How can I know if God exists?

[just me]

You had mentioned many different fronts...

 

[Wyote]

I personally believe there are different measures of faith in a person, depending on how close their walk with Jesus is.

I suppose your measure is shall we say above the curve, according to you.
To make such an assertion implies a sense of superiority.

 

[John K]

My physical form does not prevent me from knowing anything. I call that ignorance or unlearned.
My corporeal form carries no doubt about God.
Does earthly life mandate faith as a requirement "to be"? Afterlife with God requires faith. Growing into what kind of faith?

I understand what you are saying here, and in your next post, but I have concerns about what we mean by doubt and certainty

First conceptually -
You are right to say that knowledge comes from faith as well as from logical evidence, but we humans are finite beings trying to grasp spiritually beyond our capacity, and this we can only do with God's help. The trouble is that we can in good faith have misconceptions about what we know and believe - in fact there always will be misconceptions in this life because we are finite creatures trying to hold onto the infinite. It's vital that we have doubts in my opinion because without them we stop with our certainties, and those certainties will inevitably have both real truth in them mixed up with our own misunderstandings. We can't put God in a box that way and relax, because he isn't just in there. I don't think any human alive, no matter how great their faith, can say they know God, and with that ignorance comes doubt - a good doubt that stops us inventing God rather than seeking him.

Then practically -
I find that being very certain about the existence of God is often not helpful to people who feel there might be something, but are not able to make a leap of faith. It can create a them-and-us sort of barrier, which risks seeming like believers looking down on those who don't believe or who aren't ready to yet. This path of doubt is one that many follow and it's important to support them by recognising their doubt and helping them to understand it is part of the human lot. Without that empathic companionship from people with more spiritual knowledge many will just give up and turn away because they cannot see how they could ever be so certain.

 

[just me]

Are feelings a substance? Are thoughts a substance? What are they made of? What makes an emotion? What makes something real?

 

[just me]

I understand what you are saying here, and in your next post, but I have concerns about what we mean by doubt and certainty

First conceptually -
You are right to say that knowledge comes from faith as well as from logical evidence, but we humans are finite beings trying to grasp spiritually beyond our capacity, and this we can only do with God's help. The trouble is that we can in good faith have misconceptions about what we know and believe - in fact there always will be misconceptions in this life because we are finite creatures trying to hold onto the infinite. It's vital that we have doubts in my opinion because without them we stop with our certainties, and those certainties will inevitably have both real truth in them mixed up with our own misunderstandings. We can't put God in a box that way and relax, because he isn't just in there. I don't think any human alive, no matter how great their faith, can say they know God, and with that ignorance comes doubt - a good doubt that stops us inventing God rather than seeking him.

Then practically -
I find that being very certain about the existence of God is often not helpful to people who feel there might be something, but are not able to make a leap of faith. It can create a them-and-us sort of barrier, which risks seeming like believers looking down on those who don't believe or who aren't ready to yet. This path of doubt is one that many follow and it's important to support them by recognizing their doubt and helping them to understand it is part of the human lot. Without that empathic companionship from people with more spiritual knowledge many will just give up and turn away because they cannot see how they could ever be so certain.

I understand what you are saying, too. There is little disparity among us, John K. I speak of faith in God as if it is something between God and a person. I'll not try and place all people in a box.

Yes, I still seek God and His understanding and wisdom: it is the gift I have always sought "to help people" when they are searching for Him. I cannot speak for the crowd, but I seek His Words. I try to listen to His answers. I am thankful for His gifts, and thank Him for them. When I ask God for something, I pray. Prayer is not only a way to ask for things like forgiveness or thanking Him for something. Prayer brings light into us in the shadows of life. It is one way we can communicate with Him.
Few listen for an answer. Few give time to just listen. Few take time to seek. Ask, and ye shall receive. Seek, and ye shall find. Knock, and the door will be opened for you. We cannot place God in a box, because His blessings he gives us couldn't even be placed in a box.

 

[just me]

Doubt is a multi-faceted word we use in the English language. I agree doubt has its place, but disagree it is allowed in certain realms of mature understanding.

