Why I must believe in God (1 of 3)

  The Bible is my foundation   (sxc.hu)

You have noticed, I am sure, that over the last few decades claims of certainty and absolutism have begun to crumble. You have taken those college classes about multi-culturism, toleration and agnosticism. Nothing is to be unchallenged. All is acceptable. In fact, you may believe it to be most intolerable to make any definitive pronouncements. Being open minded you eschew the likes of even atheists, since they make categorical claims of what can and cannot be. So, being such, you are perhaps agnostic or open to the claim of a supreme being. You recognize that death is a great mystery. You have at times thought of what truth entails and if there is a foundation for a hopeful future. “Is there a god?” you have asked a few times. Should I accept that fact? What are the implications?

Let us start this conversation by clearing up a few misconceptions. You may insist, after the manner of some philosophers, that my belief in God is conditioned by my culture. The spirit of ages past, being nominally Christian, is blamed for much intolerance today and explains my belief in God. Naturally, I would deny such and insist that though raised a Christian (albeit later in life) I have, after public primary school, college and graduate work, heard many arguments against the existence of God.

In fact, after much study I am convinced that without the God of the Bible there can be no intelligibility. History, science, economics and thinking itself are meaningless unless God is in back of everything. One cannot even argue against Him without logically presupposing Him. It is like reading a book about how language is ultimately meaningless and contrived—the author must assume that his book has meaningful language to communicate that language is meaningless! How I was raised was not an accident. It was part of the influence of my biology as well as my parents, church, school and culture. In fact, the multitude of influences upon my life boggles the mind. This is why the soft sciences debate between heredity and environment. As facts are gathered and theories formed and re-formed—in politics, economics, sociology and the like—man is only admitting in his actions what only some philosophers admit in their writings: mankind does not know enough. And that lack is from not knowing everything. For you see, upon a moment’s reflection, it is obvious that to truly know anything with full, unassailable confidence is to know everything. But not even raving lunatics claim this.

The God of the Bible is all-knowing and He is all-powerful. These multitudes of influences are a multitude of threads in the tapestry of life that He is creating. He is my ultimate environment. And a God who is to control all things must control them by the “counsel of His will” (Ephesians chapter 1 verse 3). If this were not so, then He would be within the confines of something else. An ultimate cannot be a subordinate. This is part of the reason why I must believe in God.

Now, such bold claims will be unpacked in due time. The first step is to settle the question of definition. Assuming you were born or at least primarily raised in America, you have a passing knowledge of the God of Christianity. Surely you agree that if we are to speak of God, it must not be in the abstract. You are not interested in the god of some obscure tribe & I am not interested in shrinking my God into some manageable abstraction. I am writing about the God of the Christian Bible—the all-knowing and all-powerful Judge of the Universe.

In fact, by saying such, I am presenting my standard up front during this discussion. I hope you realize how reasonable is this admission. For instance, if an American constitutional lawyer were debating an Iranian lawyer on some fine point of law, would it be reasonable for the Iranian to demand of the American to put down his constitution and submit to the Iranian legal system? To ask the question is to answer it. Or, to put it another way, if a stalwart of science and rationalism were asked to throw down the tools of logic in a debate with a mystic, would you take his commitment to science seriously?

So, on the way to unpacking my necessity for belief in God, you must understand that God is my benchmark; He is my touchstone of reality; He is my standard of right and wrong. And I submit to you that He is the only such benchmark for any question in life. This is part of the reason why I must believe in God.

part 2
part 3