Why Do You Believe in God?

A friend once asked my why do I believe in God. My instinctual answer was, "I don't know because I just do." That answer is not clear enough. That answer takes for granted that some people will not understand the "I just do" part. That answer takes for granted that there are some who are looking for holes in my belief in the existence of God and the "I don't know" seems to provide that gaping hole. "Of course you don't know why you believe because you have been fed what to believe. You have been fed God," is what the detractors would use to plug what they see as a hole.

I had to think about this. I had to think to myself, why did I have to say, "I don't know." Then I came to the conclusion that it was not a slip of the tongue. It was not a mistake. It is the clearest and most honest answer that I can provide. "I just do" is even better because my answer to the question is quite circular. I will start with a force, an unknown force that compels me to believe. I cannot explain this force or this feeling or this thing that is in me, but it is simply what I know.

I believe in God like I believe in love. I believe in God because I exist. I believe in God because when I think about my heart beating in my chest and my blood pulsing through my body, I think about the Divine creator that molded me. When I imagine mountains and water falls and fireflies and lady bugs, I think of the one that was here before time was time. I believe in God because science is awesome and the properties of water are out of this world. I believe in God because when I stop and listen to the silence, I can't believe that my ears were designed to hear silence. I think only a divine being more powerful than silence itself could have made it possible.

I believe in God because I have felt his presence and I have heard his voice and I have benefited from his work in my life and those around me. I believe in God because coincidences are divine interventions, what some may call luck is fate, and the course of my life is not just living but fulfilling my destiny. The destiny of a species so powerful and resilient that wars cannot break us, slavery cannot bind us, and disasters cannot maim us. I believe not because generations in many centuries before believed but because they existed in the first place.

"I don't know because I just do," is fitting with hole and all because there exist that unexplainable force, that knowledge that once you have it, you cannot escape it. It seeks you out and compels you to believe. So, some see a hole that must be filled because they do not know it already has a place holder. In it is that force. In it is God. The circular reason which I can no more explain than I can explain what makes my body work is that I believe in God because God exist.