Faith is personal: it comes from the heart

If science deals with hypothesis and theory, and philosophy with systems and patterns of belief, it is faith that is required to grasp the existence of God, suggests Mark Buckle.

Ever considered a creator of all things? I still have the letter I received from a young lady in a communist country approximately one year after my return to New Zealand.

Raised in an education system that carefully taught atheism, she was confused when we told her about belief in God.

Before we left her city a few days later a remarkable thing happened: she believed in Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

How can someone so quickly change their unbelief to belief?In my experience most people consider the thought of a God, a supreme being, at various times throughout their lives.

Some people who are in no way "believers" find themselves positively obsessed with the notion and for others it is nothing but a passing thought that flits in, finds no place to perch, and exits, leaving no trace of ever being there.

Perhaps for most though, speaking of "non-believers", the experience is somewhere in between these extremes.

Such a concept is of such magnitude that it rates, perhaps, almost as highly as issues of climate change and "global warming".

(Oh, how my hopes have been so far falsely raised on hearing that Dunedin's temperature would steadily increase!)But seriously, if a supreme being exists, we find an extensive raft of questions that require answers.

To begin with, as human beings, despite our recent attempts to "love our planet", our actions show clearly that we see ourselves at the very top of the food chain and answer to no-one.

If God as supreme exists, wouldn't we would have to completely reassess this viewpoint? Perhaps many of us would like to conclude the search there, just in case we actually find something!But as I've heard so many ask, how can we ever be certain that God exists?What reasons are there to believe?Science deals with hypothesis and theory.

An idea is proposed; if experiments cannot disprove it, it is accepted as a theory.

If we were to seek God using some form of science alone, we would strike a major problem straight away: exactly what, rather who, are we looking for? Suddenly we turn from science to philosophy.