The concept of God is in the minds of people by nature. It is however covered with a lot of confusion. One of the major obstacles to people accepting the concept of a Universal God is that He cannot be seen and therefore, people do not have a rational argument to prove His existence. They believe that they can rationally believe in God only if they can see Him. They do not understand that this is contrary to the fact today. Today faith and reason stand at the same level. Let us understand this.

In its issue no. 134 (1992), the journal, Faith and Reason, published from Manchester College, Oxford (England), brought out an article titled, 'The Relationship between Faith and Reason', by Dr Paul Badham Dr. Badham is a Professor of Theology and Religious Studies at St. David's College, Lampeter, in the University of Wales. His paper in this issue had been presented at a Conference of the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Science in Moscow in November 1991. Professor Badham's paper can indeed be called thought provoking, and as such, is worth reading, but he has made certain points with which I did not agree. He states that philosophical certainty should not be confused with religious certitude. He writes: 'As a philosopher of religion I feel compelled to acknowledge that faith could never be placed on the same level of certainty as scientific knowledge' (p. 6).

At this point, my views differ from those held by Dr. Badham. According to me, this argument was valid when science was at the macro world – when it was considered, ‘only what was observable was the reality’. Human knowledge has two different phases—the pre-Einstein period and the post-Einstein period. In the pre-Einstein period, knowledge was confined to the macro or material world, which was observable and measurable. At that time, the atom was considered to be the smallest unit of the observable material world. So people considered all things to be observable as they considered the atom to be observable. So, it was generally held that everything, which has a real existence, should also be observable. Anything, which could not be observed, had no real existence. This meant that only the seen world was real and what was unseen was unreal or some kind of fiction. Therefore, people did not rationally believe in an unseen God.

It is worth noting that after the splitting of the atom in the first quarter of the twentieth century there has remained no real difference between the two. Now faith and belief can be placed on the same level of certainty as scientific theory. This was because when the atom was split, it was confirmed that the atom was nothing but a mad dance of energy waves or electrons, which could not be observed. In spite of the change in logic, scientists continued to believe in the concept of the atom, albeit it was unobservable. A new logic therefore came into existence – not only was the direct or observable argument thought to be valid, but inferential arguments or the invisible sources of visible effects were also considered to be valid by scientists. An example of this is that X-rays are not visible to the naked eye, but their effect can be seen when we observe the X-ray film.

Using the valid inferential argument, if you can believe in the unseen X-rays as you can see their effect, why can you not believe in an unseen God, whose meaningful creation – the Universe you see all around you? This is because, even if God cannot be seen, the effect of His Creation – the Universe – can be seen by us all the time. If we believe in the existence of the Universe – the effect of God’s creation – we have to believe in the Creator of the Universe through the inferential argument, which is considered valid by the scientists in the world today – in the post-Einstein era.

This, therefore, provides scientific proof that the division of primary rationalism or the direct argument and secondary rationalism or inferential argument is in itself a wrong one. Today both the arguments stand at the same level of belief. I have written about this in my books, God Arises, In Search of God and Religion and Science, by giving credence to the belief in a non-observable God, with the maxim that: “Where there is a design, there is a Designer.”

So I say:
“The option one has to take is not between the ‘universe without God’ and the ‘Universe with God’. The option is actually between the ‘Universe with God’ or ‘No Universe at all’. Since we cannot, for obvious reasons, opt for the latter proposition, we are in fact left with no other option except the former — the ‘Universe with God’.”

Once we believe that God exists, then the next question that comes to mind is why did He create the world and all its creatures – especially man? What is the creation plan of God? To understand this, we have to look at man in relation to paradise.