The God Question

Three books have been written recently by three atheists. The authors are Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins. You can find these at any bookseller like Amazon. Alistair McGrath, an Oxford professor, has written a critique of the most substantial of these assaults on theology, the book by Dawkins. This too you can find at Amazon.

It doesn't take a lot of time to notice that human beings are incorrigibly religious. It has always been so. Given our religiosity, it is hard to escape the question of whether or not there is a Supreme Being. The question of divinity has significant import for us as we wrestle with the big questions related to finding meaning and significance for our lives.

Dr. Don Bierle, a scientist and former college professor, uses an illustration that gets at the issues involved in the big questions surrounding the purpose and meaning of human existence. He proposes that we consider the entire universe as nothing more than soil. There is nothing else besides soil. He suggests that if all there is happens to be soil, then soil has no reason to be. But if grass began to grow in the soil, we could say that the purpose of soil is to support the life and growth of grass. But, what is the purpose of grass?

If we added cows to this universe of soil and grass, we could say that grass exists to support the life of cows. But, what purpose do cows have? Cows can produce milk, but what would the milk be for? For the soil or grass? That doesn't fit our usual understanding of the purpose for milk.

If we were to add intelligent beings, like humans, for example, then we could say that soil, grass and cows support intelligent life. Further, human beings can cultive the soil and care for the cows. The soil and cows will help sustain human life, but is this all enough? Does this scenario answer the big questions concerning human meaning and significance? One could affirm that it does in a utilitarian way, but is this enough?

For most people on earth, this is not enough. Of the 6 billion plus people in the world today, 99% of them have some form of religion. Religion provides meaning and significance to the vast majority of people who have ever lived. An important question is then, what is true? Is there any way that we can know whether there is a true faith, a true religion.

The Jewish, Christian and Muslim faiths claim that a Supreme Being has communicated truth in the form of sacred Scriptures. These writings are considered sacred because they are believed to be communication from God to people for their benefit. The Scriptures of these faiths claim that they are revelation from God, but how do we test this claim?

One approach in answering this question is to evaluate whether a faith's sacred writings correlate with reality. Do the sacred writings make sense in terms of our experience of the world? Our experience of reality includes a number of elements that have been the subject of previous posts, for example,beauty. Let's add goodness, kindness and love. Of course, we will need to add evil to reality as we experience it, but this was the subject of an earlier post.

A perspective rooted in human experience and the Christian Scriptures would challenge the notion that humanity is improving through education or some other means. The Bible is unflinching in recounting the failings of humanity, and world history since biblical times adds numerous human failings including wars, the holocaust, terrorist attacks, cruelty to men, women, children and animals and other atrocities. In all that history shows us, where is there room for optimism about the human capacity for moral improvement?

The Christian Scriptures point to one reason for hope - God has stepped into our reality in the person of His Son, Jesus Christ. According to the New Testament of the Bible and other sources outside the Bible, Jesus Christ is a historical figure. In fact, His (I use an upper case H to signify what the New Testament tells us about Jesus - that He was divine) life is attested to in a number of ancient sources. If you'd like to know more about Jesus Christ and investigate for yourself whether His claims to be the divine answer to human problems I suggest that you read the New Testament. Begin with the Gospel of Mark (the shortest gospel) and if you want more, take in the Gospel of John. If you have questions, you can put it in the comment section of this blog or email me (tseel at stny dot rr dot com).