Proofs for God

In the face of a new breed of books on atheism, most notably "God is not Great: How religion poisons everything" by Christopher Hitchens and the "God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins - we, as Christians need to hear again the words of Scripture:

"Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, but in your hearts reverence Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to make a defense to any one who calls you to account for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and reverence; and keep your conscience clear, so that, when you are abused, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame." (1 Peter 3:14-16)

And speaking of the most basic "defense," which is an apologetic for God, most of us can probably say with the writer-convert Andre Frossard "God exists, and I have experienced Him." That is our best defense, or even offense :)

And just like I can say "love exists," not primarily because of a series of argument, but because I "have experienced it," so I can witness to the experience of knowing God. This is what our Sharing Christ series is all about.

BUT. Ah, yes, the long-awaited "but." The Church (the visible communion of those who believe in Jesus Christ) has always valued "reason." So recently I came across a great video by Fr. Robert Barron, a most excellent priest and teacher of the faith whom I had the pleasure of podcast-interviewing him last year, who gives a great series of arguments from reason for God's existence. Its one clip from a series of fifty clips on Christianity called Faith Clips. Enjoy!

The Meaning of Life

Wow, what a grandiose title! The Meaning of Life. Well, this was the title of the first talk of ChristLife's Discovering Christ course, which we kicked off last night for about 60 young adults (18-32) at St. Agnes, in Catonsville, MD.

Having experienced it at his parish, Fr. Erik Arnold, a ChristLife board member, sums up the course in our upcoming newsletter:

This new course is designed to bring men and women into an encounter with Christ and the Church through teaching, fellowship and prayer together. Over the course of six weeks participants hear solid teaching that proclaims the heart of the Gospel message, inviting them to reflect and respond in a small group of friends that offers support and encouragement over the six weeks. Each evening begins with dinner together, followed by a teaching and then a chance to meet together in small groups. While the dynamic seems simple, something special begins to happen over the course of the six weeks as hearts begin to open, friendships develop and people begin to see and experience Jesus in a different way than they had before.

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Back to the meaning of life. I was reading the Intentional Disciples blog today and in it the blogger speaks about how atheistic / agnostic the Northwest is - especially Seattle. She gives an excerpt from an unbeliever journalist writing in The Stranger-

Last week, 850 people packed Town Hall to hear a presentation by Christopher Hitchens, in town to promote his new book, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, which was number one on the New York Times nonfiction bestseller list. Hitchens's stance in favor of war in Iraq has made him a polarizing figure among your standard-issue Seattle lefty crowd, but Town Hall was bursting with people ready to embrace the message that religion is a "Bronze Age myth."

"This stuff," Hitchens said, referring to religion, "is not to be believed." And the crowd roared.

Hitchens's argument—posed to a fully complicit choir, admittedly—was made all the more compelling because no one answered the call to debate the author about the existence of a god or the validity of religion. Seattle could not produce one radical Fundamentalist, sober moderate, or disinterested scholar to stand for the holy side. That's telling (we're the only city that has failed to meet Hitchens's challenge to debate all comers), but it's not what made the event resonate.

That is sad. I guess part of me would love to go visit this guy's little atheist rallies - to offer a challenge - but I realized that "God" is not a subject to be disproved or proved. We cannot put the first cause, the Creator, the Good, the supernatural, to the test under our natural laboratory conditions - any more than we can prove or disprove the existence of "love" - unless we look at what surrounds it.

Love is one of the most powerful principles in all of humanity. If we don't live to love others and to receive love - we are less than human - as John Paul II reminded us. And as 1 John tells us - God is love!

And He is so beyond the "tests" we put him under. Last night I read the Gospel where the Pharisees come to Jesus and ask, "Teacher, is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?" And Jesus "aware of their malice" responds, "Why put me to the test, you hypocrites? ... And he said to them "Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's." When they heard it, the marveled; and they left him and went away (Matt 22).

Jesus' logic was so beyond them. It reminds of something CS Lewis said (and I paraphrase) - the questions we ask God are so limited in view of his super-rationality - that often our questions, or prayers are like asking God "is a square, orange or red?" What!? Exactly - it makes no sense. And the Pharisees of today - come to put the King of Kings to the test and they miss the whole point.

God is real to me in a myriad of ways- in the laugh of a little child, in the wonder of nature that surrounds me, in the dedicated witness of Christians who live for the sake of selfless love, in the beauty of the message and coming of Jesus, in the consecration of the body and blood of Christ, in the sacrament of God's love and reconciliation, in the hundreds of saints and biblical characters that lived their lives in extraordinary ways, and in my conscience.

"For the love of Christ urges us on, because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died." (1 Cor 5:14)

Father, Creator of the whole world, Jesus, Word of life, and Spirit, Giver of Life - convince us even further of this love - and help our lives to be a continual offering of love for this broken world. Amen

Got God?

First, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Chad and i'm on staff here at Christlife as an intern for the 2006-2007 school year. As a student at UMBC I was fascinated by the fact that this week is "athiesm week" and last night's event was a forum where religious topics could be addressed in a safe environment. This event led me to some interesting considerations about what makes people athiests vs. believers. I have find that some athiests (not all!) have an intense aversion to religion. There seems to be something utterly hateful that they find in the lives of faith. Now, what I'm about to say must be read very carefully as it will come across rather condemningly either.

I often wonder if people who reject God have an intense fear or repentence. I only say this because in my own experience, the times that I feel furthest from God are the times when I really don't feel like repenting. However, when I can be brought to that point of inner surrender to God's will, I come to see that my fears were imaginary, and that the God of love is unimaginably more powerful than my greatest fears. And so, my spiritual life seems to be a roller coaster ride of learning to die to myself... learning to let that wretched part (the part that, for reasons I can't explain, simply loves darkness) of me die and only through this type of death to I find freedom in the life of God through Christ. Why Christ? Because I see in him the fulfillment of every human need given by God: love, intimacy, truth etc... I'm sure there's so much more to be discovered in knowing and loving Christ, but I am still towards the beginning of my journey (and I imagine will be until I die).

So anyways, about athiesm.... I wonder if in some cases people are so possessed (however you want to interpret that) by a spirit of fear that they have lost sight of the awesome glory and power of God's love. I remember reading Conversion by Malcolm Muggeridge, who, in recalling being rescued from suicidal despair wrote,

"Suddenly, without thinking or deciding, I started swimming back to shore . . . I shouted foolishly for help, and kept my eyes fixed on the lights of Peter's Cafe and the Costa da Sol. They were the lights of the world; they were the lights of my home, my habitat, where I belonged. I must reach them. There followed an overwhelming joy such as I had never experienced before; an ecstasy. In some mysterious way it became clear to me that there was no darkness, only the possibility of losing sight of a light which shone eternally; . . . that our sufferings, our affliction, are part of a drama - an essential, even an ecstatic part - endlessly revolving around the two great propositions of good and evil, of light and darkness. A brief interlude, an incarnation, reaching back into the beginning of time, and forward into an ultimate fulfilment in the universal spirit of love which informs, animates, illuminates all creation, from the tiniest particle of insentient matter to the radiance of God's very throne . . . Though I scarcely realised it at the time and subsequently only very slowly and dimly, this episode represented for me one of those deep changes which take place in our lives; as, for instance, in adolescence, only more drastic and fundamental. A kind of spiritual adolescence, whereby, thenceforth, all my values and pursuits and hopes were going to undergo a total transformation - from the carnal towards the spiritual; from the immediate, the now, towards the everlasting, the eternal. In a tiny dark dungeon of the ego, chained and manacled, I had glimpsed a glimmer of light . . ."