Why believe that there is a God at all? My answer is that to suppose that there is a God explains why there is a physical universe at all; why there are the scientific laws there are; why animals and then human beings have evolved; why humans have the opportunity to mould their characters and those of their fellow humans for good or ill and to change the environment in which we live; why we have the well–authenticated account of Christ's life, death and resurrection; why throughout the

more »

... millions of people (other than ourselves) have had the apparent experience of being in touch with an guided by God, and so much else. In fact, the hypothesis of the existence of God makes sense of the whole of our experience, and it does so better than any other explanation that can be put forward, and that is the grounds for believing it to be true. In this lecture I shall try to show you how it makes sense of the first three of these phenomena. That phenomena evident to all, and in particular the universe and its order, provide good grounds for believing that God exists has been a general Christian, Jewish, and Islamic conviction. The production of arguments to show this is called "natural theology", and it might be useful to start with a few remarks about the place of natural theology in Christian tradition.