Archive for the ‘Apologetics’ Category

Posted on June 26, 2010 - by Stephen Murray

Why I can’t Walk Away from the Faith

Here’s a list of reasons why I could never walk away from the Christian faith:

1. I find the historical person of Jesus too compelling. Even with the most skeptical and literary critical reading of the gospels the man that comes forth from those accounts (let me stress again: even when torn apart by literary criticism) still demands more than a mere nod of the head as a moral teacher or visionary or whatever you want to call him.

2. I find the coherence of the reformed, evangelical worldview deeply satisfying in how I understand events and circumstances around me. I think if I fell into another branch of the Christian family I might struggle more with certain issues. I once read an atheist suggest that if he were to become a Christian he’d feel intellectually bound to adopt a reformed understanding of the faith given the way it synthesizes the Scriptures with the existential.

3. I find atheism intellectually unsatisfying. The vast majority of atheists I have encountered seem to me to be on a quest for absolute truth and the ability to be able to empirically attest to absolute truth. I am becoming more and more convinced that such a quest is impossible in this life. I don’t think we can know truth absolutely – in the way that many atheists would demand we must if we are to verify anything. I once heard D.A. Carson say that we cannot know truth absolutely but that does not mean that we cannot know truth truly. There’s a difference between the two and for me its made the world of difference. So in that sense I find atheism to be largely built on a premise that I find intellectually and philosophically unsatisfying. If we acknowledge Carson’s statement the whole ball game changes.  A classic example of this is the debate about the resurrection. The Christian scholar can stack up the historical and sociological evidence for the resurrection in such a way that the evidence is near overwhelming but the atheist will dismiss it on the premise that for a person to rise from the dead would be to defy the laws of nature and therefore be completely unverifiable empirically. So because miracles cannot be empirically verified they cannot happen. That’s essentially saying that unless I can know the truth absolutely I will not go with the rest of the overwhelming evidence that points to me being able to know the truth truly. Who really lives like that on a functional level? We trust in truths truly (not absolutely) on a day to day basis – so why move the goal posts when it comes to faith?

4. The way the Bible expounds the concepts of sin and idolatry line up with my own heart inch perfectly. I’ve been greatly helped by Tim Keller to understand these two concepts with more biblical depth in the last few years and the deeper I search the deeper my conviction grows that the Bible’s estimation of the human heart is spot on. Everybody, atheists included, worships something.

5. Suffering and pain in this life, ironically (or maybe not), help me make sense of the Fall and a holy and just God. C.S. Lewis and John Piper have helped me see that suffering, more than anything, exists to show that things are not okay and that human sin has caused this world to be plunged into a chaotic, dysfunctional existence. We more than ever need a God who allows suffering and evil so that we will wake up to the reality of sin. I know this is controversial, even amongst some Christians, but to me it makes way more sense than any other explanation, faith-based or secular, that I’ve heard.

5. The hope of th New Creation means I just don’t want to take any chances. I guess this is a little like Pascal’s Wager, but seriously if this whole existence is headed to a restored and renewed creation where every tear is wiped away and unending joy reigns forever don’t you at least want Christianity to be true?