AGNOSTIC, ATHEIST OR CHRISTIAN (4)

Why do you believe in God? I have already written in the previous posts about my first three reasons: the human mind, the moral sense and the witness of revelation. But fourthly, and finally, I believe in God because of the Reality of Love. I grew up with an older sister and my parents in a small town with an extended family of cousins, aunts, uncles and two grandmothers, my grandfathers having died before I was born.

When I left home the friendships of others meant all the world to me wherever I found myself. I was fortunate to be blessed with friends during college years and when I travelled to England to graduate school. My first Christmas in England found me being adopted by one of the faculty families in Durham, who became lifelong friends, and then a fellow-student and his family in Carlisle. When I moved to London I met my wife, we married and started our own family. Now we have two daughters and four grandchildren, as well as an extended family of siblings-in-law, nephews and nieces whom we love and care for, and who love us and care for us.

We all need to feel loved and valued. The inward feeling of love for another transcends all that passes away in this world. Relationships trump all other considerations in life, more than wealth or worldly success. When you see the beauty of your newborn baby, your children and grandchildren, and all your loved ones, you experience love that never ends. Against all odds love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, and always perseveres. (See Ted Schroder, Solid Love, an exposition of 1 Corinthians 13.)  This feeling of the dignity and worth of others, the wonder and mystery of life, which humbles you and motivates you to do extraordinary and heroic deeds of unselfishness, comes from God.

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him” (1 John 4:7-9).

I do not believe in a generic God, a faceless Higher Power, but in the God of love, who is revealed in Jesus. It is God who gives us the ability to love and be loved, to be valued and treasured, for life to be sacred. Without God we would be devalued, become merely a statistic, one of many biological species to be exploited only for our economic utility. Instead we are beloved of God, destined for greater glory.

Belief in God makes logical sense of life. Belief in God enables me to enjoy the fullness of life. Belief in God holds me morally responsible for my attitudes and actions. Belief in God is revealed in the words of the Bible and the life of Christ. Belief in God is experienced through the power and beauty of love. To believe in God is to know that all things are possible. To know Jesus is to know God.