Is it true that God is real?

There is no way for us to prove whether God exists.  There has not been, in modern times, any evidence of God’s existence that everyone or nearly everyone can accept.  Conversely, it will never be possible to prove that God does not exist because it is impossible to prove a negative.

If God exists, he has chosen not to make himself known in ways that everyone can accept.  It is true that many people believe...

There is no way for us to prove whether God exists.  There has not been, in modern times, any evidence of God’s existence that everyone or nearly everyone can accept.  Conversely, it will never be possible to prove that God does not exist because it is impossible to prove a negative.

If God exists, he has chosen not to make himself known in ways that everyone can accept.  It is true that many people believe that God has spoken to them in one way or another.  People like the Muslim Prophet Muhammad and the LDS Prophet Joseph Smith have written books that they say were revealed to them by God.  However, it is not possible to know if any of this is true.  When God speaks to these people (if he indeed does), he does not do so in a way that everyone can see or hear.  For this reason, we cannot prove that God is real just because certain people have said he has spoken to them.

Other people say that it is clear that God exists because of various aspects of nature.  They say, for example, that God must exist and must have created the world because various forms of life are exceedingly complex.  They say that God must exist and must have created our world because we are lucky to be just far enough away from the Sun for life to be possible.  However, even these arguments, which are based on physical evidence, cannot actually prove that God exists.  First of all, scientists believe that evolutionary processes can explain how various organisms came to be so complex.  Second, even if we could not explain things like the complexity of life or how the Earth came to be where it is, that would still not necessarily prove that God exists.  It would just prove that there are things that we do not yet understand.

The existence of God is something that we can only take on faith.  We cannot prove God exists.  Some people say they have experienced contact with God, but we cannot take their word for it because they may be lying or they may be deluded.  There is no proof that they are true.  We cannot prove God exists through evidence from the natural world because that evidence does not necessarily show God’s existence.  Until or unless God chooses to reveal himself in some way that no one can deny, we will be unable to know for certain if God is real.