Why I Have Not Been a Christian, and Why That Might Change

A Personal History of My Nonbelief

I think I lost the faith I was raised in (Lutheran) when I was 16, a few years after the family stopped going regularly to church. That was when I first started studying philosophy more seriously. To be specific, I stopped being Christian because I stopped believing in God.

A methodological skeptic

I had no particularly special reason to reject belief in God, back then; it was just heaved overboard with virtually all my deepest beliefs when I went through a process of systematic doubt, one not unlike Descartes’. Before I had read Descartes, I decided that it was extremely important that I have the Truth, with a capital T, in all its depth and complexity. So I decided that the only way to arrive at that would be to systematically study philosophy and to begin by ejecting all my beliefs, a stance called methodological skepticism. The belief in God was, of course, one of these, although I think I had already started to doubt a year or two before the philosophy bug bit me.

The reason I desperately wanted the Truth and went through what was an intellectually and even to some extent emotionally wrenching period for some years, in my late teens, is that I had come to understand that the truth about how to live and how to think about the world was actually extremely important. One example I gave myself was some people I knew who had gotten deeply into drugs. I knew (because they told me) that they thought drugs were really cool, that they could expand your consciousness, man. But I watched as several of those people descended into what looked to me like a brain-dead stupor and even crime. It occurred to me that their former beliefs about drugs turned out to be not just false, but quite dangerously false. I then extrapolated from that example to many other life situations. In this way I clued myself in to an idea that I think many adults never do learn—that errors in our thinking that have consequential impact on our lives tend to be systematic and deep. They tend to be about important, broad matters, often aptly described as “philosophical” even if a person knows nothing about philosophy.

Veritas

This is not to say I had no thoughts whatsoever about proving the existence of God. It was obvious enough that belief in the existence of God was, to be sure, one of those extremely consequential beliefs, with systematic, deep impact on our lives—enabling, as it does, an acceptance of various kinds of (theistic) religion and everything that entails. But none of the arguments I encountered seemed adequate. For example, I seem to remember criticizing the cosmological argument, that the universe must have had a beginning and that there must be some explanation of that beginning that was outside of time. Well, doesn’t that mean there might have to be some explanation of this entity that exists outside of time? What does it mean, anyway, to exist outside of time? Sounded like potential nonsense, and I did not want to accept anything that I did not quite clearly understand. And perhaps the universe always has existed and that there was indeed a cause of the Big Bang in some unknowable state prior to it.

My formal study of philosophy in college and then grad school (lasting from 1986 until 2000) did not change my skepticism. I remember a student at Ohio State coming up to me around 1995 and asking what my response to the fine-tuning argument was, and I had to concede that I didn’t have a response off hand, and that it was certainly among one of the strongest arguments for the existence of God. In fact, I was much struck by this fact, at the time, and it made me wonder if perhaps I was not giving theism short shrift after all. Later on, in 2003-5, I taught philosophy of religion a few times at Ohio State, and learned about the arguments in more depth. I was able to explain the arguments both for and against the existence of God with enough plausibility that the class was evenly divided on the question, at the end of the term, of whether I myself was a believer, an agnostic, or an atheist. I never did tell them that I was an agnostic, in fact.

Might exist

How I Might Become a Christian

It is 2020. Has anything changed? Well, yes. I find myself taking theism in general and Christianity in particular much more seriously these days. I notice, of course, that this runs directly counter to my old methodological skepticism, which has not really changed, in general. So let me explain a few things I now believe about Christianity, and why I might make an exception to my skepticism for it.

The first thing I want to point out is that, now that I am older and more experienced, the dangers of false belief—i.e., the moral hazards to me, personally—do not seem to be nearly as pronounced as they might have been when I was younger and relatively naive. My experience of life means that, even if I do accept something quite incorrect, I am less likely to get involved in something life-ruining at this stage in my life.

Was He a zealot?

Besides, in the case of Christianity, decades of experience have brought no great and deep insights into anything that I would call dangers associated with Christian religious practice. This isn’t to say zealotry and radicalism don’t exist, which of course they do; it is just that I know that I am very unlikely to get involved with them. This is true of the most sincere believers I know. They are, quite simply, extremely pleasant people to be around, and they are, far from being crazy, some of the most sane and grounded people I know. It is also quite plausible that it is their faith that has grounded them. They take morality seriously, as something they should act on. They understand and live by the notion of Christian humility and charity, the combination of which make them perfectly docile.

Meanwhile, the more I have learned about the psychology and practices of both atheism and left-wing thinking, generally speaking, the more I am forced to admit that no small amount of my own nonbelief might have been rooted in not just general skepticism but also in propaganda. In short, modern Western society, especially in academic and intellectual circles, is deeply hostile to Christianity, so that it simply has not been given a fair shake. I don’t just mean that Christians have been made to look like bigoted fools—though indeed they have been so slandered—I mean the best side of the religion has been systematically hidden. It has not been shown to the best advantage.

