How do we know that God is real?

“How do we know that God is real?”

My nine year old daughter asked me that question not all that long ago. I was driving on the highway with her in the backseat when without warning she asked me a question that truly stumped me. It was like my brain froze at having to give the answer.

Not because I didn’t know the answer. I did. I do. But…how do you explain to someone else how they can know that God is real? There are Scripture verses that tell us He’s real...but…when a person is asking how they can know that God is real…does it help to point them to the Bible?

In my daughters case I could do that, she has a basic belief in God and Christ, but what if it were someone that denied the existence of God? If someone said they didn’t believe in God at all then asked how to know that He’s real…what could we tell them?

Even knowing my daughter believes in God didn’t help me answer her. I don’t remember what I told her but somehow I must have stumbled through a good enough explanation to satisfy her.

But the question has lingered in my mind. How do we tell someone how they can know that God is real?

After answering my daughter the best I could I completed my trip and upon my arrival home I told my husband I needed him to talk to her. He’s much better at explaining and teaching Scriptural things than I am. When I told him what she’d asked he was kind of stumped too. He gave me a very good answer, one that went straight to Scripture, but he came to the same problem I had…those aren’t the kind of answers you can give to a child. And it wasn’t the answer you could give to someone that didn’t already believe in God, that didn’t believe the Bible is the Word of God.

So…what can you tell a person that doesn’t even profess a belief in God to answer the question…’how can we know God is real?’

I still don’t know.

That question has lingered in me for the last few weeks. It’s cropped up in my mind from time to time. It’s made me question myself.

How can we know that God is real?

I know He’s real because I feel His presence in my soul. I know He’s real because everything in the natural world shows me that He is. I know He’s real because the Bible tells me He is.

That’s great…for me. But what about that person that is asking that question? The person that truly seeking to know if God is real?

I can lead them to Scripture. I can show them that the Bible teaches that we all know intuitively that God exists, that’s there’s something in us that tells us He’s real even when human minds deny Him.  I can show them verses like…

For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities–his eternal power and divine nature–have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. (Rom. 1:20).

That verse teaches that God’s power and divine nature have been clearly seen since the creation of the world. God can be seen because of his creation. Somewhere deep in every person’s being they sense that God exists. Their soul knows what their minds may not acknowledge. They know because God built that knowledge into them. We are His creation and something in us knows it whether or not the person in question chooses to admit and acknowledge it.

They can deny God all they want but their soul knows He’s real. They can believe in evolution all they want but somewhere in them they know that God exists because His creation tells them He does.

…The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Psalm 19:1

But ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds of the air, and they will tell you; or speak to the earth, and it will teach you, or let the fish of the sea inform you.  Which of all these does not know that the hand of the LORD has done this? Job 12:7-9

But if the person asking how to know that God is real doesn’t believe the Bible is the word of God showing them Scripture verses isn’t going to prove anything to them.

If a person is in complete denial of God’s existence then how can you show them He does exist? You can’t introduce them to Christ, you can’t tell them the Truth’s that are in Scripture, you can’t tell them Christ is real because I feel him in me.

They lack a basic faith. They deny what their soul knows to be true.

Thankfully I wasn’t up against that with my daughter. She has a basic belief in Christ. She knows that God is real. Where the question came from I don’t know but she was mainly asking for confirmation. A simple question…how do we know He’s real? And she wanted a simple answer…we know He’s real because the Bible tells us He is…or whatever answer I managed to give her through my slightly panicking mind.

She was satisfied.

But I wasn’t. The question stuck with me, niggled at me, bothered me. Not constantly but it would pop up from time to time. And with it came a bigger question…Did I answer her good enough?

That was a big question. It was huge. It was major. Her little girl mind was simply asking for confirmation of what she’s been taught to believe in her whole life. But it was a question that had the potential to affect her faith. We never know what may be the single thing that plants the seed that will grow into true saving faith.

Was my answer enough?

Today I decided to give her a better answer. I asked her to go for a walk with me. While we were walking I reminded her of the question. Her immediate reply was that she was thinking about that yesterday. I gave her a chance to explain what she’d been thinking about then I tried hard to explain the unexplainable.

I told her of the verses in the Bible that tell us God is real, that our souls know He is even if our minds can’t or won’t grasp it.

And then I took her to the creation. We watched clouds. We examined sand and clay soils. We looked at pebbles. We walked through the woods and talked about trees and how they grow. We stopped and looked at flowers.

We explored creation.

And while we explored we discussed whether or not anything we were seeing could have just happened.

Did I answer her question this time? I don’t know. I answered her the best way I know how and still I know I failed at answering her. I told her we have to believe God exists on faith, that without faith nothing will prove that He is real. Even with all the things I told her, all the things we explored and talked about…even then I know I failed in answering her original question.

Because it is a question that can’t be answered unless the person already believes. For my daughter…she has that basic belief. So I could show her all that, tell her How the world and everything in it was created. I could tell her that life doesn’t just happen. And she believed. She understood. But she only believed because she already had a basic faith.

Even still I’m left wondering…

How do we answer the question…How do we know that God is real?