Evaluating Pastor Paul Washer’s Advice To Doubters

 

Advice for the “person who wants to believe, but they don’t, or are trying and they can’t.”

In this video Paul Washer says,

“True faith is not the elimination or removal of all doubt.”

This is considered by Paul Washer as a reliable approach to the truth claims of Christianity. Faith, or a desire to believe, is the recommended pathway to the truth. Now, let’s think this through a bit more. If true faith is not the elimination or removal of all doubt, is this then as a result setting one up to make a decision that isn’t sufficiently objective in nature?

In other words we have 1) The truth claims of Christianity being met with 2) A form of belief and/or faith that need not be arrived at in an objective manner. It can derive simply from some stated desire for Christianity to be true. Does this seem like a fair representation?

“Faith and repentance are both Christian virtues, now like all virtue they are subject to sanctification.”

What this appears to be implying is that a “faith approach” to the truth claims of Christianity just needs to start somewhere with something, namely, a desire to believe. From there sanctification is assumed to strengthen one’s belief over time.

Now, I have another relevant yet challenging question. Is this idea of sanctification arrived at objectively? If not, we can consider this belief to be an additional assumption that is arrived at subjectively. So, now we have the idea of exercising faith and assuming a process of sanctification as the recommended approach to the truth claims of Christianity.

Does this approach convey any potential for being logically problematic? Is this a reliable way to arrive at the truth? I’ll let my readers ponder that for themselves.

“The fact that you are now desiring God and wanting to know God is evidence that God is already at work in you. And He who began a good work in you will finish it.”

In response to this it can be asked, Pastor Paul, does one’s desire to believe and know a God truly make it evident that this God exists and is at work within people? So, with that reasoning, if one is desiring to believe and know one of the Hindu gods, is this evidence that one or more of the Hindu gods are at work behind the scenes? In the end, would Pastor Paul be willing to apply this standard outside of a Christian context? If not, perhaps this logic is more likely faulty and should be avoided?

“If you find that there is a desire to seek the Lord genuinely within you, He is already at work in you.”

Again, is this being offered by Pastor Paul from a place of objectivity or subjectivity? Which is more likely in this instance?

“It’s your prerogative to seek Him, (God), but it is His prerogative, when He decides, to be found.”

Now here’s another important question to add into the mix. Going by this logic, is it then up to each seeker of God to subjectively decide the moment at which they have found God? At which God decides to be found by them?

It needs to be asked, if this is the case, is this a reliable standard by which to arrive at the truth? It seems that people give many different subjective descriptions of what their so called “God moment” is or was. I’m brought to wonder, is this a way to discover truth or is this a way to cultivate and enhance belief out of some meaningful subjective experience or experiences?

“Where you are right now, with what you can believe Him, and how you can, follow Him, just, with whatever you have, keep going on, keep going on, keep going on, He’ll make Himself known to you.”

At this point, any objective seeker of the truth deserves to ask, how? How is this not potentially a recipe for erroneous thinking and belief? It’s a worthy question because the bar appears to be set rather low in this instance. Whatever one’s subjective experience of God becomes, no need to question. Latch on! The assumption is, “that’s God! That’s His voice, that’s His answer!” “That moment you had during worship, don’t forget that. That moment you were overwhelmed with feelings of hope and love, don’t forget that. Pick the mountain top moment, pick the heightened emotional experience, call it God and rest in faith. Rest in assurance. It’s more real than anything.” Well, maybe, maybe not, right?

“If you desire to be saved, you can be.”

Finally, I think I would slightly agree, however, the question is not whether one can become convinced that they are saved. That happens a lot. Especially with the type of questionable reasoning we’ve been examining here. The question is whether this is the reality of what is going on when people approach the claims of Christianity in this way? Are we encountering an approach to the truth that relies more or less on objectivity? What is the price that one pays in doing so? It’s a valid question, a valid question indeed.

My conclusion is that there is no issue or problem at all if one experiences doubt towards the truth claims of Christianity. In the larger scheme of things it’s good to ask, “Is Christianity guilty or not guilty of offering truth claims that can be arrived at objectively in the world? In my recent conversations with other Christians, most of them would agree with a ruling of “not guilty.”