I’d like to read a few books like this

In practice, this has meant that I have not been exposed to the best versions of the arguments for God and Christianity, I have not really understood the Bible (and also did not grasp that there was something quite interesting to understand), and I have been largely ignorant of the details of Christian apologetics. In a society more sympathetic to Christianity, those possessed of the more compelling arguments for God would receive a more frequent hearing, I would have studied the Bible properly at some point (I am reading it all the way through for the first time now), and I would be more thoroughly familiar with apologetics as its elements would be both commonly studied and “in the air.”

I am not ready to call myself a Christian because I am not ready to declare and defend a belief in God. But, privately and publicly, I have been re-examining many of the, to me quite familiar, arguments for the existence of God, and I have come to a new perspective on several of them.

Reflections on Philosophy of Religion

Any one argument for the existence of God is not particularly persuasive, but taken together, they are more so. If you take the various specific conclusions of specific arguments as data, then “A personal God with whom it is possible to have a personal relationship” becomes an explanation of the set of them, and thus the conclusion of an argument to the best explanation (also called an abductive argument). In other words:

  1. Probably, there is something outside of space and time that explains why there is something rather than nothing.
  2. Natural laws and constants seem fine-tuned for the existence of matter and the rise of life.
  3. We have experience only of minds producing such timeless or abstract things as natural laws and constants.
  4. The only explanation we seem to be able to come up with for why there are these natural laws and constants is that they are aimed at, or have a purpose or function of, the origin of the universe and ultimately of the life we see around us.
  5. Any such purpose would seem to be benevolent and to suggest rules for us, insofar as it allows us to live well, if we live in accordance with our nature and circumstances on earth.
I hear he had some arguments for God

Individually, conclusions like 1-5 look relatively weak, but they are, nevertheless, in need of some explanation or response. (Perhaps I could add to this list.) We can respond critically to each of them, indeed, which is what I have been doing for decades. But an idea I never have really taken seriously, until quite recently, is that we can explain them all together by reference to an eternal, non-extended mind-like entity, originating not only the universe but the laws according to which it runs, which entity has purposes and even benevolence toward life. Thus all of the various “arguments for the existence of God,” or several of them anyway, become so much data, or explananda, for a single overarching argument to the best explanation, the explanans being the ordinary notion of a personal God.

I’m not sure precisely what to make of this argument—not that I haven’t had thoughts about that. I might elaborate those thoughts later.

Said he believed anyway, go figure

Anyway, to get from there to Christianity, it is necessary to move well beyond what philosophers call “natural religion,” i.e., conclusions you can arrive at without any “revealed religion.” Why should the God of the Bible (called variously Yahweh/Jehovah, the LORD, and Jesus) be identified with the entity posited as an explanation of 1-5? I’m working on an answer to that as well. It’s not simple.

For one thing, it requires that one grapple with the idea of the soul or spirit, of a mental entity independent of any body. While I have always thought it to be beyond doubt that there are mental experiences and hence minds in some sense, the notion of a mind independent of any body (so, a soul) has always seemed puzzling to me. Frankly, one of the stronger arguments for souls is near-death experiences, a reported phenomenon I have never been able to rule out.

But this would mean I would have to re-evaluate the physicalism I have long adhered to, when it comes to philosophy of mind. I have thought that the mind is a property of the body, and the thing that makes it seem to be so completely different from anything material is quite the same as what makes the problem of universals so puzzling: what are properties, anyway? I’m not quite sure I can see my way clear to abandoning that rather elegant solution. But I can admit that, even if (as Hume emphasizes) I cannot introspect a self independent of any passing thoughts or feelings, I do seem to have a sense of a self. I always thought of that as being my body (so that my thoughts are properties occurring to me, a body). But I suppose now that there is something rather absurd about that suggestion. I mean, look, when I say that I’m happy or sad, thoughtful or confused, virtuous or weak, am I referring to my body (such as my brain)? Surely what I mean—and this is an important point, since the whole argument turns on what I am introspecting—is something quite different from my body. Which part of my body is happy? My mouth, which smiles? No. My head? Don’t be silly. My entire body without any differentiation? That does not make sense. My brain? That seems more plausible, but I’m not thinking about my brain, surely, when I say I am happy. No, it’s my self I mean, which is something I have a definite sense of and which is different both from my body and from any particular idea or feeling I have.

Well, it’s possible.

This probably doesn’t quite entail that I have a soul, much less that I have an immortal soul. Anyway, I’ll leave that there for now.

In any case, if I am going to take all of these things seriously, and consider embracing a belief in God, let alone in Christianity, then I admit that I would have to abandon my methodological skepticism. And I am not really sure I want to do that, as it seems to me it has served me well.


by

Posted

in

, ,

Comments

Please do dive in (politely). I want your reactions!

