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Writer's pictureBible Brian

Divine instincts: Our "God-shaped hole"


In October 2021, the ironically named "Critical Thinking FTW" tweeted out the nonsensical argument you see in the header image. Due to its insanity, it could be answered in a million different ways, as indeed it has been. It's hard to understand why they would have tweeted out something that could be so easily mocked by the countless millions of people who have had their prayers answered by God.


And of course, that is the first and most simple way to answer it. Yes, God does answer prayers. Some, atheists might cast aside as "coincidence" (though as my dearly departed brother once said to me, it's curious that when we don't pray, the coincidences stop). Others? The answer is clearly from God. The mistake atheists make is assuming that prayer is a goad against which God cannot kick. God is the Master in this relationship, and so there are many reasons prayers may go unanswered.


Of course, "wrong god" may well be one of them. Notice, the Tweet specifies "their chosen deity". Of course if you look at all the genuinely fake gods, prayer isn't going to work. You can pray all day to Odin, Zeus, or even Allah, they're not going to answer because they're not God. But here's a question: Why do so many gods exist in the minds of men?


Atheism may be growing in popularity, but mankind in general has always considered it folly. Cultures separated by thousands of miles of ocean have all worshiped some form of higher power. Some of them even greatly resemble God in ways they have no business resembling Him if, indeed, He does not exist. I find the Chinese god Shang Di especially interesting, as he so resembles God in both attribute and practice that I am conflicted about decapitalising his title and pronouns. This god is 4,000 years old, and was worshiped in China, yet somehow this "supreme maker" looks a lot like the God who had not even revealed His first Scripture to the wanderers in the wilderness.


I do not know anything about the author of the original tweet. I don't know if they're male or female. I don't know if they're young or old. I don't know if they're black or white. But by instinct, I know they exist, for intelligible tweets do not appear at random. I can, of course, make a few assumptions. Vocal atheists tend to be men, so perhaps this is a man. Older atheists tend to make smarter arguments, so perhaps this is a teenager. Atheism tends to be more prominent in Western nations, so perhaps this is a white person. But I could be 100% wrong on all counts. The person behind the tweet could be an old black woman. I know next to nothing about them.


Revelation is as important a factor in knowing God as it is in knowing another person. The person who made the tweet could be anybody, and as much as I can make assumptions about them, the only real way I could know them is if they were revealed to me.


The same applies to God. We all know by instinct that there is a God. Indeed, studies show that this is a thing we recognise very early in life. But unless He reveals Himself in some way, how will we know Him? These countless millions of deities may not exist in reality, but men believe in them based on our limited perception thereof.


Human beings are designed to worship. For 6,000 years, we have reached out and searched for Him, just as Acts 17:26-28 tells us. And yes, that has resulted in the creation of some very strange caricatures of Him. Whether through the deceit of con artists, or even just the desire to mould God in our own image, we have worshiped many strange things. But this isn't because there is no God. It's because there is. We are separated from Him by sin, but He never forgot us, nor did we fully forget Him. Therefore, atheists have it backwards. The number of false gods isn't evidence that no God exists. It's evidence that He does. The state of religion is exactly as the Bible describes it. It's the so-called "God shaped hole".

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