Doubt 2 - Doubt that there is a God ...

Wednesday, March 31, 2010. Today, I would like to talk about one particular doubt. In fact, this doubt can be seen as the key doubt. It is the doubt of our time - but it is as old as mankind. The doubt I am talking about is the doubt about God's existence.

Does God exist?

Is God really there? Perhaps, he is not there. It might be that the world is just empty in the sense that there is no higher being which can be called God.

For many of us civilized humans today a life without God is the normal life. This is the case in particular in the secularized societies of the western world. God? For many people today “God” is a strange idea which people had who did not know science, who were captured in superstition.

We can go different routes to think further about the question “does God exist?” There are personal experiences, for example. When I was around 13 years of age, I started to ask the question and I started to question the answers which I knew before. Asking these questions was an important part of my development. I grew from a child into a different personal state. The quest for God is always part of some personal history.

But the question has been more or less systematically addressed by philosophers and by social scientists. It has been discussed for several hundred years now by theologians. They all tried to find their answers. They all had a different point of view on the old question: is he there? Is God more than an idea, more than a story, more than an illusion? Is God there and as powerful as it is said? Is the there, willing and able to listen and to act? Where and how do we find God?

How to approach the questions?

When I started to ask for God, I went several different ways over the years. Since I tried many paths, I can tell you which ones do not work. You can learn a lot about different ideas who God is and how you can find him when you read the different texts of the world religions. But should I recommend to read all this? It can take you years, and to understand it you need quite good insight into who God is. I think it is much better to find God first and then read all the stuff which various different religions have written.

People in the past have tried to prove God. They have tried to find clear evidence by reasoning - by arguments. And they have tried to find evidence by observations and statistics. Still today there are now and then efforts of this type, from either side of the discussion. Some try to prove that faith has no influence on the life expectancy in average. Others try to prove the contrary. Does prayer help? Some try to prove that, others try to prove that it is not true. The setup seems to be crucial here, as with every statistical test.

It is crucial, to meet Jesus when you want to learn something about God. Jesus is the key person of the New Testament. Reading the bible is an important step towards God. If you find it difficult to get good insight by just reading alone, try to read together with others who have been Christians for a long time. There are bible study groups in nearly every town on this planet. The key message of the bible is that God wants to meet us through his son Jesus. He wants to talk to us, wants to find us himself, wants us to discover him and get to know him.

When we have doubt whether God exists, we can and should go and meet Jesus. Listening to him in the New Testament is very important here. And we might pray to God and ask him to reveal his existence to us personally. ... more texts