15 responses to “Why I Have Not Been a Christian, and Why That Might Change”

  1. Chuck

    That last part of what you are… body, mind or soul. Here’s an experiment anyone can try. Go to a place where you can be alone and not bothered. Close your eyes or just relax and then ask yourself to feel or sense the part of you that has always been.
    See if you do feel something and where is it, how does it feel?
    Do this at other times, any time when you can calm your mind and the urge comes.
    No answers but if you do feel something, locate something maybe another question. What is it?

    1. John

      Another approach would be to focus on being a follower of Jesus. Why did Jesus disciples become martyrs for Christ. A tax collector, tentmaker, fishermen etc. Why were 3000 added in Acts the day of Pentecost. Why were all of the disciples speaking in the languages of the many nations. Acts is an awesome book.

    2. That’s sort of what I said with “No, it’s my self I mean, which is something I have a definite sense of and which is different both from my body and from any particular idea or feeling I have.” I don’t think an experiment per se helps establish this any more clearly. The argument is that we can introspect an item “there” which stands in some relation to the particular thoughts and experiences I have. Descartes discusses this, famously, in Meditation Two: “But this ‘I’ that must exist – I still don’t properly understand what it is; so I am at risk of confusing it with something else, thereby falling into error in the very item of knowledge that I maintain is the most certain and obvious of all.”

  2. AgnosticDude

    Well, I come from a rather different background. Raised as a Jehovah’s Witnesses, at age 24 I became someone that devoted 70 hours a month in ministry, served the congregation in weekly duties and traveled to foreign lands to preach. Around age 30 I began to lose my faith in my religion, but not Christianity itself, it took another year with researching before I had officially become agnostic.

    Atheistic materialism has never made much sense to me. Even as an agnostic I found myself much more eager to defend the religious and the intelligent designers than to advocate for the atheists. Could the 2500+ cases of children experiencing what seems like reincarnation be real? I can’t rule it out. My mother swears she really did see a fog-like male figure hovered over a preacher reading his Bible. I don’t believe her to be a liar and I can’t prove it was her imagination. These stories go on and on.

    I grew up being told to be careful of mind-altering drugs because somehow it attracts demons that might possess you. I feared the supernatural nearly all my life and always hoped to avoid anything that might intrigue an evil spirit. Now though, I half wish I could spend my time as a ghost hunter, seeking out the supernatural. I’ve become numb to the fear of them, if God won’t speak back to me, maybe being face to face with the Devil himself is not so bad. At least then I’d know.

    That craving to know the “about” to life tickles in the back of our minds all of our life. What do I think now? If there is a personal God, that god has never worked to inform me or any of us. He/She lets us stay in the dark, spending our years speculating and debating but never knowing. Is faith the “assured” expectation of things hoped for? I have never been provided with adequate assurances of anything other than the fact that big eats little and that big also dies.

    We want hope, a second chance or at least more than what we have already got. This is why every form of cult exists. What is a Christian denomination if not a cult? The nature of being a cult depends on the severity of its influence over the minds of its participants. Christianity has made minds so extreme and brutal as to burn people alive, and today still plenty of these ideologies involve a variety of social controls such as shunning or marking. Cults can exist everywhere, socialists are usually cultists, I’d call the radical thinking of the progressive group as well as alt-rights cult-like in nature. A cult is just a group or entity that has developed an ambition beyond the servicing of its wider community and employs messaging techniques to influence minds.

    Why do we become so attracted to cults? We yearn for purpose and cults know how to use that desire in humans to enslave. It appears it is an easier thing to be a slave to a fantasy than to live without a sense of purpose.

    Perhaps morphic resonance is a real thing. Perhaps ghost sightings have truly been sighted. Perhaps angels and demons are watching. What I know is that I have said “hello” to God many times, and if he’s a just and fair god, he could not possibly condemn me for losing faith when he never said hello back. If we held God to the standards we hold human fathers I’m not so sure he’d fair well in the “quality time” department. If we have a heavenly father that loves us personally, he should show up for a soccer game or two.

    1. I’ll reply a bit to these very interesting comments.

      “Atheistic materialism has never made much sense to me. Even as an agnostic I found myself much more eager to defend the religious and the intelligent designers than to advocate for the atheists. Could the 2500+ cases of children experiencing what seems like reincarnation be real? I can’t rule it out.”

      It’s interesting how similar premises lead us to different conclusions sometimes. You say you can’t rule it out; no doubt I couldn’t either, but I would have said, “I can’t rule it in either,” and would have paid more attention to that. Then given my methodological skepticism I would pass over the possibility entirely.

      “That craving to know the “about” to life tickles in the back of our minds all of our life. What do I think now? If there is a personal God, that god has never worked to inform me or any of us. He/She lets us stay in the dark, spending our years speculating and debating but never knowing. Is faith the “assured” expectation of things hoped for? I have never been provided with adequate assurances of anything other than the fact that big eats little and that big also dies. …
      I have
      “Perhaps morphic resonance is a real thing. Perhaps ghost sightings have truly been sighted. Perhaps angels and demons are watching. What I know is that I have said “hello” to God many times, and if he’s a just and fair god, he could not possibly condemn me for losing faith when he never said hello back. If we held God to the standards we hold human fathers I’m not so sure he’d fair well in the “quality time” department. If we have a heavenly father that loves us personally, he should show up for a soccer game or two.”

