Why Do Some People Believe In God?
God can’t be found by observation (science) or knowledge (philosophy). He reveals Himself to us in Jesus.
“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction. (Proverbs 1:7)”
“No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known. (John 1:18)”
Why do you believe in God and others don’t? To believers God is the most obvious reality in the world. He is inescapably there in our everyday experience. How can it be that someone can live in the same world as us, experience the same things as us, and yet not believe in God who we experience all around us every day? To us it’s just as crazy as if someone said they didn’t believe in air – the air they live and breathe and move in!
The Bible’s answer is that people don’t believe in God because He cannot be found by human beings. We are sometimes tempted to think that if people have enough knowledge they will find God. But Proverbs says that belief in God is the beginning of knowledge not the conclusion of knowledge. Knowledge won’t convince you about God. On the contrary, once you believe in God then you will get knowledge. Knowledge doesn’t lead to God, God leads to knowledge. This is why it says that if anyone does not believe in God they have rejected wisdom and instruction.
We also just don’t have the capacity to find God. This is why in Job it says that when it comes to finding God there is nothing we can do and nothing we can know. God is above and beyond all our powers of observation which is the basis of all true science. In computer terms, we just don’t have the necessary RAM or processing power to run the software needed to find God.
According to John no one has ever seen God. The result is that no one can know God. No amount of human effort, human thinking, human speculation or human searching will prove God to anyone – let alone make God a Person infinitely desirable and worthy of eternal adoration. So we are all stuck in ignorance about God – unless God Himself takes the initiative.
If God reveals Himself to us that changes everything. John tells us that God has done exactly that. Jesus, who is God the One and Only, the Son who came from the Father, He has made God known. Not just ‘knowable’ but actually known.
Boil this all down and here’s the point: the only reason you know God is because Jesus Christ has revealed God to you! Adore and thank the Lord Jesus for revealing God to you. Ask God to make you more grateful. Ask Him to reveal Himself more and more to you – and to those who do not yet know Him.