"Oh, come
All ye faithful"

 

[ThomasJ79]

Can anyone really know the answer to this age-old question? Many have proclaimed they do. They are certain of this god or that god, or that none exist at all. Does any answer really prove anything?

Does it really matter so long as we embrace one another with empathy, understanding, and love? We are all in this existence together.

 

[John K]

Doubt is a multi-faceted word we use in the English language. I agree doubt has its place, but disagree it is allowed in certain realms of mature understanding.

"Oh, come
All ye faithful"

It's very easy when we talk about doubt and certainty for the words to mean different things in different contexts. What I fear is the kind of certainty that becomes a sort of idolatry and that turns genuine spirituality into a man-made thing. We only have to look at the history of Christianity to see that from just a few decades old it broke up into factions with competing ideas about its fundamental truths and its source of authority, and this has gone on down the centuries to the present day. They can't all be right, yet their adherents surely thought that they and they alone had the only truth. This is why I fear certainty because it could easily come from myself, or from some other human person, rather than from God. I hope it doesn't, but I feel that such doubt is the way I keep the door open for the Spirit to guide me. This isn't the same as doubt about the existence of God, but about who he is, and what our relationship with him actually is, both personally and collectively.

But this is taking us outside the purpose of this thread so I'll sign off here. Very interesting discussion though.

 

[just me]

I wish God existed. It would be much easier to live. Just do good and you'll be rewarded at the end.

We can play logical and semantic games, but it's pretty clear that God doesn't exist.

How is it pretty clear to you?

I suppose your measure is shall we say above the curve, according to you.
To make such an assertion implies a sense of superiority.

4 Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.

5 They are of the world: therefore speak they of the world, and the world heareth them.

6 We are of God: he that knoweth God heareth us; he that is not of God heareth not us. Hereby know we the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error.

 

[Wyote]

1001 Common sense is like deodorant. The people who need it most never use it.

 

[just me]

What if we offer deodorant to those who need it and don't use it? Shall they cast it out, or will they smell it with others using it and, thus, try it? Maybe they just don't care about themselves?

 

[Faye]

In Meditation III, Rene Descartes offers a proof of God existing based on deductive logic. Leibniz and Spinoza offered proofs as well; although, Spinoza's conception of God is more pantheistic than the traditional conception of the Judeo-Christian God.

Personally I don't think belief in God is incompatible with science. Its true that many scientists become atheists, but that doesn't mean there is any logical problem with believing in God as a scientist (unless you take the Bible literally I guess).

 

[aeon]

 

[Jexocuha]

How can I know if God exists?
How can I know if God exists and what kind of God it is?

These are questions that I can't answer for you. Because it's like asking, how do I know that I have a spirit? Or if you have had anything like a spiritual experience, have you ever tried to explain it to people who've never had that experience? It doesn't turn out very well, does it? Or when you explain it to someone who has had spiritual experiences, but maybe different ones it's very hard to find common ground if the differences in interpretation are conflicting and not transferrable. These are questions that are truly for the individual to go out and see for themselves. To test themselves with, and see for themselves.

I believe in God because I have no good reason not too. However, my view of who God is and how God relates to humans and the world has changed drastically over time since my upbringing. And my level of openness to continue to seek and further understand has also increased overtime, and is much less rock-solid and zealous as in my past. But I think it is foolish to claim for certain that there is no spiritual dimension to reality and all of the claims of the existence of God and the necessity of faith are made up or hogwash. That takes a tremendous amount of faith and devotion in one's limited understanding and perception of reality to defend.

I wish too there was less of a cultural tendency for people to shutdown claims of the supernatural as strictly "in one's own head" and not worth taking seriously. Because, the need for true guidance is overwhelming, and ultimately that is what I would suggest is needed for the Op's question to be fully answered: the willingness to go out and test for themselves whether the supernatural is true and the existence of God is highly likely to also be true. And secondly, seeking and finding good guidance to help one's path towards assurance in the content of their experiences and insights from their journey of seeking answers.

