What Would it Take

What would it take to convince you that there is a God and that He has revealed himself and His truth through His words? Is there absolute proof?  

I have thought a lot about what it would take to convince me, and I have concluded that it would depend on me. What I mean by this is that unless I was someone who was seeking for something, either knowledge, truth or some type of validation about my life, no matter what was available it would be meaningless without some desire on my part to want to know it. Without this desire no matter what truth and knowledge was out there, I would probably not seek it. 

First what would not help me:

Stories about believers, famous or otherwise, 

History of believers, good or bad,

Believers' testimonies, and by this I mean people's beliefs. To me belief or unbelief is irrelevant. The question for me is not belief but whether there is truth. It must be an either or proposition.

It has nothing to do with people who have turned their lives around, found happiness, a new life, new success—Oh joy, oh rapture unforeseen, the cloudless skies are all serene! The things people talk about in their conferences and journals are the common fare of all churches, but I must go beyond that. So what would it take?

The question for me then would be, what would it take to arouse in me a desire to seek for truth? I would first need to know that there was some truth to seek. Not some creed or institutional beliefs, but real truth. So if someone gave me a definition of truth (not what they thought was truth), but real truth, that would be meaningful to me, and perhaps arouse in me a desire to find that truth. For example if someone said to me that the word of God is truth, that would cause me to want to know if there really is a God and if that God has revealed His words to others, and if records of these words have been kept. I believe I would want to test this definition of truth, but would be reluctant to rely on someone's interpretation of these words or someone else's testimony. 

If I believed that I could know of myself if these words were truth, perhaps I would be interested enough to find them and search them. It would require for me, however, some instruction on how to come to know if the words were in fact truth. These instructions, however, would have to come from God and not from some person. That person, however, could direct me to these instructions and I could test them to see if I could come to know of some of the truth or the truth of some of His words. I would want to know that the recorded words were His and not commentaries or incorrect translations.

For example if someone told me that there is an experiment I could try to test His words, I would want to try it. This experiment would have to be a valid experiment and have a scientific basis with all the necessary elements and controls to measure the results, and that through this experiment I could also come to know that the experiment itself was revealed by God. The key for me would be if I could know the truth for myself and not rely on others.

Perhaps, then, through these words I could come to know if there is a God and that His words are truth, and then I could know all things I needed to know and do through His words. His words would then be for me the standard by which everything would be judged.