God is Making Himself Known
Step outside on a clear night and just look up. You don’t need a theology degree for that. Psalm 19 says, “The heavens declare the glory of God,” and you can feel what David meant. No voice. No words. Yet the message fills the sky.
Romans 1:18–23 is blunt about what’s going on in that moment. The problem is not that God has left us in the dark. The problem is that, as a race, we place our hands over our eyes. We “suppress the truth in unrighteousness.” We know, but many of us refuse to believe.
The problem is not that God has left us in the dark. The problem is that, as a race, we place our hands over our eyes. We “suppress the truth in unrighteousness.”
That’s not a popular diagnosis. It cuts across our desired story about ourselves—that we’re simply neutral seekers who haven’t seen enough evidence yet. Scripture says something harder and more honest. It says God has already spoken through creation, conscience, history, and supremely in Christ. The light is there. Our resistance is not intellectual only; it is moral and personal.
You may not agree with that. If that is so, I’m still glad you’re here. My aim is not to win an argument but to walk through what Scripture says and why many thoughtful men and women—scientists, philosophers, and ordinary believers—have found it compelling.
A Well-Thought-Out World
The Bible begins without apology: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” It doesn’t argue for God. It assumes that question is settled and instead describes the world as we actually find it. A world that looks thought-out.
Stephen Meyer has spent years looking into the cell. What he sees there is astonishing: layers of digital code, information storage, and molecular machines that would make any engineer blink. DNA is not just stuff; it’s instructions. In everyday experience, instructions come from minds. There are no instances where we see it otherwise.
Frank Turek, building on the work of Norman Geisler, keeps the big picture simple enough for ordinary people like us. The universe had a beginning. Its physical constants sit on a razor’s edge – even the minutest change to as single one would make life impossible. Life itself runs on encoded information. Objective moral values really do exist. Put those facts on the table, and the best explanation is not blind, impersonal forces but a rational, moral Lawgiver.
DNA is not just stuff; it’s instructions. In everyday experience, instructions come from minds. There are no instances where we see it otherwise.
John Lennox, a mathematician, asks a simple question: why is the universe so deeply rational, and why do our minds fit it so well? We write equations, and they map onto reality in stunning ways. That pairing makes perfect sense if both the universe and our minds flow from a rational Creator. It is far harder to explain if everything is just the result of mindless accidents.
Scripture said it long before the thinkers caught up:
“For His invisible attributes, that is, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen since the creation of the world, being understood through what He has made.”
– Romans 1:20
Creation doesn’t prove every detail of Christian theology. But it does say loudly—Someone is there. Someone powerful. Someone wise.
Conscience God’s Law on our Heart
C. S. Lewis stepped into a different arena – not a laboratory, but the courtroom of the human heart. He began Mere Christianity by asking why we quarrel the way we do.
We say things like, “You ought not to have done that,” or “That’s not fair,” or “You promised.” We don’t just express our preferences; we appeal to a standard we expect others to recognize. As Lewis put it:
“If there was a controlling power outside the universe, it could not show itself to us as one of the facts inside the universe; no more than the architect of a house could actually be a wall or staircase or fireplace in that house. The only way in which we could expect it to show itself would be inside ourselves as an influence or a command trying to get us to behave in a certain way.”
– C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (first published 1952)
That is Romans 2:14–15 in everyday language. Paul says Gentiles (those ignorant of God’s revelation) “show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness.” Conscience is not flawless; Scripture is clear about that. It can be seared, warped, or poorly trained. But it is real. It speaks.
Alvin Plantinga gave a name to this inner awareness: sensus divinitatis, a built-in sense of God’s reality. In a fallen world that sense is not deleted; it is distorted. We still experience it, but we bend it away from its proper object.
Tim Keller drew out the moral side of that inner witness. In The Reason for God, he wrote:
“If there is no God, we are left with moral feelings, not moral facts. But we cannot live that way. We are outraged at real injustice and we praise real courage. Our lives reveal that we already know there is a moral lawgiver.”
