Why I Choose To Believe In A Christian God
TL:DR
I believe in a Christian God. In short, my belief is based on three pillars:
Philosophical - I can’t reconcile the concept of infinity or randomness without the inclusion of a benevolent, designer God.
Historical - I have read many historical accounts of God in some form - and I like the Christian narrative best.
Personal - I’ve personally seen too many weird-ass things to deny that there is ‘something’ out there.
I believe in God. I jumped on the long and winding train of religion when I was 11 years old. My older brother took me to church around then. I was introduced to some very kind, super-friendly girls and boys my age who I bonded with immediately. After hanging out with them on consecutive Sundays, I decided to commit to the journey.
Since then, it’s been a meandering ride and I’ve jumped off this train twice. First, when I was struggling with my identity in my early twenties, and then later, for a few months in my early forties before hopping back on the straight and narrow. As it happened, those two periods were challenging periods in my life.
I guess I’m also not a conventional Christian guy. I don’t go to church anymore. I swear vigorously. I get drunk with my friends every now and then. I’ve even (oh, the horror!) indulged in contraband substances more than a few times.
I have several friends who are atheists who have very strong, very convincing views that contradict mine. I’ve had many dinner table discussions where my faith is held up to ridicule due to the perceived implausibility of my chosen religion - or any religion for that matter.
These days, it seems genuinely uncool to believe in God. It’s currently way more acceptable to cite Sam Harris and Yuval Harari than it is to quote Tim Keller and Jordan Peterson.
In the pantheon of definitions, I’d say I’d sit somewhere between a theist and a deist. I’m certainly not agnostic, pantheistic or an atheist. I suppose it’s a revealing aspect of my character that I’m a big fan of Harris and Harari, but a bigger fan of Keller and Peterson.
With that in mind, I write these types of articles to probe my own reasoning.
There are three layers to my faith, which I will try to outline as succinctly as possible.
1. Philosophical: Why I Believe In A God of Freedom
This is a tricky one for me to articulate. I’m no philosopher, but this first point is both an attempt to explain why there is a God, but also to explain “why natural disasters” or “why kids get cancer” in a philosophical way.
Essentially, my belief is based on the premise that it’s too difficult for me to reconcile the randomness of existence without a God.
To me, it’s a far bigger leap of faith for me to be an atheist than it is to be a Christian.
In my view, there are too many clues in too many places for a creator God.
For example:
The formulation of life itself. This is crazy to me. For example, the elegant symbiosis of proteins and amino acids. It’s an impossible miracle that life arose out of these building blocks. Author Bill Bryson describes it like “putting ingredients on a table and expecting a cake to suddenly bake itself”.
The very concept of infinity. I mean, seriously - how even? Infinity. Look that shizz up and try get your head around it. Like really look into it. Google it and everything. Then go take a long salt bath to recover.
The fact that we have not been obliterated by one of millions of asteroids, comets or rogue space particles passing us by each year. Yes, I know we have actually been obliterated before - but yet, here we are.
Evidence of design, all around us. From breathtaking stellar constellations of unimaginable size to the tiny zinc fireworks display that occurs at the moment of conception.
Conscience. How do we know good and bad, right from the start? What’s that invisible force that pulls at us when we want to steal gramma’s sweets?
The very fact that we exist! I mean, c’mon? Atheists hate this line of reasoning - and yet some convert to spirituality when contemplating this point. Try to conceive of what was before the Big Bang and how it happened. This elicits awkward conversations in fundamentalist science circles - and some very spurious postulations. Essentially, any position you take on this is a leap of faith.
There is an unlimited number of these clues that point me in the direction of a God - each one possibly deserving an article of its own.
What’s harder to explain is that the sentient force, this ‘God’ dude, is actually a good guy; that he’s a God of freedom.
After all, there is a lot of bad stuff that keeps going on around us. Beheadings in the Middle East. Murders in the Suburban Flats outside of Cape Town. Tsunamis. Genocides. School shootings. Serial killers. Child trafficking.
For me, the hardest stuff is the random stuff.
My dermatologist told me of a horror story that he witnessed. A sweet, kind-natured seven-year old patient of his died after battling melanoma in her uterus. In her uterus. He said it was not normal at all and he certainly could not wrap his head around it.
So, if there’s a God, why would he/she allow that to happen? If he’s a good God, then why does he not prevent this stuff?
How can we explain that to the mother of that little girl and to that family, subject to such devastation?
The only way I can explain it, at least in my mind, is that if there is indeed a God and he created the world and everything in it, he must be allowing us to live with 'free will', Otherwise he’d be interfering all over the show, beating his chest and showing off his power. I see no evidence of that.
Some may point out that all monotheistic religions point to an ‘angry’ or ‘jealous’ God, meddling around constantly in people’s affairs (check out the entire Old Testament in the Bible for example), but I believe the written works are either metaphorical, legalistic, historical or poetic. I believe the only occasions that God gets involved are when faith in God is either required or rewarded, and is a direct consequence of the relationship between us and him (more on that in a follow-up post). Essentially, I believe that this God force is very, very reluctant to tweak outcomes to suit us.