(extra note: in my journey, I have had(unintentional and unprovoked), even as recently as two years ago, such strikingly real encounters with "spiritual beings" that I would be an idiot to disbelieve my own eyes and body(especially due to the physical nature of the encounters and the frequency of unprovoked encounters). And the shift in perception to see, hear, and experience these things is so slight from normal waking reality that all it takes is a little "push" and once that door has been opened, it's nearly impossible to further close it. It's just there's no one to talk to about it, without raising suspicions and having the dialogue shutdown quickly out of another's disbelief in what you're saying. You've got to see it to know.)

Just my two cents

 

[Anemoia]

Why there are people with naturally magical thinking if magic doesn't exists at all?
What is the meaning of this? This is super weird to me. Can you all see the implication?

I should preface this by saying that I am a believer (specifically, a Christian), though I wasn't always.

As a believer in God, one often suspects that there is great purpose to the way things are, and specifically the sense that God loves you and He wants to 'grow' you or teach' you, or enable you to achieve your full 'potential'. It's almost as if He's engineered a circumstance specifically for this to happen in the way that a parent might endeavour to teach their children through exposing them to experiences; the name 'Father' is not coincidental.

This seems especially the case with the concept of 'faith'. With 'faith', a person can indeed move mountains; with faith they are able to move through life with a purpose and a drive that defies whatever empirical reality or odds are put before them - it's an exceptionally powerful and life-affirming quality to have. It is the thing. However, if God were very obviously real, we would never be able to attain such 'faith'; if there were no doubt or mystery, it would simply defy the purpose of the whole arrangement. You must choose to believe; you must seek him to find him.

This is the kind of thing a believer often suspects or muses upon.

And then we come to physical reality - why is it the case that certain molecules in the brain produce 'spiritual' experiences of a particular quality? Why do we have subjective experiences at all? You might suspect that they were put there for that very purpose, but you may only suspect and never know because knowing would defy the purpose of faith. That is to say, God's 'purpose' of faith.

I tend to think that reality and God are coterminous - if we discover a molecule that stimulates a certain experience, that doesn't preclude God, but now we have to wonder why it's there in the first place. If God created this whole fabric of existence, He would know exactly which buttons to push; he wouldn't have to be 'supernatural' in any sense (by the common definitions of supernatural); the 'throne of God' is right there where he made it, in 'the brain', if you like.

In other words, the 'faith' answer - which I feel that you might suspect yourself - is to believe that there's a certain purpose behind human beings having naturally 'magic thinking', as you say (though 'magical thinking' proper and spiritual experiences are not the same). All the tools to access faith and God thereby are already right there within us.


With a completely secular worldview, you might be able to recall that evolutionary anthropologists believe that Homo Sapiens might have prevailed over other hominids because we possessed religion; because Homo Sapiens were able to generate a wild belief and trust that their risky endeavours would work out because something 'else' was on their side, and so on. It is evolutionary advantageous and whatever subjective experience it generates is essentially just a byproduct - subjectivity exists and therefore it has to be 'something', and that 'something' in our case is the category of experiences human beings know as 'spirituality'.

 

[just me]

Is spirituality so easily defined? Certainly there are those who think we can utter words to define it.

We are all subject to sin. In this subjectivity, we may choose to live without it. It is those who have lived a life seeking no sin that better understand. Romans has great explanations regarding how to live with this sin some of us seek to be rid of.
We find we cannot live without sin. Understanding all the sin offerings of the past, and knowing we live and are subjected to sin, we find ourselves unable to walk uprightly before God. We tend to hide ourselves from Him, but the Holy Spirit was given to those who seek this as a means of communion. There was one man who offered his perfect self as a sin offering. He was born of a virgin.
He is the only person ever born without sin.

