The Catholic Thing’s January article clarifies (pushes back against?) the sometimes-tendency of Christians to argue for “the existence” of God:

God—as understood by the Catholic Church and by most other theistic traditions—is not a being in the universe, a superior agent whose existence we postulate in order to explain some natural phenomenon, but rather, Being Itself, that which all contingent reality depends for its existence.

In an earnest spirit, I think, many Christians engage in debates with non-believers who suggest that God doesn’t exist, citing science or whatever.

What I love about Francis J. Beckwith’s excerpted point above is that it illuminates an incredibly delicate aspect of Christian theology. Namely, that Christians don’t believe God exists, but that God is.

What I mean by this is that Christians believe that God is being. That is, that God is the metaphysical (beyond-physical) basis for reality. Everything that exists owes its being-ness, its reality, to God who is the basis for it. This is why Christianity is so concerned about a person’s relationship with Christ, because it’s a way to acknowledge that our lives are wholly owed to God who is the basis for all things.

When we’re talking about whether God exists, we’re not seriously debating whether God is some creature hiding in or above the universe. He’s not “out there” someplace. He is “Being Itself, that which all contingent reality depends for its existence.” An example of something similarly mysterious is love. Love doesn’t exist. It’s not out there.

It is, however, something felt forcibly and powerfully within us, and something we manifest to another through our lives, through our own being in relation to another.