Are sunglasses evidence of God?

“The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard. Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.”
Psalms 19:1-4 (ESV)

The other day I jumped into a conversation about the presuppositional approach to hermeneutics. One of the individuals involved in the conversation was talking a bit about the use of evidence and saying that evidences are not always bad.

Well, I must agree. Evidences are never “bad”! It is when someone fails to utilize evidences properly that they can become problematic. My contention in the discussion was that the presuppositionalist is more evidentialist than the evidentialist. The evidence of God is not hidden in syllogistic arguments. Everything is evidence of the existence of God. I cited the relevant portion of Psalm 19 above and received one nod. I could not tell whether the other gentleman was being sarcastic or not, but he grinned and exclaimed, “Your sunglasses are evidence!” and pointed to the other student before walking off.

Of course, I find nothing absurd about holding that sunglasses are evidence of the existence of God. Indeed, everything is created by Him and for Him and hence His glory is revealed in all. There is the intuitive need to locate the origin of the created matter itself which is used in making sunglasses. There is the human ingenuity which went into designing and forming a pair of sunglasses. There is the purpose for which sunglasses are made and their function which meshes with this purpose, in and of itself enough to boggle the mind in terms of the science involved. Surely these constitute evidential characteristics of a pair of sunglasses, howbeit only when viewed according to the proper presuppositions of the Christian worldview. We need cut a bit deeper to get at the root of the problem for those who still do not see the glasses as evidencing the God whom we serve.

There are the reliable senses by which our perceptions of sunglasses are formed, the universals by which we categorize our experience and the trustworthy memory with which we approach these and other cognitive processes. There are the extrapolations contingent upon the inductive processes that fill our every thought of sunglasses and there is the language we use to communicate to others regarding sunglasses, even if it is to scoff at the idea that they constitute evidence of the existence and nature of God.

Every fact of existence screams about God. Sunglasses are not excluded, and what we have reviewed barely scratches the surface. Sunglasses constitute massive problems for those who would rebel against God. The evidence does not get us to our conclusions. We all have our presuppositions by which we evaluate the evidence. We must thus argue transcendentally. We may start from any fact and ask, “What are the preconditions for intelligibility in this instance? How do we come to understand this fact at all?” This world is created, sustained, and controlled by God and hence we argue on His turf. There is none other to argue on.

Come now, sunglasses evidence our Creator? Yes, and such is an extremely malleable bullet to bite.

"There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: 'Mine!'" - Abraham Kuyper