It’s for this reason that, when two sports teams play each other, I think praying “God, help us to do our best” is a better prayer than “God, help us to win.”
By the way, I really don’t believe in a Dude With A White Beard (I know some Christians that do, taking the “made in His image” line quite literally). That image is useful for us to visualize and communicate with - and provides a handy paternal archetype - but it’s certainly not befitting of the Invisible Energy that created the known Universe.
What it looks like to me is that this Energy has created a set of laws that govern the Universe. He’s set these laws up and then allowed us to live within that legal framework, without direct intervention.
Some examples of these laws include: “every action has an equal and opposite reaction” and “if you put your hand in the fire, you’re gonna get burnt” and “when the seismic movement of tectonic plates reaches a certain level of abrasion, earthquakes happen” and “if you hit on somebody else’s girlfriend, you’ll likely get hit in the face” and “under a very particular set of circumstances, certain cells in your body will metastasise and consume the rest of you”.
Sometimes, the outcome sucks, but if this God Energy has truly created a free world, logically he/she cannot get stuck in, otherwise it would contradict the preposition of free will.
Therefore, it makes sense to me that the creator God, this Force behind the Universe, would invent a world where humans could make decisions and choose their own destiny; where the only laws are the laws of nature within whose jurisdiction we must live.
This is the price we pay. That is the price of freedom.
2. Historical: Why I Believe In A Christian God
So, if we propose that there is in fact a Dude who created everything and who is all around us, and he’s letting us roam free without intervening all the time, then why the God of the Bible?
Why not the God of Judaism, Hinduism, or Islam?
Why not Thor, Loki or Odin?
Or why not the Great Turtle that vomited up the Earth and has carried us all on his back for eternity?
My simple answer is that I have read many of the ‘big books’ and, personally, the Christian narrative makes the most sense to me.
It resonates, for some reason, with billions of people. Why? I mean, if a group of people decided to create a narrative that sticks, the books in the Bible are not ideal. It is clunky and contradictory. It’s messy and muddled. The story goes kinda like this:
The Universe was created by a Designer. Somewhere down the line, we humans appeared. We promptly began misbehaving. Since the early days of consciousness, we’ve been creating death, pain, suffering for ourselves and for others around us.
We’ve also been doing some good stuff, but let’s focus on the bad stuff for now. Despite all our miscreant behaviour, this God dude chose not to stop us by force, otherwise he would negate the very idea of freedom (see Point 1, above). I hear the Christians screaming “What about the flood? What about Sodom and Gomorrah?” So, yeah. That stuff is not historically accurate - like much of the Bible. Jung points to the fact that most cultures have flood myths in them. These are stories - but they all point to the fact that we humans are capable of really being terrible to each other.
The story of Christ is a kind of celestial ‘show and tell’. In the story, the Creator Energy reveals a cosmic lesson to us. The Christ narrative is ‘God as one of us’, vulnerable to the elements, persecuted, and vulnerable. The ultimate Power as a helpless baby in a manger. The ultimate duality. It is a lesson of Grace.
This ‘Grace’ thing is actually the central theme of Christianity. It’s basically a story of forgiveness, kindness, empathy and redemption, all wrapped up in one - and it’s pretty awesome.
If you think about it, coming to Earth is the only way he can intervene and still allow the Laws of the Universe to prevail, thus keeping 'free will' intact.
Therefore the idea of an omnipotent God, the creator of all things, coming to Earth as a humble servant, appeals to me. This massively powerful Energy, subject to its own natural laws. A story of a human growing up with no special favours and was subjected to the same cruelties and injustices as we are. The story shows us how to live a blameless life and teaches us what grace really means.
If you believe in it, Christ's life proves that God is not distant, cold and unmoving. This Energy is within reach, all around us, within us (‘Holy Spirit’). That the higher power behind the Universe is accessible and benevolent. That this sentient force was willing to come to Earth and connect with us in the Earthly form, a human like us.
Most importantly, it showed us that we have a place in eternity, that our existence is not just random happenstance.
it showed us that death and rebirth is actually meaningful. This cyclical death/birth cycle is something that we have to face every day, every month and every year. It’s the seasons in our lives, health and sickness, happiness and depression, friendships, projects, adventures and seasons. And yes, it’s the literal birth of newcomers into our families and the death of loved ones and people in our lives.
The Christ narrative shows us that there is redemption in that cycle.
I like this story. Many people would point to the fact that it’s highly unlikely that Christ is really God. Here’s the thing: I don’t care. For me, and my version of Christianity, it’s the power of the story that really counts.
For me, the chapters within that story are really important: the Parable of the Talents, the Beatitudes (and redemption from the impossible set therein), the themes of juxtaposition, matching opposing views, shepherd/sheep, lion/lamb, meek/ruler - these are all keys to living a good life.
