One of my reasons for belief, came from existentialism. For I was definitely a fan, particularly of Camus. It might seem strange given all his scathing criticisms of Christianity but from the ashes of Camus’ criticism of Christianity and theism, I found a better understanding of theism which could rise like a phoenix from them. After all, what I had from childhood was nearly always criticism of Christianity rather seeing anything of value in it.
The link to this topic is in my search for an understanding of God which best serves that purpose of a faith that life is worth living. This is enhanced by a God who can interact with us more completely and thus a personal God with at least the same capacities for relationship that we have ourselves – to be starkly contrasted with a cold universe of mathematical laws which cares nothing about us. In the doctrine of the Trinity we have a God with an excess of personhood rather than any lack of it as we see in many other notions of God. This is perhaps one reason why Paul Tillich’s notion of the God as the “ground of being” doesn’t appeal to me very much – far more philosophical and conceptual than personal.
At the same time, the skepticism and criticism many have had for the idea of a personal God (a group including many I have admired like Albert Einstein) is also answered by the doctrine of the Trinity. To many our notions of a personal God seemed like we were anthropomorphizing the universe and projecting an image of ourselves upon it. But the God of the Trinitarian doctrine is not a God made in our own image at all – nor like anything else in our experience either – so strange and contrary to our common sense expectations of the way things should be, that it reminds me of quantum physics. And that is one of the things infuses a sense of reality into it – yeah because reality IS very much like that, contrary to what we expect and what seems sensible and plausible. It stretches our rationality rather than just reaffirming the limits of our usual complacent use of reason.