I think that’s quite a significant admission. It means that people are arriving at their belief that Christianity is reliable, subjectively, rather than objectively. It’s a gamble. Well, if it is a gamble and a question mark on whether Christianity is true, is anyone really at fault for doubting? Perhaps in a case like that, this God would want to consider rewarding those who doubt? We are after all attempting to be cautious about how to best arrive at true beliefs.

Do we doubters and skeptics deserve a little credit? I guess we’ll find out sooner or later.

 

Why All The Doubting Believers?

People who honestly put it out there that they disbelieve in a God’s existence are not the only one’s plagued with uncertainty. Christians of all backgrounds are filled with doubts about their beliefs. Evidence for this is not hard to come by as many Pastor’s and their congregants admit this within their prayers and their musings on an almost daily basis.

There’s a common prayer extracted from the New Testament, “Lord, I believe, help my unbelief.” For whatever reasons, and the justifications are often varied, Christians insist that their beliefs are true and that it isn’t necessary for them to provide reasons that would seem to speak to the legitimacy and reliability of their position.

There are many important fronts where faith is unable to distinguish itself from myth. In example, the teaching that Christian conversion is a supernatural event wherein the living God now resides within a person’s heart for the first time, is a belief largely taken on faith alone.

It is recognized that subjective feelings and experiences can fail the test. The test for what? The test for distinguishing God from our own intuitions. The other side of this argument which favors conversion as a supernatural event is that one could be entirely mistaken. One’s sense of guidance, confirmation, and intuition could be failing them due to an inability to actually know whether Christian claims are reliable.

Another avenue that provides little certainty is whether there is actually any agency and guidance behind people’s prayers? Certainly many sincere Christians have some measure of confidence that something or someone is at work behind the scenes but how well supported is this notion? It remains an ongoing in house debate as to whether a God’s handiwork can be deciphered from mere coincidence and the way events unfold with or without prayer as the common variable.

Miracle claims and claims of healing, almost as a rule, are met with a lot of skepticism within many Christian circles. The Charismatic movement appears to be riddled with false claims and a lack of discernment as to how to establish legitimacy. The examples go on and on.

What this may indicate is that many Christians handle their doubts in such a way that maintaining a belief in belief is the desired goal. Rather than believing Christian claims because the claims themselves can be understood as legitimate in their own right, it is now a prominent attitude to harbor a strong belief in belief itself.

This is because faith is very much stressed as a commitment. Just as marriage carries the common theme, “till death do we part,” belief in Jesus is handled quite like marriage is handled. The point I would stress is this, this approach to maintaining belief in God carries within itself the potential to be entirely mistaken.

This kind of approach toward truth claims doesn’t appear to be presenting itself as deeply concerned with whether or not Christianity can be known as true without a doubt. This is sometimes done knowingly, but often unknowingly. As a final clarification my phrasing, “without a doubt,” that I used above is not an unrealistic appeal to absolute certainty. It is an appeal to being able to adequately make a ruling in favor of Christian claims being able to be presented as true with a high degree of accuracy. “Without a doubt” is an appeal to being able to establish a claim as a known fact and ruling out falsehoods.

 

Christian Conversion: Part 1: Questioning Assumptions

There is a mindset, yes, dare I say it, a process of religious conversion that can be explained. Particularly, the supernatural language that is used within Christianity to incite and explain a conversion response. I am a person that has, as a rule, reevaluated many things about my own past.

In my attempt to be transparent and demonstrate how it is I believe that I was mistaken, and how many others today are likely mistaken, I have come to pinpoint as exactly as I can how it is that supernatural conversion can be explained naturally.

I write this to Christians who believe that they are born-again. Evangelical Christianity, especially, stresses this idea that becoming born-again is in fact a supernatural experience. It is quite literally thought of as God transforming the human heart. It is quite literally this idea that through the process of regeneration God is now, for the first time, residing within a person’s heart.

It is important to be able to extract a big assumption out of this. That assumption being that coming to Christ is without a doubt a supernaturally driven event? The point I’d like to stress with my Christian friends is this, it might not be. It truly, as a matter of serious evaluation might not be.