      This seems quite reasonable on first glance. I would have agreed for a long time, i.e., if God exists and he wants us to love him, why doesn’t he give us more evidence of his existence? Why require faith at all? Let me explain my current hypothesis about a Christian view on these things, gathered from sources I’ve read and what I guess I’ve pieced together myself (maybe). Reading the Bible in 90 days while watching videos about basic Biblical theology has really helped me to understand Christianity more than I ever have before.

      So what I gather is that, essentially, on the Christian view, God has been executing plan for humanity since very early days. The plan was to (a) lay down the law, (b) demonstrate his divinity and the importance of the law by repeatedly dignifying and punishing the Israelites, creating a people apart who were his ambassadors to mankind, who then finally (c) introduced, when the time was right, his only begotten son, God made flesh, who taught mankind to seek redemption and holy purity through a spiritual relationship with him. This summarizes a great deal, of course, and isn’t meant to be comprehensible to a total beginner, but I figure you are more or less with me so far.

      I have a hypothesis, which might be completely wrong and heretical, that Jesus died on the cross not in order to be punished in Hell for our sins (did the Bible actually say that?) but so that he could perform the ultimate miracle of rising from the dead and thus provide the basis for Christian faith. Many Christians do say, after all, that their faith rests upon the resurrection.

      The necessity of faith is not a test of stupidity or credulity, as silly atheists sometimes say. It stems from the fact that only with faith can you enter into a relationship with God, and only through such a relationship can you be purified and redeemed.

      The nature of faith is not, of course, merely a belief that God exists or that Jesus is son of God. It is not even just how Christians clarify that, i.e., you must place your trust in Jesus. No, faith as an activity is a mental-spiritual relationship with God, “walking with the Lord,” submitting to him (proposals for evaluation and guidance) as much as you can.

      Now, God is a spiritual being. Jesus was God made flesh, but God himself is immaterial. If you know him through physical signs, then perhaps (again, this is all pieced together/speculated by me about how Christians defend their faith and as such is open to correction by anyone) then you will regard that to be God, which is wrong. What God wants of you is to live as spiritually as possible, through a relationship with Jesus, talking to him, etc., as I said.

      Wouldn’t more, or more regular, visits and miracles strengthen that faith? I suppose it might. But I also think Christians must take the position that it wouldn’t, i.e., the quality of our faith, and hence the strength of our relationship with God and our ability to be redeemed and purified, would be diminished if there were more regular visits and miracles.

      For one thing, Jesus’ clearly reported plan is that we execute his Great Commission and hence to evangelize the Gospel to nonbelievers throughout the world. Why might God prefer that we spread the Gospel instead of him doing so? We must conclude that faith is meant to be practiced not merely individually but in the ever-expanding Church, in fellowship. This might be because, individually, even with miracles, our faith will be low-quality. In short, Jesus very specifically wanted a movement, and indeed Yahweh referred to this movement clearly and repeatedly in the Old Testament as his people would spread his message throughout all the lands.

      If you take the Bible quite seriously—and I am not now saying that you should—then one thing you have to bear in mind is that the spirit world is real, demons are real, and the temptation to not just false religions but to worship demons (though you may not know that is what they are) is real. Hence your parents telling you that you must avoid any such corrupting influences like the plague—they were being very Old Testament there, because Yahweh was concerned perhaps above all that you love and adhere to him, to the Creator of all, and not the inevitably corrupting influence of the pagan “gods.” (Whether this means the OT writers thought pagan gods were actually-existent demons is unclear, but I’m guessing maybe so.)

      So suppose, contrary to current practice, God is incarnated on the regular and has prophets in between who refresh our faith with preaching and miracles, as in OT days. There was a hell of a lot more idolatry in those days, you know. It is very possible that physical signs of the spirit world would as a matter of fact draw people to false gods, i.e., demon worship. I mean, look, if you knew that there were miracles, which looks like magic, don’t you think some people would seek out alternative sources for that power?

      Perhaps, after the ascension of Jesus, God imposed a relative moritorium on miracles and spirit activity. It was still there but invoked only on a one-on-one basis. You can still get to know Jesus, but the way to know him first and foremost is through the Bible, i.e., a single and increasingly ancient authoritative testament, which is a guidebook to getting together in the Church to come to encourage each other to stay in touch with him on a one-on-one basis.

      1. Nathan Kurtz

        So much gold here, Larry, thank you.
        On this point:
        “ I have a hypothesis, which might be completely wrong and heretical, that Jesus died on the cross not in order to be punished in Hell for our sins (did the Bible actually say that?) but so that he could perform the ultimate miracle of rising from the dead and thus provide the basis for Christian faith. Many Christians do say, after all, that their faith rests upon the resurrection.”

