Is there any proof that religion is not man made?

Is there any proof that religion is not man made?

That will depend on the point of view one wants to take and what proofs one is willing to accept.

In any case, we will have to go to the very origins of mankind to find a possible answer.

If we accept the fact that our first parents were created in the image and likeness of God and that both Adam and Eve enjoy the reality of God’s existence from day one of the existence of humanity.

For those who believe, no proof is necessary. However for those who do not believe no proofs will suffice.

The belief of God’s existence is not the same thing as whether ”religion” was originally instituted by God himself also.

Obvious those who lived before the deluge knew what form of worship pleased Almighty God and followed those divine inspirations that came from God. It was passed on from father to son, generation after generation.

Worship in Eden

The beginning of creation was the beginning of worship in heaven and on earth—by the created order, and by the first couple of mankind. However, in the unfolding revelation of God in history, the first explicit call to worship was made to Adam. Created from the dust of the earth as a man, yet made in the image of God as his son, Adam was placed in the garden-temple of Eden as God’s prophet-priest-king to work and keep it. As prophet, he was to speak God’s Word to God’s world; as priest, he was to guard God’s divine sanctuary and mediate God’s blessing to the world; as king, he was to rule God’s world. As God’s son—and in his specific roles of prophet, priest, and king—Adam was called to worship God through his word: “And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, ‘You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die'” (Gen. 2:16–17). It was a call to adore and acknowledge the goodness and greatness of God. His goodness was seen in the invitation to eat from every tree of the garden, trees that were pleasant to the eye and good for food; his greatness was seen in the prohibition to eat from one tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil—a sign that God alone was God, and man was to have no other gods before him. In sum, it was a command to know God and enjoy him forever.

The call of worship came to Adam in the context of a covenant, in which life was promised to him and through him to all his descendants, upon the condition of his personal and perfect obedience (cf. WCF 7.2). This call to worship within a life-and-death bond distinguished Adam from the animal kingdom: He was not only unique as an image-bearer of God’s glory; he was unique as a heaven-bound h*m* liturgicus.

God’s call to worship within this covenant of life was expected to elicit in Adam a response of faith and obedience, love and devotion, with heart and mind and strength. Adam’s reward for such a response was to be a fellowship meal with God at the tree of life. Adam was commanded to fast from one tree in order that he might feast at another tree, and thus enjoy consummate union and communion with God—everlasting life. And so, for Adam and all his descendants, a liturgy was fixed, stitched into the very order and fabric human life on earth.

In short, worship in Eden was familial, covenantal communion with God, through his Word and sacrament. - Liturgy in the Garden of Eden

Thus we can conclude that the acts of religion were of a mutual institution instituted by God with man playing an active role.

Ultimately, the question is one as to whether one believes or not that Adam actually walked in God’s presence and talked to him as to what type of worship truly pleased him.

By faith Abel offered to God a better sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained the testimony that he was righteous, God testifying about his gifts, and through faith, though he is dead, he still speaks….And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him. - Hebrews 11:4-6

Let us consider a few possibilities concerning the origin of Christianity:

1. All of it is from a divine (nonhuman) origin
2. Some of it is of divine origine, some human
3. None of Christianlity is of divine origin; all is of human origin

• If ANY of Christianity is of divine origin, then number three is obviously false.
• If ANY of Christianity is of divine origin, then number one is false, but not obviously. Why? The Bible contains warnings against false prophets, divisions, wolves in sheep's clothing and prophecies like the Letters in Revelation 2 & 3 that criticize the church. Therefore each Christian church falls short of perfection, hence some aspect of it is of human origin.

This leaves but two possibilities:

• NONE of Christianity is of divine origin
• SOME of Christianity is of divine origin

Resurrection: If Jesus rose from the dead, that is evidence, but it is not accessible evidence. To those who witnessed the event, if it happened, the resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ was the evidence of divine origin of that part of the religion directly taught to them. None of us here today was present then, so that evidence must be supplemented by experiences to which we have access today.

Healing. When a Christian prays and they receive healing, it could have been natural, could have been another God being kind to a foolish Christian, or could have been because Christianity is real. This is evidence, though not irrefutable. It is also bounded by trust. Do you trust the person claiming to have been healed? Such healing is evidence that is only relevant to people inside that circle of trust. The important thing to the believer is timing and causation. They prayed and then the healing came within a short period of time, suggesting causation. I have prayed for healing and on three occasions was healed within two days: once of a neck injury, once a knee injury, and once of complete deafness in one ear. The third was the most significant.

Guidance. When a Christian prays for guidance and receives an unexpected and specific answer, that is evidence. Once I received a sum of money and silently prayed what I should do with it. A few days later at a group prayer meeting, someone expressed a financial need of a ministry in which they volunteered. The amount of the need was the same as the amount of the money that I had received, to the penny. That was evidence for me. Such evidence comes through faithful obedience.

Prophecy. This is the most objective and verifiable source of evidence. The Bible makes many predictions of future events. From time to time, additional ones come true. Two of those prohecies, made thousands of years ago, predicted the exact years in which Israel would be reborn as a nation (1948) and would recapture Jerusalem (1967). However, to understand those prophecies, you need to trust the scholars who interpreted those prophecies. Are their chronologies correct? Did they properly interpret the code words that refer to the events from which the time periods given in the prophecy begin? Did they interpret the lengths of the time periods consistently? For example, a "day" can mean a day, a year, or a thousand years in Biblical prophecy.

Finally, if ANY of Christianity is of divine origin, then ALL of it is of human origin. We believe that Jesus Christ is both Son of God and Son of Man. All communication from God to humanity that was encoded into its sacred Scriptures, rituals, practices, and beliefs came in verbal form. Since Jesus is the Word of God (John 1) then that means that all verbal communication came to mankind through Jesus, who was human in every respect. Thus every aspect of every command from the Father was mediated through a human (and sometimes two, a prophet other than Jesus) and marked with a human signature. This will complicate any attempt to discern a nonhuman component to Christianity. It was intentionally humanized for us by our creator.

The simplest answer to the question of whether Christianity is man-made is fulfilled prophecy by Jesus Christ. In other words, the fact of someone making a future prediction about something or someone (prophecy) that is subsequently fulfilled by that someone (Jesus Christ) can be explained in no other way than God made.

Here are various links to various prophecies that have been fulfilled in Christ Jesus.

47 Prophecies

Fulfilled Prophecies

18 Fulfillments

The Old Testament is the part of the Bible written before Jesus was born. Its writings were completed in 450 B.C. The Old Testament, written hundreds of years before Jesus’ birth, contains over 300 prophecies that Jesus fulfilled through His life, death and resurrection.

Mathematically speaking, the odds of anyone fulfilling this amount of prophecy are staggering. Mathematicians put it this way:

1 person fulfilling 8 prophecies: 1 in 100,000,000,000,000,000 1 person fulfilling 48 prophecies: 1 chance in 10 to the 157th power 1 person fulfilling 300+ prophecies: Only Jesus!

It is the magnificent detail of these prophecies that mark the Bible as the inspired Word of God. Only God could foreknow and accomplish all that was written about the Christ. This historical accuracy and reliability sets the Bible apart from any other book or record. -CBN-

So, it is nigh impossible for Christianity to be man-made, but is rather, God made. As far as other religions fulfilling certain issues of mankind, the answer may be they do, but it is only Christianity that may claim and has fulfilled prophecy as to its veracity.