How do you handle questions you can’t understand? Does it cause you to doubt that God exists?
Question:
Have you ever doubted if God really exists? Have you ever been bothered about Eve coming from Adam’s rib or the apes theory? Or just anything science comes up with? Because I have. I don’t know how to get rid of it because I honestly don’t want to be an atheist.
I think my Bible is a bad translation. I’ve read things in it that aren’t true because it has errors in the translation. I know that because you corrected something in it too. What is the translation of your Bible regarding Genesis 1:9? Mine says “And God said: Come together in just one place the waters that are under the sky, and come up the dry part.” But there isn’t only one dry part on the globe, so it’s not on just one part. Is it my Bible wrong? If not, how to understand this?
Yesterday night was a bad night. I found out things about science that I’d rather not to know now because I don’t want them to make me an unbeliever. Like the chromosomes in humans and the chromosomes in apes. It seems to fit so well together.
God said to Abraham that the stars are countless (if you can count the stars, you’ll be able to count your offspring) which they are. But also, Genesis says that God made the stars to light on the earth, but there are stars so far away that they don’t light the earth because they’re too far away. Still, I think it only means that on earth there wasn’t anything to shine upon the planet, so He made it.
I asked if you’ve ever doubted God exists because if so, I’d ask you how you get rid of it.
Answer:
Whenever I run across something puzzling, I study it. It would be foolish to decide that if I didn't understand something then I can't believe it. Can you imagine someone saying, "I don't understand quantum mechanics, so therefore I don't believe in chemistry"? Yet, that is how some people treat religion. Whose fault is it that you don't understand something? Does your understanding make something real or not?
Let's take the question of chromosomes. There are people who claim that having similar chromosomes make two creatures closely related to each other. But that is assuming that one thing evolves from other -- an assumption that has never been proven. Yet, what if two creatures came from the same designer, would you not expect things with similar function to contain similar genetic codes? Here are some articles to consider:
- Human-Chimp Similarities: Common Ancestry or Flawed Research?
- Do Human and Chimpanzee DNA Indicate an Evolutionary Relationship?
- Of Apes and Men: Chromosome 2 in Humans and the Chimpanzee
The problem is that the first person who presents a line of reasoning sounds good, but it doesn't mean it is good. "The first one to plead his cause seems right, Until his neighbor comes and examines him" (Proverbs 18:17). It is easy to miss things that are skipped and we might not think of all the ways something can be twisted. Before reaching a decision, new ideas need to be examined in depth.
In my studies, I used the New Kings James Version or the New American Standard Bible. Both are good, solid translations. And when things are difficult, I'll go back to the original language to see if it provides more clarity.
"Then God said, "Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear"; and it was so" (Genesis 1:9).
Read this verse carefully. Where does it say there was only one dry land? It says there waters were gathered into one place and that is true. We give a number of names for the oceans, but all of them are interconnected. We really don't have separate oceans but one body of water with pieces of dry land scattered in it.
We seem to be proving the stars are countless. Just recently some scientists declared that our estimates for the number of stars were way off. "Discovery Triples Number of Stars in Universe." Likely, we'll make more discoveries that we still don't know how many stars there are.
"Then God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years; and let them be for lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth"; and it was so. God made the two great lights, the greater light to govern the day, and the lesser light to govern the night; He made the stars also. God placed them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, and to govern the day and the night, and to separate the light from the darkness; and God saw that it was good" (Genesis 1:14-18 NASB95).
The passage does not say that the stars provide all the light, but starlight does give some light on the earth. Being outside on a moonless night is not at all similar to being in a deep cave without light. I've been in both situations. In the later, you really can't see anything -- period. One small match makes a huge difference. Outside, I still can make out some things by starlight -- not well, but I'm not totally blind in that situation.
Now if you are wondering about how the starlight got to the earth so quickly, I'm not sure if God made the light in transition or if there are more things going on. See "How did light reach the earth from the stars when God created the world?" It is something that people are still puzzling over. But as I mentioned at the beginning, the fact that I can't understand one piece, it doesn't nullify all the pieces I do understand which all point to the fact that God exists.
