Why Can't Atheists Find God When Christians Can?

Does God Exist? If He Does, Why Can't Atheists Find Him?

Many Christians were once atheists. In fact, you could visit almost any Christian church and find members of the congregation who formerly did not believe in God. So it is not true to say that atheists cannot find God, because countless numbers have found Him. But the Bible gives a reason why many atheists don't find God. It says:

“But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him” (Hebrews 11:6).

This shows that the reason many atheists never find God is because they never honestly look for Him. Christians who have been spiritually born-again know that God does reward those who seek Him — but not those who don't seek Him or those who don't care.

An atheist is a little like a chain smoker who can't find a cigarette, or an alcoholic who can't find a bottle of spirits. They are missing what they need most. That astounding Bible promise in Hebrews 11:6, that God rewards those who diligently seek Him, has been proved by millions. But the first step — to come to God having faith that He exists — is the one most atheists won't take. They say there is no God, yet they will not take even the first step to find Him.

People who scoffingly refuse to believe that God exists are like the old man who kept saying no one could reach the top of Sky Mountain. Mountain climbers passed the old man’s cottage near the base of the mountain every day and said they had climbed to the top of the mountain. He refused to believe them, so never took that first step to find out it was true. It is probably fair to say that most born-again Christians wonder whether atheists have a screw loose in their brains. To Christians who have received God's Holy Spirit in their lives, and know how real this is, the atheist's claim that God doesn't exist seems like childish rebellion. An atheist who tells a Christian there is no God might as well say the Christian has no body. The Christian just thinks it is a ridiculous thing to say.

Depending on how an atheist announces his or her unbelief, the Christian will either feel pity for the atheist, or wonder how to get the atheist's intelligence and logic up to scratch.

An atheist once said in a debate that he could never believe in anything that he could not see, taste, hear, smell, or touch. His opponent asked him how he knew he had a brain, if he had never seen, tasted, heard, smelled, or touched it.

The atheist replied that even though he had never seen, tasted, heard, smelled, or touched his brain, the fact that brain experts had always found a brain in everyone they examined meant that he too probably had a brain. But he admitted that on this line of reasoning it was possible he may or may not have a brain, just as there may or may not be a God.

His opponent pointed out that there had been some progress, because now that the atheist had admitted there could be a God he was no longer an atheist, but an agnostic (someone who doesn’t know whether God exists or not).

And this really is the best that scoffers can come up with. To know that God doesn’t exist means you would have to know everything, because if there is any information you don’t know, God could be among that. You would also have to be everywhere at the same time, because if you were not, God might be somewhere you were not.

Why will some atheists never find God, even though God has promised to reward them if they diligently seek Him in faith? Because they never honestly look. Christians need to help them to see the wonderful truth of Hebrews 11:6, not look down on them.