Then, there is the remarkable gift of the Holy Spirit, which is the life force that lives within us all, that connects us. Jung hinted to this in his theory of collective unconscious. The Holy Spirit is the divine Energy that has drawn us over the centuries to a consistent belief in something ‘other’ than just what we can observe.
I believe that mysterious force is the reason why we are so drawn to stories like Avatar, Lord Of The Rings and Star Wars. We find them familiar in a deeply spiritual sense. The Christian theme is hinted at through many of the great stories - and there is a stirring within all of us when we see the inherent Universal Truth within these fables.
Of all the great stories, the Christian story resonates far beyond some scrappy texts written 2000 years ago. It makes the most sense to me, from a zoomed-out perspective. I like the extraordinary juxtaposition of omnipotence and helplessness, death and rebirth - and the central theme of this Grace thing that binds it all together.
3. Personal: Why I Believe In A Present God
So, now that I’ve explained why I believe there’s this Dude who created everything, and that he came to earth in order to teach us the lesson of death, rebirth and Grace.
I know from experience these points do not provide a satisfying argument to atheists. I also know militant Christians who vehemently disagree with my non-literal reading of the Bible.
Additionally, I’ve read work that provide extremely convincing counter-explanations to my beliefs.
The truth is that, like any rational person that thinks and talks about this stuff, I am afflicted regularly by doubt.
Once again, I firmly disbelieve that the Bible is inerrant. As much as I love the overarching story of the Bible, there are too many elements within it that just cannot be ‘holy’.
Ummm, case in point:
“One of Crete's own prophets has said it: "Cretans are always liars, evil brutes, lazy gluttons."
This puzzling excerpt comes from Apostle Paul’s letter to Titus, which I’m fairly certain Paul did not intended to be studied a few thousand years later. That does not sound like the ‘inerrant word of God’ to me.
Neither, for that matter, does the instruction to the Israelites to enslave and rape the virgin women of the Midianites. There is lots of stuff in the Holy Book that doesn’t come across as very ‘holy’ to me.
So, if I base my faith on merely the two points above, my faith would be fragile.
The third point, the thing that hammers the nail in for me, is my own personal journey and the various supernatural events that I’ve been privy to.
So, without going into too much detail, here is a list of five of the many weird-ass phenomenons that I’ve personally experienced:
When I was 15 I attended a boarding school. For three weeks, my roommate and I were consistently woken up by footsteps, tapping and knocking noises, right in our bedroom. Every day, early in the morning, always at the same time, always loud, inexplicable and distinct.
On the evening of the day my father died, I witnessed, together with my partner at the time, a stationary object (a cork) hopping up and down on a table for around 15 seconds - without any external stimulus to propel it.
The following day, while we were praying with a group of friends, a row of windows at my house blew open simultaneously, in completely windless conditions.
Around 15 years ago I saw the healing of a leg of someone I knew very well, after witnessing that same person’s leg broken the week before.
Around three years ago, while praying during a particularly difficult day in my life, my partner and I saw a large, well-fixed ‘peace’ sign on my bedroom door crash to the ground.
These things are hard to explain. They’re also hard to talk about. I second-guess myself when relating these occurrences to people, but I cannot deny they happened - and in fact, there are many more incidents I know of, witnessed either by me personally or by trusted friends of mine.
So, what’s going on here?
Do I have some kind of attraction to this stuff? Are there paranormal forces going on, or perhaps just latent energy that we don’t understand? One particularly sceptical friend suggested to me that for each supernatural occurrence there is likely to be an equally convincing scientific explanation.
Sure. Fine. However, at some point, I have to make a choice. For each of the things I’ve experienced, or heard second-hand from people I know and trust, I have to decide: was it Twilight Zone material, or was it MythBusters?
I lean more towards the former. Call it a ‘knowingness’. There are too many occurrences that I am aware of that indicate the presence of a supernatural entity. Like Jung eluded to in his work Synchronicity, these occurrences are very, very hard to explain away via scientific methods.
This third point is no ‘proof’ of God, admittedly, but it certainly points me firmly towards ‘something’. Furthermore, there may be a conflation of science and spirituality in the future, when we understand the physics of gravity and the space between particles better.
For now, I’m calling it God, as in the Christian sense of the word. It’s the best I have, for now.
I‘m guessing that all of this may raise more questions than answers, so I’ll add one last point:
Looking back on my life, something has become abundantly clear to me. Both of the periods that I hopped off the Christian train, in my early twenties and in my early forties, I noticed a profound impact on my wellbeing. Both times resulted in me becoming severely anxious.
However, when I hopped back on I noticed those feelings being replaced by a deep feeling of peace.
The sense of emptiness went away, replaced with a rich sense of meaning and purpose and contentment.
That realisation in itself is enough to keep me on the tracks for the long haul.
