Questions to Ask About God
Questions to ask about God, starting with the ones people ask most: whether God exists, who made God, why a good God allows suffering, whether prayer is heard. After those come questions on what God is like, on prayer, on the hard cases (evil, hell, dying young) and on your own faith. They are worded so that a believer of any tradition, a doubter or a skeptic can answer, alone or in conversation with someone who will not mind being asked.
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The questions
Each question, and why to ask it
Most Asked
Does God exist, and what convinced you one way or the other?
Why ask it
The reason is worth more than the yes or no. People point to an experience, a person or a loss far more readily than to an argument, so find out which it was for them before anyone reaches for proofs.
If God made everything, who made God?
Why ask it
Children get to this one first, and adults never quite put it down. The classic reply is that God is the one thing with no beginning, so ask whether that settles it for them or only moves the puzzle back a step.
What is God like, if you had to say it in three words?
Why ask it
Three words of their own tell you more than a borrowed creed. Notice whether the first is about power, love or distance, because it tends to steer how they answer everything else here.
Why does a good God allow suffering, and how do you hold the two together?
Why ask it
A purpose nobody can see yet, human freedom, a God who suffers alongside: every tradition has replies, and none of them closes the question. Listen for the one a person leans on when the hospital room is their own. Keep yours back unless they ask for it.
Does God hear every prayer, and what counts as an answer?
Why ask it
The second half is where people part ways: some count only the thing they asked for, others count calm, a changed mind or a plain no. Agree on what an answer would look like before debating whether one ever came.
Is it wrong to question God?
Why ask it
Anyone raised to treat doubt as disloyalty will answer carefully, sometimes as if they might be overheard. If they say questions are welcome, ask which of their own has gone longest without an answer.
Does God love a person the same on their worst day as on their best?
Why ask it
Underneath, this asks whether love from God is earned or given. Listen to how they talk about their own worst day, since many people are more generous to everyone else than to themselves on this point.
If God wants to be known, why not make it obvious?
Why ask it
Believers and skeptics both feel the force of this, which makes it good shared ground. The usual replies are that faith needs room, or that the signs are there and go unread. Ask which one they find convincing and which sounds like an excuse.
Does God have a plan for each person's life, and what becomes of it when things fall apart?
Why ask it
This is easy to say at a graduation and hard to say after a miscarriage or a layoff, which is why both halves belong in one question. Ask whether the plan they mean is a route already drawn or a promise that something can be made of whatever happens.
If God already knows what you will choose, is the choice still yours?
Why ask it
Free will sits under a great deal of guilt and a great deal of blame. Bring it down to one real decision of theirs and ask whether it felt chosen at the time.
Why are there so many religions if there is only one God?
Why ask it
Some people picture many paths up one mountain, others one true map among wrong ones, and plenty have never had to say which. Whichever they pick, ask what it means for how they talk about God with a neighbor who picked the other.
Why do you think God made people in the first place?
Why ask it
Company, love that needed somewhere to go, and nobody knows are all common answers. Whichever one they give is usually their view of what a life is for, so ask what it says they should be doing with theirs.
Is Jesus God, a prophet or a great teacher, as you see it?
Why ask it
Christians, Muslims and Jews part company on this, so the answer tells you whose map a person is reading from. If the two of you sit on different sides of it, ask what Jesus means in an ordinary week of theirs and leave the title alone.
Do miracles still happen, or did they belong to another time?
Why ask it
Definitions do the work here, since a recovery, a near miss and a well-timed phone call all get called miracles. If they have one of their own, let them tell it without cross-examination. You can believe the person without settling the event.
What God Is Like
What do you picture when you hear the word God?
Why ask it
Nearly everyone has an image before they have a doctrine: a face, a light, a presence at the far end of a room. Whatever arrives first is generally older than anything they were formally taught, so take it seriously even if they laugh at it.
Where did your picture of God come from?