        This, as I understand it (I’m pretty new to the Orthodox faith), is completely in accordance with Orthodox theology. It is amazing to me how different the tone around the resurrection is among the Orthodox compared to the Protestantism I grew up in. The resurrection is about God defeating death by death. It is a victory, a healing, and a restoration.
        St. Athanasius writes:
        “It was by surrendering to death the body which He had taken, as an offering and sacrifice free from every stain, that He forthwith abolished death for his human brethren by the offering of the equivalent.”
        The Penal language that sits unwell with so many (myself included) does not exist among the early church fathers. I know other Christians see it differently, but this change in perspective has been very comforting to me.

  3. To begin, let’s acknowledge this is of course very well-trod ground, and maybe the most we can do is exchange personal perspectives on these profound questions. There are no killer arguments which convince everyone, but there’s arguments we each believe for our own reasons.

    From my perspective (highly agnostic ethnic Jew), there are many people telling many stories. *At most* one can be true (unless one goes into very complicated attempts to try to reconcile). That is, Islamists will tell you all about Allah and Mohammad. Jews don’t believe in the divinity of Jesus (though he could have been a nice person). Greek polytheists aren’t around much anymore, but that fundamental aspect of their historical beliefs is notably not considered a foundation of Western civilization. Essentially, everyone else must be following the wrong God. Thus, why is any particular one correct, given all the others which have been argued for?

    A common answer is “faith”. However, one big problem with faith and “you must avoid any such corrupting influences” is that it’s then way too easy to start deeming that skepticism is a “corrupting influences”, and so it can lead one to “worship demons”. Then a too-frequent next step is that skeptics must be killed, because what is the short mortal life against an eternity of torment, and the anti-life of skepticism turning the faithful against the One True God? I’m sure you don’t personally approve of the preceding. But the chain of reasoning itself is obvious, and seen in too many times and places in the world.

    Thus in terms of “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”, I assert any argument for a personal deity (i.e. one which has any sort of detailed instructions for humans – what to eat, what to wear, who to have sex with and whether contraception can be used, who to vote for …) must entail extraordinarily convincingly distinguishing it from all the other conflicting and contradictory personal deities which have similar quality arguments.

    Also, to answer:
    “… when I say that I’m happy or sad, … to my body (such as my brain)” I would say, yes. Deep down, it’s referring to a complicated internal condition of your brain. That’s why drugs, both recreational and psychiatric, can change your mood. Otherwise, how could antidepressants (which are just complicated chemicals) work? Surely they don’t affect an ethereal soul.

    1. Sure, I’ve been much the same, Seth.

      “There are no killer arguments which convince everyone, but there’s arguments we each believe for our own reasons.”

      I doubt I’ll be much different, but I am committed to rationality, so I will want to think things through carefully if I make any real change. But I do not pretend that the quality of my thinking is unusually high.

      “From my perspective (highly agnostic ethnic Jew), there are many people telling many stories. *At most* one can be true (unless one goes into very complicated attempts to try to reconcile). That is, Islamists will tell you all about Allah and Mohammad. Jews don’t believe in the divinity of Jesus (though he could have been a nice person). Greek polytheists aren’t around much anymore, but that fundamental aspect of their historical beliefs is notably not considered a foundation of Western civilization. Essentially, everyone else must be following the wrong God. Thus, why is any particular one correct, given all the others which have been argued for?”

      There are mere stories and then there narratives asserted to be fact. Whether story or history, a narrative always takes place in a context, and the stories are adopted and evaluated as part of that larger context. It is not as if Jews encounter the story of Moses de novo and arbitrarily choose to believe it. It’s much more complicated than that.

      “A common answer is ‘faith’. However, one big problem with faith and ‘you must avoid any such corrupting influences’ is that it’s then way too easy to start deeming that skepticism is a ‘corrupting influences’, and so it can lead one to ‘worship demons’.”

      This is all too broad and vague as an indictment of religion. Even those who refer to faith often say that it is to be justified by reason. And when children are encouraged to have blind faith, it is because they cannot possibly grapple with the issues needed to justify the faith. In any event, you’ll often find apologists encouraging you to rationally justify nearly every aspect of Christianity (at least; I hear there are somewhat similar intellectual traditions for other religions, too). I doubt many of them would say that skepticism leads inevitably to devil worship. 😉 I’ve been a methodological skeptic since I was a teenager and I’m firmly against Satan if he exists.

      “Then a too-frequent next step is that skeptics must be killed, because what is the short mortal life against an eternity of torment,”

      Sounds reasonable but no longer the case in civilized countries today.

      “and the anti-life of skepticism turning the faithful against the One True God? I’m sure you don’t personally approve of the preceding. But the chain of reasoning itself is obvious, and seen in too many times and places in the world.”

      This is just bad reasoning that has been followed historically. No one doubts that religion has been used to justify all sorts of atrocities. This is a transparently bad argument against all religion; it’s basically a straw man argument. You’re making life easy for yourself if you just want to take down relatively primitive religious attitudes.