– Tim Keller, The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism (Dutton, 2008)
We might argue about details, but everyone knows certain things are just wrong—rape, torture, murder, slavery, betrayal, racism. We don’t shrug at those and say, “Well, different cultures, different tastes.” Our outrage gives us away. Deep down, we treat goodness and evil as real, not just as private opinions. That fits the Bible’s claim far better than a purely material universe can explain.
Even some honest unbelievers have admitted the deeper struggle. Thomas Nagel, no friend of Christianity, confessed that he had what he called a “cosmic authority problem.” He did not want there to be a God. His issue wasn’t only the evidence; it was the implications of a God who would have a say over his life.
Scripture again is blunt: we do not just have doubts; we have resistance. We “suppress the truth.”
God Steps Into Time
If creation and conscience were all we had, we would still be without excuse. But God has done more. He has stepped into history and tied His name to events in time. That’s risky, humanly speaking. It means you can actually ask, “Did this happen?”
The Old Testament gives a long, winding record of one family—Abraham’s—through whom God promised to bless the nations. Famine, slavery in Egypt, exodus, conquest, exile, and return. Again, and again the Lord says, “I am the Lord God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob.” And again, He said, “I am the Lord who brought you out of Egypt.” He anchors His name and His character to real people and to a real rescue in a real place.
The prophets narrow the focus even further.
Isaiah names Cyrus, the king who would send Jewish exiles home, long before Cyrus was born (Isaiah 44:28; 45:1–4). Daniel sketches the rise and fall of empires, then speaks of a kingdom that will never be destroyed (Daniel 2, 7). In chapter 11 of his book Daniel describes in detail the rise of Alexander the great and the subsequent division of his kingdom between four generals. Micah points to Bethlehem as the birthplace of a coming ruler of Israel (Micah 5:2). This is a special ruler as he is described as one “whose origins are from of old, from ancient times.” – referring to God coming as a Man. Isaiah 52–53 describes a suffering servant, pierced for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities, yet ultimately vindicated.
If creation and conscience were all we had, we would still be without excuse. But God has done more. He has stepped into history and tied His name to events in time.
Layered into this are promises of a new covenant—Jeremiah 31 and Ezekiel 36—where God would write His law on hearts, forgive sins, and give His Spirit to those He called. Not just outward religion, but inner change.
The New Testament writers then step forward and say, in effect, “This is happening now.” Luke nails down dates, rulers, and places. Peter insists that these things were “not done in a corner” (Acts 26:26). Paul, in 1 Corinthians 15:3–8, points to hundreds of living eyewitnesses to the risen Christ. He literally challenges the readers of that time to go and check it out. Christianity does not ask for a blind leap in the dark; it invites you to open your eyes to what God has already done and said.
Major Ian Thomas, a great orator of the late 21st century, often stressed that Christianity is not primarily a set of ideas but the living Christ stepping into history, and then into a human life. As he puts it – the proof is not just in the words of the Bible; it is in the changed lives of those who trust in it.
The thread of the Messiah began when Adam and Eve fell. The prophets foretold His coming. It materialized in a manger where He took on human flesh. The thread continued to a cross and then an empty tomb, and now continues as Christ lives His life in and through His people.
If the Light Is So Clear, Why So Much Darkness?
At this point many say, “If that’s all true, why don’t more people believe?” Jesus answered that in words as searching as anything Paul wrote in Romans:
“And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil.”
– John 3:19
That’s hard to hear because it strips away our excuses. Past wounds, intellectual questions, bad church experiences, those are real and painful. Many have been mistreated by people who claimed Christ, and we should be quick to admit that and grieve it. Humans doing religion have done much damage. This does not give us license to dismiss the evidence.
Underneath the evidence Scripture says there is something deeper. We choose the path we are on because we want autonomy. We want to be our own authority. To admit there is a God is to put ourselves under His kingship – we become accountable to Him. As Keller put it in Making Sense of God,
“Doubts are not merely rational; they are also moral and psychological. We do not just reason ourselves into beliefs; we are attracted to them.”
– Timothy Keller, Making Sense of God: An Invitation to the Skeptical (Viking, 2016)
We tend to drift toward beliefs that protect the life we already want to live. That is a very important point to grasp. Put another way, we could say that we believe things that allow us to live the way we want to live.
