I am having trouble believing

Faith & Science Conversation
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Make it simple Noah, you want a reason to believe, here’s a million of them. How many times have you lusted after a woman or a man? How many times have you hated someone? How many times have you lied to someone or about someone, stole, said God in a flippant way, showed disrespect toward your parents? In other words, how many times have you sinned?

You’re a sinner. You need not only forgiveness but a change of nature and the power of God to overcome sin.

Forget science, philosophers and whatever else that would distract you from this one issue. DELIVERANCE FROM SIN AND THE PUNISHMENT YOU DESERVE FOR YOUR WICKEDNESS.

Get alone and start remembering as many sins as you can. Let them fill your mind to where you are overwhelmed with your guilt. Then when you are desperate enough to be freed from them, call out to God. Cry out for Him to deliver you.

Your need is more than any normal man can help you with, you need God to save you. God sent His son to DIE for YOU. Jesus never sinned and yet He took your punishment. He rose from the dead, showing His power over death. God has promised that all who will acknowledge their sins to Him and turn to Jesus and SUBMITT TO HIM AS THEIR LORD, THEIR MASTER, will be forgiven and God will live in them. Then devote yourself to following Jesus, read His words and obey and you will know Him because the risen Lord will live in you.

Don’t mess around with puny humans, go straight to the source. GOD!!!

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That argument has been used 
 and is I think remains a good one so long as one doesn’t make the naive mistake of thinking that “beginning” must necessarily refer to a cosmological (or even a temporal) beginning such as the big bang. If we take it instead in its more robust sense: “why is there anything at all?” (as in 
 why is there even empty space or why is there time 
 why was there a “seed” of dense energy/matter to give rise to the big bang at all (if indeed that was indeed a beginning as seems likely on current science)? One is forced into a choice of infinite regression of causes in an eternal universe (a logical possibility whatever you consider the plausibility of such a thing), or else you’ve literally got something spontaneously popping into existence from nothing (which seems even less plausible). That the 3rd possibility, “God”, should be considered less implausible doesn’t necessarily follow - this is nothing like a proof or even evidence. But among the alternatives, that an eternal God willed all this into being has always made sense to me. Much more is needed, of course, to develop religious faith toward any particularities. Others can fill in more. But here is a Bishop Barron video where he addresses some recent worship leader / musician (Jon Steingard) who apparently announced he is no longer a believer. The commentary Barron raises about it in this interview (not with Steingard, but about the questions he raises) is, I think, filled with good advice.

I particularly liked what Barron referred to as people of childhood faith jettisoning (and necessarily so) their first naivette, 
 and entering their second one. Some may not particularly care for referring to any stage of faith being referred to as naive, but it is an illuminating way to point out that those who fancy they are emerging out from any form of naivette by leaving their childhood faith behind, are really doing no more than entering “the next one”. (At least that is my take on that phrasing). Anyway, I would encourage any who feel their faith wavering to give a listen.

[For those of less patient dispositions, in the video linked above you can skip past the initial banter to 3:40 in where they start discussing loss of faith.]

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Do you know it when you see it? When you feel it? When you do it? When it’s done to you?

And you plaster love on damnation. What’s that?

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Not sure if this is totally on topic or helpful to your question, but I can’t find a better argument against atheism than Richard Wurmbrand’s autobiography “Tortured for Christ”. Just finished reading it, and if that doesn’t destroy atheism for you, and make you want to preach the gospel every chance you get, I don’t know what will. No, it doesn’t debate science really, but it is incredibly convicting.

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An infinite cosmos, but yes, of course one is. That’s what we’ve got. Each Planck tock is preceded by a Planck tick. A logical certainty whether God grounds it or not.

As for the questions downstream of Leibniz’, they don’t feed back into it. Spacetime exists wherever matter does. It isn’t ever empty. The seed was a quantum perturbation in the zero-point energy field (how prescient the Greeks were: chaos yawns). Which explains everything. And nothing. No, no not nothing. Nothing. Ah well. God is less plausible because He’s infinitely more complex than the already infinitely complex cosmos.

