I read an interesting interview this week about a Christian magazine that has been around for over 20 years. The interesting part was not really so much that it was conducted by an atheist and posted on an atheist apologetics website – that has happened before. The interesting part was that both sides respected each other and didn’t let the interview devolve into a back and forth debate over the apparent logical holes in each side.

This debate is usually what you see when atheists and Christians meet (or really any religion and Christianity meets) – both sides pull out what they think is a logical flaw in the other side and try to stump the other.  The problem is, I have never really seem any point in a debate like this that hasn’t already been made a hundred times.

So – newsflash to all would-be apologists for any religion – any point you have to make has already been made.  And a logic counter argument has also already been brought to the table.  You have already been refuted before you make your point.

But guess what? Those logical flaws that you found in the other side doesn’t prove that they are wrong, either.  Sorry, they don’t.

Look at it this way – if God exists, then this being is much more complex and superior to us in every way. There are going to be things about this being that we can’t possibly understand. So are the logical flaws that we find with any view of God really flaws that disprove existence or are they actually failings of an inferior mind (that would therefore have inferior logic)?  Better make sure you know that one for sure before you dismiss it.

But if God exists, you might ask – then how do you account for these places where we don’t get it? Wouldn’t God want us to understand it all, to have every question answered? Why would God make it so hard to figure out which religion is the right one to follow?

It is all about free will and faith.

If all of the questions were answered, and there was an air tight logical case to be made for the one true religion, then humanity would have no choice but to follow. That would effectively end free will and make us slaves to logical thought. It would also eliminate all faith.  When everything is answered, no faith is required.  All of this would turn us into organic robots – and there is very little true pleasure to be had in interacting with robots that follow you because they are trapped logically.

So all of those logical holes that many use to “prove” that God doesn’t exist or that Christianity aren’t true are to me what proves it all to be true. The true God would leave holes and questions so that we would have the choose to follow or not rather than being mentally backed in a corner. The true God would want us to take a step of faith even though we don’t have all the answers – because the only one with all the answers would be God.

I personally don’t want the responsibility of being God, so I have to accept that I will never have all the answers. I’m too opinionated to be agnostic. And I have studied world religions enough to know that there is no way for them to all be true or to all just be different paths to the same God. There is just too much that they all disagree on at the core.  I have already stated one logical reason for believing that there is a God, but I am have experienced many, many more. If God does exist, even if in some ways we are not able to fully understand how, then at least one of the religions out there has to be right. Why is that? If God cares enough to obscure His/Her/Its existence just enough so that we need free will and faith to find the Truth, then He/She/It would also make sure that at least one religion contained enough truth in it for us to find Him/Her/It.