God is knowable

People have long expressed doubt regarding a Supreme Being because He can't be seen, examined, or tested in a laboratory. An age-old claim of atheists has been that God can't be proved.

But there are multitudes of God-loving people the world over who don't need a clinical kind of proof of His existence. They've personally witnessed His presence in the laboratory of their lives, and His existence is indeed meaningful.

The Apostle Paul was one such individual. After his redemption through the healing Christ on the road to Damascus, and his subsequent transformation, Paul became known throughout Christendom as a great Christian warrior. Today he remains one of the most widely read, oft-quoted, and God-inspired followers of Christ Jesus. Paul yearned to convey to those who would listen what he had learned and proved of God.

One of the most moving accounts in the Bible, found in the book of Acts, is his Mars' Hill sermon. ''Ye men of Athens,'' he said, ''I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious. For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.'' n1 Then he proceeded to explain the nature of the one true God he had come to know.

n1 Acts 17:22, 23.

Christian Science, in harmony with the Bible, teaches that God certainly is knowable and that His healing power can be experienced by each of us.

Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, writes, ''Paganism and agnosticism may define Deity as 'the great unknowable;' but Christian Science brings God much nearer to man, and makes Him better known as the All-in-all, forever near.'' n2

n2 Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 596.

To know God better, to come to feel Him forever near, may require a radical change of heart and mind. A mental stumbling block for many people is the belief that God is a giant material being, controlling a material universe from somewhere offstage, arbitrarily punishing and rewarding His offspring.

But God is not in or of matter. ''God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth,'' n3 Jesus taught. Spirit can't be encased in a corporeal body, nor can it be examined under a microscope or tested in a laboratory.

n3 John 4:24.

Because God is Spirit, His creation is actually spiritual, including man, made in His own image. And because God is also Love, as the Bible tells us, He never afflicts His creation - He maintains its harmony and perfection.

Such an understanding of God is not a transcendental flight from reality. Rather, it's an explanation of reality. This spiritual understanding of God and all He includes is the truth that frees us, n4 the truth that Jesus proved through his healing works.

n4 See John 8:32.

When the Master restored the blind and lame to wholeness and raised the dead to life, wasn't he demonstrating that God is knowable? Even so, he made it clear to all that to know God requires giving up such mental states as fear, lust, pride, and hate, which would circumvent our proof of God's presence. In other words, a prerequisite to knowing God is that we ourselves become more Godlike.

There are many fine people everywhere today who are striving to obey Jesus' commands and teachings, particularly his Sermon on the Mount. And many feel that they have come to know God, because they love Him more than ever before.

Regardless of those who doubt or disbelieve God's existence or who scoff at the natural religious inclinations of mankind, God ism knowable. His truth is already here. It is provable every moment and made evident in healed bodies and regenerated lives. When we're ready to know God as He really is, He will open the way. His infinite, tender care embraces all, even those who insist He does not exist. DAILY BIBLE VERSE Job answered the Lord, and said, I know that thou canst do every thing, and that no thought can be withholden from thee. . . I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee. Job 42:1, 2, 5