There can be no explanation.

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A quantum perturbation in the infinite eternal zero-point energy field - nature REALLY abhors not even a vacuum - like for all the infinity of universes. Chaos yawns.

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Hi Noah,
I’m glad you don’t want to commit yourself to something nonsensical. God certainly commands us to trust Him, sometimes beyond what we understand, but that doesn’t mean that Christian faith is senseless (indeed, I believe that God is the very source of rationality in the first place; to even express a desire to speak rationally about God is to already demonstrate evidence of His existence. I won’t pursue this point further here, but it is in some of the texts I reference below).

There are plenty of good reasons for belief in God, and particularly for the Christian worldview. I will outline a few here, but they can’t be fully developed on this forum (that would take volumes!). Books such as John Frame’s “Apologetics” and Tim Keller’s “Reason for God” can give longer discussions on some of these points, and you can certainly find others online, whether books, blogs, etc., but there’s probably no such thing as a “complete” development. That said, some common reasons for Christian belief are:

  1. An objective foundation for morality. Only belief in God, a personal being who is external to the universe, gives an objective reason to call some acts moral and others immoral. Without God, it’s up to the whimsy of an individual or a society, which certainly is not an objective standard (morality could change from person to person, from society to society, from age to age). As Ravi Zacharias was known to quip in making this point, “some people love their neighbors; some people eat them.” It can’t be acceptable to leave morality up to the shifting sands of cultural feelings. They must be from a personal, divine lawgiver: God. Certainly people who claim no belief in God will still label acts as moral or immoral, but my point here is that they have no objective basis for doing so – only the subjective basis of their own or their community’s feelings.
  2. An explanation for the origin of the universe, and mankind in particular. Atheism tries to explain these by saying that they follow from the laws of physics (usually something like “quantum mechanical principles dictate that a stable universe will eventually pop into existence”), but that misses the point; where then did the laws of physics come from? And if they came from eternity past, or always existed, or came from nowhere, then that “explanation” has descended into irrationalism to the point that the claim effectively says that physical laws have no origin at all. They just “are.” But then the whole question of what we mean by “origin” has become nonsensical and thus not worth talking about. Or the ultimate origin of the universe is an impersonal monolith. John Frame’s book “Apologetics” discusses the problems with this view which are too lengthy to recreate here, but I recommend you check it out. I’ve also heard Frank Turek speak on this topic of origins, which you could look up online.
  3. Ultimate, objective meaning for existence. Atheism and belief in an impersonal “god” will say that meaning derives from whatever we declare ourselves to have. But that certainly isn’t ultimate, nor is it objective. It simply isn’t the kind of meaning we are asking about when we long to say “my life has meaning.” Such meaning can only come if someone (a personal being) external to humanity gives it to us – that must be from a personal God. And if, as some are wont to do when faced with this dilemma, we wish to claim to the contrary that life has no ultimate, objective meaning, then there is by definition no compelling reason to do or think anything at all. But no one lives that way, so to claim such would be to live inconsistent with one’s stated beliefs (not to mention that having no ultimate, objective meaning is deeply troubling to the core of one’s soul). If you want this kind of meaning, or live as if your life already has it (and I suspect that you do!), then belief in a personal God is a necessity.
  4. Fulfilled prophecy. The Bible (particularly the earthly life of Jesus) has so much fulfilled prophecy that it becomes difficult to think that the book was written without divine inspiration. Try searching for examples of this online. And if the Bible is divinely inspired, isn’t it worth believing?
  5. The Bible’s ability to expose the true nature of the human condition. Our core problem as a human race isn’t our governmental systems, our lack of knowledge, or whatever else may be claimed. Our core problem is our sinful hearts. Hearts that long to commit selfish and evil things are the cause of all of the other ills in the human condition. The Bible’s ability to describe the condition of our hearts, even though it was written so long ago in such different cultures and times, is uncanny – unless it is inspired by God, that is.
  6. Salvation by grace (a doctrine unique to Christianity). The doctrine of salvation by grace rather than by good deeds gives a solution to this core problem of humanity, sin. Grace is necessary for assurance of salvation; otherwise we would always wonder if there were more good deeds we need to do. Or we would be in danger of doing something bad enough in the future to revoke our salvation. Grace is the only way for God to be both just (since no human is perfect, saving some based on their works would mean that He has compromised on His standard of perfection) and merciful (He still finds a fair way to save those who will accept it). Salvation by works, which every other belief system boils down to, is powerless by comparison.
  7. The resurrection. Jesus’ physical resurrection is a well-attested historical event which gives strong reason to believe that He was divine. As you alluded to in your comment, this is foundational to the Christian worldview; indeed, “if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile” (1 Corinthians 15:17). You can search online for many evidences that the resurrection is more than just a fable.

