Isn’t it enough just to be a good person? Do I have to believe in God?
Question - Why do I have to believe in God? If I treat others with respect, isn’t that enough?
Answer - If there is no God, then it essentially does not matter what a person does. If God does not exist, then there is no moral standard and no Supreme Judge of our actions. The problem comes if there is a God or if there might be a God. If there is or might be a God, then it is imperative to ask whether God requires belief and/or even something more.The Bible has a particular answer to this question and it comes from the words of Jesus. At one point, Jesus was asked about the most important commandment from God. He responded with two primary things a person needed to do please God. The first was to love God with heart, mind, soul, and strength. The second, Jesus said, was like it; love your neighbor as yourself.
Notice here that there is a responsibility to both God and neighbor. If Jesus had only mentioned loving one’s neighbor, then we could assume that this was sufficient. He did not, however; instead he said that we must love God. In fact, this is the first requirement. This does not mean simply an acknowledgement of God. One can acknowledge the existence of something without any real commitment to it. What God requires, said Jesus, was that we love God with all we are and all we do, with heart, mind, soul, and strength.
For this reason, it is not sufficient, just to be kind to others. This is important but not the only thing that matters. To love God is required. In fact, it is the first thing we must do. Christianity believes that this is crucial because all true love for others flows from a person’s love for God.
How can I love God? A first thing people can do is pray. We can turn out hearts toward God and tell him “thank you” for the various blessings in our lives. We can ask him for what we need. Another way to begin to love God is read the Bible, which is God’s words to tell us about himself.
2. Does it matter what I believe about God? Isn’t it enough to be sincere in my own beliefs?
Question - It seems to me that what God wants is sincerity. It does not matter exactly what I believe, if I am sincere in those beliefs. What’s wrong with this?
Answer - In most of life, what we believe matters. When we drive a car, it is important to know which side of the road to drive on. In some countries, such as England, it is different from America, so knowing the correct side is important. If you are married, your spouse cares that you know that you are married to them, not to someone else. If you went home to someone else after work, your spouse would not be indifferent to your mistake.
Does God care if we worship him instead of another god, or a god of our own devising? The Bible throughout says, “Yes.” In the very earliest days of the Bible, God forbade the worshipping of idols, that is, pagan gods that were not God. Why was this? God wanted people to know who he was and worship him instead of a false God. The Bible even says that God is a “jealous” God who will not tolerate being worshipped alongside another god.
Why does the Bible say that God is jealous? Because God has chosen to make himself known to his creation, especially to us as people. He wants people to know him and invites them into a relationship with him. But for this to happen, they must know who he is. It does not work for people to worship something or someone who is not God.
It would be silly for me to worship a boiled egg. I love boiled eggs but would prefer to eat them, not worship them. While no one worships boiled eggs, humans tend to worship a variety of false things. We worship fame, success, money, beauty, youth, security, freedom, and all sorts of things. Thousands of years ago people worshipped idols made of wood and stone. We do not do this today but worship idols that our hearts create. We also create comfortable gods who don’t bother us too much. The Bible teaches that nothing in creation is God. God stands over and above creation and is its author. He calls people to know him and worship him. He is jealous in that he does not want us attaching ourselves to things that are not gods because they cannot help us. Only the true God can.
When a house is built, it is important to make sure the foundation is done correctly. You would not purchase a home where the foundation was incorrectly laid, no matter how sincere the architect was. If we are going to build a meaningful life, it ought to be built on a foundation that will support the structure. Only a true knowledge of God provides such a foundation.
3. Did the resurrection of Jesus really happen?
Question - In ordinary experience, people do not rise from the dead. What evidence makes Christians believe that Jesus did?
Answer - The resurrection of Jesus is not like a scientific experiment. That is, it cannot be repeated in a laboratory. In this sense we cannot recreate the resurrection. It was a one-time unrepeatable event. To determine the truthfulness of the resurrection we need to be more like a jury in a trial. A jury examines the evidence to ascertain what actually happened. When we look at the resurrection in this way, there are many things that make it credible. Below is a listing of some of them:
If the story were made up, the women would not have been the first ones Jesus appeared to. It makes the disciples look bad.
The disciples were slow to believe, as anyone would be who was told that someone had risen from the dead. The disciples only come to believe because they see the risen Christ with their own eyes.
Everyone seemed to acknowledge that the tomb was empty. Yet dead bodies are notoriously difficult to hide. If the body had just been moved or stolen, the religious authorities would have found it. A body was never discovered because Jesus was alive.
The story that the disciples stole the body while the soldiers slept is not credible. Soldiers did not sleep on duty. Their life depended on their keeping their prisoner safe, and they would have slept in shifts. It is also not credible to think that the stone could have been rolled back quietly enough to keep the soldiers from waking even if they had fallen asleep. In addition, if the soldiers had been asleep, they would not have known what happened.
The gospel of John reports that the linen cloths that were wrapped around Jesus were still in the tomb, with the head piece lying by itself. If someone had stolen or moved the body, they would not have taken the time to unwrap the grave cloths. It would have been quicker to take that body wrapped up. It would also have been cleaner since Jesus would certainly have been bloody from the scourging and crucifixion. But if Jesus rose, he would either have unwrapped the grave cloths, perhaps leaving them in two piles. Or he may have vanished out of them, leaving them where they lay, with the head piece separate.
The change in the disciples was remarkable. On Saturday after the crucifixion, they were confused, frightened, and dejected. Fifty days later, they would be bold, confident, and willing to risk their lives to proclaim Christ’s resurrection. What precipitated the change? They must have had something dramatic that completely changed them. When the Holy Spirit descended on the church, it gave them the power to give confident witness to what they knew to be true.
