January 6th

Testing for God

Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the LORD of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need.

(Malachi 3:10) ESV

Non-believers frequently demand proof of God, and insist that absence of said proof is proof of the absence of said God. This proof is available, you may have proof of God any time you want.

A fundamental truth is that God is a Spirit. However, since this isn’t a testable hypothesis it’s unscientific. The logical conclusion from this is that, as a means of investigation into the truth, science has failed. This is Popper’s Paradox.

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We all have the same evidence. Our choice of paradigm determines what we think it’s evidence of.

– Matty’s Razor

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However, understanding the limitations of science isn’t the same as being anti-science. Indeed, even though science isn’t a reliable tool for investigating truth, it does have some beneficial practical applications.

Technology, for instance, is a panacea of marvels such as the iPhone. Sadly, the success of technology has allowed popular science (SciPop) to perpetrate some of the most egregious falsehoods in the history of humanity. The rationale is that since the iPhone is so cool, and that’s science, then all of the rest of SciPop must be true too, right? Like we evolved from monkeys? This is simply not the case.

Even though it’s not possible to test a hypothesis that God is a Spirit, there are three predictive testable hypotheses for the existence of God. Today’s passage is the classic statement on tithing from Malachi, but it’s also the procedure for a simple experiment that may be done to get proof of God. It’s repeatable by multiple independent investigators.

Predictive Testable Hypotheses for the Existence of God

Hypothesis	Premise	Scripture
11	Tithing	Malachi 3:10
	Malachi 3:10 vs. Luke 4:12
12	Gamaliel’s Counsel	Acts 5:38-39
16	There’s No Excuse	Romans 1:20

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Faith is believing in something that you can’t see, because of evidence.

– Faith, definition

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We also want to look at a specific prediction that the Bible makes: the stars shall fall to Earth. We’ll consider what we know about Kepler’s laws of planetary motion and the flurry of reports we get these days about asteroids making close passes of the Earth.

Testing For God – Navigation

Section	Title	Scripture
1	Testing for God	Malachi 3:10
	Popper’s Paradox	Isaiah 5:20
	It’s Game Over for Atheism	1 Peter 3:16
2	Predictive Prophecy	Revelation 16:21
	The Stars Shall Fall to Earth	Mark 13:25
	Kepler’s Laws	Luke 21:25
	Asteroid Orbital Plots	Revelation 8:7
	Salvation	Romans 10:9-10

Read through the Bible in a year

Reading plan	January 6
Linear	Genesis 18-20
Chronological	Job 10-13

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