THE TRUTH PART

Dear Professor Theophilus:

Hi, I am a college student who identifies very much with the character of Nathan in your story "As Though There Were No God." Upon reading it, I felt a flash of the light of the Truth. Eager to share this revelation with those around me, I mentioned it to a friend, who then said something which made me unsure again.

She told me that she had a revelation, which she claimed came directly from the divine, that God exists but does not want to be believed in. This God sends all the devout to hell and atheists to heaven. Of course, I did not believe a word of this, but when she asked me to prove that what she said was false, I was stumped!

She then said that I should live my life like an agnostic. She despises atheists even more than Christians because, if I am quoting her correctly, "they have all the cruelty of doctrine without the poetic grace of myth."

She talked about all of the suffering caused by religion — about which I was too ignorant and tongue-tied to respond — and to say that "any loving God would want us to use our reason and free ourselves from the confines of belief in the supernatural that prevents us from seeing the natural world and accepting those who see things differently from ourselves." Again, I probably butchered that quotation — there was much more to it than that as this conversation went on for well over an hour — but that's all I can remember.

She also said something about "Pascal's Wager" and how flawed it was, but I would like to hear what a true believer has to say about it. Sorry for rambling on like this and taking up so much of your time, but I am very confused on these matters and humbly ask for your counsel.

Reply

Thanks for your letter. So God gave your friend a direct revelation that He exists but doesn't want to be believed in, did He? Better think about that. If He didn't want anyone to believe in Him, then why would He tell her that He exists? Obviously, He wouldn't; therefore, He didn't. And if she believed in this supposed revelation and considered it authoritative, as she claims, then why would she be telling you about it? Obviously, she wouldn't; therefore, she doesn't really believe it either! That gives you the proof that she demanded. In fact, it gives you two proofs: (1) that God didn't speak to her, and (2) that she's trying to fox you. Of course she's probably trying to fox herself too. It would all be rather silly, if it weren't rather nasty.

Your conversation with her does give rise to some other interesting issues, though. One is the move she made by demanding proof that her ridiculous statement was false. Well, we did disprove it. Scroll up; previous paragraph. But shouldn't the burden of proof have been on her? "God has given me a direct revelation" is an extraordinary claim. If true, it puts her on a par with heroes of faith like Abraham, Moses, Peter, and Paul. Isn't it up to her to give you good reasons to believe her? Faith isn't blind in the sense of being unreasoning; as Scripture itself says, "Test everything" (1 Thess 5:21). She was right to say that any loving God would want you to use the power of reason that He had given you — but when it came to her own claims, she wanted you to turn the power off.

Are you wondering why you fell for that move? Good; you should be. Let me tell you a story. A little background music, please! The classical way to reason is to begin with what we already know, using it to reach conclusions about what we don't yet know. By contrast, most thinkers of our own times try (without success) to begin at the other end — not from knowledge, but from doubt. The most distinguished advocate of "systematic doubt" was the 17th-century philosopher Rene Descartes, who held that we shouldn't consider anything certain unless it can be proven from things that we literally can't doubt. Alas, that sort of thinking doesn't get us anywhere, because any premise whatsoever can be doubted if you try hard enough. When everyday people began to notice this fact, some of them turned Descartes' method on its head. Instead of saying, "I shouldn't believe anything for certain, no matter how reasonable, unless I can prove it from things I can't doubt," they began to say "I can believe anything I want to, no matter how silly, because you can't disprove it from things I can't doubt." This bit of history may explain why your friend tried to pass off such a goofy line of reasoning on you — and it may explain why you found her goofy line of reasoning so difficult to answer. Modernity has left marks on us; we keep trying to reason, but we throw away all our data.

Your friend's line about people who have "all the cruelty of doctrine without the poetic grace of myth" is from a novel by the late Robertson Davies. Davies wasn't talking about real Christians, but about people who "want to show that they can be Christians without Christ." He was right that Christianity means nothing without Christ, and he was right that we can't be saved by doctrine. I'd merely add that we aren't saved by "myth" either, by a merely "poetic" grace. As Paul wrote, if Christ has not been raised, our faith is futile (1 Cor 15:17). What saves us is the actual grace of God. Notice, though, that we need doctrine to know how that grace works and where to find it.

What about that bit about "cruelty" of doctrine? It comes up again in your friend's remarks about the "all of the suffering caused by religion." Here your friend has a point, but she's also missing something. There are such things as ideologically motivated cruelty, violence, and persecution. If you want to know whether someone is prone to those things, however, the important question is not whether he ardently believes something, but what it is that he ardently believes; the Christian faith doesn't believe in those things! As the early Christian writer Lactantius wrote in his Institutes, "Religion is to be defended not by putting to death but by dying, not by cruelty but by patient endurance, not by guilt but by good faith: for the former belong to evils, but the latter to goods, and it is necessary for that which is good to have place in religion and not that which is evil. If you wish to defend religion by bloodshed, and by tortures, and by guilt, it will no longer be defended but will be polluted and profaned."