It may feel to us as a matter of deepest heartfelt longing and desire that it is God. God speaking to us, God moving us, God leading us, God transforming us from within, but whatever these feelings, these inklings, these intuitions are, it may in fact be all that they are.

We need to take note of this, we need to be aware of this. WE CAN BE MISTAKEN. Especially as it relates to seemingly supernatural phenomena. So it is that I now have a challenge for the Christian. How is it that you can reliably know for yourself that you have met the living God? Is it important for you to be able to discern this for yourself?

A problem that arises here, both for myself when I believed, the duration of that belief commitment being for ten years, and for those who still believe today, is that this is a bit of a Wizard Of Oz scenario. It appears that we have no idea who or what is behind the curtain, and this should be a matter of concern.

Based on some rather obscure miracle claims from thousands of years ago, we are willing to commit without knowing? To worship and adore without truly knowing whether there is a receiver of it? Even right now many are whispering to themselves, well, that’s the whole point of having faith.

I suppose that at least one is being honest in admitting that they won’t know the truth of these claims until they die, that is, if there even is a chance to know after death? The thing of it is that Christians aren’t taught to live silently. They are taught to spread this message to the world as gospel truth, and this is now where I have a valid contention with faith.

Faith acts as if it is true without knowing it is true. It heralds good news to the world without knowing in all actuality if it is legitimate. To any logician this should raise some red flags. So that’s why I’m now here, working in the trenches, attempting to make it clear just how presumptuous faith appears to be.

To state it plainly, it appears as if faith is all too willing to ignore the process in which we can legitimately come to know a set of claims as true. Like a broken record I tend to stress that there appears to be no valid way to establish whether miracles and claims of divinity are even reliable. This could be a logical disaster.

In part two of this blog post I will delve further into how Christian conversion can go on to be understood as a natural process. It involves concluding differently about basic assumptions and seeing how it plays out in reality. Stay tuned!

Is The Christian God Failing Us?

1) If the God of the Bible exists

2) And it is generally accepted that he wants the world to believe in him (1 Timothy 2:3-4, 2 Peter 3:9, Ezekiel 18:23, John 3:16-17).

3) Why is it that roughly two-thirds of the world, possibly more, lack the basic underlying assumptions needed to conceive of this God correctly?

4) Not only that, but why is it that even when many people are confronted with the Bible’s claims, they remain in a place of uncertainty and/or disbelief?

5) Would this be attributed to human choice or would it seem more evident that if this God exists he has failed to provide the means to bring the world into a correct understanding?

Thanks for your input. I’m trying to help all of the Apologists out there!

Reliability Isn’t Merely Assumed And Then Believed

Miracles, divinity, presence. Say it again with me, miracles, divinity, presence. These are three separate categories which would appear to incite skepticism within many open but cautious inquirers into Christianity as well as into the world’s religions at large.

Contrary to what some folks may think I am actually quite ready, willing, and open to meet my maker if in fact it is accurate to think about my existence in those terms. I am not opposed to a good God existing, but I am also not in favor of giving credence to such beliefs if I cannot gain a reliable foundation from which to build certainty.

When I used to identify as a devoted Christian I was under the mistaken impression that doubt was a terrible trap to fall into for too long. It took a little time for me to adjust to the fact that being skeptical is yet another useful tool in the arsenal for discovering and highlighting what is true.

As it pertains to claims about miracles, the divinity of Jesus, as well as the idea that God is present, more specifically, in the form of the Holy Spirit residing within a person, it would appear that there are good grounds to question whether there is sufficient reason to believe that these claims are inherently reliable.

What makes this project challenging is that I am presenting a case for the Christian to reevaluate how he or she is presently building their own foundation for sufficient certainty. My argument is that Christians do not have sufficient means from which to conclude that miracles, divinity, and presence are reliable avenues from which to gain certainty. I would equate gaining a sense of certainty to forming a belief that Christian claims are in some way reliable.

I will first focus on the nature of these claims and what they appear to require from the Christian in order to solidify belief. From the very onset Christianity requires assumptions that are not necessarily legitimate to accept as it relates to making a solid case for inherent reliability.

