Why should I believe in God?

Why do Christians believe in Jesus Christ? What evidence is there to believe in God?

The question posed here: “why believe?” is one we all ask ourselves from time to time. If you’re not a believer in Christianity but feel this question tugging at you please read on. There is a hole in your heart. A void and you don’t know how to fill it. This is the first thing you notice, this hole, even at an early age. Teenage angst, maybe? We search to find something that fills that hole. As life continues on we become busy and our ability to analyze things becomes diminished. However, our actions and decisions are really our struggle to answer to the big question of life: what is the meaning of this and how do I not feel this way anymore or more importantly how do I know what the answer is, how to fill this hole in my heart? All of the things we do, the busy things, distract us from really trying to find an answer. We are so busy that we cannot quiet our minds and reflect on this question and we go hurriedly from one thing to the next and we find many things that sort of touch on the spiritual and these things seem to be it but at the end we are left with discontent.

There are so many things and groups that say “this is what you have been looking for, this is what will give you peace.” Things like yoga, reiki, witchcraft or social interaction like board games, bowling or fitness. We become skaters or skinheads because we want to belong to something and no one is presenting us with anything that makes sense. So, we join or we unjoin and then join something else. Or, we deaden our senses and we dull the pain with drugs and alcohol. We tune out and tune in. We look for a person to tell us what to make of all this. There are the personas who profess to have unlocked a secret and there are thousands or millions who follow them; personas like the Bhagwan Shreeh Rajneesh, Tony Robbins, Joe Rogan, Jordan Peterson, Bill Nye, David Koresh, David Duke, Malcolm X, Ram Dass, or Jim Jones. Each of these persons offers some sort of answer whether it be the rejection of religion but with a spiritual aspect or drugs or meditation but something that is the answer you’re looking for in life. But what they are looking for is profit or power because they also are lost. They are lost in their own little fiefdom which is built on an overpowering use of charisma, intelligence and stubborn intent. They are the blind leading the blind.

“We find no rest, until we find rest in Thee.” Augustine, Confessions

However, why do these groups or personas continue to gather new recruits all the time? The reason is simple, they are offering truth. What they say is true, however, they lack the fullness of truth. They offer answers. Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson have millions of followers who listen to their every word. They do speak truth and they do it well. They have charisma, charm and intellect. They have unlocked certain secrets to life. Rogan offers drugs, especially psychedelics as his answer, while Peterson offers psychology as his answer. Each says things and points to things that correct. The others such as the Rajneesh or the Branch Davidian offered a way of life, a life separate from the masses where answers could be found. Then, there are those who answered the imbalance of power for the races. Or, what about those who offer science as the answer? You can’t disagree with science. What about those who say “you are an untapped powerhouse of awesomeness, and you just don’t know it yet, let me show you how to unlock this power within you!”? But, while you are unlocking your awesomeness you should also recruit others.

But, isn’t that just religion? Recruiting new people for your own personal version of the truth; what it appears to be. Christians believe Jesus said before he ascended into Heaven, “Then Jesus approached and said to them, ‘All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age’” (Matthew 28:18-20). Some would argue you can’t say your religion is right while saying others is wrong. But, the idea of religion, that we are trying to find an answer, is universal.

“Man is a religious being.” Catechism of the Catholic Church, 28

So, if you read Augustine who I quoted above he prefaces his statement with the concept that man is created by God and therefore God draws us to Him through this feeling in our heart. We ponder God and in doing so we struggle to find answers. And today, we have many voices telling us there is no God but that the answer to these questions is available as we already addressed… through science or drugs or personalities or non-religious religion, etc. But God is drawing you and you feel it. He placed this hole in your heart. This is your first clue that there is something bigger than you. It is inside you. The only questions is how to fill it. Now, some doggedly oppose this feeling and then in a way become desensitized to all feeling and become angry and bitter. But for others we find the answers in something because that something presents itself to us and we encounter it. Through this encounter we enter into a path and this path leads where it leads.

Do you remember a time in the past when we thought the world and men were beautiful? We thought that nature was wondrous and we thought that man was interesting because nature is wondrous and man is interesting. Think of a place like the African plains, Yosemite, the Columbia Gorge, the Swiss Alps, the Grand Canyon; these are places of great beauty. Think of men and women who have said brilliant things, written brilliant plays and books, created amazing things. Do elephants write plays? They certainly are majestic but they didn’t write anything of note. We have something the animals don’t; we have this ability to create and think and find solutions. However, we also have this thing called sin which causes us to destroy. Animals don’t really sin, yes, they can destroy, but usually it is within their nature as an animal; not for a purpose, such as our purposes. To destroy and to kill the innocent; this is man’s thing. We can do this because we have this brilliance but we also have a free will. This free will and this intellect; these two things are human. Let us remember the beauty of this world and how wonderful our mountains, our deserts, our rivers, our oceans, our animals really are. How beautiful is a zebra or a lion or newborn infant? These wonders of creation lead us to wonder, how could such beautiful things be created by chance? They all work in such a fashion and to be in perfect balance, without man of course, and this balance is the thing which gave us life. This balance comes from a beautiful mind, the mind of God. When we encounter nature, do you remember doing this, when we encounter nature in person, it takes our breath away. When we see our child born, we understand love. And this awesomeness is something we should not forget. Never let them make you believe this world is nasty, brutish, ugly and unworthy of our respect. That is what they want you to believe. Because inside of you, God is drawing you to Him. Because you were created by God, and by God He has made wondrous things so that you can see and believe in them. But they want you not to see this beauty so that you also push those feelings you have, that drawing, that gnawing, that hole that needs filling; they want you to forget so that you don’t ask the questions about God, because they want you to think this is all bullshit, nothing, and ugly mistake. But, it’s not. Remember that feeling, that feeling of wonder and awe. It is there.

