Is God real?

The unbeliever who wants to deny the existence of God must also deny the existence of a Creator. In loud, swelling, empty words he will tell you that the earth, with all its beauty, was the result of "a chance meeting of atoms" — which simply means that a lot of atoms came together with no guiding hand, by pure chance, and produced this world. The belief that unbelief requires is far beyond anything revelation asks. Revelation is simple, understandable, and majestic. The other is staggering beyond all belief. For if there is "a meeting of atoms," how did they come to be atoms? And if they came together, who gave the law of motion? In short, how did something come out of nothing?

The very thing by which man proves there must be a God proves that he cannot know God. Take this world: there is evidence of skill, there must have been a designer, someone must have made it. So with a watch — someone must have made it… I cannot conceive of anything existing without a final causing cause. But a cause that is itself uncaused is above me! The thing that proves He must be, proves I cannot tell what He is. Logic says, If such-and-such is true, then such-and-such must be; but that does not say that it is, which is a very different thing to my soul. If I say "must be," that is only an inference. The moment I get a testimony that it is, how different!

God has revealed a standard in His word, and man's conscience tells him how utterly evil he is. Where the word of God has been heard, we cannot separate God from conscience. Our moral instinct, our sense of right and wrong, bear witness to the unseen God; within us there is something that knows along with God.

For him God does not exist. Faith does not exist, and God is not seen… Here the conscience takes no notice of God. The heart has no desire for Him, and the will acts as if there were none. Man says so in his heart. Why should he say it? Because his conscience tells him there is a God. His will would rather there were none; and since God is not seen at work, the will sees only what it wants to see. God is set aside, and the whole of a person's conduct falls under the influence of his own will, as if no God existed.

That God exists and that He originated all things is assumed and stated. Unbelieving men may demand that proofs of His existence be produced, but nowhere in Scripture does God stoop to supply such proofs. If He did, they would not be intelligible to the feeble minds of small men. And they are no more really needed than proofs that the sun exists and shines. That fact could only be doubted by a man who had neither sight nor feeling — and it is precisely because unbelieving men have neither sight nor feeling of a spiritual kind that they doubt, or even deny, the existence of God.

I am certain that if there is no revelation from God, there is no God. But the whole universe around me bears witness to the reality of a Creator. The visible things do not contain the secret of the nature of the One who brought them into existence, yet the evidence they carry is enough to convince every intelligent being that He, without whom a sparrow cannot fall to the ground, could not leave His poor creature without some ray of light about how he stands towards His holy and righteous will.

What God is can only be fully revealed in the Son of the Father. In the Son, God opens His heart. No angel and no man could ever have done this… He alone knew God, and therefore He alone could reveal Him as He is… The Lord Jesus Himself said, "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father" (John 14:9)… Whoever saw the Son of the Father with the eyes of faith saw God in His very essence — God as He is.