I hope that examining these ideas will help you, but let me also try to put them in context for you. While seeking reasons for belief comes with many Biblical examples, there will come a point in each individual’s journey at which more evidence would make little or no change in the person’s heart. At some point, “enough is enough.” God graciously provides enough reason to believe, but He also allows people to reject Him even with that evidence. Testing God or demanding that He give more, more, more evidence is dangerous territory (compare Deuteronomy 6:16, Matthew 16:1-4, and Luke 4:12). I am by no means accusing you of doing any of these things, but simply want to warn you up front that you will eventually be faced with the temptation to do so. Everyone is faced with this temptation, myself included. I want you to avoid that pitfall. He has revealed much to us, certainly enough to warrant belief. In the end, if God exists, we are not in the position of authority to tell Him what constitutes sufficient evidence. We are accountable to Him, not the other way around. This is not to say that it is evil to look for reasons to believe in Christ. Just be aware of the temptations to self-sufficient, self-aggrandizing unfaithfulness.

Finally, one of the points I tried to make in my previous comment is relevant here, too. Your understanding of what even constitutes evidence or facts in the first place will partly determine how you digest the above (and other) reasons. Your epistemology, your theory of knowledge, plays a fundamental role. But if God exists, then “honoring God with your mind” would include honoring Him with your epistemology as well. That’s a deep topic, and this post has already gone on long enough; if you are interested further, you could read some modern thinkers like Frame’s “Apologetics” or Alvin Plantinga’s “Faith and Rationality: Reason and Belief in God.” (I have not read the latter book myself, but it comes well-recommended.)

Again, Noah, I continue to pray for you in this matter. May your faith in Christ, supported by rationality, continue to grow.

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I consider myself agnostic rather than atheist. This isn’t because I have “good reasons” to allow the possibility God exists, it’s because it feels like the right way to be. I try to leave a little room for faith because logic and reason don’t cover all situations.

You are struggling with this question, and that is OK. You obviously care a great deal about it or you wouldn’t be struggling. Think about the reasons this is so important to you. Don’t rush, this will take a long time to resolve.

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Or not. :slightly_smiling_face: Recall Maggie. We don’t all have all the time in the world, but God’s timing is perfect.

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I like the way Tim Keller ended his book, The Reason for God:

During a dark time in her life, a woman in my congregation complained that she had prayed over and over, “God, help me find you,” but had gotten nowhere. A Christian friend suggested to her that she might change her prayer to, “God, come and find me. After all, you are the Good Shepherd who goes looking for the lost sheep.” She concluded when she was recounting this to me, “The only reason I can tell you this story is—he did.” [p.240]

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000XPNUZE/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

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Hi Noah,

I sense you feel the pressure on you that is seen to be coming from the communities around you. Those communities might be subtly implied by the authors of the books you have read; but psychologically speaking, they are real.

