Several years ago, I was walking down the street on an ordinary day when suddenly a thought inserted itself out of the blue: What if there is no God? Given that I was not pondering the subject at the time, the intruding thought felt strangely self-animating. But rather than disturbing me, I felt relieved. My body began to relax and an exhilarating sense of freedom washed over me. I was surprised by my reaction. Why would I, a devout Christian, dedicated to studying the Scriptures feel relief at the thought of no God? As I pondered my response, I realized I was afraid of God. If there was no God I didn’t need to worry about getting all the answers right. I didn’t need to worry about getting the answers wrong. It was like someone telling me I could skip the nerve wracking exam.
This incident came at a time when I was increasingly discouraged and disillusioned about finding answers to certain theological questions. Biblical research had challenged long held beliefs and provoked numerous questions. My presuppositions about the Bible were being rattled. Like many other students whose faith is disrupted by biblical scholarship, I came from a tradition that puts considerable emphasis on correct doctrine. Pinning down answers is of utmost importance. Apologetic books abound and parishioners are warned not to read material that might contradict the approved doctrines. At the root lies considerable fear of getting the answers wrong and facing a punishing God.
As I traveled from my “intellectual small town” into an endless galaxy of biblical and theological knowledge, I was daunted by how much I would never comprehend. Instead of helping me to define the facts more clearly, my studies made me realize how elusive answers can be. Knowing more resulted in knowing less as reality became bigger and bigger. This provoked cynicism and anxiety. How could I please God if I didn’t know the answers? How could I even know God at all? My faith had been built on certitude. What if I got it wrong? For a moment atheism offered freedom from the crisis.
But atheistic relief was short-lived. I needed God—and not because unbelief meant facing the randomness of life or giving up a psychological crutch. I had enough real experiences to know I could not be fully myself without God. The best expression of who I am comes in relationship with the Spirit. Cynicism was destroying me, exacerbating my proclivities toward pride, selfishness, and desolate thoughts. In contrast, when I sought God, it stirred in me a spirit of humility, kindness, and hope. I could see the experiential difference of God in my life. But I didn’t know how to face God without possessing “right” answers. What if some of the changes in my beliefs resulting from my studies ended up being the wrong ones? How would God respond?
The solution to my dilemma came in a surprising and paradoxical way. Biblical scholarship was the very thing that brought down the barrier to true faith: it exposed the limitations of knowledge. Before I embarked on my scholarly pursuits I had no idea about the galaxy. I thought reality was only my small town. Truth seemed simple. Faith was a matter of holding to absolute propositions and there was nothing to seriously challenge those definitives. It required glimpsing the galaxy to shatter the illusion of my omniscience. Letting go of that illusion of security was unnerving. But such certitude was more about control than faith. In reality, I discovered I could still believe in God apart from figuring everything out precisely because of the impossibility of any human being to do so.
Scripture itself testifies to the limits of our knowledge. Paul said: “For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end . . . For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known” (I Corinthians 13:9-12 NRSV). Paul, a writer of Scripture, acknowledged he only prophesied in part. The assertion of absolute certitude is a failure to accept and submit to God’s decision not to reveal “in full” at this time.
Faith is trust in a Person—an experiential reality. This is why I could not find God in my books alone. The only thing that kept me from embracing atheism is the experience of God.
In the Old Testament when God is the direct object of “know” (as in “know God” or “knowledge of God”) the meaning refers to ways of being, namely the ways of God (e.g. justice, goodness)—acts that are by definition social and experiential. This is reiterated in the New Testament: “[E]veryone who loves . . . knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love” (I John 4:7-8). In fact, our relationships with each other are the primary way we can experience God: “No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us” (v. 12). Or as Jean Valjean eloquently states in Les Miserable, “To love another person is to see the face of God.” This kind of knowledge does not require absolute certainty in theological concepts to believe in God. The atheist makes the same mistake as the fundamentalist in demanding so. Rather, we can trust in God because love is real and trustworthy.
Note: this post draws from an essay I wrote for my former blog Interpreting Scripture.