Faith Beyond Skepticism: The Reality of God's Existence

He said, "A man with an experience is never at the mercy of a man with an argument." And I was impressed by that, although I really didn't think deeply about it. And I thought back on that statement many, many times thereafter and gradually came to the realization that the statement really isn't all that sound, because even if we have an experience that is powerful and life transforming, that experience is still open to interpretation and to evaluation and to analysis. [00:00:14]

My conversion to Christianity was one of those Damascus Road affairs where it was sudden, it was dramatic, and in a sense catastrophic; not catastrophic in the negative sense, but catastrophic in the sense that it created a massive upheaval in my life. And I was so excited about my conversion to Christ that I went immediately and told every friend of mine, in fact, every person that I met. [00:01:27]

They said, "R.C., don't you see what has happened to you? What has happened to you is that you have come to religion because you needed some kind of crutch to assist you through life. You needed what Karl Marx had called 'the opiate for the masses,' some kind of bromide that would make the difficulties of your existence more bearable. And so, out of some deep rooted psychological need of one kind or another, you have entered into this religious experience." [00:03:01]

I found that one of the most disturbing and troubling questions that I had to grapple with as a young Christian. Because I knew that there was an element of truth contained to a point, at least, in the enquiry. I couldn't deny that I wanted my faith to be true. I couldn't deny that it would've been personally devastating for me to discover the next week or the next day that I had put my faith in Christ in vain. [00:04:41]

And that it was a requirement of this course that we would read the arguments of the atheists and then try to grapple with their particular assertions. Now one of the things came through very loudly and very clearly in that analysis. And that is that in virtually all of those philosophers whom I have mentioned, at one point or another they came to the conclusion that the reason why people believe in God is fundamentally driven by some psychological need. [00:07:16]

And I was interested particularly in nineteenth century philosophical thought. The eighteenth century had witnessed what was called in Germany the Aufklärung, "the Enlightenment," and one of the main precepts of the European Enlightenment was the principle espoused by the French encyclopedias who said that now with our advances in modern science, the God hypothesis is no longer a necessary hypothesis to explain the origin of the cosmos or the beginnings of human life. [00:08:12]

And so the question most of the able atheists of the 19th century were addressing was this question, "Since there is no God, why is it that man seems to be incurably homo religiosus?" Everywhere we go, whatever culture we examine, we find evidence and manifestation of some form of religious expression and religious belief that is deeply rooted in the culture. And it's not something that is limited to or contained within the confines of primitive ignorant people. [00:09:38]

Feuerbach, you know, he noticed, for example that no matter what culture he examined the cultural expressions of their religion tended to depict gods that looked like mirror images of the people themselves. That if they went to an aborigine native in Australia, their deity looked like an Australian aborigine who rode around in a canoe. If they went to an outpost in Alaska, they would find that their deity was described to look like an Eskimo. [00:12:00]

And Marx says the way, the twofold way that the wealthy control the masses are these. On the one hand, the wealthy control the legislation so that Lady Justice removes her blindfold, according to Marx, and the law begins to reflect the vested interest of the ruling classes. The law will discriminate against certain groups who are not empowered. He said that will happen. He said but the most important tool that the owner has to control the slave, that the rich have to control the poor, is the tool of religion. [00:14:17]

But the rudimentary principle is religion is the invention that comes out of some deep rooted psychological need. I don't need to labor that anymore, do I? I think we've all heard it enough. And I want to say this in response. When somebody is accused of a crime in our criminal justice system, it is the task of the prosecution to prove the charges against the accused. And part of the procedure in police work and so on is to discover motive, means, and opportunity. [00:16:59]

But when I'm pleading for in this brief message this evening is to understand two things. That just because man has the ability to invent God does not mean that that's how the idea of God came about. It's also more than possible that the reason why the world is incurably religious is because there is a God who has so clearly and manifestly demonstrated His existence to mankind that knowledge of Him is virtually inescapable. That's another alternative explanation. [00:19:39]

And now, what I am trying to say is the question of the existence of God can never be resolved on the basis of our psychology. That's a question that we have to deal with on other grounds, on grounds of objective philosophical argument, not on a basis of what my psychological disposition is or what your psychological disposition is. I have to say at the outset, "Yes, I want there to be a God, and if you're going to be honest with me, tell me. [00:22:00]