Why Bother with God?
I was once what you might call an apatheist. Whereas atheists are often committed to denying God’s existence, and Christians expend their energy defending Him, apatheists are relatively happy to keep the God question at arm’s length. As a youngster, I simply didn’t understand the relevance of the Christian story, especially given that my life was going along fine without God. I guess no one had ever given me a serious reason why I should bother with God.
That I did not know any serious reasons at the time, though, does not mean there are none.
Having become a Christian I am now aware of a bunch of good reasons to rethink my former apatheism, and if I could go back in time to talk with my teenage self, here is how I might encourage someone to take a fresh look at God and the Christian story.
First, contra the misconception that Christianity is a primitive myth for the intellectually bankrupt, I have found that God and the Christian story make surprising sense of everything we see in the world. Consider the deep questions that are an inescapable part of our human experience: Why is there something rather than nothing? What accounts for the rational order of the universe? Who are we as human beings? Why are we here? From what spring does our consciousness and free will originate? Why is right, right, and wrong, wrong?
Without stifling scientific enquiry into any of these questions, the Christian story provides the foundational answer that behind the material universe lies an eternal mind and that human beings are purposefully made in the image of God. Parsing out these two realities makes surprising sense of the deep features of our human experience. On a secular register, though, many of the richest parts of the universe we observe and of who we are remain either unexplained or far worse, are explained away as nothing more than illusions.
This surprising explanatory power of God and the Christian story is what prompted C.S. Lewis, having converted from atheism to Christianity, to pen these insightful words:
“I believe in Christianity as I believe the sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”
In effect, Lewis argues that beyond the direct evidence for the truth of Christianity, you should take the Christian story seriously because of the way it sheds light upon the landscape of reality. Perhaps this is one feature of what Jesus meant by his claim to be the light of the world (John 8:12).
A second reason to rethink apatheism is that, if the Christian story is true, then only Jesus offers the cure for our terminal human condition. It is no secret that there is something seriously wrong with the world. Simply scrolling through our newsfeed is all the evidence we need to know that the train of this world has left the tracks. And whereas every big story, religious or secular, tries to diagnose the fundamental problem, the Christian story offers a unique answer.
According to Jesus, the heart of the human problem is the problem with the human heart. That having been created for good by God—to love God and love others—we have all become damaged by evil. To steal a phrase from Alexander Solzhenitsyn, when we look deep inside we discover that the dividing line of good and evil passes through every human heart, such that none of us are wholly innocent. The tragedy of this fall, from who we were meant to be to who we are, and the fallout of our collective failure, is seen in the very real suffering that now permeates our planet. And as much as we might feel fine right now—untouched by the symptoms of suffering and despair—Jesus’ prognosis is that our evil is terminal. Sin leads inescapably to death, and judgment thereafter.
This language about judgment can sound heavy, and no doubt it should. But it is in the context of being totally seen, warts and all, that we discover just how loved we truly are by God. For when we were indifferent towards God, even when we were hostile, God demonstrated the depths of His love for us by doing something to save us from our sin and the judgment we deserve. At the very heart of human history lies the cross of Jesus Christ, where through His own agonising death, Jesus purchased atonement for our sin, opening up the door for reconciliation with God. And through His subsequent resurrection from the dead, Jesus extended the only cure for our terminal condition by offering us resurrection into eternal life with God in the new creation to come.
A huge reason why you should care about investigating God and the Christian story is that, if Christianity is true, then eternity is quite literally on the line. Nothing else could be more relevant. Nothing else could possibly matter more. And I simply cannot imagine hearing that someone would suffer and die for me in order to procure the antidote to my terminal condition without doing something to express my profound gratitude. To not feel indebted to that kind of courageous sacrifice would only further expose that there is something seriously wrong with my own heart.
One final reason to rethink apatheism is that God is far better than anyone or anything else that we have. Again, if the Christian is true, then you and I were made for a relationship with God, such that the deepest contours of our human nature long for intimacy with our Creator.
The book of Ecclesiastes in the Old Testament explores the insights of a kingly figure who, like many in our world, tries to fill that God shaped hole with someone or something else. He recounts his extensive romantic and sexual exploits (women), the vast projects he undertook (work), the riches he accumulated (wealth), and the pragmatic insight he acquired (wisdom), but in the end his conclusion was that none of it ultimately satisfies. If this is all there is to life, where in a godless universe death will simply wash our existence away, then anything we do is a chasing after the wind. Everything is meaningless. Nothing ultimately satisfies.
When Jesus turns up on the stage of planet earth he describes Himself as the bread of life (John 6:35) and as living water (John 4:14). God and God alone can satisfy these deep soul hungers that are at the core of who we are, which is why Jesus spoke of Himself as coming to offer us life to the full (John 10:10), infusing meaning and beauty into all of life in a way that cannot be robbed from us the way something or someone else can.
