Does God Really Exist?

Relational Theology

Preface

This "little" article of 12,921 words, took me a while to write it. Not only write it, but to research it. This is a product of countless hours of listening to the Atheist Experience, to get into the mind of Atheist, as well as other online atheist channels.. I offer this, not so much a finished product, but where I am right now. I know the weaknesses of my theology, both on the Atheist side as well as the Christian side of the fence. I know most of either camp will find things to criticize in my approach.

I hope I wrote this well enough that you'll get to the end and wonder where the time went. But the big question always asked is "Does God Exist?" So I've developed this relational theology to answer that question. Here we go!

Introduction

Back in the early 90s, when I attended Nazarene Theological Seminary, I began to see the whole of the Bible and God’s plan to provide for us salvation in a relational manner. I figured it would be “ground breaking” because to my admittedly limited knowledge, I had not heard of any systematic theology using that paradigm to organize, and systematically evaluate one’s theology. I’m aware of people talking about salvation as a relationship with God, but that was about as far as people took it. Then I ran into Orthodoxy, which had a relational theology built into it. So, I held off creating a book about it figuring someone had beaten me to it. After all, as the second largest body of Christians, there are more people who have grown up with an Orthodox Faith than a Protestant one.

What I hope to accomplish in this article is not to develop a full-blown systematic theology, but to lay the ground-work for viewing theology through the lens of relationships and what that would mean for the ultimate question: can we “prove” the existence of God. A lofty goal, no doubt. But a critical one in this day and age. I put the “prove” in quotes above, because I’m focusing this more toward knowing how we can prove to ourselves that God exists, rather than a proof others might accept. In other words, my goal isn’t to prove to an atheist that God exists, but to myself, as well as a method others can use to prove to themselves.

Philosophy

My philosophy is a combination of existential and rational. That is, that we know reality through the existential lens, but use reason to interpret what we experience of reality. It requires both to work. All knowledge starts with experiences of reality, interpreted through the lens of our rational mind.

Or, to put it in more philosophical terms, all knowledge is a posteriori while certain methods are a priori.

Epistemology

That word, for those who don’t know, refers to the study of how we know anything. As I said above, knowledge begins with experience and is interpreted through our rational methods. However, both also have their limitations. We must be aware of them, even though we have no other rational means whereby we can know anything.

Existential Knowledge

Descartes said “I think, therefore, I am.” Though a Rationalist, this thought expresses the basis of all knowledge is experiential. I experience thinking. But then he deduces from that premise that he exists. The perfect confirmation of how the existential and rational components of knowledge work.

All knowledge flows from “I think.” It is from that foundational experience of self, that we can know anything. But it is also true that without our rational methodology, that is, our instinctive and/or intuitive ability to see patterns, or as Kant put it, “categories,” that can make sense out of our experiences, that we can know anything as well.

To state it another way, experience gives us the content, while reason gives us the ability to make sense of that content, but provides not direct content itself. It “interprets” the content.

Let’s give an example of what I am talking about. Mathematics is often given as an example of common rationalistic a priori knowledge. It is said that it is self-evident, and a priori knowledge that the sum of any triangle’s angles will come to a total of 180. Yet, is it really that we innately or intuitively know that prior to experience, and that it is derived not from experience but only through the mind? Or is it more probable and true that the person or persons who have measured the angles of any triangle have always, in our experience, equaled 180 degrees? I’d suggest the latter.

And the idea that 3 is a prime number, often cited by rationalist as not derived from experience, have yet to prove that proposition, for it is perfectly conceivable that it is only through experience that we learn, at a very early age, that there are things that can be counted, and through trying to reduce three, we have yet to encounter anyone successfully doing so. Even the concept of a what a prime number is could be said to derive not from knowledge prior to experience, but from the experience of attempting to divide such numbers into smaller units, and being unsuccessful, we call them prime numbers.

Even the concept and practice of morals can be said to derive from experience. Because we experience events as either good, bad, or indifferent. Based on those experiences, and the a priori methodology expressed so well in the Bible—“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”—a person derives their morals from rational inductions from their own experiences of what they like and what they don’t like.

Still, experience is the very foundation of our knowledge, and often the basis of why we believe what we believe. I’m not claiming that any beliefs derived through one’s experiences are right or wrong. Yet, it is the basis upon which inductive reasoning tends to be used. More on that, further down.

Rational Knowledge

Rational knowledge is gained from a series of a priori methodologies and abilities that allow the mind to see patterns, to inductively put them together and reason to a specific conclusion about a thing or event. They can come from either instinctive knowledge or intuitive/innate knowledge.

For example, a baby fresh out of the womb, has the ability to seek out, latch onto, and suck to get substance from the mother’s breasts. That would be an example of an ability derived from instinct. Some would posit that God put that instinct there, others would say it was through natural selection—that is, those without that instinctive knowledge would have quickly died off.

The strength of rationalism is in its structured and logical methods of discovering truth. The weakness of the method, as the only or chief manner to gain knowledge is that there are so many ways the subjective mind of a person can cause a particular conclusion to be invalid. One, any of the premises have to be sound. To be sound, it means it needs to fall into a readily identifiable, non-contradicting and truly self-evident truth. Two, one needs to have valid reasoning—avoid falling into a fallacy, of which there are many of them—to arrive at a valid and true conclusion. Three, one also has to take into account the complexity of an argument. The more complex an explanation is, the more likely it will be that error to find its way into the ultimate conclusion.

It is the subjective and limited mind of the person doing the reasoning, which is often biased to a particular outcome, that rationalism tends to fail.

My philosophical combination of existential and rationalism is one way I hope to combat the weaknesses in either method, in as much as can possibly be done. I use experience as the starting point, rather than some mystical “innate knowledge” we have in our mind, but recognize the limits of purely existentialism by knowing that without effective reasoning capabilities, we are driven by a very subjective interpretation of the existential data before us due to our finite and limited experiences.

By way of example, let’s compare the old gravity experiment. Back before the Renaissance in Western Civilization happened, most everyone believed that: premise one—that when one drops anything from a particular height, that it falls to the ground; premise two—that objects with a greater mass are heavier, making them harder to lift and move around than lighter objects. Those two premises do appear to be self-evident and non-contradictory. Our experience verifies both premises as true. The conclusion then is when a heavier object is dropped from the same height, with the same wind speed and air-resistance, that the heavier object would hit the ground first. Sounds logical enough.

