Proof of God’s Existence

Can we be certain that God exists? Today, R.C. Sproul turns to an unexpected place to provide conclusive proof of the self-existent, eternal Creator.

I was listening to a talk show one night, a radio talk show, where they had an atheist philosopher, they had a Roman Catholic Jesuit theologian, and a Protestant theologian, and they were debating arguments for the existence of God. And they were getting in all kinds of sophisticated debates about the ontological argument and the cosmological argument and so on. And then they started receiving phone calls, and they got a call from a woman who was obviously uneducated and unsophisticated. And she used broken grammar and poor grammar to express her protests. “I don’t know what’s wrong with you people. Why don’t you just go outside and open your eyes?” She was saying, “It’s clear. It’s manifest. How could you miss it?”

People say to me, “Sproul, do you think you can prove the existence of God?” I say, “With the greatest of ease.” They say, “Give me some evidence.” I take my shoe off. I say, “Look at that. That proves conclusively, compellingly, demonstratively, the eternal existence of almighty God.” “Oh,” they say, “you mean you’re giving probable evidence.” No, I’m giving certainty. They say, “Why?” I say, “If it exists, if you see a shoe here, if there’s anything here that’s a shoe, then something exists necessarily.”

Something has the power of existence in and of itself eternally, or—the simplest child can understand—nothing could possibly exist now. Because if there was ever a time when there was nothing, this is a manifest impossibility. And if anything exists, something has to have the power of being in it. What could be more simple? It doesn’t have the power of being in itself, then nothing could be. See? You don’t even need the heavens to declare that. Just look at your shoe.