Do Most People Believe in God?

Ask the question: “Do you believe in God?” 90% of the time there is a positive response, and depending on how the question is phrased the results vary, but the majority of Americans affirm belief in God. Even so the proverbial “devil is in the details.”

Louis Markos says, “Scratch under the surface, and you will find that many people who say they believe in the God of the Bible are actually deists: That is to say they believe in a watchmaker God who may have kicked things off in the beginning but who is uninvolved in our world and our lives. For others, the being they call God is an amorphous force that runs through all things; or even worse, is indistinguishable form of nature. Yet others mean by God litter more than the God portion of their brain.”¹

I can see why it is very tempting to have a god in my own image. This sort of god is quite manageable. What I think is most important about family, friends, finances, food, politics, sexuality, and work is what God values. Such a god will have very little interaction with me save a spiritual pat on the back or word of affirmation for a warm fuzzy. These false gods made in the image of man can never really hear the prayers of the saints nor save anyone from the troubles of this life. They are like inanimate objects made of wood and stone. But the God of the Bible never fits well inside that box.

The one true God of the universe is far more involved in human affairs. The Word of God becomes flesh. Jesus Christ lives among us. He gives His own life for us so that we can eternity with God. Those who follow Christ will never perish but have everlasting life. To the Christian, Paul writes, “We all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit” (2 Cor. 3:18, ESV). Scriptures teach that God is constantly at work transforming His people into something glorious.

Here is the truth: I am far from the icon of perfection that my own self-centeredness misleads me to believe. My union with God has been severed. It takes Christ — the perfect union between humanity and divinity — to show me how far I am from glorious divine perfection. While I can never be God in essence (i.e. possessing the incommunicable attributes of omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence), I am one who has been created in the image of God and I can be transformed into a reflection of divine glory. Sin has defaced this image, but Christ has come to restore what has been shattered. Incarnate deity saves me from sin and redeems my life for glory that is to come.

God does exist. He is not silent. He is actively working in this universe to set things to right.

— WGN

1. Louis Markos, Atheism on Trial: Refuting the Modern Arguments Against God (Eugene, OR: Harvest House, 2018), 193.