However, it is not logical; it is a hasty generalization fallacy, and/or, a causal fallacy. In other words, one cannot assume that the heavier weight could cause something to fall at a faster rate than a lighter object. That said, the rational argument appeared to be logical. That is, until someone took a heavy and light object to the top of a building and dropped them at the same time, only to discover that the rational, deductive reasoning argument failed to be reflected in real life, and was not a true conclusion.

Scientific Knowledge

Strictly speaking, scientific knowledge refers to gathering some observable data, and using inductive reasoning to arrive at a hypothesis that would appear to fit the data. Then, a way to measure whether the hypothesis is true or not—predictive truths—is put forth, and tests are recorded and measurements obtained that will allow others to repeat the “experiment,” and if others are able to do so, the hypothesis becomes, in due time, a theory—that is, a high enough probability of a “truth claim” that people treat it as truth.

This is a refined methodology of using inductive reasoning, based upon our experiences, in a more objective manner, to arrive at truth. This is the method that has brought us the automobile, the airplane, the internet, and the cell phone. When it comes to the realms of physics and mathematics, that is where this type of knowledge prevails.

Where it falls short, however, is in the following ways.

One, while more people verifying a hypothesis will tend to result in a more objective arrival of the truth than either individual experiences or reason will allow, it does not totally get rid of them. In truth, we know large groups of people can be swayed by money to fund research or the potential loss of power or prestige that a sort of group subjectivity can flow into such “scientific” studies and conclusions. A good example of this is the nutritional studies. For almost 90 years, we have scientific studies showing that meat and dairy is the primary cause of cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, and hypertension, just to name the bigger heath issues. Yet, this knowledge is not distributed for two main reasons: 1. because of all the conflicting studies, often funded by the meat, dairy, and pharmaceutical industries, found in medical journals. 2. Because doctors and researchers don’t believe that people will stop eating meat and dairy. That’s despite the fact it is killing a vast number of people every year. However, the big point here is all the studies designed to show the opposite of what the other studies have shown, primarily to keep selling product and make rich the stakeholders. They confuse the issue and dilute the valid studies.

Two, that it is still based on inductive reasoning. One can never reach an absolute truth claim. One can not know with 100% assurance that a truth claim will hold up, that tomorrow, some new data won’t be discovered that will invalidate the theory that we currently hold today. Does that mean we should throw out all theories? No, but it is a limitation of any knowledge based upon Scientific Method.

Three, while the scientific method is great for physics and the like, in that it excels at explaining how something happens and the ontological basis of our world, it is not a great method for obtaining truth in other areas, in that it is either not applicable to discovering truth in those areas, or only parts of it can be used. An example of the latter is the historical sciences. In using geology and archaeology, it is at home. However, in evaluating historical text, a more subjective type of knowledge is required. Yes, there are parts of the scientific method that can be applied to it, however, no method can substitute for the gut-instinct of a person in determining the veracity and the biases present in a writing. On top of that, it cannot account for oral histories passed down, often making the assumption that when something is written down, that is the first time it has been said or thought, which is its own fallacy in that most thoughts are said long before they are written down.

None of this invalidates the findings of the scientific method. It may, on occasion, invalidate specific points, but one should not call a method invalid based upon those who may misuse it. However, we need to be aware of its limitations in arriving at the truth and how to evaluate truth claims made by science. Despite its better record at discovering the truth about our world, it struggles when it comes to more subjective, unmeasurable, metaphysical truths. How does one measure how something makes a person feel? No two people are likely to perceive a feeling in the same manner.

Faith-Based Knowledge

I know what a lot people will be thinking here. “Are you saying I can get truthful knowledge from faith? Without any evidence?” This is often asked, especially from those who have come from Evangelical traditions where people have taken Hebrews 11:1 out of its context to say something it doesn’t say. Yes, it does say, “evidence of things not seen,” but one must look at the examples given which follow that verse to get at the gist of what the author is saying there. This is most often the case with many atheists, in that they grew up and came out of Evangelical traditions that taught that Hebrews 11:1 essentially meant that faith was some kind of magical wand one could wave, in which one could be granted all sorts of things, not the least which was absolute certain knowledge without any sort of evidence for it.

But that is not what the Bible says faith is, nor does it even define what evidence is, a term used well before the scientific method came into use. If one looks at the examples following verse 1, one will see a bunch of people cited who had faith in God, that is, they believed and had confidence that what God said was true, was true, even if they could only “hope” for it, without any outward evidence that what God said, would indeed come to pass. In other words, faith knowledge isn’t based on no evidence at all, but because they believed that what God said would happen, would indeed happen, they believed it would come to pass without ever having seen it happen. So, “faith is the evidence of things not seen.”

So, when I am talking about faith, I’m not referring to some magical-energy one can possess, or a right to have something one wants, but a firm conviction in what another “person” says is true, or at least contains some truth in what they say. The “evidence” comes in whether one can trust any particular source of truth enough to put their confidence in what they say.

This is where relationship comes into the picture. Because at its heart, faith-based knowledge is relational rather than rational knowledge. I’m not saying that faith-based knowledge is devoid of any rationality, but that it is based more on the experience one has gained with a particular person or persons. In other words, to have faith in someone means you have a relationship with that person so that you have enough history with them to know whether you trust them or not.

It is also a given that we all have to place our faith in someone in order to live, practically speaking. No one person can scientifically know every clinical trail, every study ever done, or every experiment, in order to form their own thoughts on any given topic. So for most people, most of the time, they have faith that their hair-cutter knows what he/she is doing, what a specific scientist or group of scientists say is the truth, that a person’s wife knows what she is talking about, and yes, whether God is trustworthy in what He is saying. One has to have a relationship with a person, or God, to gain any knowledge from them, and their expertise.

It should also be pointed out that faith-based knowledge, since it is gained through a relationship, is not primarily skeptic-based at its inception. There is, however, based upon experiences with certain types of people, a skeptical element to faith-based knowledge. If a salesman calls one on the phone, or you receive and email suggesting that someone in Africa wants to send a few million your way, those types of people should cause the skeptical meter to register a warning not to trust them.

Most people, though, start out a new relationship with a certain amount of trust, in other words, the opposite of being skeptical. Only when they say something that goes against your previous knowledge or what you think to be truth, do you become skeptical with another person, even if you trust their judgment on the best restaurant to eat at or the best breed of dog to own. But one could not function in our world or society being skeptical of every person you come into contact with. We are forced to have a certain amount of faith in strangers as well as those closest to us in order to function.

That is the interesting thing about faith-based knowledge being founded on relationships: the more experience one has with a person, either the more or less we will trust them. Once we have a good amount of history with a person, the more likely we’ll be able to trust or not trust their view on different topics. So building a relationship with anyone becomes key to gaining knowledge through faith.

