What Does Language Prove?

Evidence for God’s existence is on the tip of your tongue! Secular friends and Naturalistic scientists urge us to see ourselves and the world as purely material. We are matter only and that’s it, they say. Language, however, is not made of matter. Our communication, right now, is not material at all. If language is non-material, then it must have a source, an origin, that is also not physical and separate from our material universe. God is the source of language. We speak because God speaks. Evidence for God pervades reality and is seen in all language (mathematical language, computer languages, the genetic codes in DNA, Chinese, Spanish and English…).

Here’s how an argument for God from linguistics works:

  1. Naturalism says that your life has no meaning. But language falsifies naturalism’s foundational truth claim in that language conveys meaning. Meaning is made up neither of matter nor energy. Meaning, whether conveyed by human speech or by DNA, is non-material.
  2. Language, since it has a non-material component, demands a non-material source. The laws of chemistry and physics don’t assign meaning.
  3. Since people create and use languages, we must also possess non-material attributes such as a non-material mind, a soul or spirit.
  4. Extremely complex languages are written into DNA. Biological life depends upon non-material realities. Since matter and energy cannot produce language, genetic language must have been created and encoded into DNA by someone that was non-material. That someone is God.

The linguistic argument points to the biblical God in particular – who spoke the world into existence and who is “sustaining all things by His powerful word” (Heb. 1:3). One name for Jesus is The Word (John 1:1). We invite you to talk to the one who is speaking to you through the science of language and through Jesus.

NB: The ideas discussed above come from research published in JETS by Jeremy Lyon (PhD Southeastern) and John  Baumgardner (PhD UCLA).

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