Can anyone know whether there is a God
Can people reach a firm answer about whether there is a God, or is the question beyond what anyone can know? Some say reason or experience can show it, agnostics say we cannot tell, and others say faith is the way.
What it is
Whether there is a God is one question. Whether anyone could ever know the answer is another. The second is a question about knowledge: what kinds of evidence, argument or experience, if any, could settle it? Some people hold that a careful thinker can reach a firm answer, either way. Others hold that the question lies beyond what human beings can know, and the honest course is to say so.
The word for the second view is agnosticism, from the Greek for 'unknown'. It is not the same as atheism, which says there is no God.
The main views
- Reason can show it. Natural theology tries to learn about God from what all people share: reason, the senses, science and history, without relying on any one religion's revelation. It has used arguments from the idea of God, from the existence of the world, from order in nature and from morality.
- Experience can show it. Some philosophers argue that religious experiences, which seem to be of something real and divine, count as evidence in the same way sense experiences do for the physical world.
- No one can know. Agnostics neither believe that God exists nor believe that God does not exist. Several of the best-known critics of the traditional arguments, among them Hume and Kant, argued that human reason cannot settle the matter, and many concluded that God cannot be known by reason alone.
An example
Take someone who has an intense experience while alone in a mountain valley: a sense of presence, of being held in something greater. They feel sure. A defender of the argument from experience says that this is a reason to believe, as seeing a tree is a reason to believe in a tree, unless there is some reason to doubt it. A critic replies that people of different faiths, and of none, report experiences that point in different directions, and that there are natural explanations for such states. The disagreement is about whether the experience can carry the weight.
Why people still disagree
- Experiences conflict. Different traditions report different kinds of encounter: a personal God, an impersonal ground, nothingness. Whether that cancels the force of the argument, or only shows different ways of meeting the same reality, is debated.
- The old arguments remain unsettled. Each of the standard arguments has defenders and critics, and none has persuaded everyone. A careful reading is that no single, simple argument is likely to settle the question.
- Different standards. What counts as good evidence is itself disputed, and this question touches how we ought to treat evidence and faith.
Written by epchē in our own words, and checked against independent sources on 8 October 2026. The sources are listed below.
Philosophies that answer it
Where each philosophy leans on this question, from the same positions the walk uses.
No one can know
Sources we used
- Natural Theology · Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, read on 8 October 2026
- Religious Experience · Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, read on 8 October 2026
- Atheism · Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, read on 8 October 2026