      “Thus in terms of ‘extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence’, I assert any argument for a personal deity (i.e. one which has any sort of detailed instructions for humans – what to eat, what to wear, who to have sex with and whether contraception can be used, who to vote for …) must entail extraordinarily convincingly distinguishing it from all the other conflicting and contradictory personal deities which have similar quality arguments.”

      This is certainly true: any philosophical argument allowing us to infer that a personal deity exists does not ipso facto prove that the God of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, or any other religion is true. It might, however, justify us on hunting about for those who give convincing signs of being representatives of that God, such as miracles. Of course, I well understand the arguments (Hume’s for example) that we should never credit claims of miracles.

      “Also, to answer:
      ‘… when I say that I’m happy or sad, … to my body (such as my brain)’ I would say, yes. Deep down, it’s referring to a complicated internal condition of your brain. That’s why drugs, both recreational and psychiatric, can change your mood. Otherwise, how could antidepressants (which are just complicated chemicals) work? Surely they don’t affect an ethereal soul.”

      There is no need to refer to modern science to make your argument plausible. Just talk about the effects of alcohol: why does it seem to change the “soul,” when it is merely interacting with your body? What dualists of all sorts say in such a case is that the body is in some fashion closely joined with soul, and a true separation happens only upon death.

      I’ve never found arguments for the existence of a soul or for dualism to be very persuasive, to be honest, but there are still serious problems about materialism (or physicalism) that suggest that we should not completely give up on the idea.

  4. Joanne

    I think God is talking to you through your encounter with the Word and with the humble Christians you meet on your journey.

    So many good teachers have gone ahead of us. Saints were real people (and sinners like all of us) who did God’s will and enjoyed friendship with God, often at great cost. One of my favorite teachers on Twitter is @ccpecknold at CUA.

    When I realized how limited my knowledge of the Bible was a few years ago, I took a class that ties the narratives all together into the love story between God and his people, and we are all welcomed to be His people. I’m on the third course, Acts, and my faith deepens the more I learn and pray. Jeff Cavins is an amazing scholar/ presenter. It takes work.

    Jesus did not descend to Hell as punishment. By his free will and holy sacrifice of self and death on the Cross, Jesus redeems all humanity of original sin. Why? For love of the Father and all humanity. By descending into Hell, He set free the righteous souls who were previously barred from heaven by original sin. 1 Peter 3:18-19 Jesus is perfect and without sin because he is God. He conquered death and sin.

    Miracles happen even in this age. Eric Metaxas wrote a book in 2014 about miracles in his personal circle. Inexplicable healing happens via prayer, confounding doctors.

    Regarding the human body, we (Catholics) believe in the unity of body and soul. We aren’t dualistic beings with minds trapped in bodies.

    You have already been chosen by God in your baptism. You are part of the Story. Skepticism has a place in science. Faith is a leap with the heart. “Trust and trust alone should lead us to love.” St. Therese of Lisieux

    I wish you faith, hope, and love.

  5. Christine Crossen

    One of my favorite books on apologetics is Evidence that Demands a Verdict by Josh McDowell. He wrote two or three books alongs those lines if you’re interested. Its been a while since I’ve read them.

    1. I remember seeing that one. OK maybe I’ll pick it up.

  6. “There are mere stories and then there narratives asserted to be fact.”

    But the key is that whatever term you use, they are all pretty much mutually incompatible. Jesus either is or is not the son of God. I’m reminded of the joke that even the devoutly religious are nearly Atheists, since Atheists just believe in one less god than them. Of course people tend to adopt whatever is common in their culture. But that has no bearing on whether it’s true.

    My point about “faith” is that I am deeply distrustful of it in terms of justification, as it can function as a kind of get-out-of-weakness-free card. There’s no absolute way to prove this. So regarding (n.b. I know you’re describing a view, not giving your own):

    “The necessity of faith is not a test of stupidity or credulity, as
    silly atheists sometimes say. It stems from the fact that only with
    faith can you enter into a relationship with God, and only through
    such a relationship can you be purified and redeemed.”

    This is the point where it strikes me as trying to make a virtue of a circular non-argument. To me, it’s basically asserting “Only by not thinking about this can you accept it” in fancier phrasing. Once again, here I’m describing where and why I take the view I do, not expecting everyone else to agree with me.

    “It might, however, justify us on hunting about for those who give convincing signs of being representatives of that God, such as miracles.”

    I think it would be wonderful to have some miracles! As the song goes:

    “Prove to me that you’re divine, change my water into wine …
    Prove to me that you’re no fool, walk across my swimming pool …
    Feed my household with this bread, you can do it on your head …”

    For the Creator Of The Cosmos, none of the supposed representatives seem be able to do much. Another joke – faith healers say that they can make cripples walk, but none of them have ever regenerated a missing limb.

    Related: “I mean, look, if you knew that there were miracles, which looks like magic, don’t you think some people would seek out alternative sources for that power?”

