What Does God Expect from Those Who Don’t Know of Him?

If someone doesn’t know of God’s existence or for intellectual reasons doesn’t believe in God, what does God expect from that person? Do they have a mission in this world? If so, how can God hold them accountable for their actions if He hasn’t told them their mission?

The reality is that we know almost nothing about God, yet alone enough to be able to make predictions about Him and what He should do. We often mistakenly conceive God as subject to human qualities. We cannot ask why does God do A, B, and C since who are we to decide that God must do A, B, and C. Therefore we have no answer (as well as no question) to the question of what God expects from them.

However, we can speculate.

We see in Torah that God punishes even those who He hasn’t revealed Himself to. The generation of the Great Flood was destroyed because they were immoral. This is despite the fact that God hasn’t revealed Himself to them and hasn’t given them a Torah to guide themselves by. Similarly, the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed for moral corruption – even though God hasn’t revealed Himself to them. Same goes with many other nations that God tells the Prophets that He shall punish them for their wrongdoings.

It would therefore seem that God holds people accountable for not following their moral consciences. These inherent values that humans possess are the “commandments” which they are to follow: “do not steal” “do not murder” and “respect your parents.” Every human has these commandment inside of them and it’s only a manner of self-discipline and self-submission in order for them to fulfill these commandments.[1] It is their mission to choose the inherent notion of “good” over “evil.” In order to have this “good” and “evil,” no knowledge of God is needed. The only thing needed is the human soul created in the Image of God.

On the same note, it is possible that God finds interest in people keeping the religion they believe to be true. If they know it is false, of course they should pursue the truth. But if they are innocently preserving the faith in what they conceive to be “good” (whether it be God, idols, or morals), then that is possibly their sacred mission in life.[2]

For seekers and skeptics, perhaps God’s mission for them is to seek and analyze and eventually find the truth (or sometimes not).

But again, this is all speculation. The true answer is that we don’t know enough about God to be able to ask such a question, yet alone to know the answer (if the question is in fact a good one).