I've recently been trying to spend some time exploring my new neighborhood and doing my best to do so on foot. Just about a mile away from my new place is this cool little new and used bookstore that has a pub downstairs and inside is a Greek restaurant (that's Seattle for you). Of course I wanted to go in and check it out and while browsing in the Religion section I came across this book: 50 Reasons People Give for Believing in a god
. I was curious. There is a certain sort of person that can drive me up a wall, and many may think I am actually thinking of two different types of people but I assure you that to me they are the same. There are those who are particularly reliant on apologetics as a way to prove their faith to others - trying to find an answer to every question a person critical of their faith might ask. Every little piece of their faith must be literally true or the faith cannot exist and so they must be able to prove all their reasons for believing. The other kind of person is not religious, they may be a militant atheist or simply critical of organized religion. They spend their time finding a way to break down all of the answers that apologetics provides to the first group. However they may define their perspective they place themselves at a point in opposition to religion. The only thing that separates these two groups is that the second has managed to pull the one thread that causes faith to unravel and because every single tiny little piece of that faith cannot be proven to be literally true it all falls apart at the seams, but if in fact one small piece can be disproved then the faith must entirely cease to exist. These people believe the same things about faith, I simply think that one has just followed those beliefs through to completion.
While I was in the bookstore I picked this book up because I was skeptical as to its purpose. Was it trying to give people reasons to take up faith, or more likely prove the silliness of those who hold it? I must confess I never looked at it long enough to find out, and while I posted links so you could find the book on Amazon I myself never looked further than the table of contents. I became disinterested when I discovered that my reason for believing is God never made the list. There certainly were items listed among the 50 reasons in the table of contents that I absolutely believe, please don't misunderstand me on that point. For instance one in particular has to do with God sending his son to die for my sins, I DO believe that, but it's not WHY I believe in God it is part of what I believe about Him. There were lots of mentions on the list having to do with science and evolution and again, I found these to be silly reasons to believe in a god, if my God is all powerful and created all things then whatever science is it is of Him and so my faith is not dependent on how complete or incomplete our understanding may be of the scientific world. Some reasons seemed to deal with "fire insurance" (believing in God so one doesn't go to hell) and believing because I'm afraid not to, entirely regardless of my theology of heaven or hell, also seems ridiculous and indeed a very shallow faith. There were also reasons to do with how many believed in the reason giver's particular religion, the silliness of this being that any one person from any number of world religions could boast of the thousands or millions of others who also believe. I could go on summarizing the list but you might as well just check it out for yourselves, you can use the Amazon "look inside" feature to look at the list in the table of contents.
The man who wrote this spent a great deal of time asking a lot of people why they believe in their god. The first reason given is "My god is obvious". Perhaps I should have titled this blog "The moment I realized I might be a Calvinist after all" because obvious as the reason giver's god may be, there are plenty of people who are oblivious. I was, on the whole, disappointed with the list. I have one little answer to this question that didn't make it, and I know that I cannot be alone I just think few of us are ever really honest enough with ourselves to give this response. We take on the defense and try to give reasons that may prove God to the world but that's not what the question is asking. I think maybe Donald Miller has a point, maybe it's not a pure Calvinist predestination that decides whether or not I believe in God but it isn't all my choice alone either, in his book Blue Like Jazz
Mr. Miller says "Believing in God is as much like falling in love as it is making a decision. Love is both something that happens to you and something you decide upon." Both parts are necessary for the whole, for lack of a better term the "thing" has to happen, and you have to decide to believe, just one or the other cannot constitute believing. Of course no decision can exist without this "thing" happening, but if it happens and a choice is made against it or no choice is made at all then belief could not exist. You have to be chosen before you can choose. Of course in suggesting this then I suppose there would be the question of selective or universal election which, aside from acknowledging the elephant, I am going to avoid like the plague for right now. Then of course there is my ever favorite Bono quote from Bono: In Conversation with Michka Assayas
in which he says "When I look at the cross of Christ, what I see up there is all my s*** and everybody else's. So I ask myself a question a lot of people have asked: Who is this man?... And no one can talk you into it or out of it." All of this is to say that my reason for believing in God doesn't come as some piece of proof, from extensive study of apologetics or the fact that as I drove on I-5 today on a clear day in Seattle I saw the Olympic mountain range and was awestruck. These things can perhaps be helpful in their proper context, but if asked why I believe in God, the only answer I will choose to give is this:
Because I just do.
