How Do I Know If There's A God?

[Fidei Defensor]

How do you know?

[add]

How do you know there is not

[PhuturePriest]

An issue with today is people look to science about it. Science can tell us about things that are created, but it can't tell us how everything ultimately was created or why. None of the top atheist scientists have ever taken any account into philosophy, which is incredibly important in life in general, but also in this particular area. If you haven't looked it up, I highly recommend Thomas Aquinas' 5 proofs of God. They're pretty deep in philosophy and sometimes people have a hard time wrapping their head around it, but it's a good place to start.

[AugustineA]

It's a two part process. The first initial leap of faith was helped by me refusing to believe that nothing suddenly exploded into stuff for no good reason. 

 

Now, it's not something I really consider or try to explain. If you believe in God, it's self-evident. If you don't, no amount of argument will change that. 

[Luigi]

You can't know with scientific certainty. Faith in God is about FAITH in God, not scientific proof of God. 

[Lilllabettt]

here is what cardinal ratzinger taught me about this.

unbelief and belief are both faith systems. faith is belief asserted in the face of doubt, against doubt. in this way doubt is really an essential ingredient for faith.

an unbeliever has to live with the possibility that it may all be real after all.

a believer has to live with the possibility that it may all be a fantasy after all.

its interesting. because one is definitely right, and the other definitely wrong. and yet both positions have to be taken on faith. In this case, the truth, whatever it is, can't be proven in an experiment. There is no "knowing" as we understand "knowing."  We will "know" when we are dead, and then there will be no more faith for anyone.

 

Ratzinger's image of the modern Christian is of a man lashed to a cross, and the cross afloat amid storming waters in an ocean of doubt. The only thing suspending that man above doubt are the narrow planks of the Cross.

 

 

 

[Fidei Defensor]

I understand faith. But my problem with it is that I could have faith in anything. I could have faith that this Mt. Dew will make me fly if I jump off a cliff. How do I know my faith isn't misplaced? 

[NotreDame]

I understand faith. But my problem with it is that I could have faith in anything. I could have faith that this Mt. Dew will make me fly if I jump off a cliff. How do I know my faith isn't misplaced? 

reason.

[tinytherese]

I recommend reading The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel, Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis, and Pope John Paul II's Fides et Ratio, (which can be read online with copy and paste and in booklet form.

[Lilllabettt]

Here:

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/religion-life-of-pi/

 

From the comments (the first one in the discussion is very good):
 

The “truth” is a mirage, the “facts” unknowable, but what is real is that God was and is saving Pi. [..]

In another series, Harry Potter asks of a vision of Dumbledore (well after Dumbledore’s passing): “Are you real or is this all in my head?”, only to get the answer “Of course this is all in your head. Why do you imagine that means it isn’t real?”

 

 

Human beings cannot get their arms around the truth. We can't. This can be very hard for a person like myself, who believes in the Red Pill and would prefer the truth to anything.

 

I believe my religion is true. But I know the language, the concepts my religion uses to describe the truth, only grasp at it.

Other religions grasp at it. I believe my religion succeeds where they fail, but mine still fails.

 

In that movie -- the Life of Pi (which I hated because it deals with this issue, which as a truth-seeker irritates me) -- Pi has to decide which "story" he is going to believe.  He had his reasons for his choice. We all have to decide.

 

 

 

 

[Luigi]

I understand faith. But my problem with it is that I could have faith in anything. I could have faith that this Mt. Dew will make me fly if I jump off a cliff. How do I know my faith isn't misplaced?

 First of all, believe all you want to in the Mountain Dew and then jump off the cliff if you want to, but let us know when you're going to do that so we can schedule an ambulance to clean you up afterward. 

 

Your original question was: How do I know if there's a God? 

 

I don't know how you know, but how I know is: 

 

1. What the Church teaches explains myself to me (see quote below for the kinds of explanation I mean). 

2. What the church teaches explains other people to me (see quote below). 

3. And what the Church teaches is based on the premise that God exists. 

4. The way the church teaches it is the result of two millenia of lived faith on the part of women and men, in basically every country on earth, in basically every kind of possible human situation, and that lived faith has been reflected on, sorted, sifted, compared, contrasted, analyzed, defined, synthesized, and so forth - BUT

5. The truths of the faith have been there since the beginning, because God exists, and He sent His only son, and the son told us what we need to know, and the Church has kept that alive and in practice. 

 

So, it all just makes sense to me. But I know it doesn't just make sense to everybody. 

 

###########

 

"[Christians consider that] humanity [is] struggling in a fallen world. They combine a longing for grace and redemption with a deep sense of human imperfection and sin. Evil exists, but the physical world is not evil. Nature is sacramental, shimmering with signs of sacred things. Indeed, all reality is mysteriously charged with the invisible presence of God. Catholics perceive suffering as redemptive, at least when borne in emulation of Christ’s passion and death. Catholics also generally take the long view of things – looking back to the time of Christ and the Caesars while also gazing forward toward eternity… Catholicism is also intrinsically communal, a notion that goes far beyond sitting at mass with the local congregation, extending to a mystical sense of continuity between the living and the dead. Finally, there is a habit of spiritual self-scrutiny and moral examination of conscience 

[Fidei Defensor]

I just ask because I want some perspectives. I don't necessarily believe in a personal God. I believe that the universe is so incredibly complex that there must be a higher consciousness that comes of it—like our complex brains forms us as persons. Beyond that, I've yet to be convinced.

[NotreDame]

I think if there is a God, it would have to be a personal God.  I could believe in no God before I could believe in an ambivalent one.

[Tab'le De'Bah-Rye]

he shows you. Jesus said " ask and you will receive seek and you will find." this is true, he has for me many times anyway, i seem to have a bad memory and in need of constant reminders. :)

Edited March 18, 2014 by Tab'le De'Bah-Rye

[Tab'le De'Bah-Rye]

It's simple. Ask him to reveal himself to you than seek, meaning keep your mind and your heart open and your eyes and ears to Gods response. :)

Edited March 18, 2014 by Tab'le De'Bah-Rye