How can we be sure that God exists, even though we cannot see Him?

God cannot be grasped by the eyes, but His creation is full of signs pointing to Him. Whoever looks closely recognises in its order and perfection the design of a conscious Creator.

If God could be seen with the eyes, He would no longer be hidden. He would be one object among many. The first verse above says this quite openly. So the question is not whether we can see God, but whether there are signs that reliably point to Him.

One such sign is very close to us, our own eyes. The eye is a camera more perfect than any that human beings have ever built. It captures an image, develops it instantly and turns it the right way up. It enlarges it to the full size of what we are looking at. When we close our eyes the image is gone, yet a moment later the eye is ready again. At the same time our memory keeps what we have seen, often for a lifetime.

Now take the simplest camera there is, a pinhole camera. No one would believe that it came into being by itself. It needs someone who conceived it, planned it and built it. If even the crudest device needs a maker, how could the eye have come about without a designer?

In the same way the whole world is full of signposts. The order of nature, its beauty and the fine detail of every living thing point beyond themselves. They point to a Creator who cannot be seen. That is why the Holy Qur’an invites us again and again to look carefully at the world and at ourselves.

Certainty about God therefore does not come from looking at Him, but from looking honestly at what He has made. Whoever begins in this way finds more signs than they expected.