Television personality Greg Gutfeld describes himself as an agnostic atheist. So do many otherwise intelligent men and women, despite being raised Christians. I have members of my family who describe themselves in the same way. Do you believe in God? Why? Or why not? Most people do believe in God. Or, at least, in one form or another. Atheists are in a minority in the world today and throughout history.

I don’t think that I have ever doubted the existence or the reality of God despite not being raised in a religious atmosphere. I was too aware of “the splendor of the whole creation, the beauty of this world, the wonder of life, and the mystery of love.” People were indifferent to God in my childhood days but were not out and out skeptics. One of my high school teachers was offended when I accused him of being an atheist. He preferred calling himself an agnostic – seeking refuge in non-committal.

The Bible assumes the existence of God. The problem in the ancient world was not atheism but a multiplicity of gods. The book of Genesis is written to demonstrate the work of the one and only God in creation and salvation. But the intellectual culture of the Western world in which we live today does not assume the existence of God. Atheism has become the default faith of many of the academic and media elite. God is seen as unnecessary to their beliefs and their lives.

British philosopher, Roger Scruton, maintains that the culture which prevails today in his country, sees belief in God as a sign of emotional and intellectual immaturity. He maintains that there is “more than one motive underlying the atheist culture of our times, and the desire to escape from the eye of judgment is one of them.” (The Face of God, p.2)  If you feel you that you can behave as you like without any accountability, you won’t want to believe in God.

While many scientists and philosophers reject questions of reason or purpose for the universe as outside the limits of human thinking, the question of “why, to what end, and for what reason, is there a world that contains creatures like us?” still confront us. (ibid. p.7) Science deals with causes. The question ‘why?’ also refers to the ultimate reason of things. This is what gives sense to the life of prayer. “We address God, as we address those we love, not with the ‘why?’ of explanation, but with the ‘why?’ of reason and the ‘why?’ of meaning.” (ibid. p.13)

You cannot argue people into believing in God. You cannot prove the existence of God, although there are many philosophical proofs for its probability. Ultimate questions require faith because there is a limit to rationality. The eternal requires infinite categories.

“Anyone who comes to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.” (Heb 11:6)  However, if you were to ask me why I believed in God I would give you four reasons. I will explain each one in the following posts.

First, I believe in God because of the Human Mind. As a child I loved to read. I collected every copy of Classics Illustrated I could lay my hands on. I even bound them together in one immense volume. I would visit my father’s golfing friend in his lawyer’s office and devour his National Geographic magazines. I received a set of the ten volume Children’s Encyclopedia one Christmas, and poured over all the articles year by year. They had fascinating articles on geology and astronomy, animal life, famous men and women, history, wonder, art, biology, plant life, different countries and cultures, poetry, power, literature, ideas such as space, numbers, faith, eternity, vision, beauty, and the Bible. I still have a set of them and look up articles in them from time to time. They stimulated my thirst for knowledge.

All of us have the ability to think with our minds and imaginations. We have the capacity to connect the dots. We can explain how things work. We can experiment and develop theories. We can find meaning and purpose in life. We can write books about the human condition. We can create artistic designs. We can compose harmony in music. We can enjoy contentment and achievement. Our powers of observation can draw conclusions that satisfy our understanding. “What may be known about God is plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.”  (Rom 1:19,20)

An essential and important dimension of the human self….is that he can soar in thought beyond the immediate circumstances of his life…Humans are, as far as we know, the only animals that can be transported by a novel or a movie into another world, with its loves and hates, enchantments and terrors, cozy comforts and unnerving suspense. We alone can know, ten years in advance, that the moon will be full on a given day, or sixty years in advance, that we will one day molder in the ground. Only human life can be shaped by an ideal, such as the life of Christ, or an ideology, such as Marxism, or an obsession, like making money….. Because of our imagination – ability and compulsion to survey our lives, to see them for what they’re worth – meaninglessness is the destiny of human consciousness, except in the context of eternity.” (Robert C. Roberts, Spiritual Emotions, pp.51,55)

It is illogical to me to be conscious of all that makes life meaningful without also being conscious of an eternal purpose which is being fulfilled in and through my life and history. That which is so valuable in our lifetime cannot just disappear and be rendered useless in death. There must be some eternal dimension to existence, some creation and salvation, some Creator and Savior. Our consciousness of this life logically requires the eternal perspective which is found in God.