Why Christian Belief? A Personal Statement

Q: "Why do you think the Christian message is a compelling answer to humanity's questions? Why do you think the Christian message is a compelling solution to human moral and social issues?

A: "Everything I believe as a Christian begins and ends with God, so allow me to start with my reasoning for his existence. I'll go on to talk about human morality, human transgression, human hope, and the human future according to the Christian worldview.

God

"Christians believe that the existence of a supernatural element to the universe is a basic human belief. In order for the natural world to have been brought into existence, it necessitates a force outside of it that could bring it into being. That force would have to be self-existent and timeless; in other words, it must be the first and necessary cause for things to exist. This supernatural force would need to be conscious and intelligible to create what we recognize as order, intricacy, beauty, morality, intelligence, etc., and it would have to be outside of time in order for time to begin. That supernatural, conscious, intelligible being brought the natural world into existence and created personal and relational creatures, humans, because this Being is a personal and relational Being. 

Christians believe that this Being exists as three coexisting personages: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have been knowing each other, loving each other, and deferring respect and adoration to each other in perfect harmony and sufficiency for all eternity. God created humanity to join in the harmony and sufficiency of that triune relationship, to enjoy the perfection of who he is. Some of our deepest desires are to be truly known and unconditionally loved within community. God is the reason for that. Since he wired us to function in relation to him, he is the one with whom we were meant to discover lasting, authentic relationship and purpose.

The Human Problem

"I find that the Christian narrative explains the human problem in a very compelling way. We humans seem to have a collective, distant memory of the world once functioning as a better place. We are well acquainted with a sense of the way life ought to be, and the reality that life is not that way. For example, life ought to be free of injustice - starvation, oppression, genocide, slander, lying, intolerance, war. Life ought to be free of pain and suffering and moral evil. We ought to produce lives of love and self-sacrifice, but we find often we are self-serving and unwilling to care for people. It seems that life should breed wholeness, fulfillment, and prosperity, but we seldom come across a lasting experience of those ideals. 

Why this incongruence? Christianity says that, while we were created to find wholeness, fulfillment, and prosperity in relating to our good Creator, enjoying who he is, trusting his directives for a flourishing existence, and giving him primacy in our affections, we chose to replace God and set ourselves up as arbiters of truth and joy. This is the root nature of 'sin:' rejecting God’s design for human flourishing and living as though we ourselves are God by erecting our own design for flourishing under the assumption that we know better. Said another way, herein lies the origin of all human suffering and injustice - humans rejecting God's rightful prescription for life and wholeness by self-medicating with a cheap imitation.

"Christianity teaches that, prior to usurping God's authority, humans were created as bearers of God's image - reflectors of his character. Inherent to our position as reflectors of God's character is our sense of morality. Generally, we all have a notion of what true human benevolence ought to look like. For example, we know we ought to be generous, but we hoard and store. We know we ought to be honest, but out of fearful self-protection we lie. We know we ought to be industrious, but instead we find that we’re often lazy and unwilling. This human impulse of the 'ought,' or a conscience, is a reflection of God’s heart - his intention for humanity. It’s what peace and wholeness throughout humanity would look like if practiced and enjoyed perfectly. The point of the ‘ought’ is to enjoy peace and wholeness with God and one another.

"As a result of rejecting God as the primary 'good' in life and ignoring his prescription for flourishing, we have become both culprits and victims of our plight. We’re culprits in having erected our wills as totally decisive, rejecting God's decisive will; but victims in enduring the suffering and alienation associated with choosing our own way instead of God's. We weren’t created to be victims or culprits, but it’s what we chose in self-interest and self-glory. There’s a spiritual, psychological, emotional, and relational chasm between us and the all-good God as a result of sin.

"If in mortality I utterly ignore God's rightful place as the true source of life and live autonomously according to my own design, in death, the result is that the chasm becomes infinitely deep. The very nature of seeking life apart from God results in infinite death. Before that sounds drastic or archaic, consider this analogy. In the same way that the astronaut seeking oxygen in outer space will suffocate, when we seek life apart from God, who is himself the epitome and source of life, we'll ultimately find death. For a life spent ignoring and rejecting the God who created me, at death, God gives me what I always wanted - infinite separation from his benevolent presence.

Transition

"So far this has been pretty terrible news. I have tried to make a case for the unraveling of harmony and wholeness that pervades the human experience. If true, this is dire. We have gotten ourselves stuck in a pit, out from which we can't climb. What comes next? Now we turn to consider Jesus Christ and the hope that countless millions have found in the news of his life and death.

The Human Hope

"St. Paul, in the New Testament letter he wrote to the Christians in Ephesus during the first century, shifts from an explanation of the dire human condition to Christian hope with one crucial turn of phrase: 'But God.' God, stepping into history, becomes the chief actor in getting us out of our awful plight: 'But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ' (Ephesians 2:4-5 ESV). What does this mean?

