This article was originally published in the Winter ’05 issue of Revisions, Is there a Place for Christ in the Classroom?
In this ever-changing world, teeming with technological advancement and enterprise, I earnestly ask this question: how do ideas such as Jesus Christ or The Trinity readily affect people’s lives? This question is not easily answered because many believe that religion solely belongs in antiquity. Wasn’t religion originally developed to explain natural phenomena and the human condition before the advent of modern science? Honestly, who needs Jesus Christ today? He was crucified 2,000 years ago; he cannot possibly make any difference in the lives we lead today. Moreover, Christianity has bred nothing but trouble, corruption, and suffering throughout history. Now some think that they are justified in making such assertions, but I want to argue that they have been severely misinformed. I propose to carefully inspect Christianity from historical, scientific, and philosophical lenses. My intention is not to offer Christianity as the final say in all theological matters. However, I argue that Christianity has historically been misconstrued, and that today it is of great importance to revisit it with an open mind and fresh perspective.
Firstly, I aim to clarify some tenets of Christianity. This section is not meant to preach to people or sway them in either direction. My goal is to elucidate some fundamental Christian beliefs, without any filters or hidden agendas on my part. To begin, let us first consider the question of God’s existence. Now of course this is the subject of much debate in society today, but it is nonetheless relevant in delineating basic Christian principles. Throughout the years many theologians have noted that human beings have a deep-rooted longing to find meaning in life. Of course, a higher meaning can ultimately lead one to question God’s very existence. Now, through personal experience and testimony, some will claim that God has greatly impacted their lives. This group naturally consists of theists; they believe in God’s existence and acknowledge that He is an active part of their lives. Conversely, others openly reject the idea of God and develop an atheistic worldview. In his work Theology: The Basics, theologian Alister McGrath remarks, “It is easy to overlook the fact that atheism is also a faith. An atheist believes that there is no God. This belief, however, is just as difficult to prove as the Christian belief that there is indeed a God.”1 Unfortunately many people easily overlook this fact, or fail to realize it in the first place. Atheism is a faith, just as Christianity is.
But what do I mean by faith and, more specifically, by Christian faith? McGrath refers to Luther’s perception of faith, simply that “faith is about being prepared to put one’s trust in the promises of God, and the integrity and faithfulness of the God who made those promises.”2 This definition offers an insightful encapsulation of Christian faith. Faith is not merely believing or acknowledging the idea of God or Christ. It is a placement of trust in what is promised by God through his Word.
What about Jesus Christ? What is it about Him that makes Him so special and relevant in the lives of Christians, even today? Let me first lay out some basic features of what makes us human. Face it: we are fallible beings. We err and come up short again and again. We plot, scheme, lie, steal, kill, lust … and the list goes on. According to Christian belief, because we are fallen from God, something is needed to bridge the gap. The only way that gap is bridged is through Jesus Christ. Christ is a mediator between a sinful people of Creation and the Creator Himself. As Anselm of Canterbury postulated, Christ helps to restore humanity “to its original status within creation.”
What about the Trinity? Many ponder this supposed peculiarity of Christianity. How can an all-powerful God be arbitrarily divided into three? Personally I think that is not the appropriate question to ask here. Instead, I would posit this: How can God effectively represent Himself to us, so that we can begin to understand His purpose for us? Assuming that God is omnipotent and omniscient, He is infinite. We, of course, are finite beings. For this reason, God must change form in order for us to receive Him and better understand Him, especially while we are here on earth. A logical description of the Trinity is outlined in Gregory of Nyssa’s Not Three Gods: “…but every operation which extends from God to the Creation, and is named according to our variable conceptions of it, has its origin from the Father, and proceeds through the Son, and is perfected in the Holy Spirit.”3 According to Gregory’s logic you cannot have one without the other two. To restate, the Father is the ultimate source. From Him comes the Son (Christ) in order to redeem humanity and suffer alongside it through His death on the cross. Finally, the Holy Spirit emerges as an active agent in a person’s heart to help that person grow in Christ and have a closer fellowship with God.
Now that some basic Christian doctrines have been clarified, let us turn to the pages of history. How has Christianity fared since the life of Jesus Christ nearly 2,000 years ago? Unfortunately, the answer is “not well.” Christianity has been so closely associated with human suffering throughout the years that it comes as no surprise that people were willing to completely turn away from it. However, it is more important to investigate why people revolted against Christianity, giving rise to atheism. As McGrath deftly puts it, “Paradoxically, the historical origins of modern atheism lie primarily in an extended criticism of the power and status of the church, rather than any asserted attractions of a godless world.”4 Now this might come as a shock to some readers. It certainly surprised me when I read it. I had thought that atheism would naturally occur because of people’s clear rejection of God and willful efforts to undermine any Christian doctrines.
