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I’m Glad You Asked: (Let’s be honest, sometimes we’re not!)

 
Carl Laferton | 2 May 2011

Some questions that people ask are tough. And that’s why we’re putting together a resource that gives short answers to the 11 most commonly-asked questions we face.

So, if you were asked ‘How do you know that God exists?’ what would you say? Who or what would you call on as evidence? What stories, illustrations, sound bites have you found helpful?

2 Comments

Cathy

12:01 PM GMT on January 8th
I'd want to start by checking if they are really asking 'How do YOU know God exists?' or if they actually mean 'How would you persuade ME that God exists?' Because we might not want to go about answering the two questions the same way ....

Many of things things that remind me of the reality of God come from my own experience of knowing him answer prayer, change my thinking, strengthen me to cope in difficulties etc. All of which are quite subjective and often not terribly compelling to someone else, looking in from the outside. And if I start there we risk a conversation ending up with them saying ''
that's great for you but irrelevant for me'

If I want to help THEM see that God exists, I'd want to be pointing them to the objective, external realities eg the testimony of creation, God's work in history, and particularly the historical evidence for the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. (And if I wanted to focus on just one 'objective' answer I think I'd start with the resurrection). Things that they can look at and test out for themselves, and begin to see that there is evidence that points to God's existence.

But if we leap in to answer 'How do YOU know God exists?' with the objective, evidence-based arguments, whilst those things are all still true and may be very real and important for us, we risk sounding as if our knowledge of God is only a theoretical, evidence-based thing, instead of also being a deep personal, heart-felt reality. So I think it's worth separating out the questions and seeing which one they ask really asking, before we leap in to answer.

A helpful analogy may be something like 'How do I know I am married to my husband?' I was there! I remember the wedding, and I live with the reality of it everyday. If I want to show the bank that I am married, I show them my wedding certificate rather than just asserting that 'I know it in my heart!' Because it is evidence they can see and more easily assess. But that doesn't mean that my wedding certificate is the strongest proof of my marriage to me.

Paul

12:01 PM GMT on January 8th
Well, assuming I was given enough time, and assuming that this was a fairly abstract "philosophical" discussion ...

"Rule zero" is that two ideas that contradict one another can't both be true (although in principle they could both be false). I'd start off by saying that "conventional" proofs of the existence of God haven't been philosophically convincing.

I'd move on to suggesting that of the alternative metaphysics, the ones that seem to be most substantive are naturalism and theism, and that belief in these is largely a matter of presupposition, rather than accruing evidence one way or the other.

I'd then challenge naturalism by pointing out that there are questions it leaves unanswered, which don't seem to be being resolved - aspects of our human nature (morality, mortality, creativity) and the nature of the universe (the special nature of Earth, the existence of the universe) - and the moral consequences of naturalism.

Carl Laferton

Carl is Editorial Director at The Good Book Company and is a member of Grace Church Worcester Park, London. He is the best-selling author of The Garden, the Curtain and the Cross and God's Big Promises Bible Storybook, and also serves as series editor of the God's Word for You series. Before joining TGBC, he worked as a journalist and then as a teacher, and pastored a congregation in Hull. Carl is married to Lizzie, and they have two children. He studied history at Oxford University.