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