Knowing God Exists

So, what do we mean when we say that we know God exists?

Despite the undeniable weaknesses of the Standard Definition of Knowledge, I think it is our best bet in making sense of the statement, "I know God exists." Based on the preceding epistemological discussions, we can only know God exists if we have a justifiable belief AND it is true. Knowing God exists comes because we can believe a truth and we can justify it. This involves using reason, rationality and belief. Without all three, I don't think we can honestly say we know anything. Granted, what we have been able to justify and believe in the past has not always been true. As mentioned before, I am free to justify and believe all sorts of untrue things. The trick will be in determining if my my arguments and faith that are built on a foundation of truth.

Can I just believe that God exists? I have always acted as if that were the case. As a new believer in Christ, I never questioned whether God existed. I just assumed it because I believed that Christianity was correct. Christianity doesn't, as far as I can tell, require that you know God exists. Rather, you are required to believe in Him (John 3:16, John 3:18, John 6:29, John 11:40, Acts 15:7, Romans 1:16, Romans 10:9, Galatians 3:5, 1 Thessalonians 2:13, Hebrews 11:6, ).

It is interesting, though, that in several passages of the Bible there seems to be a relationship between knowing and belief. Obviously, they are two different things. It is my impression that belief for the Bible writers was a more subjective experience and knowing was somehow more objective. Yet there seems to be an order of operations; knowing follows from belief (see John 19:35 and 1 John 5:13). In other cases (notably John 6:69), belief and knowledge appear to be coequal. My personal take on this is that the Bible is saying that you must have faith before you can know and that faith is more important. Hebrews 11:6 says "And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him." So, knowing God exists doesn't seem as important as believing.

Perhaps, in the end, this is true. But I still feel I must have some kind of reasoned justification for my belief. Otherwise, I think, we are in danger of creating a completely subjective religion.