What I would do, I do not; what I would not do, that I do. I find it is not I, but sin that dwelleth in me. Without spirituality we could never understand this. We have had one replace sin offerings with Himself, that "their sins and iniquities I will remember no more". Having to give sin offerings every year brought about a remembrance of our sin. We are offered faith to seek the Holy One so we can live a healthier, happier life in Him. Spirituality is a form of connection so we can walk and associate ourselves with others and God. It is a gift, not a by-product. We must choose to have faith? No, we must choose to use it. We must embrace it.

 

[just me]

3 Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

4 Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.

5 Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.

6 Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.

7 Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.

8 Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.

9 Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.

10 Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

11 Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.

3-9 describe here what is in the spirit of man's capabilities. They speak to those who have good hearts toward mankind. They are all examples to be followed, not with hands or feet. Merry Christmas.

 

[John K]

A very happy and peaceful Christmas @just me - a time of greatest hope shining in the star over Bethlehem.

 

[jerryloomis]

I read the atheist arguments and they seen too shallow -not deep enough- to me.
Most of them are from scientists, and science is reductionist. I feel like Science can't explain 90% of phenomena, let alone the spirituality.

But I think there is something that must exist. Why there are so many magical believers in the world? Why a concept that not exists should stay as an idea on many people in the world? Even mitological creatures stem from existents beings, example unicorns: horses, etc.

David Ritchey say on his book that this is an anomaly or even a mental illness. He (and his followers) wrote that being INFP or INFJ is having schizotypical personality (I can't remember where I read this), and that is untrue. We are simply normal human beings.
They patologized normal ways of being, just to say that the supernatural does not exist.

I know belief in God or the supernatural doesn't depend of culture, thanks to MBTI we know some people are simple wired to be believers and they are not crazy.

All the matter we can see is 5%, what if INFPs for example can see another aspects of matter that the rest of us can't? Many of them report experiences with aliens, others believe they are vampires or angels, and they are not insane.

And INFJs are aware of how other people perceive the world, INFJs not necessarily have magical thinking, I am a rationalist, for example, and I'm not the only one.

Atheits/skeptic arguments are even childish sometimes.

How can I know if God exists and what kind of God it is?

Just my two cents. Try mathematics. We observe (science) that nothing is its own cause. However, we mathematically can not have an infinite string of things that cause other things because we can not create infinity from successive addition. Also it would be mathematically impossible to reach this point where you and I exist from an infinitely long source of causes. Yet we do exist. So the universe must have had a start. The start must have been from an uncaused cause, that is capable of creating something from nothing. This uncaused cause can not be dependent on anything for its existence. This is what we call God.

 

[just me]

33:1 The word of the LORD came to me:

33:2 “Son of man, speak to your countrymen and say to them: ‘When I bring the sword against a land, and the people of the land choose one of their men and make him their watchman,

33:3 and he sees the sword coming against the land and blows the trumpet to warn the people,

33:4 then if anyone hears the trumpet but does not take warning and the sword comes and takes his life, his blood will be on his own head.

33:5 Since he heard the sound of the trumpet but did not take warning, his blood will be on his own head. If he had taken warning, he would have saved himself.

33:6 But if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet to warn the people and the sword comes and takes the life of one of them, that man will be taken away because of his sin, but I will hold the watchman accountable for his blood.’

33:7 “Son of man, I have made you a watchman [stood atop city wall and watched for an enemy’s approach; sounded alarm to warn city’s inhabitants of imminent danger; cf. 2 Kings 9:17] for the house of Israel [in this context refers to Judah]; so hear the word I speak [Ezekiel’s message came from God] and give them warning from me [God was the source of Ezekiel’s warning].

33:8 When I say to the wicked [a guilty or ungodly person], ‘O wicked man, you will surely die [cf. God’s words to Adam in the garden of Eden (Gen. 2:17)],’ and you [as a watchman Ezekiel was to warn people of impending divine judgment] do not speak out to dissuade him from his ways [from a consistent pattern of sin], [note twofold result of failing to sound the warning] [1]that wicked man will die for his sin [one’s relationship with God matters when death comes], and [2] I will hold you accountable [believers will give an account for their lives after they die (1 Cor. 3:10-15)] for his blood.

