G.K. Chesterton’s (1874-1936) famous quote, “If there were no God, there would be no atheists” (Where All Roads Lead), sheds light on the truth that there is far more philosophical and scientific evidence for a God than there is for the absence of a God.
One could write an entire book on this subject alone (which I did, but am waiting patiently–please God–for its public debut), but for the sake of my audience, I will settle for a five-minute blog post.
Blind faith
It is absurd to think that a God would expect His creatures to believe in Him solely on blind faith.
Surely He would provide evidence for His existence…. This is how He provides the means for us to study and understand the material world around us in way we can makes sense of it.
Psalm 19 poetically expresses how even the inanimate things of this world bear witness to the beauty of a Creator:
“The heavens declare the glory of God; the firmament proclaims the works of his hands. Day unto day pours forth speech; night unto night whispers knowledge. There is no speech, no words; their voice is not heard; A report goes forth through all the earth, their messages, to the ends of the world“ (vss. 2-5).
Just beholding the splendor, manifold organization and balance of nature alone evokes a sense of instinctive gratitude and an inexplicable longing to possess and replicate such beauty.
Jesus, Who equates Himself with God as the second Person of the Holy Trinity, tells His followers not to rely on their own feeble abilities to fully comprehend God but to employ their gifts of reason to process the massive amount of evidence constantly before them.
He ratifies this claim by guaranteeing they themselves (after He is gone from the world) will perform even greater miracles in His name, through the power of the Holy Spirit:
“You must believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; believe it on the evidence of this work, if for no other reason. I tell you most solemnly, whoever believes in me will perform the same works as I do myself, he will perform even greater works, because I am going to the Father” John 14:11-13
Just as with today’s atheists, in the ancient world, St. Paul told the pagans in Lystra (present-day Turkey) that not being of the Jewish faith was no excuse for ignorance of God, because God reveals Himself to all people willing to look past human ingenuity.
Paul boldly proclaimed to them: “In the past [God] allowed each nation to go its own way; but even then he did not leave you without evidence of himself in the good things he does for you: he sends you rain from heaven, he makes your crops grow when they should, he gives you food and makes you happy” (Acts 14:16-17).
Clearly, Christianity is evidence-based and, therefore, a rational religion.
But how does one employ his intellect in the face of supernatural phenomena, such as miracles?
‘Let there be light’ (Gen 1:3)
If one compared the truth to light, the truth of God illumines the mind of one who allows Him to do so, like the sun climbing over the darkened horizon.
Whatever was shrouded in the shadows is now made visible, and the “objects” that were once hidden can now be “seen”, realized and rightly ordered in the mind.
How does this help the Christian?
He no longer wanders in the darkness of his own intellect, and he is able to find the once-hidden path to the One Who loves him.
The Good news is, one doesn’t have to be “religious” to find it. He just has to be willing to admit his faults, take hold of God’s “outstretched hand” (Ps 139:10), and open to know and accept the truth.
The “Spirit of truth”
But is the truth a concept or a person?
Jesus spoke of the truth as a person in the context of Himself in John’s Gospel (“I am the way, the truth and the life”, 14:6). He also referred to another Person as the truth, as John also records in his Gospel a chapter later:
“The Spirit of truth will be my witness; and you too will be my witnesses” (Gospel Acclamation, taken from John 15: 26-27, JB).
Ordinary people down the ages who were touched by this “Spirit of truth”, enabling them to bear witness to the existence of God.
Some, so steeped in darkness, find it too difficult and painful to find the courage to change.
But what about the others?
How did they do it? What made the difference?
The ‘Abortion King’
God knows we are weak creatures, prone to missing the mark by choosing lesser goods through our own frailties and woundedness.
Let’s face it: even the most egotistical among us could never honestly claim to be the epitome of perfection (since arrogance itself is a serious deficiency)!
The point is, as a human family, we all fall short of the kind of people we could be.
So what about those people who triumphed over evil despite their own failures–those who led lives similar to ours but somehow found the strength to admit they were wrong and completely changed course?
Some, like us, even willingly participated in grisly acts.
Someone like the notorious ‘Abortion King’.
Dr. Bernard Nathanson (1926-2011) was born into a Jewish family but admitted he was effectively an atheist most of his life. Like his father, in the 1960’s he became a prominent and successful OB-GYN in New York. But when abortion became legal in New York in 1970, Dr. Nathanson made his most lucrative living, not by delivering babies, but by killing them before they could be born.
In his 1996 autobiography, The Hand of God: A Journey from Death to Life by the Abortion Doctor Who Changed His Mind, Dr. Nathanson admitted that he was personally responsible for 75,000 abortions throughout his career–even aborting his own child.
Moved by the loving witness and honesty of individuals in the first grass-roots pro-life movement and with the advent of the first ultrasounds, Dr. Nathanson changed his position on abortion, convinced it was murder. In his book, he referred to it as “waging war against the most defenseless human beings” (see “Source” at bottom).
Even before He believed in God, Nathanson’s, gifts of intellect and reason led him to the truth that no innocent human being ever deserves to die at the hands of other human beings.
So even without a religious conversion, he recognized and began to work to expose the truth, producing two documentaries two books and attending public speaking forums advocating for life.
He became a Catholic at 70 years old 1996 and died of cancer ten years later.
A world beyond itself
Other mysterious circumstances that cannot be explained through human reasoning alone (i.e. near-death experiences, sudden breakthroughs in addictions, unexplainable and permanent disappearances of physical maladies such as cancer, and scientific evidence of Eucharistic miracles) all point to the existence of something greater and more powerful than this world can hold–it points us to a world beyond itself.
Indeed, the world itself is a sign that points to something greater–a place that is not weighed down by the imperfections and disasters that plague this world.
The fact that we universally long for something more permanent and more beautiful must confirm there exists a forever home for us to achieve the glory we all desire.
For who can desire something that does not exist?
And how can one thirst for something that could not be eventually satisfied?
May God go with you now and always.
Our Lady of Victory, pray for us.
Source: Bernard, N. Nathanson, M.D., The Hand of God: A Journey from Death to Life by the Abortion Doctor Who Changed His Mind (Washington D.C.: Regnery Publishing, 2013, Adelle Roban, originally published in 1996 Bernard N. Nathanson, p. 132.