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Is There a God? No one can prove to you the existence of God, just as no one can prove to you that Americans walked on the moon. But you still might be able to be certain of His existence: Just ask him. Now we are assuming that you are satisfied that everything in the universe just sort of has always been there, for all eternity, and that no one had to actually start it up or make it. And that you are satisfied with the prospect of spending your entire life learning, and doing good deeds, and maturing as a unique individual, only to be snuffed out like a candle at death and simply cease to exist, which is not much of a crowning glory of a culmination for a lifetime, but you are happy with that, right? So in that case, belief in God has to be a gift to you. There is no physical proof. Entire books have been written about how the U.S. space program has been faked by the government. All you have to do is set the standards of proof high enough, and absolutely nothing can be proven, not even your own existence. Then we are talking about a gift from God. As with all gifts, you can’t demand it. As with many gifts, you may not even think that you want it, that you have always gotten along quite well without it. But it is a good gift indeed, one that will provide you with comfort and happiness in this world, and usher you into an eternity of happiness in the next. Once you receive it, you will wonder how you ever got along without it. And since it is a gift, you pay nothing for it, so what is the downside to “trying it on”? The catch is, you must ask for it. Not in an adversarial way, but in the way you would ask for any gift of great value. Go to the house of the giver, cap in hand so to speak. Go into a church and kneel down. Talk to God about your life and troubles. Just take our word for it that he will hear you. Very sincerely ask if he does indeed exist. If you are fortunate, he will let you know. Not with actual words, or a clap of thunder, or anything like that. Maybe not even at that time. Maybe not until you are on your deathbed. But if you are sincere, and if you are essentially a good person, he will give you the gift of faith, more precious to you than all the money in the world.
God was kind enough to indicate His existence to your editor in a much more direct way. The following is a true account, and I remember it like it was only yesterday: When I was a boy, my mother gave piano lessons to augment our small income. Our piano was an old upright that was so decrepit that it couldn’t be tuned, and had several keys that didn’t play at all. We couldn’t afford a better one. My grandfather, whose name was Joseph Weber, came to spend the last few months of his life with us. I don’t know what he was suffering from, but he was very ill and couldn’t get up from his bed. He would hear Mother talk about how difficult it was to teach on our old piano. Just before he died, he told her that when he got to heaven, the first thing he would do would be to make sure she got a new piano. Mom told him that she had been saving for years, and that all she was able to put aside was $50.00, not nearly enough even then. “Don’t worry, Ruthie,” he said, “ I’ll make sure you get one. I’ll send it right down from heaven.” A few days after Grandpa died, Mother got a call from someone who was moving out of our small town. It seems that they had a nice grand piano, almost new, and they had seldom used it and did not want to move it. They had heard that she was a piano teacher, and they wanted to know if she would like to purchase it for $50.00. Only after it was all set up in our living room, and Mom sat down to play it for the first time, did she notice the brand name of the piano, written in big gold letters above the keyboard. It was a little known maker, the only one of that make that I have ever seen. Mother sat motionless, staring, before bursting into tears. It was a Weber. So that is how I know that my Grandpa is in heaven. And that is why I returned to God after a long absence." . Garrett Toren, Editor [If you are thinking that a coincidence about a piano is not a good enough reason to have faith, please see Reader Question About the Piano and then read the following letter. Thanks.] Question from a Reader "How can I be sure there is a God? I really don't understand and am looking for some answers because honestly, it's frightening to think of what's the point of living, when you know it's just a countdown to when your not here." This is really a two-part question: Is there a God at all? Then if so, is he a personal God that has an interest in us both now and after we die, or does he just let us live and then go out like a light, allowing us to exist, but only like a chicken or a lizard? I presume you have already looked around the world and decided that it might have evolved into existence all by itself. Not possible. The raw energy that everything presumably evolved from, and the laws of natural evolution