What should it take to believe in God?

I asked two Civil Engineering grad students who had claimed to be atheist. Yu and Gene, both from Taiwan, what evidence they would accept for God's existence, and they agreed they would need to see some sort of miraculous event, like God talking to them from the sky.

I'm not so sure, though, that they would believe in God even then. In our day, technology has made it possible to fake even the miraculous, and the upsurge in belief in intelligent life from outer space means that a miraculous event from God would probably be attributed to aliens!

I was tempted to tell Yu and Gene that I would pray for just such a miraculous event, but that would put the burden of proof on God when, really, His miraculous works are right here all around us. I believe this is what Paul meant when he wrote in Romans 1: "For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse."

The existence of matter and energy itself is miraculous, because creation is evidence of the Creator. We all see the same evidence, but reach different conclusions. Is the glass half full or half empty? There is evidence all around us if we are open to see it, and Paul tells us this is all the evidence we need. I hope Gene and Yu will begin to see the world around them with new eyes and acknowledge the Creator of this wonderful creation.