"The four historical accounts of Jesus Christ's life and ministry record paradigm-shattering events and extravagant claims. They record Christ's teaching, his miraculous ability to heal people from illness, and even his ability to bring life back to people who had died. If this is true, Christ was much more than a moral teacher or a martyr. If this is true, our conception of the world needs revisiting.

"Jesus claimed to be the one commissioned to rescue humanity from the arrogant self-seeking and self-glorying disease we'd taken on, to rescue us from our own God-rejecting, self-erecting wills. What’s more, Jesus claimed that he was God in the flesh come to make his dwelling among us. He did not claim to be able to show humanity the way to God; he claimed to be the way to God.

"Jesus Christ said his mission was to accomplish a vicarious act - perfectly loving and honoring God by obeying his will, because we utterly lacked the moral and spiritual resources to do so - and to inaugurate a new paradigm for Life; the "Kingdom." As our perfect substitute, Jesus Christ endured the chasmic separation from God that we incurred, in order to bring us back into fellowship with God. Under the weight of humanity’s wrongdoing and self-centeredness, Christ endured God’s justice that we deserved so that we could walk free of penalty. He did that by being crucified on a wooden cross just outside of Jerusalem, on Calvary hill. Because death is the result of ultimate separation from God, Jesus the rescuer died that we would not have to.

"Christians believe that God, through Christ, offered humanity more than freedom from penalty; it is one thing to be forgiven of wrongdoing, but another to be accepted and made secure by love. Many have called what happened at Christ's crucifixion "the great exchange," where God credits to Christ our spoiled, sinful self-love, and credits to us Christ's perfect, sinless God-love. It is mercy for God to withhold due penalty from humanity; it is grace for God to freely give us the favor he shows to Christ; and both are displays of extravagant love. God made a way to satisfy justice and extend relational love by absorbing the cost of our disobedience himself. Because of the substitutionary life and death of Jesus, God covers us and calls us his children, spiritually born anew into his family, forgiven, and secured by the justifying atonement of Jesus the rescuer.

"After his crucifixion, Christ was entombed. Scripture records his followers' painful confusion and bewilderment at the news of his death - nobody expected this apparent defeat. But, as attested to by over 500 first-century eyewitnesses, Jesus Christ was seen bodily, postmortem, outside the tomb, alive again three days later. Christians believe Jesus Christ wielded a deathblow to death itself. How? Since spiritual death is the result of a life sought outside of God, and Christ lived perfectly within God's design for life, death could not keep him dead - he was not subject to it. Death was not the final word for Christ, nor is it for those who come to God through him.

"Because Christ took up the mantle of life again, people who resign their autonomy to the good design of God, seeing their need for a substitute and a rescuer, have the promise of life in wholeness; life in full fellowship with God. The apostle John records Christ as saying, 'I have come that they may have life, and life to the full' (John 10:10 NIV). The only requisite for God's grace is to know that you need it and are lost without it. That is why Jesus says elsewhere, 'Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest' (Matthew 11:28 ESV). The invitation to peace and rest with God extends to all who recognize their need of it.

The Human Future

"At this point, I have labored to show the hope and restoration an individual can find in relating to their creator through Jesus Christ. How is this practical? Christianity not only answers our existential questions and grounds our moral intuitions, it provides the motivational resources we need for benevolent living in the world. Christians believe they have been rescued by God's sheer grace, and as a result, are compelled to extend the same kind of grace and concern in their relationships with other people. As a result of believing God has generously extended grace to the spiritually helpless, Christians care for the poor, orphaned, and sick. As a result of being fed and clothed by the love of God, Christians clothe and feed the homeless. Because God has redeemed a community of sin-bound people, Christians work to restore equity to structural injustices found in society. Christians work for the common good as a grateful response to God's love in their lives.

"Ultimately, Christian theology has a beautifully optimistic view of the world's future. Because God loves and cares for his creation and for culture, at Christ's return God will redeem the pervasive social, moral, and relational brokenness of the world. Christians believe the earth will experience a global renewal, where no evil and injustice will reside, where humans will flourish under God's generous rule. In Christ, and because of his resurrection, God invites people to join him on this world-resurrecting mission, for the good of humanity and for the honor of his name.

"The Christian message is robust, thorough, and subversively empowering. It is intellectually cogent and satisfying; it is extensive and accurate in its description of the human condition; it is hopeful in its vision of our human future. The gospel of God's grace is subversively empowering in that while it describes me as utterly helpless, thus humbling me out of pride, it declares me won by God's love rather than his justice, thus securing me, dignifying me, and giving me a transcendent hope that compels me to serve God and the world for good."