Does God really exist?

Yes. God exists, and He has made Himself known - in what He has made, in His kindness to you, and in person, in Jesus Christ.

This is a fair question, and an honest one. You cannot see God. People you respect say there is no one there. The world has enough suffering in it to make you wonder whether anyone is in charge. If you are asking this seriously, you are asking the right question, and the Bible answers it.

The Bible begins with Him.

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

Genesis does not open with an argument for God. It opens by declaring Him, as the one fact behind every other fact. But Scripture does not leave it there; it goes on to say how He can be known.

He has made Himself known in what He has made.

When Paul spoke in Athens to people who did not know the God he was describing, he began here:

God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; Neither is worshipped with men’s hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things; And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us

He made the world. He gives you your life and your breath. And He made you so that you would look for Him - and He is not far from you.

The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.

Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse

God showed it. His eternal power and Godhead are clearly seen in what He has made. And what He has made has been kind to you:

Nevertheless he left not himself without witness, in that he did good, and gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness.

Every harvest, every meal, every ordinary gladness has been His witness to you that He is there, and that He is good.

He has made Himself known in person.

Creation shows that God is. It does not show you His face. For that, God did something further:

No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.

he that hath seen me hath seen the Father

If you want to know what God is like - whether He is good, whether He cares, whether He would have anything to do with you - the Bible does not send you to a philosophy. It sends you to Jesus. And it tells you, in one sentence, what He showed:

But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

It rests on something that either happened or did not.

Christianity does not ask you to believe in God as a feeling. It stakes everything on an event, and the people who reported it said so plainly:

For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures: And that he was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve: After that, he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep.

And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain.

That is a claim about history. It can be examined, and the evidence for it is set out in the resurrection article on this site.

”If He existed, He would make Himself obvious.”

He has made Himself known - in the world, in His kindness, in His Son. Yet the Bible also says something about how people respond to that, and it says it in the same passage that declares His love:

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.

And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.

Only you can say whether that describes you. But it is worth asking honestly: if God is real, He has a claim on how you live - and none of us is neutral about that. The Bible’s promise is to the one who looks anyway:

But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.

Why this matters to you

If God does not exist, nothing on this site matters. If He does, then you were made by Him, you are known by Him, and He is not far from you. You do not have to pretend that all your questions are settled. Bring them. But do not wait for them to be settled before you look at Him.

The best place to look is one of the four accounts of Jesus’ life, and John tells you why he wrote his:

And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book: But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.

Read it, and ask as honestly as you can: Who is this? And is what these witnesses say about Him true?