Does God exist? If He does, how can one be certain of it? What validity does the Bible hold? These are questions which have challenged mankind throughout the ages. The answers are, perhaps, as elusive as the questions themselves.
As Peter Kreeft states, "The idea of God is either a fact, like sand, or a fantasy, like Santa. If it is a fantasy, a human invention, it is the greatest invention in all of human history" (Moreland & Nielsen, 10). On this premise, more lives have either been guided or deluded than anything else.
One thing is certain, however, when we question the existence of God. There can be no compromise . . . God must either exist, or He must not. It is impossible to posit a God which exists for some but not for others, nor a God which once existed but longer does.
Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, suggests that; if religion is an illusion, it is the greatest of all illusions, in fact, a species of collective insanity, like the imaginary friend of a child who never grew up. The same is true, of course, about atheism if theism is true: It is the child's denial of the parent's existence (Moreland & Nielsen, 12).
Where does this leave the Christian? Are we a mass of insane persons, despite being "normal" in most other respects?
On the other hand, our task may be made considerably easier if we reexamine the existence of God as a "mystery" rather than as a "problem." The concept of a "problem" suggests that a definitive answer is the only acceptable outcome. Yet, a "mystery" may be resolved not as "an unexplained and unintelligible question, but one in which the questioner is so personally and inextricably involved that he cannot detach himself from it" (Moreland & Nielsen, 12). A mystery invites exploration!
The question of God's existence is a mystery for the believer. But it is not a mystery for the unbeliever. Why is this so? Simply because the unbeliever "has ...