God is a Spirit.

"There’s no God, — say the atheists, — because no one has seen Him." Unfortunately, there are superficial, naïve people, who can get confused because of such a "proof" of non-existence of God.

But about two thousand years ago, not an atheist, but the chosen preacher of faith, St. Apostle John the Theologian, announced: "No one has ever seen God." And those words were said not to refute but to ascertain our faith in God.

Archbishop Tychon, who once ended his life like a martyr, responding to the reason about non-existence of God, asked: "And can we see our mind? Does it mean that we do not have it?" In this question he revealed not only witty resourcefulness, but the explication of the essence of the matter.

What is mind? This is, together with feelings and will, one of the sides, manifestations of our spirit.

Can we doubt the fact that we possess these immaterial qualities? For sure, not. About the fact that I have mind, feelings and will, I know even better than about that outside there exists the surrounding world, for about the surrounding world’s existence, and even about my own body I know from without, and about the existence of my mind, my feelings and my will I know from within, directly through my self-evident experience. Not by chance, the whole world philosophy, the entire theory of human knowledge, is based upon the statement: "I think, that means, I exist!"

Why do these self-evidently existing soul forces remain to be invisible for us? Because, being the manifestation of the spirit, they are immaterial. And one of the basic conditions of the spiritual world is its invisibleness and impossibility of its perception by the outward means, its immeasurableness.

That is why God is unseen.

God is a Spirit. This said our Lord Jesus Christ, when talking with a Samaritan woman near Jacob’s well, He taught her, that not only at the Gerizim Mountain, and not only in Jerusalem one can serve to God, but at any place, where the man would like to serve Him in spirit and truth.

God is a Spirit — This means that He cannot be seen with carnal eyes or heard with carnal years.

But how is it possible then to perceive Him? We perceive the outer world by the means of our feelings. Our soul perceives the soul of another person through the bodily feelings: in order to know the thoughts of another person, it is necessary that he through the body language could bring the material sound waves to our hearing.

The man perceives himself not through the outward feelings, but in the direct inner process. I do not see my inner achievements with my eyes; do not percept my spiritual process with ears or the sense of touch.

Only through this, internal, connected neither with the bodily sight, nor with bodily hearing, God reveals himself to the spiritual process. The man can perceive the Divine existence only, with a rare exception, through the internal process, heeding to that Divine voice, which louder or softer sounds in each human soul.

Such personal perceiving of God through experience is necessary for the all-sided development of the man. The one, who will personally feel God in his soul once, will be firm in faith. But such personal experience of one person is not enough yet. Therefore, instead of the inner experience of this or that person, we in our faith and in our cognition are as well guided by the Divine revelation, which was brought into the world by the Son of God, Who accepted human nature and talked with people face to face, appealing to their outward senses.

So, we perceive God internally and outwardly. And if we develop in ourselves such cognition, we shall not be confused with the denial of God’s existence on the basis of the fact, that he is invisible.