How can we get to know God and rely on and truly love him?

The term “God” is one of the most general and simplest concepts that everyone, even atheists that deny His existence, definitely have some kind of perception of, although comprehending the true nature of his essence is out of our reach.

The ways to knowing and comprehending God can be summed up in the following ways:

1. Reason and intellect, like the argument of the necessary and possible being.

2. Through experimentation and sensation, such as the argument from design.[1]

3. The way of the heart or the argument of fetrah (genesis, innate disposition towards virtue and knowledge)[2],[3]
As for how we can rely solely on him: a person worthy of being relied on must possess two virtues:

1. Efficient amount of knowledge regarding the task that has been given to him and he has been asked to give aid for.

2. The power and strength to carry it out.
Due to the fact that God is aware of both what is hidden and evident and is never oblivious of anything for nothing can be hidden from his knowledge, and is also able to do whatsoever he desires, he surely is the best supporter one can lean on.

As for how one can love Allah (swt), there are several points that can be considered: 1. The reason as to why love occurs is realizing and perceiving the qualities and excellence one might hold.[4] 2. Mankind has an innate disposition towards virtue and perfection.3. God is sheer beauty and complete excellence and also the source of the good and beauty in the world. Hence we can deduct that man invariably loves God even though at times this natural feeling is subdued when he is deceived by his thoughts and actions into perceiving others as his beloved and this is the exact reason why Prophets had the duty of guiding mankind and liberating them from ignorance and cleansing their hearts and souls from immorality, so that they would realize the true beauty of the Lord.

Without a doubt true love has its signs and for someone to claim that he is truly devoted to God he will have to purify his soul and put into practice the moral teachings advocated by the true spiritual leaders, meaning the infallible imams, as a sign of the love he has for God and a spiritual means to connect with him in order to experience the unique feel of true selfless love.

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[1] Just because this way utilizes experimentation doesn’t mean it is devoid of any reasoning and rationality, what is meant when it is said that it is experimental is that one of the premises of the argument is such, which is to observe the different phenomena of this world.

[2] Ma’arefe Eslami, vol. 1, pg. 41.
[3] For further information see: Understanding God; Adopted from Question 479 (website:520).
[4] Sharh Isharat, vol. 3, pg. 360.