God Is He a Real Person?

“THERE must be a God” declared the August 14, 1981, issue of the Daily Express. The paper was reporting on the apparent conversion of two prominent scientists to a belief in God. Their newfound conviction emerged after they discovered the prodigious mathematical odds against life’s appearing spontaneously. However, what did these two new believers mean when they said “God”? Reports the Daily Express: “God they suggest, IS the universe.”

If you believe in God, what is your conception of him? Do you likewise view him as an indefinable intelligence, an abstract omnipresent force, a great “Something”? Or do you view him as a definable, intelligent Person?

Some find it hard to think of God as a Person. They may even feel that doing so reduces him to a mere humanlike being​—as in the childish image of an old man in a hooded robe and with a long white beard, sitting on a cloud. Or as Michelangelo portrayed God in his famous Sistine-chapel ceiling fresco​—a muscular, dynamic old man who floats in the air.

True, when we hear the word “person,” we may automatically think of a human. Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, for example, defines “person” as “an individual human being.” But it also defines “person” as “a being characterized by conscious apprehension, rationality, and a moral sense.” Therefore, one can accurately think of God as a Person without depicting him as a human.

But some may object: ‘What difference does it make whether you view God as an abstract force or as a Person?’ Well, if God is merely a force, a “Something,” does this not mean that human life is likewise purely mechanical? Man would thus be reduced to an “it,” a cog in a big machine. But if God is an intelligent Person, would that not give life greater meaning? Indeed, it would open up the possibility of having a relationship with God​—a relationship not between two “its” but between two persons.

Obviously, a person-to-person relationship with God would be most desirable. But in the first place, how do we know whether God is a Person or not? And, if he is, how can we have such a relationship? Let us look at what the Bible has to say on this matter.