If God created you then He made it so you could find Him. He made it so you would have something drawing you to Him. He also would give you other gifts, things which make it possible to understand something that seems unlikely or even a fairy tale.

“In regard to atheism, religious apologists have one and only one task: Produce credible real world evidence to back up their belief in whatever god(s) they believe in. Everything else they talk about, all the millions of words these people produce discussing every subject under the sun except this one, is precisely an evasion of their sole task, in regard to atheism. The vast majority of the rhetoric of religious apologetics is one huge profusion of red herring.” Steve Green, Atheist.

It is our task to produce evidence for God but we cannot see God so how can we produce evidence? Therefore, what we are doing is a red herring, e.g. what we are doing is a lie. However, we do have evidence. And this evidence is right in front of us but it would take some time to explain it all. However, it is simple enough to boil down for time’s sake. What is in front of us is one question? Was Jesus Christ a real person? If He was not then like Richard Dawkins, atheist, we are worshiping a false god like in the way our predecessors worshiped Zeus. Zeus or Odin, “where are they now?”, asks atheists like Dawkins. Zeus and Odin didn’t visit planet earth but if Jesus did, who claimed to be God, then Jesus was crazy or telling the truth. This is question posed by apologists but we can attribute C. S. Lewis with this: “Jesus was either a mad man, a liar or telling the truth.” A mad man believes insane things so to say “I and God are one” would be to say something which is insane. To say “I am God.” when you are not would be to tell a lie. But if you were saying this and it were true then we should listen to this man and listen carefully to what he says. So, was Jesus a real person? This question has been asked and answered already. Yes, he was a real person. We have non-biblical sources which affirm there was a man named Jesus who was crucified during the time when he was said to be here. To claim otherwise is ludicrous. It can be dismissed out of hand. You can read Josephus, Tacitus or others who were not Christian but wrote of a person called Christ. Then, there is the fact that every bishop of Rome was martyred by the Romans until Constantine. Then after Constantine there is a unbroken history of the church until today. We have all the councils that lead up to today that are historical facts. We have the gospels and other writings which have a great deal of evidence they were written in the time just after Jesus. We have St. Paul who evangelized to all of Asia Minor as a historical fact.

So, was Jesus a mad man, a liar or was he telling the truth? You see, what separates the Christian faith from other faiths and why you can rest easy in being a Christian is we have Christ. Both God and man. God became incarnate. Therefore, Jesus is our evidence. He really did live, there is evidence. He really was crucified, there is evidence. He really had disciples who were martyred, there is evidence. He is our icon of God. How can we prove something we cannot see? We don’t have to, we have Jesus. See the shroud of Turin for evidence. See the Eucharistic miracles for evidence. See the long history, the unbroken chain of the church for evidence. See the evidence for the spiritual world in the many exorcisms performed by the church. But we don’t need evidence, we know there is something that needs to be filled and we seek to fill it. The atheists have stubbornly pushed aside and killed the wonder inside them and what do they offer? Nothing. Literally, nothing. Nihilism.

Pope Pius XII said the following about our quest to find God:

“It is not surprising that such discord and error should always have existed outside the fold of Christ. For though, absolutely speaking, human reason by its own natural force and light can arrive at a true and certain knowledge of the one personal God, Who by His providence watches over and governs the world, and also of the natural law, which the Creator has written in our hearts, still there are not a few obstacles to prevent reason from making efficient and fruitful use of its natural ability. The truths that have to do with God and the relations between God and men, completely surpass the sensible order and demand self-surrender and self-abnegation in order to be put into practice and to influence practical life. Now the human intellect, in gaining the knowledge of such truths is hampered both by the activity of the senses and the imagination, and by evil passions arising from original sin. Hence men easily persuade themselves in such matters that what they do not wish to believe is false or at least doubtful.” Humanae Generis, 2

This means that we do search for God but that our “evil passions” lead us to doubt as does our imagination or it leads us to not believe because we don’t want to believe. We don’t want to be told what to do so we don’t believe. Further into the encyclical Pope Pius XII quotes St. Thomas Aquinas who says that the way we come to know God is through our rational minds which can imagine a “good order” that comes from God but where does this come from, he asks, from our reason or from grace?

“Indeed St. Thomas holds that the intellect can in some way perceive higher goods of the moral order, whether natural or supernatural, inasmuch as it experiences a certain ‘connaturality’ with these goods, whether this ‘connaturality’ be purely natural, or the result of grace…” Humane Generis, 33.

So, why should you believe in God? In Jesus? In the church? Because God created you and He is drawing you near. He wants to have a relationship with you because He created you. He put inside of you a mind that can imagine Him. With your mind you can see the evidence for Him, nature and man, and you can see the evidence from history of His doings through us. It is only your imagination which separates you from Him because we are disordered due to original sin. Original sin comes from the devil who deceives you. Why should you believe? Because God is the source of life and therefore of truth. Truth like nature and creation is beautiful and God exists always so to be with Him is to be, always. This is the truth.