God is great!

When we reduce all religions to the same level of ‘truth’, it is really another way of saying that all religions are equally false. The latter is certainly the view of a growing number of atheist writers. One such is Christopher Hitchens whose book, God is not Great, is a persuasively constructed argument against religion and religious belief of any kind. The sub-title of the book is ‘How religion poisons everything’-And he makes a convincing case.

I must say I sympathise with some of what Hitchens has to say. Indeed- and this would no doubt upset him to hear it - the Bible itself rejects the idea of mere religion. Christ did not come to found a new religion. He came to demonstrate the life of God and to make it available to whoever would follow in His footsteps - by faith.

This is a million miles from ossified religion and mindless fundamentalism. Faith is not opposed to reason. True faith liberates reason from its subjective prison and directs it to its true purpose – the worship of God. But for the atheist, reason is god. As a consequence, a person’s intellectual conclusions are the sole building blocks of reality. But if God really has spoken, how can man presume to believe his own thought processes are adequate to decipher the universe - even for a moment?

We really are highly subjective creatures. G.K. Chesterton observed that the problem for the skeptic is not that he believes too little, but that he is too credulous. He believes too many things too easily. He believes God cannot be real, just because the Scripture teacher of his childhood didn’t seem credible. He believes that because men in spiritual office commit grievous crimes that all Christians are hypocrites. He believes what he reads in the newspaper. In fact, he is prepared to believe almost any anti-Christian report, program or book at all.

So often, the charge against Christians is that they want God to be real - as a prop, as a way of avoiding the reality of being human. But, if Christianity were merely wish-fulfillment, it would have left out the cross, the necessity of embracing suffering - the base element of human existence. Isn’t the opposite charge more likely? That it is the atheist who desperately wants his point of view to be true - to believe that the world is a giant cosmic accident, that human beings can construct reality, that you can live the way you please?

Tim Maurice

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Feature Articles
April 2009

How does faith grow?

Behold the Lamb

Pray without ceasing

The springs of song

Holy to the Lord

Supporting identity

Why do we fast?

Making vows

Watch over your soul

Learning patience

God is. Great!