The limitations of this type of knowledge are the following.

One, it becomes much harder to have an objective viewpoint on any topic. Being it is relationship-based, it is inherently more subjective due to our understanding and interpretation of the trustworthiness of what one hears. One can apply some facets of the scientific method to this process, but it cannot, in most cases, be verified by that method. This is the type of evidence I would suggest one cannot have with faith-based knowledge: scientific evidence. Only in a very limited sense, such as when one says something that will happen, then if it happens exactly as they stated, would that be some type of evidence.

Two, it is easy to come to the wrong conclusions with faith-based knowledge. First, one can trust someone who isn’t telling the truth. Second, one could misunderstand the one relaying information or intentionally deceive oneself due to their own biases.

That said, due to the lack of time, few, if any, cannot invest in looking up everything offered to them as truth by those they already trust, to gain most of our knowledge from other people; most of our knowledge is derived based upon faith in another person.

But God is different, is He not? Yes, He is. First, He would be someone we don’t, often, have the same kind of direct evidence that He exist, like I do, for instance, my wife. I can touch and talk to my wife, and I will feel her and hear her voice as she communicates with me. I have none of that with God. More on that further down, but that would primarily be the argument that an atheist would make.

Second, God, if He exists as defined by the Bible and Orthodox theology, as being perfect in will, nature, and in perfect unity within Himself, in such a way that He can say nothing but truth, mainly because He defines what truth is, that is different from people in that people can be wrong on some issues and right on others. God is right about everything, by definition of Him being God.

The issue of whether God exists or not, is hopefully going to be answered below. So, more on that issue in a bit.

Conclusion to Epistemology

So, I am working from the assumption in this paper that my epistemology will be a combination of each of these methods: existential, a modified rationalism, scientific, and faith knowledge. It is hoped that with a mix of these methods, that we can gain knowledge enough to answer the question for a particular person: does God exists?

Biblical Theology

Biblical Inspiration

Inspiration of the Bible has various forms. Atheist tend to like the more rigid and literal interpretation of the Bible due to it being much easier to tear down. Evidence for them can only be based upon scientifically deduced facts and rational syllogisms. So a “rational”—that is, literal understanding of what the Bible says is true is the easiest to deal with. They especially like the near “dictation” understanding because that allows them to point out the many inconsistencies found in the Bible. And there are more than a handful of Biblical contradictions when it is taken as purely literal, and as each word is in the Bible because it says exactly what God wants it to say.

However, when we focus on a relational understanding of Scripture, and incorporate the goal of the relationships that God set up in Genesis, how that relationship was destroyed, and how God made it that way, the whole point of the Bible is the story of God’s relationship with mankind. It is what I have termed:

Relational-Based Inspiration of the Bible

My understanding of Biblical theology is that it is inspired by God, but only those things pertaining to the creation, fall, and eventual salvation of man and woman’s relationship between God, and indirectly, between each other, are inspired. To put it differently, God didn’t intend to write a science book—long before modern science even existed—nor did God write through other people His words, but allowed them to put their own words, cultural outlooks, and their own thoughts on all other subjects other than those which move the story forward where it concerns the saving of our relationship with Him.

So, with that laid out, let’s put this to the test, to see how well or not the passages of Scripture will be predictive of what we would expect.

Biblical Relational Context

First, let’s tackle the big one, as that will prove most clearly what I’m talking about when we approach the Bible from a literal/rational standpoint rather than a relational-based one.

One of the big problems that atheists have with Genesis 1 is that it would be “impossible” for God to create light before He created Sun and the Moon. Light was created on day 1, and the sun and stars were reported as being created until the 4^th day. It did make me scratch my head the first time I read that.

However, if you read this as Hebraic poetry, it all makes sense. What is Hebraic poetry? Simple, it is more a rhyme of thought than it is of words. This is most clearly seen in passages from the Psalms and Proverbs. There are rhyme of similar thoughts, said different ways in order to illuminate the thought better as can be seen throughout Psalm 2:

Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord, and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us. He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision. Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure. Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion. I will declare the decree: the Lord hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee. Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. Be wise now therefore, O ye kings: be instructed, ye judges of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him.

Ignoring the content, for now, focus on the pairs of similar statements: Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.

Then you have contrasting thoughts as in Proverbs 3:5-7:

Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the Lord, and depart from evil.

Notice the contrast, with the similar thoughts sandwiched between them: Do trust in the Lord, but do not trust in your own understanding. Acknowledge Him; He will direct. Be not wise in your own eyes. Instead, fear (respect) the Lord, depart from evil. It even ends with a similar pair of thoughts as part of the contrasting thought.

Those are just some passages I pulled up quickly by way of illustration. Those two books of the Bible are full of such examples. Why? Because it is generally recognized that the Psalms and Proverbs are examples of Hebraic poetry. Why poetry? Because, the strength of poetry is that it is a relationship based method of communicating. It is the relationships in poetry, both in the thoughts themselves and in the real relationships it highlights, that it offers to us as knowledge.

It is for this reason that it becomes clear that the first chapter of Genesis is poetry, and therefore should be interpreted as such, and not like a science textbook—which would be crazy when you think about it since the modern concept of science hadn’t even entered into the mind of man back when this story is told.

So, if this is poetry, where are the couplets or triplets of similar and contrasting thoughts? It is clear when you look at the periods of time marked as days, which there are six days that creation takes place, since God rested on the seventh, that there is a correlation between them. If you pair up the first three days with the last three days, you have an interesting comparison.

In the first three days, you have an account of the creation of the world, and on the last three days, you have an account of the creation of all that would inhabit those environments. A quick comparison shows how well they match up:

Day one, God creates the universe, light, and darkness. Day four, God creates the sun, moon, and stars that would fill that universe.

Day two, God creates the water and the sky. Day five, God creates the fish that live in the seas, and the bird that fly through the sky.

Day three, you might be thinking, is the big “Ah ha! Your comparison doesn’t hold up here, because in one day, you have both the creation of the dry land and the creation of the plants that live in it.” Strictly speaking, this is true. That is, until you compare it with day six. Where first it talks about the animals that were created to move about in this world, and then the creation of man. For plants are part of the environment, just as much as rocks, and earth and water are. Likewise, they are living things as well, just as animals are. So in that regard they form a link between the world and those that live in the world God created. Then you look at the creation of man, as an animal and as divine. That he is also divine at his creation is evident by the triplet thought (another indication that what we are dealing here is poetry, and not a literal account of how it happened).