Miracles

• At most it would seem that one can only assume that miracle claims are inherently reliable. Assuming that a historical Jesus literally turned water into wine, walked on water, and rose from the dead is not a clear indicator that he actually did. The question remains, would beginning with this assumption actually merit a belief that such claims can be understood as reliable? This brings into question whether gaining a sense of confidence about this issue is warranted in light of an inability to discern what is factual?

Divinity

• At most it would appear that one can only assume that Jesus was divine by accepting Christian doctrine. This does not establish whether he was actually divine. Again, this brings into question what is actually contributing to one’s belief that such claims are even reliable to accept in the first place? How is the Christian bridging the gap between the assumed reliability of this claim, a form of reliability that cannot be guaranteed, and their belief that it is in fact true? Assuming reliability does not actually show that the claim that Jesus was divine is legitimate in its essence. If not even the Christian can gain insight into the inherent reliability of the claim that Jesus was God, what exactly does a Christian understand as their own source of assurance? What rests at the foundation for properly forming one’s beliefs?

Presence

• Let’s narrow in on the claim that a Holy Spirit resides within a person. How is it that a Christian gains certitude about the reliability of this claim? Could it be just as likely that a Holy Spirit does not reside within a believer? That it may not even exist? How would one attempt to discern the difference? How does one evaluate and conclude that such a claim is trustworthy?

It is fair to note that not everyone thinks in the same way. That being said, I am trying to honestly inquire into how an assumption about the inherent reliability of miracles, divinity, and the presence of God in one’s life leads to a sense of assurance? My honest evaluation is that this appears inconsistent. In other words, it appears insufficient and not well supported given what can be known about these matters. I don’t see how assuming reliability should further lead into a belief that these claims have shown themselves to be legitimate in their essence, especially as it relates to these three very questionable categories.

Are You Sure About Your Christian Beliefs?

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I find this to be an intensely interesting inquiry into trying to understand the essence of one’s confidence as it relates to miracle claims, claims that someone is/was divine, or even that a Holy Spirit is thought to somehow reside within a person. How is it that one gains and remains in a state of assurance, trust, or certitude about the assumed reliability of the claims I mentioned above? 

Let’s just narrow in on the claim that a Holy Spirit resides within a person. How is it that a Christian gains certitude about the reliability of this claim? Could it be just as likely that a Holy Spirit does not reside within you? How would one attempt to discern the difference? How does one evaluate and conclude that such a claim is trustworthy?

Faith And Not Knowing, A Call To The Carpet

 

 

The number one reason I remain so vocal about the problems within faith-based thinking is because I am deeply concerned about intellectual honesty. It pains me to see people being closed off to total transparency. It is by far the worst way to represent what is true.

Is it unfair to call faith a lack of total transparency? I want my readers to be the judge. Though one may be completely honest about the fact that they have a high amount of confidence in faith-based claims the other side of this coin is where I would like to focus.

The other side of faith-based thinking is the fact that it is an inherently ignorant position. I am not hurling this as an insult, I am saying that inherent within a faith-based point of view is the fact that believers don’t know what actually happened in the past.

Muslims don’t know whether their prophet Muhammad flew to heaven on a winged horse and Christians have no idea whether Jesus actually rose from the dead. How this builds up people in their faith, I’m not sure.

That’s one big “if” and it doesn’t stop there. As far as I can humanly discern, and many believers would back me up, people are inherently ignorant as to whether a God actually exists. What this means is that faith involves leaning into what we don’t know. There is a very real possibility that a God is not behind the scenes.

People must see this and admit this in light of what they don’t know. There isn’t seventy-five percent certainty or ninety-five percent certainty, we either know that a God exists or we don’t. The rest is intuition. Now, just envision the world we live in. Envision the billions of people who don’t intuit the same religious beliefs you have, ask yourself, really ask yourself what gives you the better edge on what is true?

Is it the eloquence of your own teachers and philosophers? Is this how belief without knowledge gets justified? This is calling faith to the carpet and I am fairly and legitimately asking my audience to try to pinpoint for themselves what makes intuition without proper knowledge of miracles and invisible beings reliable?

