Believing and Not Believing in God

Years ago, I was traveling to Salt Lake City to deliver a lecture at a conference dealing with “The Aftermath of the Holocaust.”  Sitting in the courtesy van after arriving in Utah, I was seated next to a gentleman from Israel, also attending the conference.  As we talked, he asked me what my presentation would be about.  I told him the title of my paper was: Speaking of God After Auschwitz?”  He gave me an odd paternalistic look and then in the kindest solicitous voice said, “My good sir, there is no god.”  It was as if he were telling me as a child, there is no Easter rabbit or Santa Claus. 


Such events make me wonder if indeed, as a religious affirming person, I am wrong.  Have I invested my life in nonsense? Am I just another human being distressed by the thought of being alone in the world, fearful of death, and controlled by fear, imagining myself being accompanied by a parental character called, God, when there is nothing there?


This, of course, is our contemporary dilemma.  We hear the voices of those who are convinced there is no God and no meaning to our existence.  We wonder if they are right and we are wrong.  Those of us who think about such things know we must ask the questions, though they may cause doubts and even unbelief, because they bring integrity to our faith.  Our scriptures are aware of our existential plight: “Lord, I believe, help my unbelief.”
    

My sense is this:  If you’re going to be a person of honest faith, trusting without knowing for sure, you are going to have to live in the tension between belief and unbelief.  Some days you will think all this talk of God is part of some religious mythology made up and imagined by the ancients, while other days you will wonder if something of purpose is going on in our lives.  Such is the life of trusting in an invisible, mysterious, inscrutable, puzzling force at the heart of the universe, who we hope is for us and not against us.  

We are either fools afraid of our own shadows or among the wise who believe what seems ludicrous to believe.  Of course, we may be both.  Don’t run away from this tension, embrace it!