27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

This is the climax of the poetry verses. It is the culmination of what this whole chapter has been leading to. That God created man differently than He created the animals. He gave man his own image and likeness. As the text indicates in Chapter two, he breathed the breath of life into man, His own spirit. Thus, man was created to be the bridge between the animals and the divine, just as plants were created to be a bridge between the inanimate and the animate life. As you can see, even on day three, it fits perfectly with what happens on day six.

All of this points us to one conclusion: that Genesis one was not written to tell us how and in what order God created all the world, rather He had it written to tell us why he created it all: To point out the relationship he created man to have with Himself. That is our purpose and the reason that all this was created, so that He could have a relationship with us and us with Him.

So the Bible goes on from there to show how that relationship was broken. Actually, the coming of a sickness thanks to Adam and Eve. The sickness which leads to death. So, again, chapter three answers the why more so than it does the how it all happened. It uses metaphors to indicate that Adam (literally, man) and Eve (literally, mother of all living 3:20), or woman as she was called at her creation by Adam, he named her Eve after the Fall had happened, in order to show the why and how this sickness of death fell upon them.

It does this by having as a metaphor the Tree of Life (Christ) and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (themselves) from which to eat and not eat, respectively. That is, they either put their faith in God by choosing Christ and obeying Him, or put their faith in themselves and their own ability to know good from evil.

Now, God tells Adam in 2:17, “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” Yet, we know that Adam and Eve ate of the tree, and still, they lived on long after that day. So, did God lie when he told them that? Or was he simply being hyperbolic? Or, did a form of death really take place that day? I suggest it is the latter.

For remember, that in creating man in Chapter 2, verse 7, it says, “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” So, it is the spirit of God that is breathed into man that made him a “Living Soul,” and it is the death of that same soul that happened on that day. Yet, Adam lived on? Yes, he lived then according to his animal nature, as his link with the divine was severed, it died on that day. So, like the animals, Adam and Eve became subject to death. They both died on the day they ate of the tree, and their death was finalized approximately 900 years later.

That is how this sickness, passed down to future generations came about. The rest of the Bible is concerned with the relationship of God with the Israelites, the world, and finally, how that original relationship was restored, through Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection. That is, how that relationship was healed.

We’ll dig into that more in the theology section, but for our purposes here, it becomes obvious that the Bible is a collection of books, written by men moved of God, with the purpose being to show how God created the relationship to be, how it was destroyed by Adam and Eve’s actions, and how it was to be restored.

So, does that mean I don’t believe that God created the world in six literal twenty-four hour days? No. But neither do I claim to know that He did do it in six literal days. Why? One, it isn’t the purpose of Genesis one to give that information. It is talking about relationships, and should not be used to give us a “blow by blow” account of what order and how long He took to do it all in. Especially since it is poetry, we cannot know how long, exactly, that a day was, as the word literally means a “period of time.” Two, I wasn’t there at the time, like yourself. It could be speaking of a twenty-four hour period of time, or a few million years. Who is to say? Three, to use the text in a non-relationship manner, as an early attempt at science, one will run into many inconsistencies that atheists are happy to point out.

Inconsistencies like how different the two accounts of the creation of man are. For example, in the Genesis one account, it has the animals being created before Adam and Eve. But in Chapter 2, Adam is created before the animals, which God creates in order for Adam to name and find a help meet for him. That and other inconsistencies between the two accounts leads one to the conclusion that either one or both of the accounts are fabricated and do not reveal truth, that God lied, or that the purpose of either or both was not to document the order and time-frame of creation. Thus the truths that they reveal is a non-scientific truth.

Also, it is important to know that people of that time, that God used to write the books that make up the Bible, He didn’t override their cultural biases, their way of looking at the world, their philosophy, etc, all tend to come through. So any pronouncements on or inclusion of things like slavery, that God ordered the killing of children, etc, all of which are in the Bible, does not equate with God approving of or participating in those activities. Why didn’t God change them? I don’t know, but I assume that our ultimate salvation, our final healing of death, took precedence over those things, that God didn’t see them as important. After all, the Bible isn’t a book on the morality of owning slavery, its primary concern is about our relationship with God and how it is healed. Anything contrary to the nature of God is either a cultural bias of the writer of the Bible book under consideration, or us projecting our own morals onto God and judging Him by them.

Relationships in Theology

Every systematic theology has an organizing principle. While I am, as I said in the beginning of this article, not purporting to write a systematic theology, I am working from the foundations of one. And its organizing principle is that of relationships. The whole plan of salvation is based on relationships, restoring the damaged relationship with God and our fellow man. It requires that love be the governing energy for all relationships as God has defined them.

We can even put the moral code into our relationships. “And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise.” (Luke 6:31) That is the whole of the moral code, if you don’t like it, don’t do it to others. If you do like something, then do it. Keeping in mind that you wouldn’t like someone to assume that your likes are what they are for them. It is all relational.

Scientific Knowledge of Relationships

Now, atheists like to equate scientific evidence as necessary before they can believe in the existence of God or even a god. So, what, if any, such evidence is there?

To put it honestly, there is none. Don’t get me wrong, there is evidence, but none that an atheists would accept. That is because relational theology doesn’t conform God to this world. He is bigger than that, and therefore beyond the reach of any scientific knowledge. Such is the case with all metaphysical topics, by there very definition, they are beyond this world’s nature. This is more than a “god of the gaps” error, because if there is a God, he would be behind everything, both natural and beyond natural.

What we have here is a god who is beyond nature specifically because He created it. He doesn’t go around changing the rules of nature willy nilly, but he does help to keep the world constant within itself, so science can be done. If the rules of nature were regularly violated, science could not be done. Therefore, He avoids breaking the laws of nature, which He set up, in order that we wouldn’t have a chaotic world in which to live, never knowing whether the sun would rise the next day or not.

To prove this to be the case, consider the property of God commonly ascribed to him, as being “omnipresent.” In other words, one of the definitions of the Christian God is that He can pull back, being outside of time, and be present anywhere and everywhere at once. Can you even imagine what an existence outside of time would be like? No? Then how on earth can one assume that they can even begin to understand such a God, much less gain any “scientific knowledge” about Him. Get back to me when you can adequately describe an existence outside of time.

Genesis 1 – 3: A Study of Relationships

As we demonstrated above, Genesis, Chapter 1 is Hebraic poetry that illustrates the relationships God created us to have, with Himself, the world around us, and with each other. Chapters 2 and 3 continue this story, basically detailing how Adam (man) was created, as well as his “help meet”, woman, which hints at their relationship. Note, this was not to be a relationship of a servant to her master, but as a help meet, that is, someone who was compatible.