This is not true. In The Twilight of Atheism, McGrath lays out the historical underpinnings of atheism, and argues that the blame exclusively lies in the corruption and oppressive nature of the Church throughout history. McGrath specifically examines three men who contributed to the intellectual foundations of atheism: Ludwig Feuerbach, Karl Marx, and Sigmund Freud. These men were carefully chosen, as they respectively represent philosophical, sociological, and psychological vantage points. No matter what beliefs these men propounded, it is vital to understand the social context in which they lived and wrote. McGrath presents this idea very clearly: “Yet one of the most obvious lessons of history is that atheism thrives when the church is seen to be privileged, out of touch with the people, and powerful.”5 One could conclude then that it was only natural for atheism to develop from such a dire situation.
Another important aspect of atheism that I want to mention is how it can sometimes emerge from the tension between science and religion. Now first of all, I think I am safe in assuming that most people consider science to be substantiated by evidence and proof. This is true, but only to some extent. If you really consider what science deals with, it is only representative of what we know for the present time. Much of science consists of theories describing reality. How do we know that our current theories will not be revamped or even entirely abandoned in the future? I know this might seem like a stretch to some readers, especially if they consider the certainty of science with regards to yielding the same results with repeated experiments. But how can we know our present experimental methods will end up being the most effective ones in years to come? The answer to that question is simply that we cannot. McGrath eloquently claims that “…the natural sciences offer what they believe to be the best possible explanation of things, but are perfectly prepared to abandon or modify this in the light of additional information.”6 From this I would go as far as to say that science is a form of faith—faith in that it relies on current knowledge with the hope that that knowledge can be revised with new information presented in the future.
Let us now examine one of the most challenging scientific ideas to ever confront Christianity. After developing his theory of evolution, Darwin ultimately decided to reject the Christian idea of God. He did so not because he saw apparent contradictions between the Christian tenet of creation and his theory, but because he severely disliked the evangelical teachings in Victorian England at the time.7 Many people in Darwin’s time, and even today, see creation and evolution as completely incompatible. I argue that this is not the case. Coming from a Christian perspective, can evolution and natural selection simply be mechanisms by which God created all living things? Furthermore, is evolution an infallible or exhaustive method to describe life as we know it? Certainly not! I do not consider these to be drastic conclusions but I leave you as the reader to formulate your own.
So what has become of atheism? Look at the 20th century, which was established with a mentality based on Nietzsche’s affirmation: “God is dead.” Communism, which caused widescale oppression and the death of hundreds of millions of people, failed horribly. Do not forget that communism was originally founded with the intention of completely removing God from the picture. To put it frankly, you remove God from the picture and you get tremendous suffering.
Where do we turn now? What lies ahead at this advent of the third millennium? I say that we must be open to everything, including supposedly diametric disciplines such as theology and science. Above all, Christianity must be reconsidered at this point, keeping in mind that people initially revolted against it because of social circumstances, not because of Christian beliefs themselves. People—not God—have been error-prone throughout history, which led to corruption in the Church and a consequent negative perception of all things associated with it. I believe that ignorance is never bliss, and that only through education and exposure can we formulate better conclusions about Christianity. As theologian John Polkinghorne avers, “Reality is too rich to be taken in at a single glance; it must be viewed from many perspectives.”8 Many things are necessarily outside our realm of understanding because of the infinite nature of God Himself. Assuming that we are His creation, we take on the role of His offspring. Although we have been given the great privilege of knowing His Word and experiencing Him through the Son and the Holy Spirit, we have tremendously faltered. We have acted like careless teenage drivers, not knowing what to do once we are at the wheel. Please, let us learn something from Christianity’s troubled history, and realize that it has been our fault for all of the suffering we have brought upon ourselves. Finally, it would not be unwise to turn to Scripture and see if Paul’s advice can be of some help to us: “Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”9
- Alister E. McGrath, Theology: The Basics (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2004): 7. [↩]
- ibid., 11. [↩]
- Gregory of Nyssa, Not Three Gods (Book III). [↩]
- Alister E. McGrath, The Twilight of Atheism (New York: Doubleday, 2004): 11. [↩]
- ibid., 55. [↩]
- ibid., 96. [↩]
- ibid., 104. [↩]
- John Polkinghorne, Faith, Science, and Understanding (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000): 13. [↩]
- Philippians 3:12–14 (NIV). [↩]