All the disciples except for one would die violent deaths because of their witness to Jesus, the heart of which was the proclamation of his resurrection from the dead. But people do not die for what they know to be a lie. Yet none of the disciples broke down and confessed, even under the threat of death. They all held to their story of Jesus' resurrection. The most obvious reason is that they knew it to be true.
The day of worship for the emerging church changed almost immediately from Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, to the first day of the week Sunday. There seems to have been little controversy about doing so. What could have caused such a dramatic shift in one of the cardinal practices of the Jewish people, the keeping of the Sabbath? Only something dramatic and transforming. Christ’s resurrection on the first day of the week, would be such an event.
The existence of the Christian Church today is evidence that Christ lives. The church would certainly never have come into existence without the resurrection. The Church exists today, against all odds, because the living Christ continues to call it into existence and empower it.
What happened on that first Easter Sunday morning? Everything reported in the gospels makes sense if Jesus actually rose from the dead. If it were not true, too many details of the story cannot be adequately explained. Because they saw the risen Christ, the disciples had the confidence to commit their lives to the service of Christ.
4. Why is God so mysterious? Why doesn’t he make himself more clearly known?
Question - If there is a God, it seems like he would make himself known in a clearer way. Why doesn’t God make it so that everyone can plainly see that God exists?
Answer - If God exists, then it would certainly be easy for God to make his existence evident. God could write his name across the sky in large letters and even give us a new message every day. That would allow people to be certain of God’s existence. But would that create a situation in which people loved God? Not necessarily. It would create acknowledgement, maybe grudging acknowledgement, but not love.
The Bible teaches that God has made himself known in a way more likely to create faith, love, devotion, and joy. There are two ways Christianity believes God has made himself known. The first is in the created universe. Psalm 19 says, “the heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.” When we observe the nature of the created order, we recognize the existence of a Creator. As every building is built by someone, we can observe that this world, with its beauty, order, and apparent design, also has a Builder, who is God. The wonder of creation is seen, not only in things like the moon and stars but human existence. Our creation as physical creatures, with minds to think, senses to feel, and a soul to reflect, gives evidence of an intelligent Creator.
From these things we observe that there is a God who is powerful, creative, and intelligent. But there is much more we wish to know. That is where the Bible comes in. Christianity believes that the Bible gives us more specific information about God and his will. The Bible is the record of unique, unrepeatable, events in history, through which God has revealed himself to the world. These center around the nation of Israel in the Old Testament and the life of Jesus and the early church in the New Testament. This revelation from God gives us much more specific information about who God is and God’s plan for our lives. We learn about God, the world, and ourselves in the Bible. Christianity believes that God does make himself known to those who will read the Bible. Therefore, if you wish to know who God is, the solution is to read the Bible. In addition, Christianity believes that God gives his Holy Spirit to those with faith, so they experience God as a living presence. In this way God makes himself known in a personal, not merely intellectual way.
This being said, we do not understand everything we might wish to know about God. This should not be surprising. If God is truly the God of Creation, then we should not expect to fully understand him. The God of Christianity is far beyond our complete understanding. The Bible says that his thoughts are higher than our thoughts and his ways higher than our ways. For this reason, Christians sometimes talk about a “revealed” will of God and a “hidden” will of God. God reveals what he expects from us as humans in the Bible. Yet God does not reveal everything about his plans. God does not tell us why everything happens or exactly what he is doing in the world at every moment. These things come under the category of the “hidden” will of God. God keeps his own counsel and we cannot fully know it. In the Bible, God has reveal plenty of things for us to ponder and consider. In heaven, we will know more about God, but still, no doubt, not be able to comprehend the full depths of God. Christians believe that, even in heaven, God will be full of mystery, such that it elicits wonder and worship from both angels and people.
5. Will science ever prove that God does not exist?
Question - Science is always making discoveries. What if science one day proves that God is only a figment of our imaginations?
Answer - Think about the nature of science. It operates in the physical realm. In the physical realm, science can form hypotheses, test them, and use what they discover the explain the natural world. But science has no access to realms other than physical and material ones. One cannot weigh “spirit” or measure its physical properties. God by definition is spiritual. Science has no tests or processes for answering questions about God.
What about the possibility that God is just a figment of people’s imagination. Or wish fulfillment? Maybe people have invented God because we seem to need the idea of “God” to give life meaning? It is certainly possible for people to believe any of these things. Many people feel like science has made it possible not to believe in God because we no longer need God to explain physical phenomenon that we do not understand.
But none of these things answer all the questions that life poses? For instance, why is there something instead of nothing? This is a question that philosophers have asked for centuries. It is not necessary that anything exist, yet it does. Why? Why is there something instead of nothing? The Christian answer that all things exist because God made them is just as reasonable as to say that things exist, “just because.” The idea that creation came from God is certainly more satisfying, though that does not make it true.
It is also reasonable to observe that all buildings have builders. Every time we see a building, without exception, it had a builder. In our experience, things with obvious design, were created by someone with intelligence. It is not unreasonable to believe that the world was also created by a great Intelligence, who is God.
The belief that reason can explain all the world’s phenomena is outdated. It is generally understood today that there are limits to reason’s ability to explain. For example, even the ardent atheist who asserts that “God is not good,” or “religion is evil,” cannot make their case with certainty. They can assert but not prove. Their arguments are always open to objection and critique.
Ultimately everyone lives by faith, both the Christian and the atheist. Neither can prove their position, at least to everyone’s satisfaction. One must study the evidence and decide which makes more sense, has more evidence, and is more compelling. Christianity believes it has at least as much evidence as atheism and in fact, much more.