This is evident when God says, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.” (Gen 2:18b) Note, what God is saying here is that there was no one compatible with him. By compatible, it is specifically speaking about their joining as one. Adam, as the only person alive, was uniquely alone. He had no mate with which to bond with, to produce offspring. The human race would have begun and ended with Adam.

After also creating the animals from the ground, without any mention of breathing His life into them, yet they also become animated, there was no compatible help meet for Adam. (Gen. 2:20) So then God takes a rib from Adam and forms a woman from Him. Note how everything is linked together into an organic whole. If God had created a new creation from the ground, as he just did with the animals, they wouldn’t have been human, but a new creation. In order to create a compatible “help meet” for Adam, it had to come from him, even as every human that we know of came from another human. That is also why Jesus had to be incarnate of the Virgin Mary as well. But we are getting ahead of ourselves there.

Then right at the end of Chapter 2, we find both the purpose and fulfillment of this relationship as well as a change noted in their relationship. First, 2:24 tells us the “therefore” of the relationship between the man and woman took place. “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.” That is, because of the woman being created as a help meet for man, the two shall be joined into one flesh, that is, it is speaking of a physical union here, that is, to be married, and a man will leave his father and mother’s house in order to form a new family. This is the purpose of marriage. Without that physical union and the potential production of children that it naturally, as created by God to accomplish, produces, there would be no reason to have a marriage. It is only in the forming of a new family that a marriage makes any sense at all.

That is why in the next and last verse of the chapter, 2:25, it says, “And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.” Two things to note here. One, that they were both naked and not ashamed. While the Church Fathers say that this is because they were both clothed with light of God’s glory and presence, which would make sense of the consequence of the Fall in that they were then able to see each other’s nakedness as they had never seen it before, and we presume as we see it now; it also speaks not to the idea that public nudity is alright, instead, it speaks to the intimate relationship between the two. Even as it is to this day, a couple, generally, are not ashamed to be seen naked around each other.

Two, did you note the change in the way the woman is spoken of here? For the first time in Scripture, she is called “wife.” Again, this points to the fact that this joining into one flesh, this special union, was considered to be the primary reason for the existence of marriage. Here, before the Fall has even happened, we have the fullness of marriage as God created it to be.

This shows us the fullness of the relationships that God created. These are stories that while not scientifically presenting evidence for either God’s existence, or that He created everything in six 24 hour days, or that Adam and Eve were the first people alive and that the entire human race came from them, these stories were not told in order to provide modern scientists with “evidence” of anything, only to point out the relationship He had with His creation, as well as He and His creation with us.

Then, the Fall, which changed that relationship. Most people reading this will know the story of Chapter 3. Eve encounters a serpent, apparently in the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, tempting her to eat of its fruit, claiming it would make her become like God, knowing good and evil. Note: what he said was true, as is evidenced later on, but it turns out it wasn’t the benefit that the serpent had led her to believe it would be.

Indeed, the Church Fathers indicate that eventually, after they had eaten from the tree of life, they would have been permitted to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Whatever was true, however, what is critical here is the relationship between Eve, and then Adam to God. They failed to have faith in what God said would happen to them if they ate from that tree. Instead, they chose to put their faith in a serpent and their own egos and pride. They believed what the serpent said instead of what God said. That is the gist of what sin is, it is trusting in our own wisdom rather than the wisdom of God.

More could be said here about the changed relationship man and his wife had in the Fall, but the critical relationship that the Bible is primarily concerned about is the change in the relationship of God to Adam and Eve. And that relationship changed significantly, in that the spirit of God which He breathed into them, died on that very day that they sinned. They lost the connection of life that they had with God. Thus, what we call the fall.

I think if is important to define sin at this point. Sin is a violation of God’s design specifications. God didn’t sit up in heaven and say to Himself, “Hum. I wonder what kinds of rules I can make to keep mankind from enjoying their fun?” No, God designated various things as sin due to the damage they would cause to God’s creation.

So God, who Adam and Eve failed to have faith in, caused His spirit within them, that gave them life, to die. That is the essence of what the Fall did, it broke the relationship between God and us. All flows from this relational brokenness.

Salvation Understood as a Healing of Broken Relationships

So, how does one fix a broken relationship? Do they make it a juridical thing? Do they make it a purely a sacrifice to atone for another’s sins? That is what some would believe, and if a Christian does believe that “God, in creating his rules, condemns us all to death because we didn’t have a ‘chance in hell’ of living up to them, and then by some transference of legal rights, sends His son in to die in our place, that is, to apply the merits of His sacrificial death onto us so that we will have a “get out of jail free” card when the Last Judgment happens, then, indeed, the atheist have a point in talking how ludicrous that makes our God out to be. That is not a God of love, but a prideful and vindictive god. A powerless God, who is forced by His own rules to kill us in an everlasting torment, and cannot simply forgive us as the very Scriptures state He is able to do.

If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land. (II Chron. 7:14)

Hum, no mention of needing to satisfy His justice there. Let’s try another.

For thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it: thou delightest not in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise. (Psalm 51:16-17)

Again, no mention of a need for a sacrifice to satisfy God’s “wrath”.

Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. (Isaiah 1:18)

Nothing there either. There is talk of doing good in that section, but no mention of a need to appease God’s justice and wrath for past misdeeds.

Oh, I hear some saying that is the Old Testament, that the New Testament makes it clearer. Okay then, let’s check out some New Testament passages.

First up, the Parable of the Prodigal Son, an often used passage on forgiveness. In this parable of Jesus, which can be found in Luke 15:11-32. Most of the readers of this article knows the story, but permit me to give a brief overview of it both for those who haven’t heard it and to point out the reality I’m speaking of as it concerns forgiveness and God.

A younger son, out of two of them, ask for his share of the inheritance from his father. Now, this was not totally off limits as some might tend to portray it. However, such an inheritance was generally reserved for when one would get married, when they would need it to start a family of their own. It is what the son did with his inheritance that was so bad, and once his money ran out, all the new “friends” he had made deserted him, and he was left to earn something to eat and a roof over his head by taking care of the pigs, which incidentally, according to Jewish Law, would make him constantly unclean so he couldn’t even go to “church” or the temple to worship God or offer sacrifices. He grew so hungry, however, that even what he fed the pigs looked good to him.

While he was in this desperate condition, he said the following: “How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, And am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants.” So he does just that. But before he can get his canned speech out, the Father instead comes running to him, restores the relationship as the Father’s son.