Why ask it
Pictures of God are handed down by particular people in particular rooms: a grandparent, one grade school teacher, a painting over a bed. Tracing the source is gentler than testing the belief, and most people enjoy doing it.
Is your sense of God different from what you were taught?
Why ask it
It is common to recite one God in a service and talk to a rather different one in the car. If there is a gap, ask which of the two they would turn to in trouble. Stop there if they look uneasy, since some have never said it aloud.
Is God male, female or neither to you, and has that ever changed?
Why ask it
Father, king and he came with the first prayers many people learned, and the words often stay long after the picture behind them has moved. Ask what would be lost for them if the pronoun changed and what would be gained, and expect feeling on both sides.
What name do you use for God, and is it the one your family used?
Why ask it
A name carries the relationship: formal, close, borrowed or avoided. When someone has swapped the word they grew up with for a different one, there is nearly always a year and a reason attached, and that is the story to ask for.
Has anyone ever seen God, as far as you believe?
Why ask it
Sacred texts give more than one answer to this, and so do their readers. It leads naturally to what the person would count as seeing: a vision, a feeling in a room, or somebody else's kindness.
Where do you think God is: everywhere, somewhere in particular, or in people?
Why ask it
A child who asks where God lives expects an address. Adult answers are vaguer, and the vagueness deserves a little pressing, because everywhere and nowhere sound alike until someone says where they have actually looked.
Is God a someone or a something: a person you can talk to, or more like a force?
Why ask it
The answer decides whether prayer is a conversation or closer to tuning in. People who say force will sometimes admit they still talk to it when things get bad, and asking about that, kindly, is worth more than arguing the definition.
Does God ever change plans because of what people do or ask?
Why ask it
A God who can be moved and a God who simply is are two different pictures, and asking for things means something different under each. If they say God never changes, ask what the asking is for. If they say God can be moved, ask whether they have ever felt it happen.
Does God make mistakes?
Why ask it
This is seldom asked in the abstract. It tends to come from someone who has been told, or fears, that something about them was an error: a body, a disability, a temperament. Find out what prompted it before you answer the theology.
Is there anything God cannot do?
Why ask it
The riddle about a rock too heavy to lift is the playful version, and it is fine to start there. The serious version is whether God can undo the past, overrule a person's will or prevent a harm, which is the point where it stops being a riddle.
Why would God want to be worshipped?
Why ask it
Skeptics ask this out loud and believers ask it privately, since a being who needs praise sounds insecure. The common reply is that worship is for the worshipper. Test it by asking what a month without any does to them.
Do you think God has a sense of humor?
Why ask it
This is the light one, and it works with children and at a dinner table. A quick laugh and a yes usually goes with a warm picture of God, while a long pause can mean the God they were handed was not a laughing one.
Prayer
Why pray if God already knows what you need?
Why ask it
A seven-year-old asks it bluntly. Adults tend to stop asking and quietly pray less. Replies fall into two camps, prayer as a request and prayer as keeping company, and knowing which camp someone is in explains how they took their last disappointment.
What do you actually say when you pray: set words, your own, or none at all?
Why ask it
Method is easier to talk about than belief, and it gets specific quickly. Someone who prays without words, or only in emergencies, will often admit it here for the first time.
Does God care about small things, like lost keys or an exam?
Why ask it
Some people would never bring a parking space to God and think a little less of those who do, and the reverse is just as common. Where a person draws the line between too small and worth asking shows how near they think God stands.
Does God still speak to people, and how would you know it was God?
Why ask it
Ask what the hearing is like before asking what was said: words, a nudge, a line of scripture that would not leave them alone. Then ask about a time they felt certain and turned out to be mistaken.
What do you make of the prayers that were not answered?
Why ask it
A no, a not yet, a silence they stopped expecting to break, or anger that is still there years later: people file these in different places. Let them say where theirs went without nudging them toward the tidier ones, and never explain their unanswered prayer for them.
What do you do when God feels absent?
