God's Silence

Two key related questions for many skeptics are, “If God exists, why is he/she silent?” A related question is, “Why faith?”

For many atheists, the question of God’s silence is the clincher in their rejection of faith. God is just not there, they say, and there’s no way to get around it. If he/she were, you’d hear from him/her. So grow up, get over it, get on with it. Learn to live your life without God and you’ll be much happier.

For me, an important similar question is, “Why faith?” Why would God design things in a way that requires human beings to believe in him/her instead of knowing him/her directly? Why require an intellectual and emotional struggle about faith? If he/she is so smart, couldn’t he/she have come up with a better design?

For believers, of course, God is not silent. They see him and “hear” him in others, in nature, in the Bible, in their work, in science, literature and art.

But for the skeptical searcher for God, I have no entirely satisfactory answers for either of the above questions. Rather than answering them satisfactorily for myself, I’ve made a calculated accommodation after considering the benefits versus drawbacks to believing. I believe that rationally, belief versus unbelief is a wash. There are good reasons on both sides. I choose to believe, but part of that belief is the conviction, though accompanied by doubt, that God has given me the gift of faith. (So, why hasn’t he/she provided that gift to everyone? That has to await another blog post. I have a list.)

If God exists, anything is possible

Oddly, once I get past the question of belief in the existence of God, I have no problem believing the rest – in my case, that Jesus is God and that he indirectly founded the church to which I belong. After all, if God exists, anything is possible. Of course, the choosing thing is important here, too. I choose to believe in Jesus and in my church, just as others choose differently.

None of this is to say that I don’t simultaneously have doubts. On some days – usually because of some media report of man’s continuous inhumanity to man – those doubts are grave. On most days, I’m a happy, believing camper.

Still, I should give you the best answers to the above questions that I have been able to come up with. As mentioned, these answers aren’t entirely satisfactory. But I find that answers to lots of my questions, about God and religion or not, don’t come with satisfactory answers.

Regarding the silent God, I can imagine what human existence might be like if God were not silent. We would lose our freedom. We would find it impossible to say “no,” to decline to live lives that reflect what we know about him/her. No matter how benign a God, it would by necessity be a relationship of dictator and dictated to.

My answer to the “why faith?” question is the basically the same. Requiring faith gives us the freedom to reject God.

Part of the reason these answers are not satisfactory is that they leave a lot of related questions unanswered, such as the question about people with no opportunity to accept or reject God.

What about reason?

Others include the question of people from whose culture or upbringing God is not a factor. And what about people who can’t accept God because accepting him/her would contradict what they know from reason, which like faith, is said to be God-given? There are lots of other such questions, and as a skeptical believer, I must say I simply don’t know. I have to leave them to God.

One thing I can say about all this to the skeptic who is genuinely searching for God: the search requires effort. We all are so influenced by our culture, we have to get beyond what may have become comfortable. We may have for some time substituted career, sports, music, food and drink, sex, exercise and “stuff” for God. I’m not saying any of these are bad, just that their attraction is so great and the absence of God in some lives so pervasive, we may have to go out of our way to seek answers.

Some may believe religion has an exaggerated influence on American politics and social mores in ways that may not appeal to them. That may discourage them from making the effort. Personally, I believe the effort is worth it, and many studies have shown that people of faith are happier than those who have none.