The upshot is that cruelty isn't caused by believing things; it's caused by believing cruel things. Your friend has got this backward. That's why she urges you to be an agnostic; in her view, believing nothing is the only way to keep from becoming a hater. Funny, it hasn't worked in her case, has it? As you mention, she doesn't exercise compassion toward either the misguided Christians who believe in God or the misguided atheists who don't; on the contrary, she "despises" them. That's an awful lot of people she's despising. I'd call it cruel, wouldn't you? So agnosticism is no protection against cruelty. Your friend hates hate, but she doesn't hate her own hate, and she doesn't love.

She has also missed the whole point of "As Though There Were No God." There is no such thing as neutrality. Your friend imagines that by calling herself agnostic, she avoids taking a position on God's reality. But as the dialogue explained, every way of life is some way of life. Inevitably, she will live either as though there were a God, or as though there weren't. So she is staking her life on an answer that she says she doesn't have.

By the way, that is a wager — it just isn't the famous wager of Blaise Pascal. That's the 17th-century fellow who recommended in his Pensées that if we aren't sure about the Christian faith, we should place our bets on it being true. He pointed out that if you're right, you've won everything, and if you're wrong, you've lost nothing. You mention your friend's contempt for all this wagering. But she's placed a bet too, hasn't she? She's placed hers on Christianity not being true. Pascal would have pointed out that if she's right, she's gained nothing, and if she's wrong, she's lost everything.

I don't think a wager is the same as having faith, and I don't think Pascal thought so either. But I'll say this for Pascal. Living as though there were no God will keep you from finding God, and in the end it will keep you from finding your humanity, for man is God's image. The best advice I can give to the person who wants to get past mere wagering and find out whether Christianity is true is to live as though it were: To pray, to try to follow the law of love, to give up claims to self-ownership, and to say to Christ in darkness and silence, "If you are there, you can have me."

Peace be with you,
PROFESSOR THEOPHILUS

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THE LOVE PART

Dear Professor Theophilus:

Former youth pastor here (well, former youth group leader) with a former student leaving the faith. Here's what he says:

The God I believe in wouldn't eternally condemn billions of people just because they detest Christianity. The God I believe in loves his creation too much to let terrible people who call themselves followers of God go to heaven and amazing people that respect themselves and love others more than most but don't buy this Christianity business burn in hell. The God I believe in will allow me to enter his kingdom (assuming there is one) simply because I'm trying to make the most of this life.

Jesus did exist. A widely known motif in his teachings was to "love one another," the rest is up for interpretation. I happen to believe him, and although I don't believe there is any way to know exactly what he said and when, I do believe what I am certain of — love.

What do you think about all of this?

Reply

Well, your student has some things right. What worries me is his misrepresentation of the faith that he's leaving. This raises questions about his motives.

First, he must know that it's not a Christian teaching that "terrible people who call themselves followers of God go to heaven." If he doesn't, then his former teachers have a lot to answer for — not you, I hope! "Terrible people who call themselves followers of God" are hypocrites. Hypocrites, says Jesus, will be put in the place where men weep and gnash their teeth (Matthew 24:51). That's not too abstruse, is it?

Second, he ought to know that it's not a Christian teaching that people who love their neighbors as themselves, and who seek God with all their hearts, are preordained for hell. I don't want to be misunderstood, for surely there is no salvation apart from the grace of God through Jesus Christ. But what did Christ teach about that grace? He taught that those who truly seek will truly find (Matthew 7:7-8). That means that they will truly find Him. How God works this out, we don't know; different Christians hold different beliefs about the matter. That isn't our business; it's His. We do know that He wants us to spread the Gospel, and that's enough.

Third, there is an awful lot of slippage in this fellow's standards of what it means to love our neighbors as ourselves and to seek God with all our hearts. What he actually talks about is loving others "more than most" — which isn't much, is it? That's why, when he speaks about "respecting himself," I can't help but wonder whether he really means loving himself more than his neighbors. As to the place where he praises himself for "trying to make the most of this life" — why do I suspect that he's really talking about not seeking God with all his heart?

God is love (1 John 4:8,16); but the fact that God is love doesn't justify a vague, wishy-washy ethic of a love that refuses to be pinned down. We need the knowledge of what love is, which your student admits that he doesn't have; we need to exercise the power of love, which none of us can work up from our own meager hearts without grace; and we need forgiveness for our lapses from love, which can come only through the Supreme Love of the God who was nailed to the Cross.

What was it that we were we saying in the previous letter about people who "want to show that they can be Christians without Christ"?

Peace be with you,
PROFESSOR THEOPHILUS

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If you have a question you'd like Professor Theophilus to consider for this column, please send it to asktheo@trueu.org. Please note, all questions that are selected for "Ask Theophilus" may be edited for clarity and privacy and become the property of Focus on the Family.