Within your own system of thinking and forming beliefs what is it exactly that makes faith a reliable avenue to discern between true and false miracles or true and false God beliefs?

I’d like to provide a list of how this species of ignorance is affecting people of faith everywhere.

Faith worships what it doesn’t know

Faith prays to who or what it doesn’t know

Faith obeys and loves what it doesn’t know

Faith assumes that miracle claims are reliable

Faith claims to know the mind of God, if there even is one?

Faith claims to have the correct revelation without a built in mechanism to demonstrate the falsehood of competing religious claims

Faith, as a form of intuition, often claims that it stands as evidence for God all by itself. In other words, faith claims to be getting a read from God all the while not actually knowing it

Faith often sees itself as immune from the kind of mistakes that other religions clearly make

Faith, as a set of beliefs is often highly resistant to being revised or discarded in light of opposing evidence

Faith is viewed as a virtue without being able to produce evidence of its object

 

At the end of the day we need to ask ourselves this question, “does ignorance merit belief?” There’s a price to pay for this intellectually and it looks like this.

Earlier I purposely brought up the Islamic miracle of Muhammad flying to heaven on a winged horse and the Christian miracle of Jesus rising from the dead. I set these two miracle claims side by side.

I did this because somehow it is okay for people within either religion to believe in their specific miracle claims without even knowing whether they actually took place. Then, on top of that it is somehow justified to make a call on which miracles from other religions are mythical and didn’t take place.  

People argue for the resurrection by saying, “with God all things are possible.” Well, then what reason has the Christian to negate the possibility that Muhammad flew to heaven on a winged horse to receive instruction from Allah? From an outsider looking in it would appear that the only mechanism being used to determine the truthfulness of one claim and the falsehood of the other is which religion one is more predisposed to believe in.

Faith is unable to separate supposedly true claims from supposedly false claims and this is why it is an unreliable avenue from which to determine what is true.

The Unifying Element Between Faith And Skepticism

A significant unifying element between faith and skepticism, between belief and unbelief, is that both parties in this debate DO NOT ACTUALLY KNOW THAT A GOD EXISTS. A minority of believing Christians and people of other faith’s do claim to know to some degree or another that God exists, but I estimate that this is not representative of a large majority of people who believe in the existence of God.

I think that this common element is quite telling. The honest answer for so many people all over the world is that WE DO NOT FUNDAMENTALLY KNOW IF GOD EXISTS. If God isn’t a person that we can get to know and relate with, THEN WHY CALL GOD A PERSON? We don’t know God like we know other persons, the personhood of God becomes indistinguishable from an abstraction. An abstraction that looks like this.

Many Christians, Muslims, and Jews do view their devotional lives as an interaction with God on some level, but this is a transaction between God and people that is entirely done in faith.

It is being done in a Hebrews 11:1 fashion.

“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”

People are praying to God, reading their Scriptures, writing in their journals, and living in their communities with a deep conviction that God is leading them and guiding them. I’m of the view that conviction and knowledge are two separate things. WE CAN HAVE A FIRM CONVICTION ABOUT ANYTHING AND STILL BE WRONG ABOUT IT. So it is that THE REWARD OF HAVING FAITH IS NOT THE SAME AS HAVING THE REWARD OF KNOWLEDGE AND RELIABLE EVIDENCE.

Take away the rewarding feelings that accompany faith, and what are these people left with? They are left with the admonition to act as if God exists without even knowing it. If you can’t act as if God exists, you won’t feel rewarded and it may be the beginning of a new search for a more reliable form of assurance.

It may bring one to recognize just how strange and peculiar it is to act as if they are in a relationship with God, without actually knowing it. I mean, think about it, isn’t this a most odd way to talk about a seemingly real relationship? Why must it be so, as in, why is this the normative or dominant way that people relate to God?

It’s as if a large black curtain rests between people and their God. Is He on the other side or not? God is believed to be behind the curtain pulling the strings. He is thought to be listening but He doesn’t talk back. He is thought to be present but He doesn’t put His hand on your shoulder. It is assumed that He loves us, but let’s be honest, feeling alone and waiting on God are sometimes one in the same.

