God and Reason

By Mitchell E. Buchta

While we cannot prove the existence of a Spiritual Being such as God with a mathematical kind of precision, we can have reason enough to be able to confidently say, “The existence of a Judeo-Christian God has internal consistency and is according to reason. This book prepares Christians to give cogent reasons for the God of the Bible. For the non-Christian wondering about Jesus and why He came, this book is evangelistic in that it givens the curious person real reasons why the Christian Faith can be believed.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Jun 14, 2021
• ISBN: 9781664229648

Mitchell E. Buchta

Mitchell was born in Milwaukee, WI. He attended Trinity International University in Deerfield, Il. His undergraduate degree is in Applied Christian Studies where he wrote his Project paper on Philosophy of Religion. Mitchell is also a registered Radiologic Technologist, registered by the American Registry of Radiologic Technologists. Mitchell has been nationally published through the American Society of Radiologic Technologists, writing a technical article on Emergency Radiography, and another on Interpersonal Communication. He has written one poem entitled, “The Cobbler”. Mitchell and his wife (Beth) have adopted three children and currently reside in Prattville, Alabama with and their youngest child (Amber).

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Copyright © 2021 Mitchell E. Buchta.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

WestBow Press

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Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, Copyright © 1960,1962,1963,1968,1971,1972,1973,1975,1977,1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. www.Lockman.org

ISBN: 978-1-6642-2963-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6642-2962-4 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-6642-2964-8 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021906685

WestBow Press rev. date: 06/04/2021

CONTENTS

Introduction

Chapter 1 God and Reason

Chapter 2 The Creation

Chapter 3 Infinity

Chapter 4 Can We Really Know God?

Chapter 5 Is God Absolutely Perfect?

Chapter 6 God is All-Powerful, All-knowing, and Beyond Perfect, and He Doesn’t Need Us, But…

Chapter 7 Sin (Part One)

Chapter 8 Sin (Part Two) The Problem of Evil

Chapter 9 God is Holy

Chapter 10 What is the Difference Between Christianity and Any Other World Religion?

Chapter 11 Life

Chapter 12 The Resurrection

Chapter 13 What About You?

Bibliography

INTRODUCTION

by Mitchell Buchta

A person can be convinced about a specific belief by either persuasive rhetoric, or righteousness, or by one who is righteous and skilled in rhetoric. But phraseology alone is not righteousness. Be discerning!

To influence people in public debate, the righteous one has to be completely righteous in his/her words, or very little, if any will be convinced of something. But what about the unrighteous?

How are they able to convince people of that which is not true? It is not only through righteousness that people are persuaded in something, but also often because of rhetoric.

Beware of thoughts that sound good. In terms of a belief system, a thought either is good or it isn’t. Be discerning, and don’t regard people because of the way they speak, but rather what they are saying.

The purpose of this book is for both the non-believer, and believer. For the non-believer, real, rational reasons are given for the Faith of Jesus Christ. For people who have been told to just believe apart from any reasons at all, as if needing some kind of evidence was somehow spiritual weakness. They are usually told about Doubting Thomas who refused to believe apart from evidence, and was chastised by Jesus for requiring evidence. There is a difference between requiring complete, air-tight evidence, as though God’s existence should be as provable as a math equation. While this kind of faith isn’t faith, and people who would require this kind of evidence probably wouldn’t believe even if they were presented with such evidence, if it were possible. But we can have enough evidence, and through the preponderance of the evidence available to us, we can have a sure faith in the One and Only One who can give us eternal life in Himself. So this book is for people who would respond to the amount of evidence that we do have.

It is also for the Believer who would like to be able to give a defense to those who ask why they believe in the work that was completed on the cross. It is for Christians who want to glorify God by being able to talk with people who are not Christians about the faith they have in Christ, and to answer questions they may have about the faith of Jesus Christ.

There are a vast number of dedicated, faithful Christians who need to have real, cogent reasons for their faith so they may share these with those who ask. God Bless You.

ONE

God and Reason

"’Come now, let us reason together,

Says the LORD, ‘Though your

sins are as scarlet,

They will be white as snow; though

they are red like crimson,

They will be like wool.’"

-Isaiah 1:18NASB

W hat is reason? Something that can be proven mathematically? Something whereby we can demonstrate the truth, or reality of something with the certainty of mathematics? Is it something that, by a deductive method, proves to be true or real, right, or wrong? Do we simply use common sense to guide us to truth and reality? Do we use philosophical methods of epistemological acceptance? How do we know our reasoning is correct? Can we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that God exists? Some will say they want a kind of airtight proof for the existence of God that is mathematically sure. Show me with mathematical precision that God exists. Then I’ll believe. For one to say they require some kind of mathematical proof for the existence of God, would give us no knowledge about Who God is, and isn’t. The existence of God is not a mathematical concept, so to attempt at proving His existence using mathematics would be a logical equivalent to attempting to measure the distance to a star using the rules of spelling. The tools being employed to demonstrate something must have a relationship with the thing we are attempting to demonstrate. Spelling has nothing to do with calculating distances, and mathematics has nothing to do with the concept of the existence of God.

This doesn’t mean that because mathematics is the improper tool to demonstrate the existence of God, that His existence can’t be logically demonstrated. But because mathematics seems to be relied upon so heavily to demonstrate something to be true or not, real or not, perhaps we need to look closer at this subject.

It is common knowledge that