For that reason I want to begin my reply to you by referring to the work of the psychologist, Solomon Asch. He conducted an experiment in which a subject was asked to say whether or not two lines on the screen were of equal length. The subject was part of a group asked to make this judgement, but unbeknown to the single subject, everyone else in the group was a stooge organised by the conductor of the experiment. After a while of accurate judgements by the group, the group of stooges began to make inaccurate judgements. Such was the social pressure on the subject that he or she began to agree with the inaccurate judgements.

The point of the experiment is to show how much power is exercised over your self-confidence by the community of people you perceive yourself to be part of. Of course, that can equally apply whether you see yourself to be making judgements amidst a community of atheists or a community of Christian fundamentalists, or any other community.

I have never read God the Failed Hypothesis , but I think I can guess the plot of the argument. Tell me if it goes like this: Primitive people believed that everything in Nature was caused by gods, but as science developed people were delivered from these superstitions. Religion today consists of the dying embers of a failed hypothesis. Am I right?

John C. Lennox is a former professor and head of the department of Mathematics at Oxford University. In his book, God’s Undertaker. Has Science Buried God? he introduces an illustration about a Ford motor car being seen by people in a remote place for the first time. They imagine that there is a god (Mr Ford) inside the car which makes it go. They imagine that when the car runs it is because Mr Ford likes them, and when it breaks down it is because Mr Ford is angry with them. However, over the next few years they study engineering and find the impersonal principles by which the car runs or break down. Now they know that Mr Ford is not a god inside the car. But does that mean Mr Ford does not exist, or that he was not the cause of the existence of the motor car? Now this is not an endorsement of either Ford motor cars or Mr Ford, but I think you can see the point.

While some of the so-called New Atheists are just as fundamentalist in their atheism as are Christian fundamentalists in their fundamentalism, you might be surprised to find out that Richard Dawkins is not an atheist. By his own admission, he is an agnostic.

In the end, the atheist argument comes down to a reduction-ism; that is, it reduces everything down to its component parts. Biology breaks down into chemistry and chemistry breaks down into physics, including sub-atomic particles. Did life as we know it simply come about through a serial concurrence of random chance? After all, the universe is so large and there must have been so many “throws of the dice” that, as chance would have it, hey presto, life? But in fact, chance is constrained and it would appear that certain directions in the development of life on Earth have fail-safe mechanisms such that, if one line of evolution does not produce it, another will. In the light of this, the atheist feels relieved that the odds against a chance development of life are not so high. The Christian says, this universe has been designed by God in such an intricate way that life will adapt and persevere. So in the end, neither side can win this debate on these grounds.

I am retired now, so there is nothing making me get out of bed in the morning. But it seems to me that the totality of my life is more than a reductionist view of science can explain. Furthermore, especially through the Gospel of John, I have entered into an experience of life that I am not willing to let go of. It is the experience of knowing God-in-Christ; and the same Spirit which raised Jesus from the dead lifts me out of bed when I wake up. Science cannot explain this. Did we ever think that it would?

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  1. The only objective foundation for morality are good reasons (backed up by demonstrable evidence) why some things are good and other things are bad – and certainly not the arbitrary dictates of some supposed deity that some group of people believe in and speak for as little more than their own personal tool of rhetoric. I believe in God but not as a “because daddy says so” source of authoritarian morality.
  2. God explains nothing. People like to use the word “God” in a bunch of rhetoric to make empty claims of explanation – but there is very little substance behind the words. In fact when you follow the logic and ask for details, the typical answer is an appeal to “mystery” which is inevitable when dealing with the whims of imaginary creatures. I believe in God but not as an explanation for anything.
  3. There is nothing objective about meaning. This is entirely subjective. Science is objective observation, where what we want and believe doesn’t matter, but life requires subjective participation, where what we want and believe is central. I believe in God but not as means of pushing the meaning I find in life onto other people.
  4. Few things are as subjective as fortune telling. I believe in God but not as a controller and author who transforms life into an already written story full of dead characters and authorial whims.
  5. People find different things of value in the Bible. What I find of greatest significance is all the criticisms of religion. I believe in God but not as a self-absorbed glory seeking megalomaniac who needs people to tell him how great he is.
  6. Amen to a gospel of salvation by the grace of God! But salvation by grace does not give assurance – quite the contrary, it requires faith. Those who talk of assurance have transformed salvation by grace into salvation by some formula of works – all in order to change religion into a tool of power they can use to dominate others. Yes I believe in the God of grace.
  7. The resurrection of Jesus (physical only in the sense of bodily and not in the sense of natural or earthly) is certainly not well attested by historical evidence. This is another thing which requires faith. And it is important because life isn’t just about existence on the earth but an eternal relationship with an infinite being in which there is no end to what He has to give.