themselves, (or whatever you think it all started from), at some point had to just pop up from absolute nothing. They had to have a beginning. But, you say, what if these first things existed for all eternity, and also had the ability to spontaneously start up the universe, and were somehow great and smart enough to make it wind up so immense and orderly and beautiful, with intelligence and love and everything? Ah, now you have defined God. See? It wasn’t so hard to discover him after all. Then "God," as we have defined him, cannot have the same nature as the rest of the universe that we see. If he did, our argument is circular and we must still search for a first beginning. Our language has no clear words to describe his nature, we usually fall back on "spiritual." By this we simply mean that he is different from anything that we have direct knowledge of, and that, unlike the world that is temporary and constantly changing, he is capable of being eternal. In fact, logically, he must be eternal. This is the only way he could have brought our universe into existence. As his children, made in his image, part of us is also spiritual and eternal. Call it what you will, some people refer to it as our soul. You won't find it by digging into our bodies. It is just completely different, the way God is completely different from this universe that he made. We cannot completely comprehend this, any more than a dog or cat can comprehend radio waves. But radio waves exist, nonetheless. The larger question is our relationship with this God that we have postulated. Consider the two alternatives: First, he may have created us as equals to chickens and lizards, and has no interest in what we do, as he plans to discard us when our lives are through. Or he may not be like a person at all, and is not even capable of thinking about us. Either way, common sense tells us that our lives are essentially worthless and meaningless. There are no consequences of our actions other than the pleasure they bring us in the here and now. If you feel like loving your neighbor, if that gives you a kick, do it! But if your neighbor feels like burning down your house and killing your family, and taking all your money, then he might as well do it if he thinks he can avoid the police. Be mean to everyone, kick little children when no one is looking, cheat old people out of their life savings, mug people in the part, hey, anything goes. If you are caught, you were just stupid about it, and hire a good lawyer. Lie like crazy. Belittle everyone and drive them to tears. Why not? We are just waiting around to die, grab what you can while you are here. Is this the kind of world you see? Is this the kind of world you want? Second, he may be personal, and have an interest in us and in how we lead our lives. If this were true, he would either make certain that part of our instinct was in knowing right from wrong and how to lead our lives, or he would make a personal appearance here on earth, and tell us directly what it is that he expects from us. Or, if we were lucky, he would do both. Do we instinctively want to avoid being mean? Not kick kitty-cats and children? Not swindle poor old people? Well, of course. That’s what makes the world worth living in. We call this instinct our conscience. It is how we know God is personal and has an interest in us. Did he ever make an appearance here to fill us in on details himself? Well, I would have, if I were him. We can easily ignore our conscience, and rationalize almost anything we want to do. How much proof of his visit would we require? There are lots of people who do not believe in our space program. They don’t think we ever went to the moon, much less Mars. You can demand such a high level of proof for anything that proof becomes impossible. On the other hand, no one bases their life on certainties. It is not certain when you get in your car that you will not die a horrible fiery death on the way to the store. But we drive anyway, because it probably won’t happen. In religion there are no certainties at all. But there are a lot of high probabilities, and we would be foolish to not go with the odds, in the same way we do every other aspect of our lives. During his “visit” here, he would have given us many rules to follow, and a good idea of what to expect if we follow them and if we do not. We would expect these rules to be in complete and absolute agreement with our conscience. And we would expect him to say flatly and unequivocally that he was God, or at least, the same as God, in human form. Did we ever get such a visit? Yes. The actual words of Christ are in complete agreement with the conscience of every person of good will, and have been for two thousand years. And with so many historical references to his life, including four eyewitnesses who followed him around for three years, the facts of his life are as well documented as the space program. Will people still refuse to accept him? Of course. That is human nature.
is important in our search for God.
