“A Faith that Drives me to Intellectually Know God” (Part Two)

One of the world’s leading atheist by the name of Richard Dawkins states “There are two ways of looking at the world: through faith and superstition or through the rigors of logic, observation, and evidence, in other words through reason.” Many individuals within our world have adopted this cognitive pattern of thinking, but the dilemma of such thought process warrants an examination as we explore its burden of claim against the claim of the Holy Divine Scriptures, which does not support such a belief system. When we explore the biblical faith, we discover that it is only achieved through an active trust in the authority of the divine word that has been spoken by God within the holy scriptures also followed by actions of obedience congruent with these scriptures. In other words, faith is an act of self-will freely chosen by the individual rather than a forced act of God. I must take a minute to examine what is this “active trust” and how it is manifested in someone’s life. There is a disconnect between humanity and God because there is no respect for God which removes any desire to gain relationship and knowledge of him. Whomever you desire relationship with is to whom you render much respect to.

Proverbs 9:10 “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.” (NIV)

1 Peter 3:15 “But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear.” (KJV)

When we examine 1 Peter 3:15, it is within this scripture that we obtain our command and enablement of practicing apologetics, which literally means “to give a defense”. The apostle Peter encourages the Christian disciples to be in a position of fortification for the faith through affirming, legitimizing, rationalizing, and mitigating your claim of believing that God is who he says he is and justifying that Jesus did arise from the grave, which is known as the Gospel. Simply put, Peter was encouraging all who lay claim to be a Christian to be ready to prove your faith with an explanation that is vindicated with evidence to support why you believe what you believe in your claim of who God is and his existence. No one individual can ever truly give a full explanation of a perfected being because even our best comprehensive definition of God will still be lacking because our interpretation is the result of a fallen imperfect understanding which is only attempting to explain what they have never physically seen, which is an action of faith. Now, this does not negate the argument for proving God but rather is more of a reason for why we can prove God. I believe that anybody who claims that no one can prove God is only making a weak argument. Why? Consider this, there has never been anything within the human history that has been “absolutely, perfectly” proven, but rather has been resolved or drawn conclusively by proof gained through cumulative data-gathered methodology. Such data or evidence is gained through corroborated personal testimonies whether eye witness experiences or word of mouth, and information gathered from concrete evidence.

Now, we must remember all gained evidence is the effect of a cause which we are seeking answers for through a scientific method of reasoning from effect to cause. In all of this being said, it is still an imperfect individual who is gathering all evidence and collaborative data to solve anything, which means that even the most conclusive evidence is still lacking something although it may identify concrete evidence that provides irrefutable proof for something. We live our everyday life searching for cause in all we do because we are living in a continuous effect of something greater. This question that beckons an answer is, “What is the cause?” Why does this search for cause dissipate when the atheists or unbelievers say that God does not exist because you can’t prove him?

When I personally consider God, I understand him to be the perfected moral, infinite-eternal, relational, first-cause of being whose causation is uncaused, thereby, resulting in his full explanation of his eternal essence of being to only be intrinsic of his own existence. Who can understand that? Let me put it this way, you will not find such a being through the lens of a materialistic worldview, or through any other worldview that seeks to fulfill self-pleasure and personal convenience. We cannot fully seek to prove God as we do through a mathematical equation or such, but rather we can prove his existence through exploring the evidence. This is also where a “seeing faith” comes into action as I explained in my previous blog. This type of faith is through an earnest pursuit of seeking God out to understand him better. God is not some form of superstitious mystical imaginative being who will grant your wish as some individuals would like to consider as Richard Dawkins dare to describe him to be. This fantasy thinking pattern is what many individuals today attempt to make God to be. If you are truly seeking God, I implore you to consider the evidence from diverse categories such as discoveries in quantum physics, complexity of the human genome code, intelligent design of the universe, grandeur of the cosmology, fixed laws of nature, etc. Remember, all these different categories of discoveries are the effect of a greater cause which can be examined through scientific methodology, philosophical reasoning, experiential testimonies, theological reasoning, and other empirical methods. Now, it is imperative for us to understand that God does not want us to be ignorant of who he is and his existence.

Jeremiah 29:13 “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” (NIV)

Among all these great creations of God, his masterpiece is humanity whom he desires relationship with. God desires relationship with us because he loves humanity and made us peculiar from all other creation. Many individuals do not understand God or his love for us; therefore, they perceive his love to be negligent of grace which is interpreted as assault, they examine his sovereignty without mercy which feels like tyranny, and considers his justice to be lacking mercy which they identify as persecution. Sadly, when most people think of God this is the description of who they consider God to be. I would challenge you to attempt to cognitively-reframe this psychology of God because he is the absolute fulfillment of all perfection and full glory. God is perfect, which means that he is without any potential or flaw. He is the absolute actualization of full perfection which means that his love is perfect, his justice is perfect, his anger is perfect, and his forgiveness is perfect. We see the full divine expression of these perfected attributes at the cross through the son, Jesus Christ. I dare you to take a look at the cross and explore the details of Jesus Christ’s life and his crucifixion. I challenge you to investigate his fulfilled perfected example he lived and modeled for all humanity, his divine purpose accomplished at Calvary, the love that caused him to die for all humanity, the conspiracy of those who plotted his murder against him, the political plot of the governor to crucify Jesus for personal political motives, the betrayal of his own friend, and the forgiveness he rendered to his persecutors during the climax of his own death sentence as he hung on the cross. I encourage you to read Matthew 27 within the bible, and explore the Passion narrative of who Jesus was and what he did for all humanity to save such a sinner as me and you. This will identify the true understanding of God’s character which is perfected love. God is love.

References

Richard Dawkins, Enemies of Reason: Episode 1 (0:53), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyQ57X3YhH4&list=P-
L64A19417DAFD7BDA&index=1