So you’re on Facebook, scrolling through the statuses on your home page, and you stop at one with a scrumptious looking cake photo attached. The status reads: “Knew you were coming, so I baked a cake! Oh, you’re not coming? All the more for me then! =D” “Thanks,” you think, while examining the drool-worthy dessert in more detail in large screen mode. You can see that it’s a layer cake, that it’s frosted with chocolate, and delightfully decorated with . . . things. Being hungry, you especially wish to try it even though you do not know everything about it. You don’t know the flavor of the cake itself, or what the center filling is, or if the frosting is made with lard, butter, or cream cheese (mmmmm . . . ). You can’t even smell it. It’s just an image that you can contemplate and imagine about, not something you can experience.
With blood sugar low and a mouth full of extra saliva, you go out to the nearest bakery and look at the cakes with the hope of taking one home. Looking at the array of cakes, you wonder how you’re going to decide which to actually get. There’s cream and coffee laden Tiramisu, coconutty German Chocolate, strawberry-topped white, lemon with lemon curd, Chocolate Death, and even a delicate and complex Princess cake. Oh dear. You can smell some of the flavors, you can think about what each may taste like, and you can see their beauty. You cannot taste each one before you buy, however, yet you want to choose the one that will truly satisfy your craving. Finally, your choice is made and you take one home.
What happens when you are alone with the cake, fork in hand? You take a bite, of course, and another . . . In your mouth, you taste it and finally know all you need to know about the cake and whether it satisfies your craving. First you had seen an image of a cake and you knew a little about it; you gained some knowledge of cake. Second, you sought after cake to find out more and perhaps experience it. Once you were around a cake that you could see and smell, you had a certain level of experience with it, learning more about cake and that particular cake. Then, by taking it in and tasting it, you experienced it as much as is possible and it became a part of you. You could tell if it satisfied your craving, or if you had to seek after a different cake.
Why this exercise? There are many people out there today who look into God and have a level of knowledge about Him that is like the type and amount of information that was available from our Facebook cake photo example. The information imparted is simply shallow data; if the person had no previous knowledge of cake, then the information imparted would be very limited indeed. But they stop there and think they know enough to say “I don’t believe in God because there is not enough evidence to support my belief. Besides, someone could’ve just made up that information” (Isa 5:21; Matt 11:25b/Luke 10:21b; 1 Cor 1:18-25). Others, on the other hand, understand that the image and level of information imparted is only a foretaste and so search for more information. They search through cakes--gods and religions**--until they have enough information, and perhaps experience, to choose the one true God. Once they do, they partake and believe (Matt 7:7-8/Luke 11:9-10, John 3:3). Their believing faith is born and the Lord indwells them (unlike the cake, the Lord stays).
* Or, A soteriological cupcake.
** Some “search” less and find God with less fuss. This short essay in no way covers all the various aspects of salvation theology!
Comments
Good article, and a very savory way of making people think. Now I am hungry for some reason....... mmmm..... cake....... so yeah, very good use of cake! =D good article!
"They search through cakes--gods and religions**--until they have enough information, and perhaps experience, to choose the one true God."
I think this is the weak point in your argument. If after searching, or from the atheist's point of view trying very hard to believe, theists by and large arrived at some consistent view of god the argument might be more convincing. Instead we end up with a hodgepodge collection of different religions and sects, and they all claim to be experiencing God.
I just recently read an interesting blog post that takes on a variation on this argument. It can be found here: http://www.daylightatheism.org/2011/01/the-bottomless-hole-of-prayer-req....
The main point of the argument is that suggestions like this, that atheists just need to try harder, end up being impossible to satisfy. Any amount of effort that doesn't end in conversion is insufficient. No one is ever allowed to decide that the reason they don't hear God is because he isn't there.
Maybe you are right about that being the weakest point in my argument. I really am trying to focus more on the reality of experience in coming to God, but this was just a little essay. I know that I simply can't say that "I've had experience of God, so I believe, and you'll just have to wait for it," and expect much to come of that. I was trying in a sort-of fun way to show that God cannot be gotten to by fact and reason alone. In the bible we are told to love God with all our mind, strength, heart, and soul - that is, ALL that we are. We are not just brains, although God also wants us to reason and use our minds, in regard to our faith and life in general, of course. But people come to Christ in different ways, at least that they are consciously aware of. The Christian faith believes that God's spirit draws us as well, that it is a combined effort of wills (though some believe the action is much more on God's side), but I don't think this is usually useful in talking with non-believers. I do not know what you think of that.
If god exists he exists for those who are unable to read and write as much as he does for those who can. I for one certainly trust the women or the man or child or puppy dog or little bird who knows god in their heart than the one who claims to know god through some holy scripture purporting to be the one and only truth. People who say they know truth seem to be threatened by other points of view, be it Hindu Muslim Buddhist or Atheist etc. I would remind Christians that there are many Gospels that the Romans in transforming Christianity to support their empire edited from the bible. I pray for the world to have an open mind so we all may find peace.
No, there is much clear evidence, held by scholars, that the scriptures were not changed by Romans or anyone else. Now, if you want to include the apocrypha in there, which the Roman Catholic church now holds as canon, that's a different story. But the books of the NT were basically accepted by the church - all the churches that met in a non-institutional way - quite some time prior to the formation of the RCC.
I'm not threatened at all by other religions or whatever, and it's funny you say that. I don't go by just what the scriptures say, but what Jesus does with me as the living God. Any who know about Him but still reject Him by the time they die, well, won't be with their creator. If God spoke to man, and said this, then we can't reject it; it makes sense, too, that those who reject Christ won't want to be with him eternally. Just as a note, religions that contradict each other obviously can't be all true. That would be strange indeed that God would contradict Himself. A person has to decide which is true, and God said through the bible that His presence can be known by his creation, so no man will be with excuse in the end.
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