Proof of The Existence of God
A very strange disclaimer: Since my intent here is to provide the reader a system whereby the divine will reveal itself to you, I hope that some reader will arrive here while currently being skeptical about whether God actually exists. As I am convinced in the existence of the Christian God, I will refer to Him as a He. I’m convinced this isn’t useful for every non-believer as we all have preconceptions and misconceptions about God, especially the Christian God, as a result of the abuse of the church and individuals. Please feel free to change the names and pronouns of God to whatever you prefer as you read, and I truly apologize if my use of vocabulary pulls you away from the message. Know that I’m writing from my perspective but God will reach you from your perspective and I’m absolutely sure He’s not hurt by being referred to as The Universe, She/They/Ze, or any other name/pronoun you currently find useful. God is larger than our understanding and certainly bigger than any names and pronouns, and He wants to reveal Himself to you. This, to me, is absolutely the most incredible thing about God: that we don’t need to seek the Maker of the universe, He is seeking us every moment of every day.
If you want a logical proof of the existence of God then many other writers have already completed fantastic work on this note and, unfortunately, I have nothing to add. My recommendation is that you buy Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis (commonly known as the writer of The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe) and read the first few chapters, in which he makes a very compelling logical argument for the existence of God. Afterwards, if you are still unconvinced, then I think it likely that logic will never convince you of His existence. This is a good time to note that a logical proof of the existence of God is a strange idea. However, there is more than one way to prove something true. In the west, we rely heavily on provable logic, and for good reason. In the yogic tradition, logical thought is still extremely important but, when the teacher recognizes logic isn’t useful to answer a question, they rely on giving an experience to the student.
Anyone who believes in God will tell you that He is a person or, at least, that He has personified qualities. If I wanted to convince you about the existence of Michael Jordan, or Marcus Aurelius then I certainly wouldn’t begin with logic. Rather, I would find videos of Jordan or, if possible, simply introduce you to the man. Or I would bring the writings of Marcus Aurelius so you can meet the man directly in that way, despite the fact that he’s been dead for nearly two millennia. My point is that, the way to meet a person is rarely through logic but commonly through experience. I can’t introduce you to the person of God in the same way that I could introduce you to a human being, because He isn’t a human being. I also can’t show you evidence in the way of video or writings. People point at scriptures but any skeptic will correctly point out that the scriptures weren’t written directly by God but rather by humans, and the real question is whether they were inspired by the living God. How, then, can I claim to prove God’s existence to you?
I know I can prove God’s existence for two reasons. First, God Himself has promised that He will. “Ask and and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” This is, to me, one of the central messages of both Christianity and life experience, found in Matthew 7:7. There are no qualifiers. In case someone looks for a logical loophole, Jesus makes sure to clear up exactly what He says in the next verse, “For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened,” Matthew 7:8. What are you truly seeking in your life? You will find it. Is your whole goal to gain money? You certainly will, and that means there are few things more important than ensuring you are chasing the true object of your desire. Depending on the thought patterns and choices you develop, you could gain the object of your actions but lose your true desires. Therefore, if you truly want to know whether God exists: 1. Ask Him to show Himself to you, and 2. Seek the data that will show you His existence. If you aren’t looking, then you will probably miss the signs. The second reason I claim the ability to prove to you that God exists is that it matches my experience in life. If you’ve never been to Jurmala, Latvia, then I very seriously doubt you know how soft beach sand can be. I could tell you it’s somewhere between walking on fine flour and walking on clouds but, until you feel it on your feet, you will only be imagining it. However, if you ask me, I can easily tell you how to get there… and you still might get lost unless you watch for the signs. It only makes sense that, if you want to know whether God exists, there are two steps: ask, and seek. Failing at either asking or seeking may leave you with unanswered questions but, if you first ask God directly to show Himself and then seek the signs, He promises to show himself.
As a side note, it’s interesting to me that I find this line of argument by experience uncommon in the church but very common in yoga. In the pursuit of yoga, a teacher will likely show you some poses and breath practices, but they will certainly emphasize that the most important thing is to practice every single day. They will tell you that you may lose all benefits if you don’t seek the experience of yoga daily. In my humble experience, most Christians prefer to show scripture and argue the existence of God but yogis will simply show you how to seek and tell you to seek daily. Yogis will not tell you when or how you will experience the divine, and they may refer to Him in many different ways and by many different names, but they will assure you that they have encountered the divine and that you will too, through daily practice.
There is one promise I cannot make. I do not know how God will show Himself to you but I do have several ideas about how He might.
