Why Do You Believe in God?

As a sophomore or junior in high school, I studied the 5 Proofs of the Existence of God developed by St. Thomas Aquinas:  The Unmoved Mover, The Uncaused Cause, the Necessary Being, The Ultimate Good, and the Absolute Intelligence.  Even as young as I was, I remember thinking that these "rational arguments," valid though they were, had nothing to do with my own belief in God.  In an age of rationalism and philosophy, such as that of St. Thomas, I can see a place for clear and rational explanations for the existence of God.  However, I suspect that today -- and maybe even in Thomas' day -- these arguments leave most of us cold.

The truth is that the "love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit" which is given to us (Romans 5:5).  The spring of love is the Holy Spirit, not us.  Oswald Chambers says this:  It is absurd to look for the love of God in our hearts naturally; it is only there when it has been shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit.  Those who do not first love God will not be convinced by rational "proof" of His existence.  As one of my students told me, "I don't want to waste time on this if it is not real." 

And how do we know that God is "real"?  Not by philosophical arguments, but only by revelation -- Person to person.  C. S. Lewis says that if God exists, it stands to reason that He must be self-revealing.  For we cannot know Him, or anything about Him, until He reveals Himself to us.  But He does this not only to saints and philosophers, but to every single one of us who want to know Him -- and even to those who do NOT want to know Him.  St. Paul comes to mind.  He thought he already knew the Yahweh of the Old Testament, for he was well-schooled in the Law.  What he could not know about God was revealed to Him in the Person of Jesus Christ, whom he met personally on the road to Damascus.  Even as Lewis himself met Christ "on the road" to the zoo; when he got into the sidecar of his brother's motorcycle, he did not believe in Christ.  By the time they arrived at the zoo, he was a believer.  Who can explain this?

Each one of us must also have a personal encounter with the God Who Reveals Himself to men.  Evelyn Underhill made a thorough and detailed study of mysticism -- not of "woo woo" phenomenon and unusual occurrences, but of the common patterns of ordinary men and women who know and love God.  Her research crosses centuries and cultures, delving into all forms of faith and expression.  Her conclusion for the "universal experience" of men and women is that our faith journey leads to three ways of knowing God, and until we know Him in all three ways, our knowledge is still incomplete.

First, we must know Him "out there," much as St. Thomas's 'proofs' of His existence.  Or better, as the Book of Hebrews tells us, "anyone who comes to God must first of all believe that He exists, and that He rewards those who come to Him."  We must know Him as "Other," beyond ourselves and our limitations.  We must "look up" to find Him, much as the man who wrote Getting Life cried out in his prison cell for a sign in his most desperate hour.

Secondly, we must know Him as Emmanuel, God - with - us.  The Incarnation, God-made-flesh and dwelling (pitching His tent) among us was a "second revelation," if you will, from that of the Old Testament  --- although it was certainly clear that He was "with" the Israelites on their journey from Egypt to the Promised Land, just as He was "with" Abraham and "with" Isaac and Joseph and Joshua.  Now we know through Jesus Christ that He is "with us" always, even to the consummation of the world.  Every person who comes to God will experience that He is "with us" and that His faithfulness to us is eternal.  The author of Getting Life cried out to God-Who-is-in Heaven and found instead a God who was with him in the very prison cell.

Finally, we must know Him as the power within us, moving us toward good and not evil, fulfilling His plans for us, to give us "a hope and a future" (Jer. 31) and to bring us to the purposes for which He made us.  General Honore, the hero of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, told a group of men that the two greatest days in a man's life are the day he is born and the day he discovers the purpose of his life.  It is not just God "out there," or even the great revelation of God "with" me, but the final realization of God "within" me, working in me and through me, that brings us to full and intimate knowledge of God.

This is what Underhill calls "mysticism"  --- the full knowledge of God as Father, as Son, and as Holy Spirit -- the God Without, the God "With," and the God Within.  When we know Him as Other and ourselves as part of Him and with Him and within Him, we know Him.  And no one can take that knowledge from us. 

It has often been said that the man with an experience is never at the mercy of a man with an argument.  If our faith journey has been an experience of the Three-Personed God, we not only 'believe in God," but we know Him even as we are known by Him.  Until then, we are shifting back and forth between rational arguments and the philosophy of men.  Once we know Him, though, we know the Truth, the Truth Who is not an argument but a Person, the Truth revealed to us in the Person of Jesus Christ.