C. S. Lewis said the same thing in wartime England: we are rebels who need to lay down our arms. The problem is not just that we lack information; we don’t want to surrender. That is as true for religious people as for outspoken atheists. Church members can “suppress the truth” in very polished ways—holding orthodox ideas while keeping God at arm’s length in practice.
This is what the depravity man really means. Not that we are as bad as we could possibly be, but that sin has touched every part of us; mind, will, and affections. Left to ourselves, we are not genuinely neutral toward God. The best we could say is that we may be curious about Him, but we do not want Him as Lord.
Mercy in the Middle of Our Resistance
And yet, the story doesn’t end with our refusal. Romans 2 says God’s kindness is meant to lead us to repentance. Acts 14:17 says He “did not leave Himself without witness,” giving rain, fruitful seasons, and “gladness” in our hearts. Every pleasure that doesn’t destroy us, every breath of beauty, every piece of common grace, is another reminder that He is there, and He is good.
Lewis once wrote in The Weight of Glory:
“Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists.”
– C.S.Lewis, The Weight of Glory
Our ache for meaning, our hunger for justice, our homesickness for eternity; these are not cruel jokes. They are signposts. They are revealing that there is more and by the mercy of God we might want to see what that more is. These things do not save us by themselves, but they press us toward the One who can.
General revelation, creation and conscience, leaves us without excuse. Special revelation, the Scriptures – and at the center Jesus Christ, shows us the way home. At the cross, the God we have pushed away steps toward us. His wrath against sin and His love for sinners meet there.
Christ died for the ungodly – that is all of us. He then rises from the dead – a conqueror of sin and death and offers forgiveness and new life. To grasp the gift all we have to do is place our faith and trust in Him. This is the message of Ephesians 2:8-9 and Romans 10:9-10.
This is where doctrine meets a real person. The same God whose power is seen in galaxies and the genetic code of DNA now calls us by name. The same God whose law we feel prick our conscience offers us a new heart and His own Spirit to live in us.
A Gentle Invitation
If you are still wrestling, I’m not asking you to turn off your brain. Read Romans 1–3 slowly. Sit with Psalm 19. Look again at the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus in the Gospel of Luke and John, and in 1 Corinthians 15. Pay attention not only to your arguments but to your desires. Ask honestly, “If I became convinced this was true, what would it change in my life—and do I want that?”
You may find, as Keller and others have noticed, that your doubts are not just about evidence but about surrender. That’s not something to be ashamed of. It’s something to bring into the light.
For fellow believers, this truth should not make us proud. If anything, it should humble us. We did not climb our way to God by superior reasoning. If we see at all, it is because God turned on the light in our hearts (2 Corinthians 4:4–6). That ought to make us patient with those who have differing ideals, gentle in conversation, and bold in prayer.
God has not been quiet. Creation speaks. Conscience bears witness. History records His acts. Scripture testifies. Christ has come. The Spirit convicts.
We know. Even when we insist, we do not. Many simply refuse to believe.
And still -today – God calls.
For Further Reading
- The Bible – Romans 1–3; Romans 2:14–15; Psalm 19; John 3:16–21; Acts 14:15–17; Acts 17:22–31; 1 Corinthians 15:1–8; 2 Corinthians 4:4–6.
Key texts on general revelation, conscience, and the historical gospel. - Timothy Keller – The Reason for God
Gentle, thoughtful engagement with doubts about God, including moral objections and the deeper, non‑neutral nature of belief and unbelief. - John Lennox – Can Science Explain Everything?
A short, reader‑friendly look at why a rational, law‑governed universe and the success of science point beyond materialism to a rational Creator. - Stephen C. Meyer – Return of the God Hypothesis
A big‑picture case from cosmology, fine‑tuning, and biological information that our universe is best explained by an intelligent, purposeful God. - C. S. Lewis – Mere Christianity and “The Weight of Glory”
Accessible explanations of the moral law, the “Power behind the universe,” and our inborn longing for something beyond this world. - Alvin Plantinga – Knowledge and Christian Belief
A concise version of his philosophical work arguing that belief in God can be rational, warranted, and rooted in an innate sense of the divine.
