God: “Believing is Seeing”

“Prove to me that God exists!”  The cynic calls out to the person of faith.  “Just show me, prove to me without a doubt, that God exists!”

Such is quite impossible for within the prudent there exists on some level a modicum of doubt. Those qualms, be they great or small are where two very dynamic elements have opportunity to function—active decision and vibrant faith.

The simple point is that there is ample evidence in the balance and order of God’s Creation, there is ample evidence in the miracle of the Judeo-Christian Scriptures, and there is ample evidence in the heart of man to choose to believe.  However such evidence requires decision as to acceptance and yes, vibrant and living faith. 

While modern anthropology has been futile in attempting to explain away man as being little more than an animal in the evolutionary process, while modern theology is dismal in their attempts at explaining away the miracle of the transmission of Scripture, there yet remain other evidences for God’s existence—evidences that the prudently honest of thought cannot lightly dismiss!  These are evidences that the critics of God’s existence and the veracity of the Bible cannot explain!

One such evidence is found in the notion of “otherness.”  The “otherness” that counters the very survival of the a man and mankind.  When God knits one’s DNA together, He places somewhere within that genome a bent toward otherness.  For those who question this notion, please consider that “otherness” is seen in that which does or does not fulfill a man. 

The person who heroically in crisis gives his life for another might be explained away as taking an impetuous action.  But how about the one who day in and day out has a sense of service, who selflessly pours out his life for, and pours his life into another or others.  He is the one who will pass from this life with a sense of completeness, accomplishment, and fulfillment.  His only frustration at death is that he could not have done, given, or contributed more.  Even those of no faith have an inner sense of fulfillment and worth as their lives counted for something more than themselves, as they gave to others who will give to others and so on, even to the generations yet to be born. 

Consider the opposite, the person who does not spend his life in these pursuits but selfishly seeks to find fulfillment in material gain, social status, and as a possessor of greater and greater power.  These are those whose desires are all in the temporary and thus insatiable!  These are those who most often will die angry and frustrated at the unfairness of death.  Why?  Because his life is unfulfilled and consisted only of what he might selfishly keep and who or what he might control and not what he might give into the lives of others.

God?  There is in addition to that “otherness” a sense of being a part of something greater than one’s self.  It is the sense of being a part of some sort of a “god concept.”  It ranges from living for a greater than yourself ideology to being in relationship with and a part of the plans of the true and living God, Jesus Christ!

Were this not so, why would so many cultures and people have created some variant of god or of some dynamic that transcends life?  Why would there be that fatalism that touts the notion of the will of the gods?  False as they may be, they point to the fact that there is a God consciousness in the very deepest places of man and mankind.

Another evidence to be considered is found in the matter of “choice.”  Is it possible to prove without a doubt that there is God?  Of course not because to do so would remove or seriously compromise the element of making a choice to believe—it would remove the necessity of choice—of choosing to believe in God.  Or of choosing to not believe in God.  Make no mistake to apathetically not choose is still to make a choice!

Attendant to that choice is this.  To remove the choice is to remove the necessity of faith—of taking that leap of faith into the unknown, yet it is only unknown to those who make the choice to not see the many hints without and within.  Hints found in creation, in Scripture, in otherness, in the need of being involved in something greater than oneself, in the vast number of cultures with a notion of God, of paying attention to that inner sense of there being God, and so much more. 

Yet there remains one other necessity and it is found in what has been oft quotes in various forms.  It is this, “Some things have to be seen to be believed but other things need to be believed to be seen.”