Can I prove that there is a God? No, I can’t. It is the only sober starting point if I want to talk about my trust in God. There are two different approaches here:

1. “God is”, so I speak of Him and trust Him (Heb 11:6)
2. “God is not” as a philosophical starting point for talking about God, as described by Franz Rosenzweig.

These two approaches could not be more different. Neither approach “proves” God. They bear witness to a starting point and arise in different situations. The first position could be seen as an active, living faith. “Reckon with God and He will meet you.” Franz Rosenzweig, on the other hand, attempts a philosophical approach that wants to begin soberly and not in hasty projections.

But what happens when you paint a picture of God in your mind’s eye that He has never lived up to? No one says you have to believe in God, but if you reject Him because He supposedly isn’t the way He is or doesn’t do what you imagined Him to do, what are we talking about?

We know nothing about God

In his book “The Star of Redemption”, Franz Rosenzweig begins the first chapter with this statement:

“We know nothing of God. But this not knowing is not knowing about God. As such, it is the beginning of our knowledge of him. The beginning, not the end.”

For him, it is the only conceivable starting point about God that does not begin with supposed knowledge, but with ignorance. Amazing, isn’t it? That is so different from the Christians who draw attention to themselves through their supposed knowledge of God. Perhaps this overlooks the essence, the nature of our knowledge. Because even we, who call ourselves believers, once began without knowledge of God.

Opinions about God

Some people try to portray God as a non-God. This happens, for example, by projecting an opinion onto God, and God would have to correspond to this opinion. It sounds something like this:

“If there was a God, there would be peace in the world, illness and death would not exist and everyone would be happy.”

This type of accusation attempts to deny God by saying that He – should He exist – does not behave like a good person. However, this is assumed: you talk about a God in whom you do not believe, imagine this God as a kind of “good person” and then realize that He does not meet your criteria. Man projects himself onto God and then complains that he is not what he thinks he is. This seems both arbitrary and rather arrogant. People imagine that they can legitimize their rejection of God and present themselves as superior to this God. It is a cheap maneuver, because there is no honest question about God here, but merely an expectation with the aim that He could and should never fulfill it. However, staging oneself as the standard is different from asking authentic questions.

This is similar to the attempt to discredit the omnipotence of God, which is assumed here above, by asking the following question: “If God is omnipotent, can he create a stone so big that he could not pick it up himself?”. Quibbles that rather prove how dishonorable the question is. Here, it seems, you are rather full of yourself.

There are many problems with this assumption that “God must immediately fulfill all our wishes”. For example, that He should behave like a genie in a bottle (“You have 3 wishes!”) or that He should always do what people expect of Him. Or is that a projection and therefore invalid? Would this expectation of God have to be seen as a power grab, just as narcissists try to manipulate their victims through “gaslighting”?

Opinions about God are rarely helpful because it is too easy to present ourselves as God instead of taking responsibility ourselves. After all, perhaps the only thing that matters today is that we shape reality.

Know God

Anyone who wants to know God knows nothing at first. No one is born with “knowledge of God”. Modesty is in order. One can ask and therefore does not begin with an opinion. The previously quoted first approach, as we encounter it in Hebrews, does not explain God, but simply states that we can assume that “God is”. This is something like what Paul writes in another context, that we should “reckon with something” (Rom 6:11: “keep yourselves” or “reckon with it”). Such an attitude reckons with a possibility as a starting point. Counting on something is the assumption that makes sense in faith. This is not arrogance, but a way of moving ourselves forward. Being able to believe is human. However, the content of faith is formed and shaped over time.

Recognizing God is often confused with a certain view of God. Opinion clouds or prevents perception. Anyone who says that “God should behave in this or that way” is trying to manipulate Him. This does not work if He is actually God. Because God and man are not identical, cannot be confused. You don’t have to be super-pious to recognize the “lack of willingness to recognize”.

The experience of Job

In the Book of Job, we find a highly exciting discussion about suffering. How does our human experience relate to piety and divine experience? What follows is a discussion about suffering and, ultimately, about God in suffering. There is a separate series on the book of Job on this website:

Job’s experience is only changed in the course of this story when God meets him. When God speaks, the perspective changes. It is no longer about an opinion of God, but the speech of God points to a fundamental difference between God and man:

“And Yahweh answered Job out of the storm, and said:
Who is it that darkens the council with words without knowledge?
Gird up your loins like a man; then I will ask you, and you will teach me!
Where were you when I founded the earth? Make it known if you have insight!”
Job 38:1-4

If you can learn anything from this story, it is this: The difference between man and God is portrayed here. Job confirms this at the end of the book:

“And Job answered Yahweh and said:
I know that you are capable of everything and that no project can be denied you. Who is it that veils counsel without knowledge? So I have judged what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, things I did not know. Listen, and I will speak; I will ask you, and you will teach me! With the hearing of the ear I had heard of you, but now my eye has seen you. Therefore I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes.”
Job 42:1-6

In the light of this story, the claim “If there were a God …” seems out of place and arrogant. The story shapes an understanding in which God is precisely not a human being. The difference is what matters when it comes to recognition. God is not a human being and we should not pretend that He is. If you project your own understanding onto God, this is incomplete by definition and probably a bit “weird”.

Here you can see that a different perspective leads to completely different interpretations.

Projections onto God

People project their ideas onto God and perhaps even think that God is a projection of man. So God must bow to the wishes of man, immediately and in the best possible way. This is not only very arrogant, but also ignorant. The view is based on the assumption that all suffering must be alleviated immediately. But who says that?

You could also imagine God and this world in other ways. Here are some variations:

• God owes nothing to anyone if He deserves this designation. God is God and not man.
• In our time, God lets the whole world go its own way.
• Perhaps we need to show what we can do during this time?
• If God generally does not intervene today, this does not mean that He will not do so one day
• If your demands on God are not fulfilled today, but tomorrow (or at another time), what effect does that have on you?
• Last but not least: Every theology limits the possibilities of thought differently.

When God does nothing?

What if God does nothing and only grace is today’s power? Imagine that no end times take place, no special effects appear in heaven and on earth, no miracles and proofs establish the existence of God? What then characterizes your faith and why?

We find highlights and special situations described in the Bible. It is often difficult to say what is “literal” and what is “made up”. All this may seem threatening to you, but you should be able to ask questions. The view of faith makes many assumptions without being able to prove them. People often think that things must be true just because the preferred doctrine says so. But what if you question that? What if God does nothing?

An important point for today’s church from all nations is this: Paul’s gospel was hidden in earlier times (Rom 16:25). So we find nothing about today in the prophets, nothing in Job, nothing in the Gospels. There this gospel was hidden for today. Paul reveals mysteries because it was unknown until then. As soon as the apostle speaks about mysteries, he makes them known. They only then become known and were previously “secret”.

Paul’s focus is on grace. This grace will have an effect, first in our lives, in order to reach everyone one day (Eph 2:6-7; Rom 5:18). Paul’s gospel, which he calls “my gospel” several times, is not about God satisfying everyone today. People are not the focus at all. Paul’s gospel is about God and his creation, and about the fact that this God will one day lead everyone to him (Rom 11:32-36).

So what if God doesn’t live up to my expectations? Is this good, bad, uncomfortable, necessary, natural, a starting point or an end point?