    So why doesn’t Satan hand out some obvious magic powers? In fact, why is it so hard to find a (literal) devil to make a deal with? Supposedly you need obscure ingredients and weird words in a complicated ceremony with all sorts of foofaraw. For beings of supposedly great supernatural power, it seems very difficult to get in touch with them. Why are they so shy?

    At what point is one justified in saying “This doesn’t make sense”? Yes, one can build up a whole edifice of apologetics – which brings us back to the problem of mutually incompatible personal deities.

    “Just talk about the effects of alcohol:”

    Alcohol is crude. Even the most committed dualist would admit that pain or fatigue in the body can affect the mind. The difference is that anti-depressants act on the mind at a much finer grained level, where it seems to change one’s self in an way not easily dismissed as a mere artifact. If the soul only exists apart from the body after death, then before that, it seems indistinguishable from not existing at all.

  7. Rick

    I enjoyed this.

    I think you are correct that the step from where you are to Christian entails abandoning your methodological skepticism, but it does not require total relinquishment. I consider myself extremely skeptical in general, as you described yourself.

    However, the leap unto faith in Jesus’ resurrection, and the joining of yourself to his body (the church, via the mystery of the Eucharist)- and what that means for you- does require putting it on the shelf for a single logical moment in the timeline of your personal story. It remains on the shelf afterward, of course, but you only have to do it once.

    It is sort of like sitting down without being able to look behind you and be certain there is a chair to catch you. Faith is rooted in logic and rationality, but there comes that moment where you have to make the choice to release those muscles, and fall backward into the seat of faith.

    You’re nearly there. I wish you luck on this last leg.

  8. Pawel

    >>I’ve been a methodological skeptic since I was a teenager …

    As a teenager I was struggling with mental disorder which I couln’t name back then.
    I didn’t get any support from anyone (teachers, parents etc included).
    Words cannot describe how exhausting it was for me to carry on with this thing for many years.
    At some point I wanted to end my life sooner.
    By all means it seemed reasonable for me. The climate in the west culture also supports the idea of suicide on demand.
    But in mid August 1998 I did something unreasonable: Instead of pursuing my destruction I started praying.
    It was very true and very personal prayer. That if Holy Spirit was around , then he is more than welcome to heal me or kill me. It was going on for a couple of nights . Yes during the day I could not wait for the night to come so I could start again in the dark room alone with Him.
    This comment is too short to just dump everything here but after those events my disorder vanished and has never ever come back.
    Some years ago I discovered by chance what was the proper name for it: OCD.
    I then started looking for a book which could explain me more details and found this one quite easily : Heal Me or Kill Me Overcoming OCD with God Dr. BJ Condrey. It is a good read.
    All in all sometimes it is a good idea to not demand explanations for everything .
    Sorry for my bad English.

  9. I read Larry’s article and everyone’s comments with great interest. I too was a Lutheran as a child and I too stopped going to church. I never trusted “belief” and the simplistic “Ask for forgiveness and you will be saved”. I figured there had to be more to it than that.

    As a teen, I figured that if there was no God, then I could do whatever I wanted to do and never have to worry about “hell”. And if God was real – and if hell was real – then I needed to be really, really good. I had already failed to “Be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect,” for I had hit my little brother while we were riding in the back seat of our car, but I hoped I could be good enough to avoid hell if I just had proof, one way or the other. That was when I still believed in an external Heaven and Hell.

    I wanted to know so I could be sure, so living in Missouri, the “Show Me State”, I demanded to know. “Show me!”

    This is when I learned it was true, “The Lord hath heard my voice and my supplications. Because he hath inclined his ear unto me, therefore will I call upon him as long as I live.” – Psalm 116:1-2

    My desire to know was sincere and I felt led by the hand to read every book I could find, trying to unlock the eternal mystery. Ultimately I gathered quotes from the books that inspired me into a compilation and published it, hoping that it would be helpful to others who also had a hunger and thirst to know God. Those quotes inspire me to this day. The book has never been a bestseller; I had to give copies away to my best friends who still haven’t read it. But what I found during my very sincere research was that I was not alone, that God Himself was indeed with me, leading me to Him. He was as dedicated to my quest as I was.

    I was gently introduced to one book after another, from one person after another, from one place and then another, until I clearly understood the most important (from my perspective) lines in the bible. The bible contains blatant hints. God is not a “once upon a time” fleeting memory that we have to satisfy ourselves with for the rest of our lives, but potentially a choice, a moment-by-moment, ongoing, daily experience.

    Experience? Experience of what?