Believers in God, of course, learn to accept this, and it even gets further explained as being a necessary component in the journey of faith. If we can keep acting as if God exists, things will get better in time. “Let patience have its perfect work.” There’s a reason for everything and “God knows those reasons.” “His thoughts are higher than your thoughts, and His ways are higher than your ways.”

These are promises, right? God will fulfill them later in life. Oh, but wait, that’s often too early. Don’t worry, God will show you His ultimate purpose for everything that happened, the good and the bad, the thick and the thin, and He’ll do this AFTER YOU DIE. For what is this life but a few fleeting moments to endure?

If we start acting like this existence is the only thing we truly know of for sure, our faith might be in trouble. “Don’t act like that, friend, remember the promises of God. These promises are reliable, you may not actually know that a God exists, but you can trust Him. He’s reliable. Just keep acting like He is there, He’ll reward you. Just wait and see.”

Faith is a very important component for believing in something without knowing it is true. My friends, just imagine yourself in a world where having faith is a foreign mindset. In other words, instead of advocating faith, most people just honestly respond, “I don’t know,” when asked if God exists.

It’s clear, straightforward, and upfront. It is acceptable for people to simply say, “I don’t know.” They say this without flinching and they instead structure their time and their lives around what can be known.

I say this because if God exists, and if it was evident that God exists, I suspect that there would be a lot more driving that hypothesis than culture. At this time in history it is still culturally normative to believe in God. In other words, it is still culturally normative to act as if God exists without knowing it.

GOD LIVES OR DIES WITH CULTURE, NOT WITH EVIDENCE. If God was evident the debate wouldn’t rage on as it does. Between Theists of all stripes people are arguing about which God or gods to believe in, and between Theists and those who are skeptical we’re still trying to establish if this being even exists. There’s two issues that I see.

1. If God exists, who could it be, and how many are there?

2. Does God even exist at all? Or will God die with the whims of what culture accepts as normative at the time?

Evidentially speaking, our world situation may well be what one could expect if religion is made up. Made up ideas tend to fall out of favor over time. Greek Mythology is outdated for a reason, am I right? So are many other ancient religions.

Believers of course are going to keep hedging their bets, they’ll say, “well, you can’t prove that God doesn’t exist.” Yes, they’re right about that, I can’t prove without a doubt that there is no God.

I can, however, make the point that 1) Most people, believers and skeptics, do not actually know that God exists. This is very much to the disadvantage of the believer because evidence can’t be used to put this matter to rest, only arguments in the form of wagers and alleged best guesses.

2) Without evidence that translates into knowledge, we are unable to differentiate the God of classical Theism from all other mythical beliefs. I don’t know about my readers but I find it highly important to separate myth from fact.

3) Since faith involves acting as if God exists without actually knowing it, it becomes apparent that truth isn’t the main objective of faith. After all, truth is able to be identified and bring people of vastly different viewpoints into agreement. Does belief in God work like this? I don’t know. Find me an apologist for Christianity, an apologist for Islam, and an apologist for Hinduism and let me know what they figure out?

If God isn’t known in this world in such a way that people from every culture can rally around the clearly known facts about this being, then what does this say about a God that is thought to intervene and make Himself known in the world? Why be so secretive? So hidden? Why keep billions of people guessing and erring about how to properly define and understand the most basic aspects about Him? Bear in mind, religions like Christianity and Islam attach very heavy penalties upon people for getting this information wrong.

Worshipping the wrong God, and even thinking about God in the wrong way isn’t taken too kindly by all three of the worlds largest Monotheistic religions. I am at the end of the day challenging how reliable “faith” is as a method for determining what is true? In my opinion, it breaks down, especially when trying to discern between fact and fiction.

Assurance? Are You Sure?

“The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children” -Romans 8:16

I am just one human being out of many. I certainly have not experienced all of the same things that other people have experienced, so why should I pick on the Christian? I pick on the Christian because I was one, yes, a very seriously devoted person for many years. This is also an opportunity for my Christian readers to be challenged in their perspectives. Living a life of faith is definitely a different way of dealing with knowledge and certainty. How should people deal with knowledge and certainty? We’ll return to this later.

