ABSTRACT
Believers talk about God with the same terms that they use when talking about people and observable objects they encounter in the world. Thus God is talked about in personal terms as a being who knows and loves us and who acts in the world in ways that further our ultimate good and bring us to salvation. Theologians are called upon to sort out which part of the penumbra of meanings and implications of this term ‘really exist’ can and which part cannot be carried over to our talk about the ‘real existence’ of God. For believers God’s existence is ‘real’ in the sense of being not fictitious and not illusory. For the sceptic, on the other hand, God’s existence is unreal in the sense of being fictitious. God’s existence is not real but fictitious. Nevertheless, the stories in which it is embedded are important and meaningful fictions.