But the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet: And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry: For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry. (Luke 15:22-24)

Notice the reference to him being dead and is now alive? Let’s see. The father, who represents God the Father in this story, requires nothing of the son to be restored as His son. Where is the justice there? No, that is the wrong question. The question should be where is the mercy and forgiveness of God, for that is really, as an old Nazarene preacher use to say, what this parable is about: about the prodigal love of the Father, much more than the son who spent his inheritance prodigally. Nope, no justice here that needs a sacrifice to atone for the son’s past misdeeds.

Or how about this one.

And, behold, they brought to him a man sick of the palsy, lying on a bed: and Jesus seeing their faith said unto the sick of the palsy; Son, be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee. And, behold, certain of the scribes said within themselves, This man blasphemeth. And Jesus knowing their thoughts said, Wherefore think ye evil in your hearts? For whether is easier, to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, and walk? But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, (then saith he to the sick of the palsy,) Arise, take up thy bed, and go unto thine house. (Matt 9:2-6)

Why did Jesus so readily forgive the man without so much as mentioning the need for a sacrifice? As a matter of fact, in all the instances that Jesus forgave anyone, I don’t recall one time Him ever asking for a sacrifice. No indication that Jesus, who we believe to be the Son of God, ever required a sacrifice before forgiving anyone. Pretty much as God the Father did in the Old Testament. Oh yes, God did ask for sacrifices as a proper means for someone to ask for forgiveness from God. They were meant on one hand to be a meaningful and normal method for someone to essentially say, “Hey God, I messed up. Please forgive me.” But as the many statements that can be found in the Old Testament, like the one in Psalms 51 above, sacrifices God does not require.

So what was the purpose of all those sacrifices, then? More on that in a bit. Suffice it here to say, that all the atheists who have formed their theology from Catholic and Evangelical Protestant concepts, especially the Fundamentalist variety, have a wrong concept of why the atonement that Jesus made on the cross was so necessary and critical. And no, it had nothing to do with satisfying God’s justice and/or wrath, and everything to do with restoring our relationship with Him.

How does it do that? More on that further down. However, we need to make one other very important point. It is an obvious one that most people don’t realize, especially if they don’t know New Testament Greek. It is that the exact same word, sozo, which is often translated as “saved” is the same word also often translated as “healed.” That is why Jesus, before healing the paralytic in Matt. 9, quoted above, does so to show and demonstrate that He also has the power to forgive sins. Forgiveness is part of the full healing process of relationships, and of the person.

All that to point to the reality that salvation isn’t about fulfilling the Law, even by Jesus on our behalf. No, that would be a works-based salvation. It would be a salvation based on the fulfilling of the Law, the very thing that St. Paul was so adamantly against in both Romans and Galatians.

To the atheist out there, no, God does not need to sacrifice His Son in order to forgive us. Rather, it was a rescue mission, a mission of mercy, a way constant within Himself and the creation and man. It was a mission to give us the option to apply His forgiveness, already freely given, to ourselves. It was a mission He undertook to restore the relationship broken when Eve ate the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

God sought to heal our relationship with Him, not punish someone, any one, for us breaking His Law. How did He do that? That is for the next section.

The Atonement

When I attended college and we discussed the atonement, and in my readings on the subject, they tend to list three main views or “theories” on the atonement: classical, or to put it more directly, what the Early Church and the Fathers believed was the case; the Substitutionary theory of the atonement, and the Satisfaction theory of the atonement. The last two “developed” as some apparently didn’t think the classic view was sufficient.

So what are these views? We’ll look at the last two first, briefly, before getting into what the Church originally believed. Keep in mind, that there are elements of truth in each one. It has, however, been drawn out to conclusions that distort, if not pervert, the truth of what Christ came to our world to do on the cross. We’ll point out the truths in those two, otherwise, over-extended metaphors.

Substitutionary Theory of Atonement

This idea came from a misunderstanding of the nature of sacrifice. It is true that there was a specific ritual where the sins of the people were “transferred” to a goat (Leviticus 16:21). The meaning of this act, where the High Priest lays his hands upon the goat and “confesses” the sins of the people, is wrapped up in a longer set of sacrifices that the High Priest would preform once every year. But if there is a something that illustrates the common understanding of substitutionary atonement of Christ’s death on the cross, then this is the ritual that would be pointed at as a biblical example of such a sacrifice.

Though, literally, it is not a sacrifice. The goat isn’t killed, directly. It would be an indirect sacrifice since we would typically assume that the goat would die, however, the goat dying doesn’t appear to factor into the meaning behind this ritual. Instead, it appears to be more important that the goat wander in the wilderness, carrying the sins of the people.

Additionally, there was no mention of that ritual being an atonement, except in a wider manner. So, while it is an annual event, its importance within the wider sacrificial system was not that important in defining what a sacrifice does.

However, the gist of this theory of the atonement is that Jesus, being the ultimate sacrificial lamb, because it was His own Son, dies in our place. We who were dead in our sins, He would take them for us and therefore die for us.

So, why is it a wrong concept for the atonement? Precisely in its incompleteness. For even the Catholic/Protestant versions of this add on the following Satisfaction theory, because while the Substitution theory of the atonement explains how our sins are forgiven on the front end, it fails to tell us why and how they are forgiven and how that saves us. Instead, it creates the appearance of a circular logic loop: There are sacrifices in the OT to point us to Christ, but that Christ was sacrificed is somehow supposed to justify the whole sacrificial setting.

So, what is the proper understanding of the whole sacrificial system that God set up? We’ll get more into it when we talk about it in the discussion about the “classical” theory, however, what we have shown is that, yes, there is a sense where Christ takes our place, and dies in our behalf. Yet, the question still remains, why? And how does that accomplish the atonement? Those questions is what the Satisfaction and Classical theories attempt to demonstrate.

The Satisfaction Theory

What is the Satisfaction theory of the atonement? It comes it two flavors, the Catholic version which uses the debt metaphor, and the Protestant version which uses the Law and a courtroom/judge metaphor. We’ll start with the former, first.

Catholic

There are, what Catholics would suggest, are seeds of this in both the Bible and in the Early Church Fathers. However, the more developed and the man who popularized this theory was Anselm. His stated goal was to explain how Christ’s death atoned for our sins without using the Bible so that the pagan could understand it.

He took the debt metaphor that the Bible uses in Matthew 18: 23-25:

Therefore is the kingdom of heaven likened unto a certain king, which would take account of his servants. And when he had begun to reckon, one was brought unto him, which owed him ten thousand talents. But forasmuch as he had not to pay, his lord commanded him to be sold, and his wife, and children, and all that he had, and payment to be made.

