3.2 How can we know that God exists?

1. As many as 80% of individuals in the United States would claim to believe in God or a higher power of some sort. We at least qualify for Paul's words in Acts 17:22 -- "I see that in every way you are very religious." What that number doesn't tell us is how many of us believe God is a person (or three), whether our concepts of him are at least in the ballpark, and whether we give our allegiance to him.

From a Christian standpoint, God is three persons (although one God). God is the almighty Creator of everything that exists, seen and unseen. He is all-powerful, all-knowing, all-present, all-loving. He is self-sufficient and sovereign -- the only, exclusive self-standing authority. Any other authority in this universe is by his allowance.

2. But how do we know this? That is both a theological and potentially a philosophical question. Here is where philosophy can get a little sticky for some -- what right do we have to question whether God exists?

We've already asked this question. My basic answer is that it depends on how you ask the question. The primary determinant of morality is intention. Do you ask the question to challenge God or to oppose him? Do you ask the question honestly as a truth-seeker? That is where the answer to this question lies. Let's assume we are asking it as truth-seekers.

How can we know that God exists?

3. One answer is that we only know if he tells us. We cannot find our way to him. He only brings us to him.

To some extent, this is the Christian answer. Officially, Christians believe that we cannot come to God unless he draws us to himself.

Yet there are at least two camps here. There are those who believe that our will does not really have anything to do with this "draw-ing." This is the Calvinist position. It is God's work alone -- monergism or "one work" done by God. Either God chooses you or he doesn't. If he choses you, you will believe and know that he exists.

In my opinion, however, this position leads to unsolvable problems with regard to evil. If God predetermines everything, then God predetermines evil. God commands rapists, serial killers, and child molesters. In short, it empties the biblical claims regarding God's love to ridiculousness and absurdity. God becomes the author of evil in a more or less direct way.

The other camp are those who believe God empowers our wills to participate in a movement toward him. It is a dual work or "synergism" of God's will and our wills. God draws us, but we must respond, empowered by his Spirit.

We return to the original question: how can we know that God exists? The first part of the answer is that he draws us to him. He reaches out to us so that we can come to him.

4. How does he reach out to us? 

He reaches out through his Spirit. The form this takes can vary with each individual. It is rarely a matter of apologetic reasoning, but it can be. There are the C. S. Lewises, the Josh McDowells, and the Francis Collinses. However, we should not think that reason was the ultimate basis. The Spirit was the ultimate basis using reason in their instances.

For far more people, the pathway is affective. "You ask me how I know he lives," the hymn says, "he lives within my heart." Yes, in itself this may seem a flimsy basis for faith. I had a professor in seminary who hated this line to the hymn. "No," Dr. Robert Lyon insisted, "we know because of the testimony of the apostles."

But faith is in part subjective. We believe it is objective too -- God exists whether I believe in him or not. But it is not my faith unless I believe. And the Spirit can lead me to faith on the basis of my feelings just as well has he can do so using my reason as the path.

The answer to the question, "How does God reach out to us?" is thus "in many and various ways." The sine qua non is God's reaching. Our response is also a requisite. But how God connects with our choice can be cognitive, affective, relational, or as many pathways as exist.

Nevertheless, it has often been the nature of philosophy to focus on the rational arguments. The next few articles will look at the primary arguments used in favor of God's existence: 1) arguments from cause, 2) arguments from order, 3) arguments from being and necessity, 4) arguments from morality, and 5) arguments from miracles. In this latter category, we will include arguments for the resurrection as well as personal experience.

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Introduction
1.1 What is philosophy?
1.2 Is philosophy Christian?
1.3 Unexamined assumptions
1.4 Socrates and the Unexamined Life

Logic
2.1 The Structure of Thinking 
2.2 When Thinking Goes Wrong
2.3 Three Tests for Truth
2.4 Knowing the Bible
2.5 Plato and Aristotle
2.6 The Story of Logic 

Philosophy of Religion
3.1 Faith and Reason
3.2 God as First Cause