You must not really know me if this is the conclusion you have to jump to. I read an Apologetics Study Bible. I checked every footnote. I researched. I went to two different churches for awhile. I went to Bible study groups. I hosted a church group in our home. I once tried to rewrite the gospels in chronological order.
I understood that the only way to be saved was by God's grace, through faith in Jesus Christ. And that this was a gift from God, not by ourselves or from any of our works, so that no one can boast (Ephesians 2:8-9, John 3:16-17). But I also understood that faith without works was dead (James 2:14-17), not because works are important for salvation, but rather because those who believe will be compelled into action. I was no baby Christian.
But, in order for me to believe anything, I have to be able to make sense of it, and I genuinely believed in Christianity for years. If something didn't make sense to me, it would nag at the back of my mind and cause me to doubt. If anything caused me to doubt, I had to investigate it.
And if something still didn't make sense to me, I came up with theories. Eventually, I came up with a catch-all theory I dubbed Chronolism to explain away how the Genesis account and Big Bang Theory could both work simultaneously. I tried desperately to fight off any doubts.
I understood that the only way to be saved was by God's grace, through faith in Jesus Christ. And that this was a gift from God, not by ourselves or from any of our works, so that no one can boast (Ephesians 2:8-9, John 3:16-17). But I also understood that faith without works was dead (James 2:14-17), not because works are important for salvation, but rather because those who believe will be compelled into action. I was no baby Christian.
But, in order for me to believe anything, I have to be able to make sense of it, and I genuinely believed in Christianity for years. If something didn't make sense to me, it would nag at the back of my mind and cause me to doubt. If anything caused me to doubt, I had to investigate it.
And if something still didn't make sense to me, I came up with theories. Eventually, I came up with a catch-all theory I dubbed Chronolism to explain away how the Genesis account and Big Bang Theory could both work simultaneously. I tried desperately to fight off any doubts.
However, after my worldview got flipped on it's head by the alligator story, I had to try harder. I desperately needed evidence. Up until this point, I had a childhood fishing story and a divergent testimony to back up my faith. Every attempt to be baptized in the Spirit had failed. The only real reasons I still had to believe were because of other people's stories, yet it seemed God absolutely refused to show up in my own life. I needed to put myself in a position where I would be completely dependent on God, so he could finally prove himself to me.
I needed to leave Port Angeles, WA. Many of you already know this story, but for those who don't, I blogged about it, here.
Ethan, Asher and I, posing in front of our travel trailer before embarking off of the Olympic Peninsula for good.
This trip was brutal to us, but I tried to paint it in the most positive light I could. I melted part of my beard within the first few days. I flooded the trailer. Our brakes went out coming down a mountain. The kids ended up getting badly sick and soiled my pants with their vomit or diarrhea almost daily for a couple weeks. Meredith and I butted heads constantly; she wanted to see all the sights, but I wanted to stick to the straightest road possible to keep from destroying our overburdened vehicle.
And then, somewhere along the way I experienced another eye-opener.
At some point, an atheist friend of the family added me to a Facebook group called "The Atheists' Waiting Room." The premise of the group was that atheists could add their theist friends, who were then allotted a specific amount of time to bring forth their evidence for the existence of a god, or otherwise face ejection from the group.
I wrote the most persuasive argument I could for the existence of God. It included bits of my testimony, the story behind our trip to Alabama, and all my theories of how the Christian God could be plausible without contradicting science. By the end, I was confident that my argument may even open a few closed eyes. My atheist friend congratulated me on my well-thought out response.
But it was almost immediately dismissed. As one atheist was quick to point out, it didn't actually contain a shred of evidence for the existence of God, merely hearsay and theories arguing for his plausibility. I debated this particular atheist around in circles for the day, suggesting things like, since I had proven God to be plausible, it should merit some investigation. He argued for the "burden of proof," that without evidence, there could be no investigation. You can't go about debunking the Loch Ness monster, for instance, without some evidence. The person making the claim that something exists is then responsible for bringing the proof.