What is the debt we owe to God? It is his honor, in that we have violated His honor and justice due to our sins that the Law lays out. The debt, like the servant in the above parable, is so great that there is no way anyone could earn enough “money” or righteousness to pay God back. Only one person can, and that is God Himself. So, God the Son is incarnated in our flesh, in order to become one of us. Then He dies, in order that He could pay in our behalf, His Father’s honor back in full—that is where the substitution comes into the picture.

I’ll grant Anselm this, in that it does make some sense of why Jesus had to die for our sins. However, there are some problems with this view that make it problematic, some of which I’ve heard atheists use.

One. And probably the biggest one for anyone who bases this debt metaphor on the above passage, is that the master, representing the Father, forgives the servant the entire debt, with no strings attached!

The servant therefore fell down, and worshipped him, saying, Lord, have patience with me, and I will pay thee all. Then the lord of that servant was moved with compassion, and loosed him, and forgave him the debt. (Matt 18:26-27)

The only other place in the New Testament that mentions a debt is Romans 4:4, “Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt.” Obviously another place that would speak of salvation as not being based upon owing a debt, but of grace, mercy, and love, just as the man in Jesus’ parable mentioned above. But aside from the Biblical arguments, there are some logical problems with this view.

Two. That our debt is owed to God the Father instead of death and the Devil. This theory makes God the Father out to be “bad” guy, the obstacle to our salvation. Which is crazy when you think of Him creating us for a relationship; then not allowing Adam and Eve to totally die off once they had sinned, because God couldn’t be wrong in creating Adam and Eve the way He did, that is, He wouldn’t have created them in the first place if He had known this broken relationship couldn’t be fixed; then He sends His Son down to die for us because He is too proud to forgive us—despite the fact that every passage and example of forgiveness in the Bible doesn’t require any of this paying back a debt of honor to God.

No, we don’t owe any debt to God that He doesn’t stand ready to forgive us for if we but ask, trusting that what He has said is true and will happen (Rom 4:20-21). However, there are clear passages in the Bible that place us, due to our sins, as owing a debt to the Devil, being in bondage to the death.

Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned. (Rom 5:12)

Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; 15 And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. (Heb. 2:14-15)

According to the Bible, we are in bondage to Death and the Devil, not God the Father, which makes more sense out of this. For otherwise we would have God becoming man for the purpose of freeing us from His own punishment. But no, God freed us from bondage to death and the Devil, not from Himself.

Three. It creates a demand outside of God for which He has no option but to obey: His honor. This violates His omnipotence. For we are saying that God has to kill us, due to our debt of His honor being violated. That He is not free to readily forgive us, which violates all that the Bible says about God being merciful, ready to freely forgive us our sins in both Testaments, as we have previously laid out?

Four. This view of the atonement creates a “works based salvation” in that someone is bound to pay back the debt for God’s honor. Even God’s own son must come and rescue us from His Father by paying the debt that we owe due to our sins. Yes, the sinner doesn’t have to do anything but believe in what Christ has taught (if He really taught this), but all that means is that in order for God to satisfy His honor, He has to do the work. Thus, it is still based on debt and works. God is not free to simply forgive us outright.

Protestant

The juridical view is based upon the same premise as the debt metaphor, save it uses a juridical construct. Instead of owing a debt to God, the sinner is guilty before the Father of breaking His Law. Instead of Jesus’ death paying our debt to God, Jesus’ death takes our punishment for us so we can go free.

Because of this, the same objections apply. None of the parables, examples, or passages in Scripture which speak of being forgiven are used in a courtroom metaphor. Now, that is obvious with passages like the Parable of the Prodigal Son, and the lack of any such requirement listed before God would forgive someone their sins. But I know some will bring up words like “Justification” and “imputing righteousness” as legal type jargon. Yes, they can be used juridically.

However, they can equally be used relationally equally as well. I offer that it is only because Protestants tend to look at the Scriptures through the juridical lens that they take these terms with a juridical meaning. For instance, take the term “justification.” It can be understood as seeing a defendant as justified in doing what they did. But in a relationship, which we’ve established is what salvation is about, we are speaking of two people or entities being reconciled, that is, their broken relationship is justified. Same for righteousness. One can understand it in a juridical sense, but it can equally be taken in a relational sense, that is, that to be righteous has nothing to do with fulfilling the Law, but with fulfilling the spirit of the law by reconciling one’s relationship with God.

Likewise, the juridical understanding of atonement tells us that we stand guilty before God of breaking His laws, that He has no option but to kill us for it, that He is unable to simply forgive us for our sins, that death is a punishment of sinning, that it boils down to salvation is based in the Law, in that Jesus must fulfill the Law to save each of us. That is despite passages like those found in Romans and Galatians which make it clear that any theology which bases righteousness upon fulfilling the Law, is antithetical to righteousness deriving from a justified relationship with Jesus Christ, that salvation is by grace, through faith, and not of any works is key that this is about a relationship with Christ, not about a courtroom.

I need to point out, though it should be quite obvious, that there is a place in a relational theology for the Law, and our breaking of it. For in any relationship, there are often expectations, and unsaid “laws” that one member, or both have. The relationship that is broken because of the non-fulfillment of those expectations or relationship Laws, is not reconciled to the offending party by him or her then trying to fulfill those “Laws,” but by one party (at least) asking and receiving forgiveness, for the past wrongs. Yes, to “go and stop sinning” is an important part of receiving and applying forgiveness offered, but before that can even happen, first the relationship needs to be reconciled, needs to be justified for past misdeeds. Once that relationship is restored, then one can begin again to factor in the Law to one’s daily relational lives.

The Classical Theory

The “Classical Theory” or the “Victorious” theory of the atonement basically says that death held us captive in Hades, awaiting the Last Judgment, at which time God would be revealed in all His glory, desiring to have a relationship with us. The only problem is that God’s glory, being that He is light and in Him is no darkness (1 John 1:5). Those who have become like Him experience Him as light. Those that aren’t, experience Him as fire and brimstone, essentially what has been termed as Hell.

Now, Hades isn’t the same as Hell. It is, by no means, a pleasant place, however, it is the holding place of the dead, that is, until Christ came in and defeated “death, Hades, and the grave.”

So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. (I Cor 15:54-57)

You see this same theme in Romans 6, in relating baptism as a death to the “old man” and a rising to new life. Christ had to become one of us, to die as one of us, so that He might go into Hades, break down its doors that have held us hostage since the beginning of time, including Adam and Eve, so they could spend the remainder of their time in Paradise with Christ. Then at the Last Judgment, when God’s glory is revealed, those who have God’s life in them, will experience God as “Heaven” while those who don’t, will experience God’s glory as “Hell.”