Our philosophical discussions about the origin of the universe, the nature of God, etc. will also contribute to your understanding of God. We invite you to visit our Home Page, which has a complete index of help. on the meaning of life (how He wants us to lead our life, a complete guide.)  "My nine year old son has a question. God created everything and everyone. And He knows what is going to happen in the future. God created angels. Wouldn't He have known that one of the angels would sin and leave heaven and become Satan? So how come God created him in the first place?" This is the same question as: why did God create all of us, when he knew beforehand exactly which ones of us would be evil enough to have to be punished? If he loves all of us, why didn't he just create those of us who would end up in heaven? This is a tough problem, and has been pondered over for two thousand years. Evil is not a thing, it does not have a separate existence. It is how we describe someone who has free will, and who uses that free will to decide for himself to turn away from God and hurt other people, or to have so much pride that he thinks he is better than God and can make his own definition of right and wrong. Free will means that we can always choose to make whatever moral choice we want to, with no pressure from God or anyone else. We can kick kittens, we can lie, we can be lazy, we can be mean to our mothers, and God will allow it. We may even prosper financially as a result of it, and live in a big house and drive new cars, or be a United States Senator. It is our response to evil people that earns us a place in the Kingdom of God. Without the Nazis in WWII, how could there have been thousands of great heros, hiding Catholics and Jews at risk of their own lives, refusing to kill even though they had orders from the government, helping fellow prisoners remain cheerful in the face of torture and death? With no evil people, the world would offer no opportunity for heroic goodness. It is a great moral good to forgive people who are mean to us, and return their hatred and abuse with kindness and help. How would this be possible without mean people? There would be no opportunity to really do any good at all. Does this mean that God created mean and evil people on purpose just to test us? Of course not. He only creates men and angels who, at birth, have complete freedom to be anything they want to be. Some choose to be evil, but that is entirely up to them. But it is part of his plan to leave them here and live out their natural lives. One reason he does not destroy them right away is that they always continue to have free will and complete freedom, and so can choose at any moment, right up to their deaths, to renounce their evil ways and embrace God. We are sure that God fervently roots for them to do so, because he continues to love them. Reading the next letter, about free will, answers questions that arise about this. We also have to assume that Satan and his cohorts are a necessary part of God’s overall plan. We don’t know just what role they play in our lives, but if tradition is correct, they constantly try to lead us astray. We show our mettle, we prove our worth, we pile up the brownie points, by refusing to go along with them, and through great faith, continuing to do God’s will. They supply the wrong choices to us. We earn heaven by making the right choices and ignoring them. So we have to have them, just as we need wicked people in the world. How much are these fallen angels and lost people really punished by God? We don’t know. We do know two things for certain. First, God loves all of the men and angels he made. Second, he stressed many times in the Gospels that for him, all things are possible, even things that we think are absolutely impossible. So maybe the whole scenario is one that we just cannot comprehend yet. It is a very good thing to pray for all the people and angels that made the wrong choices. God will hear our prayers, and be very happy that we love them, even as he does. Parents always love their children, no matter what bad things they do. Punishing them hurts the parent more than the child. I hope this answers your question. Not many people, even adults, are smart enough to ever think about this. Remember, God has a special plan for your life. It may not be an easy life, but if you faithfully follow his commandments, some day you will do great things in His name. And then He will do great things for you.  "If God already knows what we are going to do and if we are going to go to heaven or hell, how can we have free will? It is a done deal, so there is no free will." This is a famous problem that no one has ever been able to answer satisfactorily. But we are going to give you a pretty good answer. Two answers, in fact. The first is a logical argument; the second is intuitive. Your friend must believe that God is all knowing and all-powerful. But if that is the case, he could arrange things so that his knowledge of future events did not interfere with our free will. It does not matter that we cannot figure out how he does it. If he is all-powerful, all we need to know is that he can do it. In the Gospels, Christ says “ For God, all things are possible; even things that men think are clearly impossible, are easy for God.” But better yet is an intuitive argument. Suppose there were no such thing as God, so that no one knew the outcome of our actions or our lives. Our free will is then very obvious, as we are always free to make whatever choices we wish. Now suppose our most brilliant scientists one day make a time machine, allowing people to go back in time and observe the past. They would have to be invisible, and not be able to change anything, of course, because what happens is a matter of record and cannot be changed. They would just be secret observers. But if the time travelers were students of history, or had in their possession a diary of someone of the earlier time, they would be able to know in advance everything that person did, just as God does. Does this mean that the observed person did not have free will, that they were somehow forced to do what they did? No, our original hypothesis was that they had absolute free will. The fact that some unseen person had prior knowledge of their actions did not in the least way detract from their complete freedom to do as they chose. And so it is with God. We hope this answers your question. To send email, Click here. Guest writers | | Return Home | The Meaning of Life | Is There a God? | Prayer | Teachings of Christ | Don Camillo Stories | Links | |
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