This verse from Romans that I quoted above is precious to many believers. Believers of all stripes are convinced that the Holy Spirit dwells within them, just as it was thought to indwell Jesus and his earliest followers. For some folks it may bring to mind these words, “I will dwell in them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.” 2 Corinthians 6:16

When people talk as if a God is in their midst. When they have a mindset that the Holy Spirit dwells within them I am brought to wonder if it is the language itself that they are most taken in by? I mean, let’s be honest, this is the language of intimacy. It’s the language of having a close union with God. I know how people feel when they use this language. People feel as if God is truly present. Like he is right there in the room. Like he is speaking to their hearts.

My challenge for those who feel this way is to ask whether they can truly speak from a place of knowledge, or whether feelings are the primary driver of this vehicle? Feelings can be deceiving, but not only can feelings be deceiving, our sense of interpretation can be poor if we are looking for subtle signs of guidance. Navigating this inward terrain of feelings and little subtleties that seem like guidance could well be a form of self-deception. Such can be the nature of subjective experience.

This is a fair warning for those who are interested in what is true. Being fascinated and interested in what is true involves practicing discernment, especially introspective discernment. What you once thought was guidance from God could later be understood as an indiscernible pattern. It is fine to acknowledge it as such. We want to be cautious about what is true. We want to guard the truth and avoid error, at least this should be the goal.

So here I am, a former Christian, putting it out there for those who still believe. How is it that you can know the difference between God’s Spirit and your spirit? If it is thought that God is an inner witness, how are you to know whether this inner witness is God or just you? Please take your time and think carefully about this question.

There’s a whole spectrum within Christianity that ranges all the way from people who think God speaks to them just like another person is talking to them, all the way over to those who say that they take a passage like this by faith. They take it by faith because they don’t have this sense of the inner witness of God’s Spirit. They wouldn’t know how to begin to tell the difference between their own inner witness and God’s inner witness.

As an outsider looking in, who knows what it’s like to be on the inside, I’m more prone to think that those believers who admit that they wouldn’t know how to tell the difference between God’s witness and their own inner witness, are likely being the most intellectually honest.

It’s a mighty heavy burden to say that one undoubtedly knows the voice of God. It’s typically the more Charismatic Christians that think God is speaking to them in some form. The question remains, how introspective are such people? How discerning do they strive to be? Otherwise, they are at risk of exhibiting delusional thinking.

At the end of the day, a truth seeker should be willing to say, I could be wrong. I may need to change my mind about whether I can know that God is actually giving me clear assurances. About whether I know the difference between God’s inner witness and my own self?

To take this a little further, I think it would be refreshing to see more people admit that they are not even sure if God is there. For many it would be an intellectually honest admission that God’s presence and existence in their lives may be in question. There is no fear in this because what we all should strive to avoid is pretending to know things we don’t actually know.

This gets us into trouble and it sets us up for a hard fall. So how should Christians deal with knowledge and certainty? Can knowledge of God be so private and subjective that there is virtually no longer any room for discernment? Is this honest?

Should certainty relate to what we know? Knowing something, truly knowing something involves ruling out alternative explanations. Are people interested in knowing things clearly? Should this move them to a more objective approach in their understanding of knowledge and evidence?

The reason I changed my mind is because I didn’t want to fool myself anymore. What I thought was God’s assurance, presence, and guidance in my life, was not. I had to reason hard about what was going on in my own head. It was met with personal trials. Hitting rock bottom is often when one is encouraged the most to not give up on faith, however, that in itself may be a myth.

Faith is thought to bring many folks close to God, but please pay attention to the other side of the aisle. For many folks there comes a point where faith loses all meaning. It loses all relevance if assurance cannot be obtained. If an honest person cannot tell the difference between a real God intervening into their circumstances and simply having an affair with the language of the Bible, then at some point, talking like Jesus talks in the Gospels, or like Paul talked in his writings begins to lose its flavor entirely.

A thirst for the truth is a thirst for knowledge. It’s a thirst for discernment. It’s a thirst for reliable forms of assurance and certainty. When I speak about the nature of reality I want it to be known to my friends and readers that I take that very seriously. Whether I’m accountable to God or not, I am first accountable to myself.