33:9 But if you do warn the wicked man to turn from his ways [from a consistent pattern of sin] and he does not do so, [1] he will die for his sin, but [2] you will have saved yourself [watchman was not held accountable if he had fulfilled his responsibility].

33:10 “Son of man, say to the house of Israel [the Southern Kingdom of Judah], ‘This is what you are saying: “Our offenses [transgressions; rebellion; deliberate revolt against the Lord] and sins weigh us down, and we are wasting [decaying or rotting] away because of them. How then can we live?”‘

33:11 Say to them, ‘As surely as I live [this phrase emphasizes the seriousness of the Lord’s reply], declares the Sovereign LORD, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live [cf. 2 Pet. 3:9]. Turn! Turn [repetition of this word emphasizes the seriousness of God’s urging] from your evil ways! Why will you die [they could avoid this by accepting the Lord’s remedy for their spiritual condition], O house of Israel?’

33:12 “Therefore, son of man, say to your countrymen, ‘The righteousness of the righteous man will not save him when he disobeys, and the wickedness of the wicked man will not cause him to fall when he turns from it. The righteous man, if he sins, will not be allowed to live because of his former righteousness.’

33:13 If I tell the righteous man that he will surely live, but then he trusts in his righteousness and does evil, none of the righteous things he has done will be remembered; he will die for the evil he has done.

33:14 And if I say to the wicked man, ‘You will surely die,’ but he then turns away from his sin and does what is just and right-

33:15 if he gives back what he took in pledge for a loan, returns what he has stolen, follows the decrees that give life, and does no evil, he will surely live; he will not die.

33:16 None of the sins he has committed will be remembered against him. He has done what is just and right; he will surely live.

33:17 “Yet your countrymen say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ But it is their way that is not just.

33:18 If a righteous man turns from his righteousness and does evil, he will die for it.

33:19 And if a wicked man turns away from his wickedness and does what is just and right, he will live by doing so.

33:20 Yet, O house of Israel, you say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ But I will judge each of you according to his own ways.”

33:21 In the twelfth year of our exile, in the tenth month on the fifth day, a man who had escaped from Jerusalem came to me and said, “The city has fallen!”

33:22 Now the evening before the man arrived, the hand of the LORD was upon me, and he opened my mouth before the man came to me in the morning. So my mouth was opened and I was no longer silent.

33:23 Then the word of the LORD came to me:

33:24 “Son of man, the people living in those ruins in the land of Israel are saying, ‘Abraham was only one man, yet he possessed the land. But we are many; surely the land has been given to us as our possession.’

33:25 Therefore say to them, ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Since you eat meat with the blood still in it and look to your idols and shed blood, should you then possess the land?

33:26 You rely on your sword, you do detestable things, and each of you defiles his neighbor’s wife. Should you then possess the land?’

33:27 “Say this to them: ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: As surely as I live, those who are left in the ruins will fall by the sword, those out in the country I will give to the wild animals to be devoured, and those in strongholds and caves will die of a plague.

33:28 I will make the land a desolate waste, and her proud strength will come to an end, and the mountains of Israel will become desolate so that no one will cross them.

33:29 Then they will know that I am the LORD, when I have made the land a desolate waste because of all the detestable things they have done.’

33:30 “As for you, son of man, your countrymen are talking together about you [Ezekiel and his messages were the topic of conversation] by the walls and at the doors of the houses, saying to each other, ‘Come and hear [these commands are plural in Hebrew] the message that has come from the LORD.’

33:31 My people come to you, as they usually do, and sit before you to listen to your words [the people hung on his every word], but they do not put them into practice [cf. Isa. 29:13; Jas. 2:14-18]. With their mouths they express devotion [the people talked a good spiritual game], but their hearts are greedy for unjust gain.

33:32 Indeed, to them you are nothing more than one who sings love songs with a beautiful voice and plays an instrument well [the people admired Ezekiel’s voice and eloquence], for they hear your words but do not put them into practice.

33:33 “When all this [divine judgment] comes true—and it surely will [emphasizes the certainty of judgment]—then they will know that a prophet has been among them.”