As a young man, I used to tell people, “If you don’t believe in God, sit and watch a tree for an hour.” I still think that’s not a bad start, albeit a bit naïve. If you ask God to show Himself, follow my naïve advice of tree watching, and truly seek to see the divine, then you will have one of two experiences. You may see how the tree is an ecosystem itself, and part of the larger ecosystem, and how thousands of other organisms lifestyles are effected by a single tree among the trillions of trees on the planet and it may feel miraculous. Your experience will either be that of absolute wonder at creation and the creator, or you may write that off as a simple result of trillions of years of cause and effect eventually resulting in the evolution of life on our planet. However, even then, consider that everything we understand has only resulted in better questions and very rarely answers. We can chase the existence of the universe back to the big bang but the big bang itself is a logical impossibility. We have several excellent systems of physics that describe an ever expanding and ever cooling universe, but these descriptions all fail for some phenomena. Relativity is excellent for describing galaxies, and quantum physics for the sub molecular but, when it comes to minutiae, they contradict each other. Extremely useful and worth the work, yes, but truth isn’t truth unless it’s absolutely true, meaning that we simply have faith that our physics will remain true. This boils down to the fact that the simple tree shows us the nature of everything we know. It’s all through faith, and the reality of the tree is more incredible than we can possibly imagine.
How reasonable, then, that the first step to seeing God is faith in God? The first step to trusting a chair, is believing the chair will hold you. Only then do you sit and experience the chair for yourself. The first step to relationship is faith that the other person wants the best for you. Only then do you love your friend or significant other and experience the depth of relationship. So, first, trust God by asking Him to reveal Himself. Only then will you see Him and experience the depth of relationship with the divine and, if the reality of nature is so great, the reality of the Maker is beyond words.
God commonly speaks to us through nature, but this is far from the only way.
God always speaks to us through our experience in life. The question is whether we are looking to see the signs. My belief is that God created physics and the natural world, and it generally pleases Him to work through those systems. I also believe the existence of direct miracles is only logical. It would be illogical to say that God created the natural world but is unable to alter it, and also illogical to say He is able to alter it but doesn’t ever alter it. That said, I also believe people often see miracles because of a lack of understanding of the natural world He created. Several hundred years ago it could be seen as a miracle that bread rises, and that some people recover from diseases while others pass away. Now, we have a better understanding of how microbiology generally drives both of those phenomena. My point is that we have to have a certain perspective in order to see God’s work in our experiences, and you may not be surprised to learn that the tools I recommend are: ask, and seek. The goal is to see evidence of God’s work in your experiences. Since He generally works within the natural rules of the universe He created, how can we be sure it is His work and not just natural consequence? The answer is simple. Ask for specific things. Look for the resolution of those things and ask yourself whether you believe this was an answer from God. If you feel unsure, then continue asking for specific things. He’ll speak again and again.
A very mundane example may be helpful for you to understand how I see this process of God speaking through our experiences, and the following is the most mundane example I can think to give. Recently, my wife and I visited our family in Mexico. In recent years, COVID has spread and changed the world we live in for the foreseeable future, and her family in Mexico has been more careful than just about anybody I know because they live together with both small children and my wife’s parents, who happen to be in one of the most dangerous age groups. Our, or at least my, favorite things in Mexico are twofold: family and food. As a result, we put together a list of foods that we miss and would love to eat in Mexico. The family lovingly obliged and we ate way too much almost every day of the trip, often going out to restaurants. The important part for this story of God showing Himself is that the family accepted more risk than they had in years by eating out with us and, terrifyingly, several of us got sick. One of those who got sick, is my mother-in-law to whom COVID could be extremely dangerous. In that first day that we knew we were sick, several of us had symptoms but the most acute is that she had developed a fever. My immediate, specific prayer was twofold: that the Lord would heal her completely, and that he would lower the stress that we all felt in those days. By the time we went to sleep that same night, her fever had gone down to a normal temperature, showing me a clear response from God. Within the same day, my mother-in-law was getting better and all of us felt relief from the stress of worrying about her. Within the following day it became clear that we had contracted the common cold, and not COVID or anything dangerous. Therefore, if I hadn’t prayed this specific prayer, I could easily write this off as natural consequence. However, I remain convinced this was God’s work in answering my prayers so that I could share exactly this with my family and now, you. Are you convinced? Honestly, it doesn’t matter. This is my story and, when God speaks to you, you will be convinced if you ask the Lord for specific things, and look for His answers.
God doesn’t always speak through such mundane means. He often speaks very personally.