Why ask it
Dry stretches that last months or years seldom get mentioned from the front of a service, so people assume theirs is unusual. Whether they kept praying, waited or stopped tells you how their faith runs when nothing is coming back.
Have you ever prayed for something you would not admit to?
Why ask it
The prayers people are ashamed of are rarely wicked: for a rival to fail, for a way out of a promise, for a long illness in the family to be over. Ask only where trust is already established, and offer one of your own first.
When did praying last change you instead of the situation?
Why ask it
It steps around the argument over whether prayer works. A person with an example will have a date and a name in it, and drawing a blank is an answer too, with nothing shameful about it.
Hard Questions
Did God create evil, or did it come from somewhere else?
Why ask it
Why suffering is allowed is one question. This is the one behind it, about where cruelty came from to begin with. Answers reach for human choice, a fallen angel, or evil as an absence in the way a shadow is. Ask which of those they could say to a child with a straight face.
Do you think God punishes people in this life?
Why ask it
Whoever believes it will sooner or later apply it to their own illness or bad luck, which is why the answer matters. If they say yes, ask whether they have ever read something in their own life that way.
Does God test people, or is that something we say afterward?
Why ask it
Being told a hardship was a test comforts some people and infuriates others. Find out which it was for them, and think twice before using the phrase on anyone who is still in the middle of one.
Is it all right to be angry at God?
Why ask it
Plenty of people were taught that it is not and are angry anyway. A yes that comes with an example usually belongs to someone whose faith has been through something, and a fast no is worth a gentle 'even then?'
Is there anything God would not forgive?
Why ask it
Hesitation here is rarely about murderers. It is usually about one thing the person did, or one person who wronged them, and you can ask which of the two without asking what happened.
Can a loving God and hell both be real?
Why ask it
Traditions split on this and so do people in the same pew: a place, a state of mind, a metaphor, or nothing at all. Ask what they were told as a child and what they hold now, and never use the gap against them.
What happens to people who never heard of God?
Why ask it
There is nearly always a face on this one: a grandmother who prayed in another language, a friend who never gave it a thought. Ask who they are picturing, because the answer people give for a stranger and the answer they give for her are often not the same.
Which story about God in scripture do you find hardest to accept?
Why ask it
A flood, a sacrifice asked of a father, a city destroyed: nearly every reader has one. Whether they handle it through context, by treating it as a particular kind of writing, or by leaving it unresolved shows how they read the rest.
When someone dies young, which belief about God is hardest to keep?
Why ask it
No theology has an easy time with this. Ask it quietly and expect no tidy answer, because anyone offering a neat one has usually not yet needed it. If the death is recent, do not ask it at all.
What do you think happens after we die, and how sure are you?
Why ask it
Two people who say the same sentence about heaven can be far apart on how sure they are, one certain and one hoping. Ask for a number out of ten if they will give one, and do not try to argue it up or down.
Your Own Faith
What do you think God asks of you day to day?
Why ask it
Being a good person is the usual first answer, and it is too wide to tell you anything. Ask what it looked like last Tuesday: a phone call made, a temper held, something given away.
When have you felt closest to God?
Why ask it
Expect a place and a time: a hospital corridor, a hillside, a kitchen at two in the morning. If the moment is decades old, ask softly whether anything like it has happened since.
What has changed your mind about God?
Why ask it
Press gently for one cause: a book, an illness, a person, a single conversation. 'It was gradual' is true and tells you little, while 'nothing ever has' is a real answer and deserves a follow-up about what came closest.
What is the biggest doubt you have had, and where is it now?
Why ask it
Doubts get outgrown, shelved or carried, and people can usually say which happened to theirs. Asking where it is now treats the doubt as something with a history, not as a verdict on their faith.
Do science and belief in God pull against each other for you?
Why ask it
For some this was settled in a school classroom and for others it has never come up. If they do feel a conflict, ask for the exact spot, which is more often one subject such as origins or miracles than science as a whole.
