In my previous post, I highlighted three leaps of faith involved in the decision to join the Catholic Church. The first leap, from atheism to theism, is the belief that God exists. In this and future posts, I will map out smaller steps on the path to this leap of faith.
The first step involves correctly defining the word “God.” Some people think it means a magical man in the sky. If this were an accurate definition, then we should all agree that there’s no such thing. But this is not what most theists mean when we affirm that God exists.
The two simplest and commonest definitions for God are “Supreme Being” and “Ultimate Reality.” So let’s compare these terms and consider what they mean. The words supreme and ultimate are both synonyms for maximum, which describes something of the greatest degree. And being and reality are both synonyms for something that exists or for existence itself.
So these definitions, taken together, suggest that God would be something that exists to the greatest degree, something with maximum existence.
To be clear, merely defining God as something with maximum existence doesn’t automatically make it true that God exists. But if there really is a Supreme Being that exists to the greatest degree, then that Ultimate Reality is correctly called God, regardless of whatever other attributes it may or may not have.
Of course, the key question now is: does it exist? In a future post, I will offer an argument for yes, in Step 2 on the path to theism.
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Understanding Seeking Faith 
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