That is why God had to hide Himself from us, so that we would have time for our uniting with Christ and God’s life. If He had revealed Himself “face to face,” then the Last Judgment would have happened then. Instead, God always uses intermediaries, because as He told Moses, no one can see Him “face to face” and live. At least not until they have been restored to the same state Adam and Eve were created in.

Another truth of this view is that the Law isn’t just a set of rules that God decided one “day” to arbitrarily force us to live by, and if we broke them, too bad for us. No, the Law was designed to support the reason God created us. That is the definition of sin: those activities and beliefs which go against God’s design specs for us and our eventual reunion with Him on the last day, Judgment Day.

So, Jesus wasn’t satisfying a requirement of God’s justice, other than the injustice of our broken relationship with Him. Jesus wasn’t sacrificing himself, acting as a scapegoat for our sins, except that He did die because of our sins, in order to bind the strong man (the Devil) and to defeat “death by death” since Hades could not hold God.

That is why I said earlier that Jesus was on a rescue mission. Sin had made us sick, and we needed to be healed (saved) so that we could enter into God’s presence with thanksgiving and joy, rather than with fear and dread. The is a positive view of God the Father and of the Son, and why He needed to become one of us, die on a cross, and subsequently, rise from the dead. In order to defeat death, so that we would not subsequently die ourselves, but could have eternal life.

Does God Exist?

Either God (or gods) exist, or He (they) don’t. That is self-evident premise one.

Now, as agnostic atheists are prone to say, they are not suggesting that they know that a God exists or not, but that they have no evidence that there is a god that exists. By “evidence,” they are generally referring to the scientific kind, where a testable hypothesis is put forward, and then the test is done. Then based on that, one could then potentially develop a “theory,” which scientifically is the highest probability of being the truth, but it is revisable based on new inductive knowledge coming to light.

Most of them use what is called skepticism as a basis for seeking truth. In other words, they will not believe anything until it has been proven to them to have a high probability of being true. They feel that this is the best method of determining truth. Note, that what they have interpreted as showing what is true, may not at all be true. It was once considered to be true that the sun revolved around the earth, and that the earth was flat. Now, thanks to advances in knowledge, we know that is not the truth. So, what will happen in the future to show that what we think is true today, will not be in the future?

That is why we generally live our lives based on faith knowledge, or revealed knowledge, in those that we trust to be telling us the truth. Or, to put in a different way, each of us is forced to live our lives either as if God exists, or He doesn’t, no matter what degree of agnosticism one holds to. So, one could pragmatically be an agnostic atheists, or an agnostic theist. The skeptic will choose to live as an atheist. The non-skeptic can choose to live as an agnostic theist.

Now, I need to define what I mean by agnostic theist. Because, by definition, it means someone who believes in God, but is agnostic about His character and traits. However, that is not the kind of agnostic theist I am referring to. Rather, that is what one believes about God’s existence: both rationally and relationally. What is critical is what one actually lives out in there life. That is where the agnostic label goes away, and one either becomes an atheist or a theist, no matter their belief on the matter. One can suspend one’s belief that there is not sufficient evidence to know whether God exists or not, but when it comes to how one lives out their life, they are an atheist or a theist.

So my definition of an agnostic theist is one who doesn’t know whether a God exist or not, based on human reason and logic. However, one lives as if there is a God, either due to Pascal’s Wager, or because that’s what they were taught growing up and have decided to trust in what they have been taught. They have faith in their Church’s teaching, or their parent’s teaching and life, or because of a personal experience that they attribute to a God. This, more non-skeptical approach to life is based in relationships rather than hard “facts.”

For God is a supernatural being. Supernatural is that which is above and beyond nature. He is supernatural, because He is uncaused and exists outside of time and space. That is why there can be no scientific proof or evidence for God’s existence. The only evidence we have are His effects in our lives. However, these are subjective and not testable. Jesus said that the Holy Spirit is like the wind. We cannot see Him, but we feel His effects on us. Yet, the effects of the Spirit of God is filtered through each of us, making “objective” testable truth unreachable.

Therefore, we need to modify the question. One shouldn’t ask whether one believes that God exists in truth or not, for no one, if they were honest with themselves, could know that based on human reason. Sure, there are plenty of “proofs” for God’s existence, but they all have holes of one sort or another. Likewise, there are “proofs” for the non-existence of God, but they also all have holes. All you need to be able to do is to show that there is another possible explanation for whatever the proof claims, and it is disproven.

Rather, the question should be, who will you put your faith in to tell the truth about God’s existence? That is something that each person needs to decide for themselves. One may, being this is subjective and relational rather than objective and testable, come to different conclusions on this question, and that is okay. That means what will convince one person may not convince another. One person may accept the Jewish God as truth, or the Christian God, or the Islamic God, or the Hindu gods, or the Buddhist of-no-consequence-gods. Or, they may decide that the evidence that they have leads them to trust that there isn’t a god, so that is how they live, as if God doesn’t exist.

So, for myself, I have placed my faith in the Eastern Orthodox concept of a God. Yes, I know that there are contradictions in the Bible, and issues with how we can know that He is there. Despite that, I can’t help but to continue to believe He is there. As Matt Dillahunty said on a recent episode of The Atheist Experience, you can’t so much choose what you believe. You either believe it or you don’t. I’m going to agree with him there. Not in any kind of predeterminalistic way, but in that I am going to believe based on what I believe to be true. As a non-skeptic, I am willing to have faith in the religion I have decided tells the truth. I understand I could be wrong. I could die and discover that the Islamic God was true, or that the atheists were right, or that I was right. I have to make a choice of how to live. Being I’m almost 60, it would be strange to change my beliefs now. That said, I know that my reasons for choosing the Christian God to believe in won’t be convincing for others. I believe that is how it is supposed to be. That’s because if there is a God, and that God is the merciful God I believe Him to be, that no matter who is right among the religions of the world, He will give everyone a chance to believe in the truth, whatever that might be.

So, yes, I believe, at least in a practical sense, that God exists. I am an agnostic theist, as I’ve described above. However, what I ultimately believe is defined by how I live, more so than how I believe defines how I live. They are more of a symbiotic relationship. As Jesus said, I know that you love me if you do what I say (John 15:10). Likewise, if you love me, do what I say (John 14:15). However, I would describe it this way, to get specific: What I live out defines what I believe, whereas what I believe describes how I live it out.

Your mileage may vary, but for me and my house, that is what I believe.