I then switched tactics by arguing that nothing would be sufficient evidence for him to believe, anyway, never-minding the fact that I had no proof present. Eventually, he stated that he grew tired of my circular logic, and stopped responding altogether.
In my mind, I thought I had won and that he was merely refusing to accept it. I didn't understand it then, but my logic really was circular in nature. It was built on unfalsifiable arguments, arguments that cannot be demonstrated as either true or false. Before that day, I didn't understand the burden of proof. I barely understood the difference between faith and evidence. All of these concepts were completely new to me.
At the end of the day, the page's moderator very politely asked if I had anything else to bring to the table in terms of evidence. Exasperated, I admitted that I did not, and with that I was removed from the group.
It would take some more time, but eventually I would come to realize that although I understood Christianity and the Bible, I didn't understand much outside of that. My mind had remained closed to the secular world and atheist viewpoints in an effort to prevent further doubts from creeping in.
But now, I had more research to do. I needed to fill in those gaps and make sense of what all I had been missing. Where was all the evidence for God? I began searching for extra-biblical sources of proof for God and Jesus. Surely, if God was as omnipresent as they say, there had to be some reference out there, right?
This trip was brutal to us, but I tried to paint it in the most positive light I could. I melted part of my beard within the first few days. I flooded the trailer. Our brakes went out coming down a mountain. The kids ended up getting badly sick and soiled my pants with their vomit or diarrhea almost daily for a couple weeks. Meredith and I butted heads constantly; she wanted to see all the sights, but I wanted to stick to the straightest road possible to keep from destroying our overburdened vehicle.
And then, somewhere along the way I experienced another eye-opener.
At some point, an atheist friend of the family added me to a Facebook group called "The Atheists' Waiting Room." The premise of the group was that atheists could add their theist friends, who were then allotted a specific amount of time to bring forth their evidence for the existence of a god, or otherwise face ejection from the group.
Challenge accepted.
I wrote the most persuasive argument I could for the existence of God. It included bits of my testimony, the story behind our trip to Alabama, and all my theories of how the Christian God could be plausible without contradicting science. By the end, I was confident that my argument may even open a few closed eyes. My atheist friend congratulated me on my well-thought out response.
But it was almost immediately dismissed. As one atheist was quick to point out, it didn't actually contain a shred of evidence for the existence of God, merely hearsay and theories arguing for his plausibility. I debated this particular atheist around in circles for the day, suggesting things like, since I had proven God to be plausible, it should merit some investigation. He argued for the "burden of proof," that without evidence, there could be no investigation. You can't go about debunking the Loch Ness monster, for instance, without some evidence. The person making the claim that something exists is then responsible for bringing the proof.
I then switched tactics by arguing that nothing would be sufficient evidence for him to believe, anyway, never-minding the fact that I had no proof present. Eventually, he stated that he grew tired of my circular logic, and stopped responding altogether.
In my mind, I thought I had won and that he was merely refusing to accept it. I didn't understand it then, but my logic really was circular in nature. It was built on unfalsifiable arguments, arguments that cannot be demonstrated as either true or false. Before that day, I didn't understand the burden of proof. I barely understood the difference between faith and evidence. All of these concepts were completely new to me.
At the end of the day, the page's moderator very politely asked if I had anything else to bring to the table in terms of evidence. Exasperated, I admitted that I did not, and with that I was removed from the group.
It would take some more time, but eventually I would come to realize that although I understood Christianity and the Bible, I didn't understand much outside of that. My mind had remained closed to the secular world and atheist viewpoints in an effort to prevent further doubts from creeping in.
But now, I had more research to do. I needed to fill in those gaps and make sense of what all I had been missing. Where was all the evidence for God? I began searching for extra-biblical sources of proof for God and Jesus. Surely, if God was as omnipresent as they say, there had to be some reference out there, right?
...Right?
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