they cannot know it. They state that God's existence cannot be proved. `This is false!' God's existence is both `knowable' and `provable.' Acceptance of God's existence is not some "blind leap into the dark" as so many have erroneously asserted. The Christian's faith is not a purely emotional, subjective "leap," but instead is a `firm conviction' regarding facts based upon reasonable evidence. God's existence can be proved to any fair-minded person. Granted, we do not mean by the word "proved" that God's existence can be scientifically demonstrated to human senses as one might, for example, prove that a sack of potatoes weighs ten pounds. But we need to be reminded (especially in our day of scientific intimidation) that empirical evidence (that based solely upon experiment and/or observation) is not the only basis for establishing a provable case. Legal authorities recognize the validity of a `prima facie' case. Such a case exists when adequate evidence is available to establish the presumption of a fact which, unless such can be refuted, `legally stands as a fact'. Inferential proof (the culmination of many lines of evidence into only one possible conclusion) is an invaluable part of a `prima facie' case which simply cannot be refuted. But an important question which serves as a "preface" to the case for God's existence is this: "From whence has come the idea of God in man's mind?" The inclination to be religious is universally and peculiarly a human trait. As one writer observed, even today the evidence indicates that "no race or tribe of men, however degraded and apparently atheistic, lacks that spark of religious capacity which may be fanned and fed into a mighty flame." If, therefore, man is incurably religious--and has the idea of God in his mind--and if we assume that the world is rational, it is impossible that a phenomenon so universal as religion could be founded upon illusion. The question is highly appropriate therefore: wh...
