How Do We Know God Is Real?

By Peter Zelinski

“What may be known of God is manifest,” wrote Paul in his letter to the Romans. In other words, the evidence is plain. However, Christians can get lost. They wrestle with doubt, and they can be overcome by the fear that what they believe is foolish. Author Peter Zelinski knows this doubt and fear well; he faces it himself. In “How Do We Know God Is Real?”, Zelinski provides a trail out of this dark wood. He offers the argument based in reason by which the believer can return to knowing that God certainly exists. “Our faith in him is built on a more substantial foundation than just our fragile hope,” Zelinski writes. As Paul’s line to the Romans suggests, we can infer the reality of God from our experience of the world. In fact, we don’t have to look far. Zelinski reveals that our very experience of self provides the case for God’s reality. His short book is a letter of reassurance to every Christian who struggles with doubt, which might mean that it is written to every Christian.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Nov 1, 2013
• ISBN: 9780984747733

Book preview

God?

How Do We Know God Is Real?

By Peter Zelinski

www.peterzelinski.com

Copyright © 2014 by Peter Zelinski. ISBN 978-0-9847477-3-3. Cover design by Cary Rohrer, Raygun Design, www.TakeMeToRaygunDesign.com

… because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world his invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made….

—Paul’s letter to the Romans

To Kaye

Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1: We Admit That He is There

Chapter 2: A Finger in My I

Chapter 3: The End of All Continua

Chapter 4: Welcome to the Universe

Chapter 5: The Audacity of Identity

Summary Points

Further Reading

Introduction

That Jesus Christ was raised from the dead is not hard for me to believe. This is not where I run into trouble.

After all, God could do this. An all-powerful God, who created everything and controls everything, could overrule the biological processes of creation (processes he put in place, processes he understands) in order to lift one man out of death to show for all time that the hearts of human beings can be free, that death has been overcome.

To the small extent that my comprehension can take hold of this event, it even makes sense. How else would a Creator redeem a fallen world? By what other means would love and life show their triumph? In my own life, the moment came when the idea of a new creation by means of the Creator’s act of grace made so much sense, the most reasonable thing I could see to do was to give my heart over to the beauty of all that this event makes clear.

That’s not the problem I face. Resurrection is not the point at which I encounter an obstacle.

Instead, the uncertainty I often face relates to a more basic point of belief. It relates to the initial premise: the existence of God.

Is it safe to assume that God is real?

Because, of course, I can’t see him. I can’t touch him the way I can touch my car keys or another person. God’s reality, if he possesses it, is not the same as that of other things I assume to be real. If someone says the sun is shining brightly today while someone else says the sky is dark, then we can all look out a window to see whose position is true. But if someone says God is real while someone else says God is unreal, then both parties might appear to be making an equally plausible claim. Hence the reason for doubt. And certainly there are plenty of people making the claim that God is unreal.

Plus, even many of us who believe in God live most of our moments in indifference to whether he is real or not. I do this. I pray, read scripture, and try to meditatively seek his will for me. I also blog