Can a person be good without believing in God?
Why ask it
The yes comes quickly from almost everybody. The slower follow-up is what belief adds if it is not goodness: gratitude, a community, somewhere to take guilt. Believers and skeptics both have to stop and think about that.
How would your week look different if you believed the opposite of what you believe now?
Why ask it
Believers and non-believers can both answer it, which is rare on this subject. Small answers, a free Sunday morning or nobody to thank, are more honest than sweeping ones.
What would you want a child to know about God first?
Why ask it
Made to pick one thing, people drop the theology and say what they actually trust. Set it beside the first thing they were told themselves and ask whether the difference is deliberate.
If you turned out to be wrong about all of it, what would you still want to have lived by?
Why ask it
Take away the metaphysics and something is left: kindness to strangers, a weekly day of rest, telling the truth. What a person would keep is often the part of their belief they chose for themselves, as opposed to the part they were handed.
If you could have one answer from God, what would you ask?
Why ask it
A good last question. People expect to say something large about the universe and often find it is about one person: why she died, whether he is all right, whether they themselves were forgiven.
How to use these questions
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Asking well
Pick a section, not the whole list
Most Asked holds the questions nearly everyone gets to sooner or later, and it is the place to start with a group, a class or a curious child. What God Is Like and Your Own Faith suit one person you know well. Prayer and Hard Questions need trust, so leave them until the other person has brought the subject up.
Ask what is off limits
Before anything from Prayer or Hard Questions, ask whether there is something on this subject they would prefer not to be asked. It lets them close a door before you open it by accident, and the answer often tells you who asked them badly in the past.
Ask about experience before propositions
How someone pictures God, and what they do when nothing comes back, is answerable. Whether God exists turns into a debate the moment it is asked flatly, and then nobody says anything they had not already prepared. That is why the Most Asked questions here ask what convinced you, not who is right.
Let the answer be unfinished
Several of these have no resolution, and the useful response is to stay with the incomplete version instead of tidying it. Filling the silence with your own view ends the exchange.
Say where you stand if you are asked
Refusing to answer while asking question after question feels like an examination. A plain sentence about your own position, held lightly, keeps it a conversation between two people.
Watch which words they use
Whether someone says the Lord, the universe, Hashem, Allah, or the man upstairs tells you a lot, including how formal they want this to be. Use their word, not your translation of it.
When the asker is a child
Who made God, where God is, whether anyone has seen God and whether God makes mistakes are a child's questions before they are anyone else's. Ask what they think first, keep your own reply to a sentence or two, and say you do not know when that is the truth.
What tends to go wrong
Asking during grief
The questions about suffering, about dying young and about what happens after death are not for the week of a funeral, however sympathetically meant. Wait until the person raises it themselves.
Setting a trap
A question built around a contradiction you have already spotted is recognizable instantly. If you genuinely want to know how they hold two things together, say so in those words.
Assuming a shared vocabulary
Grace, sin, sovereignty, and blessing carry different weight in different traditions and in different families. Ask what a word means to them before you build a question on it.
Treating doubt as an opening
If someone admits uncertainty, it is not an invitation to argue them out of belief or back into it. Doubt shared is a form of trust, and pressing on it usually ends the honesty for good.
If you are using these on your own
- Start with Most Asked and answer each in one sentence before you read its note. The ones you cannot finish are your real list.
- Write the answers down instead of thinking them. What you picture when you hear the word God, and where that picture came from, is harder to dodge on paper.
- Answer the questions about unanswered prayer and absence with dates and specifics, since generalities are how these get avoided.
- Keep the one about what you would still live by if you were wrong. It tends to be the most durable thing you write.
- If a question produces a strong reaction, note the reaction and come back to it another week. It does not have to be worked out in one sitting.
- If these questions are moving you away from the faith you were raised in, or toward one, you do not owe anyone an announcement. A first listener with no stake in where you end up is easier to be honest with.