connections
in the way stars and galaxies are formed and evolve repeat
themselves over and over. And some of these patterns occur all the
way from the macro level of stars and galaxies down to the micro level
of atoms.
Even more than that it seems obvious to me that our consciousness is
greater than just what could be explained by mental activity. As
stated before, no one has a clear picture on consciousness and the
brain, but there are certainly many examples, such as out of body
experiences, where consciousness seems to go beyond the limits of
the physical.
Then if you come to the conclusion – as I have – that this is a creation,
then there has to be a creator, some energy and intelligence that
made the creation. So, to me, the ultimate proof of God’s existence is
simply that everything points to the fact that we live in a creation
which means there must be a Creator.
If you come down on that side of the argument – that we live in a
wonderful creation and that everything is working together in some
way – then you have to believe in God, whatever way you want that to
be. Then the question becomes the one we are exploring – what is the
nature of that God that has created all?
So as a teenager I was leaning toward a belief in God but was still
questioning and had no real spiritual practice or understanding. I then
went off to school at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. And it
was during this period of my life when I awakened to my true spiritual
nature.