God speaks to me directly and I believe this is very common, if you’ll only listen. In my case, God speaks to me directly, and often, as a voice in my head. How can I be sure it’s God speaking, and not my own thoughts? The answer is quite simple but, similarly to the process of trusting the chair above, it requires faith to start. What is more interesting, is that there are also clear markers that require only a little understanding. According to the National Science Foundation, about 95% of the things we think are the same thoughts from day to day, on average. This means that we all know our internal script very well. When a novel thought pops into our heads, it’s about 1/20th of our total thoughts. God has never spoken to me within my normal internal script so, already, there are only a few thoughts per day that should be brought into question as to whether they are a novel change in my thought pattern or whether that thought was a message from God. Also according to the NSF, 80% of our thoughts, on average, are negative. God will not give you a negative message. He may give a critical message but that’s different. Compounded, if 80% of our new, novel thoughts on any given day are negative that would mean about 4% of our thoughts on any given day both differ from our normal thought patterns and are not negative. (Admittedly, I’m compounding the two published NSF statistics, assuming they occur perfectly concurrently, on average, which is likely fair but not published.) Simply based on statistics, 4% of our thoughts are worth questioning whether they were from God. My first point is simply that, sometimes, you should question those thoughts as they might possibly be of divine origin.
Beyond that, this may not be helpful, but I’ll just say that I know when it’s my thought and when it’s His message. Sometimes, it’s because God gives me a message and it’s not the type of thought I would have ever had, like telling me to pray with somebody. That’s not in my pattern of behavior… it’s actually something of which I’m quite afraid, and therefore, not a thought I would have. Those are the types of messages that God gives me. If you simply listen, then I’d wager that those are the types of thoughts God will give you as well. Thoughts that challenge you in a good way. Or perhaps thoughts that affirm you when you don’t normally affirm yourself. There was a point in my life where my thought patterns were almost entirely negative and, one day, out of the blue, I heard God tell me He loves me and supports me. Definitely not the type of thought I would think. These thoughts happen because the Holy Spirit lives in me. Yogis hear these types of divine thoughts on a regular basis because they spend time in meditation which, to me, looks and feels a lot like spending time listening to the Holy Spirit within them. I should note that some Christians will not agree with me here but I believe anyone who listens for God is open to being filled with the Holy Spirit. It’s a part of the natural blessing that we all have because Christ gave us all freedom and access to the Holy Spirit. When you hear the Holy Spirit speak, it may feel like any other thought but you will know that that thought wasn’t yours.
God speaks to me in the same way when I meditate, and it’s honestly much easier to decipher. The yogic method of meditation has several steps, commonly known as part of the eight limbs of yoga. The first four limbs deal with the mundane as first a code of conduct and then practice of poses and breath. The second four limbs (#5-8) deal directly with meditation and they could be thought of as: 5. Withdrawing of the senses, or shutting out the external world completely. 6. One pointed focus, which is often focus on the breath and nothing else but the point of focus is irrelevant. The idea is simply that your entire focus is filled with only one thing, and nothing else. 7. Zero pointed focus, which occurs when focus drops away completely and most people describe a feeling of their sense of ego and individuality disappears. And 8. Experience with the Divine, where most people describe a sentiment of oneness with all creation, incredible elated, indescribable joy, and thankfulness. Personally, it took me many days of daily meditation practice before effectively withdrawing my senses from the world but my movement up the ladder went fairly quickly once I practiced enough. I would estimate daily practice for several weeks was enough for me to have glimpses of Experience with the Divine through meditation and, through continued practice, this became easier and easier to enter into.
When I meditate, I do have thoughts that enter my mind and break my concentration and yogis will tell you to simply release those thoughts and move back into one pointed focus. Generally, I agree. I have gotten to know very well the types of thoughts that break into my meditation. Personally, those thoughts are often about responsibilities of the day, troubles that need resolution, or something with my senses, like a dog or motorcycle. When God talks through my meditation, it doesn’t follow my patterns. He gives me messages to speak to people, or an urgent call to pray for somebody, or something else that feels clearly not like my thoughts. If you are a meditator then my advice is simply that, in meditation, you are already opening yourself up to the Holy Spirit, so listen. And, if you aren’t a meditator, then I can’t recommend it enough and 5-10 minutes per day is a great start. If meditation feels sacrilegious then, at least, practice long form prayer measured in half hours, not minutes.
These are the ways I have heard God speak: through nature, through experiences, and directly through the Holy Spirit. Moreover, I know these are ways that God normally speaks to all people who listen. All that is required is that you ask to hear Him, and seek His response.
That said, as a final note, far be it that I put limitations on God, the Maker of the universe. He may speak to you from the mouths of other people, in dreams, or in any other way He sees fit. For some reason I cannot fathom, He wants a direct relationship with each of us. Therefore, He is speaking to you. He has always been speaking to you. If you don’t listen, then you may never be convinced of His existence and, if you do, then you will be. Therefore, the only question is, will you open yourself to hear Him?