Does God Exist?

We all have asked that question before, or perhaps more, “Does God really exist?” Maybe even the big related question, “How do we know God exists?” There have been a rash of books by famous, angry atheists of late, for whom book publishers have been falling over themselves to get, that loudly try to demonstrate that God most certainly does not exist. And there have been another stream of books which try to answer those big questions and provide rationals for the existence of God and to delimit the horizon of epistemological certainty.

The oldest argument in support of God's existence, and probably still one of the best is “Why is there something rather than nothing?” Which is not a question about the big bang, but an observation about the known universe, an observation which science continues to confirm. Everything we know about the everything of the universe is that everything in it, matter, anti-matter, energy, exists in a web of necessary relations on which it is dependent for existence. Nothing exists on it's own; it is contingent. If the nature of the universe is one of contingency, then how can it have brought itself into existence, or even always existed? Therefore, so the argument goes, God becomes the non-contingent source of all things, and not at some point in the distant past, but moment by moment upholding the contingent everything in existence. Some foolish people dismiss this as hooey; others see it for a rather deep conundrum, have sophisticated ways of dealing with it, and are still atheists. That's all fine.

Because the question is, after all, a philosophical question. A question that might do us all well to consider or even study at times, but a question which has almost no bearing on why people, including me, really believe in God. When it comes down to it, the real reason I believe in God has nothing to do with arguments or debates. It's because I have a relationship with God.

Indulge me in an analogy for a moment. By simple argument it is actually very difficult to prove that my wife exists. I see her; I hear here; I can touch her. But senses can be fooled; hallucinations are a known part of our lives. For all I know there is something controlling my brain that is making me experience all this. In the based-on-a-true-story movie, A Beautiful Mind, the main character, a brilliant mathematician, experiences exactly this: a series of very life like delusions that convince him that non-existent persons are a part of his life.

But at some point, I have to ask the question: does it matter? Is it arguments that convince me that Michelle exists? No. Not really. I believe Michelle exists because I have a relationship with her. I trust that she is there not only because I can see and hear her, but because we have this mutual living of life going on between us. I keep bumping up against her in my life.

That is the same reason I really believe, or trust in, God. Not because of a clever argument, not because someone told me it was true, and not because I walked down an aisle or had an ecstatic experience. Not because “Jesus touched my heart.” It is the ongoing, day to day experience of relationship with God that shapes my belief. The word of God from the Scriptures, the meal, the presence of God in the people I see, the love of God I see in nature, the give and take of prayer and life and work. It's not a big idea, or a convincing argument, or even a flash of light from the heavens. I believe in God because I keep bumping into God. Simple as that.