seeing is believing
There is a phrase that is often heard in conversations about faith and belief… “I only believe what I can see.‘ What people who say this usually mean is that because they cannot see God with their own eyes, they don’t believe in Him. They treat the absence of visible proof as sufficient grounds not only to dismiss the idea of God entirely, but also to show no interest whatsoever in what the Bible has to say about the state of the world and the reasons behind its many troubles. It sounds like a rational position. But is it really? When examined carefully, it does not hold up — and in fact, the statement itself is not even accurate.
We All Believe in Things We Cannot See
Consider electricity. Most people use it every single day without giving it a second thought, yet no one has ever actually seen electricity itself. What colour is it? What shape does it take? Can you stand beside a cable running into your home and watch it arrive? Of course not. And yet virtually no one doubts that electricity exists.
The reason is straightforward… we see what it does. When a light switch is flipped, current travels through the wiring, meets resistance inside the bulb’s filament, and produces light. That result — that visible, undeniable effect — is all the evidence most people need. They have never seen electricity directly, but they accept its existence without hesitation because the evidence of its work is plain to see.
The same reasoning applies to radio waves. At this very moment, invisible signals are passing through the room where you are sitting, moving between your eyes and this page, carrying voices, music, and television pictures through the air. No one has ever seen a radio wave. They are entirely invisible. Yet no reasonable person would seriously argue that radio and television are an elaborate deception designed to fool credulous people.
The sounds that come through a speaker and the pictures that appear on a screen are real, observable effects — and those effects demand a logical cause. That cause is the unseen wave that carries them, and its existence, though invisible, is beyond reasonable doubt.
The Unseen World Is Very Real
It is also worth asking how recently you last saw an atom. Or the electrons, protons, and neutrons of which atoms are composed — particles so extraordinarily small that they remain beyond the reach of the naked eye entirely. And yet a great many people who insist they only believe what they can see hold very firm views about atomic particles. They may even express deep concern about the potential consequences of the power locked inside something they have never once laid eyes on.
The existence of subatomic particles is accepted not because anyone has seen them directly, but because their effects are measurable, demonstrable, and consistent.
The pattern here is impossible to ignore. Invisible electrical current produces heat and light. Unseen radio waves carry sound and images across vast distances. Minute particles within the atom, when disturbed, release energy of extraordinary magnitude. In each case, the unseen thing is accepted as real because its effects are undeniable.
The statement “I only believe what I can see” is, therefore, not an honest description of how anyone actually thinks. Every person alive believes in things they have never seen, because they have learned to recognise the evidence those unseen things leave behind.
What This Means for Belief in God
This brings us to the question that matters most. If we are willing to accept the existence of electricity, radio waves, and atomic particles purely on the basis of their observable effects, then we owe it to ourselves to apply the same standard consistently.
The evidence for an invisible Creator — one whose name, as revealed in scripture, is Jehovah — is no less real and no less observable than the evidence for any of these things. The effects of his power are woven into the fabric of creation itself, visible to anyone willing to look honestly at the world around them.
“For his invisible qualities are clearly seen from the world’s creation onward, because they are perceived by the things made, even his eternal power and Godship, so that they are inexcusable.”
(Romans 1:20)
The question, then, is not whether the evidence exists. It does. The question is whether we are willing to follow it wherever it leads — with the same openness and intellectual honesty we readily apply to electricity, science, and the invisible forces that power the modern world.
