You have never met a true atheist. That may sound like an exaggeration. It is not. It is the settled conviction of one of the most careful theologians the church has ever produced.
Thomas Watson, the great Puritan pastor of the seventeenth century, opened his exposition of the Westminster Shorter Catechism by establishing a truth that every other doctrine depends on: God exists. Before he would explain what God is like, he first proved that God is. His reasoning rests on seven lines of evidence, and each one deserves our attention.
Creation Points to a Creator
The heavens declare God's glory. The earth displays His craftsmanship. If you traveled to a foreign country and saw magnificent buildings, would you assume they built themselves? Of course not. Neither can the universe account for its own existence. Someone made it. Someone sustains it.
Consider the order of the world. The sun runs its course. The sea stays within its bounds. Every creature acts within its sphere. Who could set this great army of creatures in their ranks and keep them in their constant march but the Lord of Hosts? If God were to withdraw His sustaining influence for even a moment, the wheels of creation would come apart.
And consider motion itself. Every moving thing is moved by something else. The elements are moved by the heavenly bodies. The heavenly bodies are moved by higher forces. But somewhere the chain must stop. There must be a first mover who is Himself unmoved. That first mover can be no one but God.
The Human Body and Soul Reveal God's Design
The world outside us is not the only witness. Turn inward. The human body is fearfully and wonderfully made, wrought as curiously as needlework (Ps. 139:15). And if the cabinet of the body is so finely crafted, what does that say about the jewel inside it?
The soul is that jewel. It possesses understanding, will, and affection. It is spiritual in nature and therefore immortal. It does not grow old. It lives forever. Who could create a soul with such noble, angelic properties but God? "It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves" (Ps. 100:3).
Conscience Proves a Higher Judge Exists
Every person carries an internal witness. Conscience either accuses or excuses (Rom. 2:15). When we do right, conscience approves and says, "Well done." When we sin, conscience spits fire in our faces and fills us with shame.
This inner court of law only makes sense if there is a higher Judge to whom we must answer. The Roman emperor Tiberius, a violent and cruel man, confessed to the senate that he suffered death daily from the torment of his own conscience. And the nearer wicked men approach death, the more their conscience alarms them. Why? Because the soul, sensing its own immortality, trembles before a God who never ceases to live and therefore will never cease to judge.
Every Culture Has Worshiped Something
Every nation in every age has worshiped. Some worshiped wrongly. Many worshiped blindly. But the universal instinct to worship points to a reality that atheism cannot explain. No culture so barbarous has ever existed without the belief that there is a God.
Even the altar in Athens inscribed "To the Unknown God" testified that human beings know, at some deep level, that God is there (Acts 17:22). The pagans knew a god should be worshiped. They simply did not know the God who should be worshiped.
Fulfilled Prophecy Sets the True God Apart
He who can foretell events centuries before they occur is the true God. And Scripture is filled with exactly this kind of evidence. God foretold that a virgin would conceive. He fixed the time the Messiah would be cut off (Dan. 9:26). He named the Persian king Cyrus as Israel's deliverer long before Cyrus was born (Isa. 45:1).
God Himself used this argument to distinguish Himself from every false god. In Isaiah 41, He challenged the idols to prove their deity by predicting the future. They could not. Only the true God declares the end from the beginning.
God's Unlimited Power Confirms His Deity
No force can stop God from acting. "I will work, and who shall let it?" (Isa. 43:13). He overturns the plans of the proud. He makes diviners mad. He cuts off the spirit of princes. He bridles the sea, gives check to the leviathan, and binds the devil in chains. A being of such absolute sovereignty can only be God.
Nothing can hinder action but a superior power. There is no power above God. All power that exists comes from Him. Therefore all power is under Him.
The Existence of Demons Proves the Existence of God
This final argument may surprise the modern reader. If there is a malicious spiritual power at work in the world, there must also be a supreme and good spiritual power above it. Scripture calls demons "hairy ones" because they often appeared in the form of goats or satyrs. Even the pagan philosopher Socrates, reasoning on his deathbed, concluded that if an evil spirit exists, a good one must exist as well.
Atheists cannot deny that there are devils. And if they grant that, they must also grant there is a God.
Practical Atheism Is the Most Dangerous Way to Live
These seven arguments are not merely intellectual exercises. They press into the conscience.
Many people would never say "There is no God" with their lips. But they say it every day with their choices. They lie, cheat, and indulge as though no one is watching. Would they dare live this way if they truly believed a holy God would call them to account? The fool does not say with his tongue that there is no God. He says it in his heart (Ps. 14:1). He wishes it were true.
God Will Judge Righteously
If God exists, then He will settle every account. Things in this world seem terribly unequal. The wicked flourish. The godly suffer. Evil men enjoy all the good, and good men endure all the evil.
But "shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" (Gen. 18:25). The sinner's judgment day is coming. While there is a hell, the wicked will be punished enough. While there is eternity, they will be there long enough. And God will abundantly compensate the faithful service of His people. They will have their white robes and their crowns (Ps. 58:11).
It is the highest folly to oppose such a God. "Can your heart endure, or can your hands be strong, in the day that I shall deal with you?" (Ezek. 22:14). God is the best friend but the worst enemy. What fools they are who, for a drop of pleasure, drink a sea of wrath.
The Comfort of Knowing God Is Yours
But all of this leads not merely to warning. It leads to invitation.
It is little comfort to know that there is a God unless He is yours. God offers Himself to be our God (Jer. 31:33). Faith takes hold of that offer and makes all that is in Him ours. His wisdom, to teach us. His holiness, to sanctify us. His Spirit, to comfort us. His mercy, to save us. To be able to say "my God" is worth more than all the gold and silver in the world.
So pray to Him with fervency, not empty words. Love Him with the whole heart, not with the leftovers. Obey Him as the sovereign Lord He is. This is what it means to glorify Him as God.
Three centuries have passed since Watson wrote these words. The arguments against God have not grown stronger. The evidence for Him has not grown weaker. And the invitation remains open. There is a God. He is knowable. And He offers Himself to all who will come.
Bibliography
Watson, Thomas. The Select Works of the Rev. Thomas Watson, Comprising His Celebrated Body of Divinity, in a Series of Lectures on the Shorter Catechism, and Various Sermons and Treatises. New York: Robert Carter & Brothers, 1855.