The same should be true for everyone, if God created us, He didn’t bless us with a knowledge of himself in the same way we know ourselves. We know ourselves best and it is from there that we work outward by interacting with other people and the reality of the external world.

Does God exist? I can’t ever entirely rule that out but thus far my accountability to myself and the reality of the world around me doesn’t impress upon me that God is the best explanation. I’ve heard the explanation, I’ve interacted with it, I was a devoted Christian for many years. I spent many hours over the years both in prayer and devotion, and I am either an orphan of a real God that hasn’t impressed upon me a knowledge of himself, or I am a child of nature. The clearest information that I can gather is that I am a product of this universe.

I’ll leave my readers on a poetic note. I recently wrote this.

 

We are all orphans, but we are not…

We are orphans if we think God is our Father

We are children when we know nature as our Mother

It’s all about perspective, you see?

We are orphans if we pray to a Deity

We are children when we stand in awe of the universe

Not only are we children, we are a way in which the universe knows itself

 

We Should All Emulate Doubting Thomas

Somebody needs to redeem the phrase, “doubting Thomas.” I googled the definition and the first thing that came up said, “a person who is skeptical and refuses to believe something without proof.”

I think this is totally legitimate, in fact, such an attitude seems quite reasonable and worthy of respect. Particularly when we place this attitude within the context of an extraordinary claim.

Should we believe that someone saw the ghost of their dead Aunt just because they said so? Should we believe that someone saw an Angel just because they are totally convinced that they did?

A desire for evidence is wonderful. This is because good people, yes, even very smart people, can be mistaken. Richard Feynman has a great quote, he said, “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.” How can we best guard against deception and error? We need evidence. Good old fashioned hard evidence.This should be especially true in light of highly unlikely or extraordinary claims.

The further away in history that we get from an extraordinary claim, the harder it is to discern on good grounds whether it was a credible  event in history. This seems especially appropriate to bring up with regard to the resurrection of Jesus. I can’t tell anybody that it for sure didn’t happen, and I especially can’t tell anybody that it did.

This claim appears to be a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” issue. You’re damned if you do claim that a historical person named Jesus rose from the dead because miracles are highly unlikely, if not, virtually impossible to put forth as reliable. In the interest of guarding truth and avoiding error, miracles need to be redeemed from their reputation of being either totally unreliable or unknowable as an explanation.

You’re damned if you don’t think that Jesus rose from the dead primarily in the minds of many believers who are convinced. Their reasoning is such that a risen Jesus would seem to fit best with explaining why early Christianity seemed so unified and took off so quickly. Granted, I think we can all think of it as not improbable that early Christianity could have quickly formed and grew apart from Jesus resurrecting bodily.

I’m more inclined to side with the idea that miracles are highly improbable. Which means I’d venture to guess that Jesus died and is still dead to this day. Miracles should have to earn their place in the world of probable explanations. I put them in the least reliable category. Right along with those who claim to see ghosts and angels. Claiming a higher number of witnesses also doesn’t make it so.

It may be thought that there were many early witnesses, perhaps hundreds who claimed to have seen Jesus after his death, but jumping to conclusions about something as unlikely as a miracle may not be the most rewarding way to invest oneself, at least not with regard to best reflecting what is true.

Part of honoring what is true is to recognize when we can’t make a clear call on the truth of a matter. I would recommend to those who believe that the resurrection happened to not speak about it as if you know without a doubt that it is true. Truth as a concept deserves more respect than that. It deserves more weight than that.

People don’t know if a resurrection happened, they just know that they personally believe it. We all must decide what is most likely to trigger belief in the resurrection. Is there clearly good evidence that can aid us in that regard? Evidence that miracles can be put forth as reliable explanations?

This is for all of us to decide and as a reminder of what David Hume once said, “a wise man, therefore, proportions his belief to the evidence.” If by some extraordinary means the resurrection is true, doubting Thomas had just the right attitude. He withheld belief until the evidence presented itself. I’m inclined to think that this was the best way for even a Gospel narrative to present the merits of having a critical mind. Even if that wasn’t the overall goal of the story.