@Redblade_Flame

The main point here is that people differ greatly in the reasons they find for belief, so even if you don’t agree with the reasons of chadmangum and even if you do agree with the criticism of Dawkins (as I do) regarding the arguments for God addressed in his book, that doesn’t mean you will not find reasons of your own for belief as I have.

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Here are a few things that have helped me with my faith which was really deconstructed. When I am doubting, which is often, I try to think about these things and not all the fancy philosophical arguments:

  • We are fearfully and wonderfully made. 40 Trillions cells, 100 Billion Neurons, 100 Trillion Brain connections, 60,000 miles of blood vessels. Hundreds of trillions of operations that form a baby at exactly the right split second and exact location using cheeseburgers and french fries as the raw materials. We could go on and on about the human body and mind but we are clearly designed by a creator
there can be no doubt about this.

  • Supernatural events occur all the time. For example, a friend of mine who is a Penn State graduate and environmental engineer was suddenly called into ministry in India in a supernatural way and he has told me about many supernatural healings he has witnessed in India
the blind are able to see and the deaf are able to hear. The supernatural things from the Holy Spirit he has told me about give me goosebumps but also help my faith. I think you can talk and talk about books and philosophy but witnessing the power God will override everything.

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Of course there can be doubt about this. I not only doubt it – I disbelieve it completely. Design and life are diametrically opposed concepts. That which is designed is a machine. Only that which comes about through the self-organizing processes of choices, growth, and evolution is alive. Besides there is nothing particularly divine about intelligence or design. These are things which machines can to extremely well better than any human engineer. Looking for God in intelligent design is looking in the wrong place. The God of Christianity is a shepherd, teacher, and parent – a creator of living things, and not the great watchmaker of Deism. The latter not only turns us all into machines but reduces God to the ultimate machine Himself.

YES! They occur all the time right now in the present and not just in some mythical past which supposedly operated according to completely different rules. This is not because the laws of nature created by God are broken by Him in these events, but because the laws of nature are not causally closed. The supposition of Laplace’s Demon has been proven incorrect because of the new discoveries of quantum physics and chaotic dynamics. The laws of nature provide our physical substance and the structure in which our lives and free will can exist. But God created us for a relationship so naturally there is an open door for God to interact with His creation.




Not can we find different reasons for belief than many of these old arguments, but we must be careful how some of the arguments used actually alter the very beliefs which they propose to establish.

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Sorry, missed this. An epistemology cannot possibly be changed without a crisis and I wouldn’t wish that upon you Dale.

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They didn’t happen then either. As you imply, the rules are the same.

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The disagreement here with Klax is probably due to defining “miracles” and “supernatural events” differently. I don’t believe God breaks the laws of nature which He established Himself, but since the laws of nature are not causally closed, this doesn’t mean that God doesn’t have a hand in bringing about some events. That is what I am referring to when I agree with your claim of supernatural events happening all the time – events with a divine cause. As for Klax
 he is so all over the place with pot-shots which he never explains, I am not even going to say anything about what he believes. I just remembered that he has previously objected to the way I define miracles.

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Miracles that don’t break the statistical surface are delusions, failure of epistemology at best.

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Which is why no rational person would engage in that false dichotomy seen by looking down the wrong end of the telescope.

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