    Well, for starters, what is everyone looking for in everything they do? Have you thought about it? What are we really looking for in the friends we choose, the activities we engage in, the music, food and art we seek out? Well, I think it boils down to, we are seeking for God in all we do. It may not seem like it at first glance, but consider the essence of these lines with respect to our goals:

    From Genesis 1:2 – Spirit/Breath/Motion/Life
    “The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.”
    The King James Version made “Holy Ghost” the standard term for English-speaking Christians – to put the “fear” of God into small children? – but in every romance language “Spirit” and “Breath” are synonyms: spirit, spirited, inspire, expire.
    Do we not cling to life and beg for “just one more breath” when we feel we are in danger? At that fragile point, we are clear we want God, Life.

    Genesis 1:3 – Light
    “And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.” – Genesis 1:3
    “God is Light and in Him is no darkness at all.” – 1 John 1:5
    “If thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.” – Matthew 6:22
    What if that Light that God IS, is not a metaphor, but a full-blown, self-effulgent light that is shining everywhere, always? What if we only need to know where to look, within, to see it? Socrates called it, “Absolute Beauty”. It is. Nothing can compete with it. Don’t we try to fill our lives with people, places and things we consider beautiful – full of visual beauty? Yet they can only hint at the Beauty within us, not compete with it. This is where the commonly misunderstood, “Fear God” actually means “The Light of God is awesome!” “Fear” is just a way of expressing the amazing beauty of the Light. But it is gentle, kind, loving, living, a visual embrace. Some have said it is brighter than 10,000 suns, yet does no harm. What happens after a long overcast spell when the clouds finally blow away? Everyone becomes happy and says, “What a beautiful day!” “Here comes the sun…”

    Genesis 1:27 – Love
    “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him.” – Genesis 1:27

    Then He made Eve as a helpmate for Adam and created an idyllic place for them to live.
    9 “Out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.” – Genesis 2:9
    16 “And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:
    17 “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” – Genesis 2:9, 16-17

    Enter the crafty, cunning, “subtil” one… The serpent had a nose for what would set God against His newly created people – disrespect, disobedience – so it accused God of lying and encouraged Eve to eat the fruit from the forbidden tree, promising her that if she ate it, she would be as wise as God. And after the new creatures who were made in the image of God disobeyed and ate from the Tree of Life, the honeymoon was over. They flew into blame, shame, guilt, and for all practical purposes, “died” to the Presence that they had known.

    Genesis 3:23
    “The Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden… He drove out the man; and He placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.”

    This might sound extreme, but it makes sense to me now, knowing that only one thing can exist in one place at one time. I can either focus on the Kingdom within, or I can do those things recommended by Jesus: “Love one another… JUDGE NOT… Forgive… Fear not…”

    Jesus told us what stands between us and the direct experience of Life, of Love, of the God we long for. We can be enjoying the Light, but when we think of anything else, “What if that dog bites me again!”, we lose the connection we so want with the Light. The good news is, once we come back to a neutral state of mind, the Light is still right there; it never left us but we left it – and we can enjoy it again.

    In the Garden of Eden, when God warned Adam, “You shall surely die,” that was correct. When we judge or harbor resentment, we are “dead”, as in “Let the dead bury the dead.”
    The blind, the deaf, the lame, the dead… Those were metaphors for our condition when we are tense and not focused on the Reality of the internal Light, Music, Breath of Life.

    1 John 4:8 – Love, bliss, vibration, frequency
    “He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God IS Love.”

    God is omnipresent.
    There is nowhere Love is not.
    There is nowhere Light is not.
    There is nowhere the Breath of God is not.
    But we can ignore it all.

    And the gifts of the Spirit are love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, goodness, faith – (from Galatians 5:22-23). 1 Corinthians 12 adds meekness, temperance, wisdom, Knowledge, the gifts of healing, the working of miracles, prophecy, discernment, tongues, the interpretation of tongues.

    Cash in on your birthright. Don’t settle for less. You deserve to know God as much as anyone in the bible knew God. In every story, the real message is that God is real and that they knew God. This is how we are to emulate Jesus – not to “be nice”, but to know our Father as intimately as Jesus did. “Believe in me” didn’t mean to just accept the idea that Jesus was the Son of God, but “Trust me, that I can show you that YOU are also the Son of God.” When you know that quality of unconditional Love, then you can truly “Love one another.”

    “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his Name.” – John 1:12
    What is his Name? Christians say, “In Jesus’ name we pray.” What if to be in Jesus’ Name is to be in that pure state of Love that Jesus was teaching his disciples to access? (See the quotes from Matthew, below.) Is it enough to recite the words or is it better to be in the state of Love? Does Love fuel our prayers with more power?
    “Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a Name which is above every name: That at the Name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth.” – Philippians 2:9-11
    And keep in mind that, “The name that can be named is not the Eternal Name… The word that can be spoken is not the Eternal Word.” – “The Tao te Ching”, Gia-fu Feng & Jane English

    Matthew 13
    10 And the disciples came, and said unto him, Why speakest thou unto them in parables?
    11 He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given…
    13 Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand…
    15 For this people’s heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.
    16 But blessed are your eyes, for they see: and your ears, for they hear.
    17 For verily I say unto you, That many prophets and righteous men have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them; and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them.

    May we all be so blessed.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *