Today in the "Personal Opinion" section, we would like to present to you an excerpt from a book by Richard Wurmbrand titled "Is Atheism the Way?" In this book, a man who spent a long time in a "communist prison" reflects on the existence of God. He is a deeply religious person, but in the preface he says that atheists have created many books aimed against religion, while books against atheism are not so numerous and are not as scientific. The book's subtitle is 35 Proofs of the Existence of God. But it is merely a fruit of reflection, not a monograph or a scholarly work. Therefore, we invite you to join in reflecting on your own faith and on the atheism of your opponents, as Richard Wurmbrand does. It should be added that one copy of this book is currently in our parish library, and the library itself is now being formed. We invite all who wish to participate in organizing the library collection and the work of the library to collaborate.

"...Suppose that God exists. But who is He? What do we mean when we say 'God'? There is only one answer to these questions: God is God. Any description of God is only a description about Him, not God Himself. All enumeration of God's qualities and attributes is merely an enumeration of His qualities, but not God Himself. Only God Himself is God.

Since God is beyond all other natures, any statement about Him expressed in words applicable to other natures takes on a different meaning. What a prisoner and a millionaire call 'good food' are in fact completely different things. A Beethoven symphony does not seem like good music to a primitive person. In 'Genesis Rabbah' it is said that Rabbi Yehoshua ben Perachiah was once asked why God spoke to Moses from a thorn bush. He replied: 'Everything that God does can be questioned, but I do not leave you without an answer. God chose a lowly thorn bush to show us that there is no place on earth where He is not present, and the thorn bush is no exception.'

According to what the Bible says about God, He goes through various stages. He can awaken, ascend on high, sing, call, bless, curse. 'Our God is in heaven,' says the psalmist, 'He does whatever He pleases' (Ps. 115:3).

We cannot express in words what He actually is, because all we can say is that He is at the very center, while our existence is peripheral. The center of a circle cannot be drawn, because the true center is that from which we draw.

Thomas Aquinas, in his work 'Sentences,' first used the expression 'Attributes of God.' God is called just, mighty, etc. All these different names mean the same thing, so that our limited mind can represent Him in manifold ways. The French say 'Un Dieu défini est un Dieu fini' — 'A defined God is a finite God.'

We have not seen God, but we see the beauty and wisdom of His creation, which could not exist if they were not part of Him Himself. Luther wrote: 'He who believes that God is angry has an angry God, but he who believes in a merciful God has a merciful one. As a man believes, so he has.' Without reasoning much about God, we know by faith only a little and are content with that. Why should we think about God? Why should the simplest single-celled animal organism think about man? Even if it had some tiny mind, it would know that its idea of man could only be mistaken.

When my son was five years old, he asked me: 'What should I do? I'm bored.' I replied — 'Think about God.' He said: 'Why should I think about God with my little head? Let Him with His big head think about me.' We are content with the little that is given to us through faith. The Bible says that with God one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. This is because He lives outside of time. Just as one gram is like a thousand kilograms in weightlessness. Someday time will cease to exist for us. We will be with Him. Then we will know everything."

Is Atheism the Way? (35 Proofs of the Existence of God) — reflections of a prisoner — Hilfsaktion Martyrerkirche —