There is no attempt to discuss with various philosophers about the concept of God. There is no attempt to give to scientists, proof of His existence. It is written “And without faith it is not possible to be well-pleasing to him, for it is necessary for anyone who comes to God to have the belief that God is, and that he is a rewarder of all those who make a serious search for him” (Heb 11:6). The presence of God is clear from the first verse of the Bible: “In the beginning God…” We just have to believe in him and to seek him. This is the absolute condition.

Believe? Seek Him? Okay. But what to believe? Who should I seek? And where? The problem with God is that he is not attainable. He is never in our grasp nor is He ever completely out of reach. When we are about to get him here, he is already elsewhere. When we are sure to find him there, he disappears and becomes unrcognizable. We can see it in the many names for God that are used in the Bible to present the different aspects o God. From one Christian to another, God is not always exactly the same (even sometimes in the same church). The God of the Bible is a God with whom we can have our own experience. It can be different for each person. It doesn’t mean that God is changing. But the people who have a relationship with Him are all different and live in different environments and at different times. Then they have experiences with him that are unique.

He reveals himself as the only God

The God of the Bible is a God that reveals himself. Revelation is the means God uses to make himself known to man revealing His word. First, He reveals himself as the one and only God to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and later in a clearer way to Moses. The difference from other faiths is remarkable. It goes against all the ideas, philosophies and theologies of that period. This revelation takes multiple forms and is progressive. It is said in the Bible that “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image or any likeness of God”. But it is evident that we cannot help making a “mental image” of God. This God we don’t see – and even if we could see him – we have to represent him in our mind no matter how we may imagine Him. The reality has to be represented if not it doesn’t exist.

God shows himself

God shows himself. The Bible gives some places where to find him. The first place is in nature, creation. It’s the first statement in the Bible. God is the creator of the universe. The world according to the Bible gives some good informations about him. The Bible says that “The heavens are sounding the glory of God; the arch of the sky makes clear the work of his hands.” Romains 1.20 Or “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 divinity; so that they are without excuse.” We can get information about the qualifications of an author by studying his work. Take any painting by any great painter. Take for example “the luncheon of the Boating party” painted in 1881. Most people would admire this painting even if they didn’t know anything about the painter himself! They would not question whether if he lived or not. They would even say that he is talented even if they don’t know his name Pierre-August Renoir, and that he lived during the 19th century. It doesn’t mean that they believe that the painter lived. They don’t have any doubt that he lived. They don’t even speculate for a moment. They are right.

The Bible teaches us that the universe was created by God without trying to prove it. In Hebrew we can read this: “Every house is built by somebody. But He who built everything is God.” Along the same lines, Voltaire, one of the most productive French philosophers of the 18th century said : “The world embarrasses me, and I cannot imagine that this clock exists and has no watchmaker. The atheists have never accepted the fact that a clock proves a watchmaker”. And Brehier will say of Philosopher Nicholas Malebranche “There is nothing according to Malebranche, “that when properly considered does not lead us back to God.” But the Bible goes further about creation by stating that its revelation is not perfect because of sin.

God is in every man

The Bible teaches also that the human conscience is a place for God’s revelation. God is in every man by the “work of his word”. The concept of good and evil that we see all around the world and in all cultures is proof of that. Here again the Bible cautions us about this form of revelation. It shows the limits of the human conscience that often times “calls what is evil good and what is good evil”. To understand it they call it in the social sciences “the phenomena of God or the religious phenomena”. We call God in English, in French and in all the languages of the world. Whatever his or her education, culture or values, everyone is naturally conceives of God. To believe it or not doesn’t change anything. Nobody has ever explained this fact. The explanations of Sigmund Freud for example are for most specialists (philosophers, psychologist and scientists) hard to follow. They start with a hypothesis and end with … a hypothesis!

The living God

We can learn about God by studying the relationship he had with the various characters in the Bible. By looking closely to his dealings with Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah, Abraham, Moses, etc, we can learn a lot about him. This is very important. God reveals himself by communicating with anyone, and most often in simple but decisive situations in a human life. In this context the presence of God becomes real, tangible for the believer. These stories are examples of ordinary women and men who have called upon God and have been granted their wish. That’s why God reveals himself in the Bible as the “living God”. He is the God who is alive or the God of the living, the God of today, the God who will always be. We could never say that he has been.

That’s what He taught clearly to Moses by showing him the burning bush. He starts like a familiar God: “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob” (Ex 3:6). These words didn’t convince Moses. It was good to meet the God of his father and his ancestors. But he needed a personal God, an actual God who is acquainted to his own situation and the realities of his time. He did not hesitate to ask His name (a rewarder of all who search him cf. Heb 11:6). God answers him by revealing his secrets.

Heyeh asher Heyeh: “I am”. Heyeh is in Hebrew the indefinite tense of the verb “to be”. This can be translated by “I was, I am, I will be”. We note that in the Bible to know the name of somebody means that we are on familiar terms, we know him personally and that we have a close relationship. By asking God His name Moses wants to make God his. God does give his name to Moses. To simplify it God told him that He will be with him. That’s it. “I am who I am, that’s my name forever”. When he was introducing himself to Moses, the God of the Bible didn’t explain himself. He is only there. Everybody must deal with him, starting with Moses.

Heye asher Heye. Heye is the indefinite tense of the verb “to be”. We can also translate it as “I am who I am”, “I was who I am”, “I am who I was”, “I am who I will be”, “I will be who I am”. By saying it this way, God is only repeating the promise he made earlier in Exodus 3:12 : “I will be with you”.

Jesus Christ, the last word of God

God reveals himself in the Scriptures. They are the foundation of Judeo-Christian faith. The Jews adhere to the Old Testament and the Christians to the Old and New Testaments. God marks His presence in the world of man is by putting his instructions in writing (Ex 17:14), making himself permanently visible. But the ultimate revelation for the Christians is Jesus Christ. The Bible says in Hebrew 1:1-1 “In times past the word of God came to our fathers through the prophets, in different parts and in different ways; But now, at the end of these days, it has come to us through his Son, to whom he has given all things for a heritage, and through whom he made the order of the generations”. According to this reference, Jesus Christ is the last word of God. He is the perfect revelation, the absolute word. In John 1:18 it is written that “No man has seen God at any time; the only Son, who is on the breast of the Father, he has made clear what God is”. We read in the first verse of the same chapter “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. This Word was from the first in relation with God. All things came into existence through him, and without him nothing was”. It is interesting to see the parallel between Genesis 1:1 ”In the beginning God…” and John 1:1 “In the beginning was the Word…”

The philosopher Blaise Pascal made a stark distinction between “the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob” and the one of the “philosophers and scholars”. The deity of the “philosophers and scholars” is a god without life. He is intellectual and abstract. But the presence of the God of the patriarchs is real and tangible.