Who is God?, A Call to Faith, Lesson 2, God, Lesson 5-7
The church does not attempt to prove that God is. It assumes the existence of God and moves from that point.
Whereas philosophers can establish beyond reasonable doubt that there must be some first cause or mind behind the universe, the man of faith shows little concern about some cause or some mind, knowing that one cannot worship such a thing as a first cause.
Man generally has come to know God through God’s revelation for God has revealed himself in many ways.
God is reveled through nature for one thing, and many people are converted to a belief in God through the Bible. The church rests on the Biblical picture of God as a being who exists and has existed from the beginning, and who still acts in the lives of men and communicates with them.
To an outsider, the church may seem naive, for it not only assumes the existence of God without any proof, but it also communes with Him without any real knowledge of His nature. The church is not concerned to speculate about the real nature of God.
John Calvin said, “God treats sparingly of His essence. His essence is indeed incomprehensible by us. Let us therefore willingly leave to God the knowledge of Himself.”
The church knows God as the Old Testament knew God — as a God who encounters man in his day-to-day activities, calling man into his service.
The word “encounter” is a meaningful word in Christian theology. It suggests a face-to-face meeting between two persons. An encounter is not just a chance passing by two persons, but a significant meeting. It is through such an encounter that men may come to know that God is, and who He is.
The form of the encounter is not important for when one encounters God, he seldom has to ask who He is. With Isaiah the encounter was in the temple where he saw the Lord siting high on a throne. With Moses it was in a burning bush in the desert. With Paul it was on a dusty road to Damascus.
The church has endured through the years only because in it man has encountered God and received the vision of the invincible righteousness of God.
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