Can You Think Your Way to Faith?

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Charles Murray was a small-town Iowa boy. Son of an executive in the Maytag Corporation, he eventually went to Harvard University where he received a bachelor’s degree in history before getting a PhD in political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

He went on to become a frequent commentator on contemporary American life, especially regarding education, social policy and the welfare system, writing articles for national publications and being frequently interviewed on what he wrote.

I came across him on YouTube, where he was being interviewed about his new book, “Taking Religion Seriously.” The interviewer seemed astonished at the fact that Murray, a lifelong, outspoken agnostic – a person who claims neither belief nor unbelief in God – could write such a book.

Religion Irrelevant?

Murray, you see, had always adhered to the standard mantra of most atheists and agnostics, that religion is unnecessary and irrelevant. Now, in his new book, Murray proclaims himself a believer in God and in Christianity.

I’ve only started to read the book. So, I’ve turned to what is becoming one of my favorite sources, ChatGPT (Never for writing!), for a summary.

Murray describes himself as having had what he calls a “perceptual deficit” regarding religious experience: other people seemed capable of experiencing God, while he wasn't. He explained in the YouTube interview that some people are tuned into certain ideas – sports, business, religion, politics – while others aren’t. He wasn’t open to religious or spiritual subjects.

Charles Murray
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But over several decades, he says, a series of intellectual questions gradually undermined his agnosticism: the apparent order and fine-tuning of the universe make purely accidental explanations less satisfying to him; consciousness - especially the fact that human beings have subjective experience - raises questions that materialism doesn't adequately answer.

He considers the possibility of a universal moral law, arguing that our sense that some things are objectively right or wrong is difficult to explain entirely through evolution or social conditioning. And finally, he turned specifically to Christianity and examined the historical reliability of the Gospels and the evidence surrounding Jesus' resurrection.

He describes his process toward toward faith as a series of “nudges” that eventually forced him to reconsider assumptions he had previously taken for granted. He approaches the issue in what ChatGPT calls “characteristically Murray fashion - not primarily through religious experience or theology, but through evidence, history, science, reason, and probability.”

Not everyone will be moved by Murray’s “conversion” story. I believe most people come to faith through emotional experiences and through the witness of others, especially family, and don’t think their way to God. They may study, but their prayer and the prayers of others on their behalf play a big role. God, it seems, reaches people in various ways, dependent on their proclivities, their backgrounds and their personalities.

Openness

What is required for faith, I believe, is an openness toward a new way of looking at life and its meaning, whether it happens intellectually or in a myriad other ways. Some may say you can't think your way to faith, but for some people, it may be God's way of reaching them.

I can’t help but think, again, of Francis Thompson’s poem, “The Hound of Heaven,” which I’ve quoted in these blogs several times. Thompson was a tragic fellow, an English poet and writer who became an opium addict. His poem eloquently describes how God continually seeks us and how we often vigorously resist being found. Here are the first few lines.

I fled Him down the nights and down the days; I fled Him down the arches of the years. I fled Him down the labyrinthine ways of my own mind; and in the midst of tears. I hid from him, and under running laughter.