I just want to preface that I really appreciate your page! One of my favourites on here and I love your honesty as well— I’d love to push back on this statement a little.
“I’ve never felt God’s presence the way people describe. I’ve never experienced anything I would call supernatural.
Do I wait for the day that I do? What if it never comes? Is there a thought process that will make me a believer? What is it?”
I think you have experienced God! You experience supernatural things every day. The sun in the sky giving us light, the trees breathing out essential oxygen for us only to be met with our essential carbon dioxide, the miracle of life at all, never mind just the basic concept of human consciousness and conception. The rotation of planets and the irreducible complexities of anatomical systems. From your testimony, when you pray, love, are generous, etc, you experience something. You are surrounded by miracles man. That’s God speaking to you.
And Joseph, you do believe! Everything you do is based on faith. You have faith that your wife isn’t going to leave, that the chairs you sit in won’t break, the planes you fly on won’t crash, the banks where you put your money won’t fail. What is one more step of faith towards Christ?
I don’t think it’s an evidence issue, at all. Because there is compelling biblical and historical evidence that Christ believed himself to be God incarnate (I have written an article on this, and also why the Trinity matters, if you are interested).
There is no magical thought process, and for many people there is no blinding Damascus Road moment. For others it’s an Emmaus Road experience like in Luke 24 where Christ appears as an unrecognized stranger invited in to break bread, and for others it’s from simply reading the Scriptures like the Ethiopian eunuch did in Acts 8.
Belief is first and foremost a choice that we make based on one part of the picture, even before we see the full picture. That apocalyptic prophet you see is just one part of the whole.
I am praying for you brother, not just that you will see Christ in all his glory, but that you and your family would be blessed and encouraged, and that you would experience the power and love of God.
I think I hear what you are saying, Joseph. I used to be a church attending person but realized that I didn’t really believe that Jesus was God or that he was the only way to God. I did not have a “personal relationship with Jesus.” So I started telling myself and everyone that I was not a Christian, even though I attended church, retreats, etc. I was seeking Truth. I spent over 3 years in pain living with the honest fact that I did not and could not believe in claims of Jesus as God yet I was drawn to try to find out. I believed that as a true skeptic and a doubting Thomas myself, it was impossible to ever prove (intellectually/philosophically) the existence of God and claim of Jesus as God.
The question I have for you is: are you sincerely seeking Jesus as God from your heart? Are you willing to give up everything you have to find your answer and then to follow and serve Jesus? If you are, then Jesus will reveal himself to you, I have no doubt, and answer all your questions in ways you do not expect.
My concern for you Joseph is that in your article you already said that you are not ready or willing to give up all your possessions to personally know Jesus as God and follow him, who is eternal life. I just hope and pray that one day you will desire to know Jesus as the way, the truth, and the life so much that you would be able to give your life for him. Like they say, when the student is ready, the teacher will show up.
For me, I came to know the truth of Jesus through the power of his Holy Spirit. There could be no other way. It had to be this way for me because no intellectual, historical, or philosophical argument or evidence was enough for me. I had an encounter with the Holy Spirit (or the Spirit of Jesus) in whose presence I trembled and shook for hours and entered into state of awe inside a chapel whose fourth door miraculously opened for me in an otherwise locked church. After that night, for 4-6 months I was constantly trembling, filled with sense of awe, joy, and even ecstasy just about everyday. I became so convinced in the truth and divinity of Jesus that I prayed God take these experiences away since I no longer needed them to convince me.
But, before all of this happened to me, I prayed to God from the bottom of my heart the following prayer: “Jesus, if you are who you and others say you are, if you are the way, the truth, and the life, then reveal yourself to me and let me inside this locked chapel and I will serve you and your people for the rest of my life.” Then, a door to the chapel miraculously opened and when I walked inside alone on a Friday night, the Holy Spirit came upon me for the first time in my life, and I’ve never doubted ever again. That was 37 years ago.
It is my personal belief that you need to know the supernatural power the Holy Spirit, which you can only receive if your heart conditions are right in God’s eyes. And only God is the judge of our hearts. I hope and pray that one day your heart will be ready to offer everything to Jesus and God the Father. God is faithful and trustworthy, and you will be blessed eternally.
Thing is this: if the whole experience is about looking for a relationship with God or with Jesus or with reality or something beyond reality, aren’t you doing it? The questions, so searing and sincere, show that you are searching, and if any of this is true then the one who seeks finds.There is something wonderful in your seeing of Christ the human, a clever, charming, persuasive man. If he is out there, wouldn’t it be great to imagine he heard/read that and thought ‘yes! Someone sees me as real, not just a beautiful stamped icon of the king of kings but a person.’ I cannot persuade you even if that was the right thing to do: I can hardly persuade myself. But I think what you see /feel is worth pursuing . It feels like there is something real in it. I ask you to go on.
I don't know how much this will help, but I'll offer my two cents from personal experience.
I'd say you're closer to believing than you think. If prayer comes naturally to you, that means something. Faith isn't just intellectual assent. Protestants believe in sola fide; not all theological traditions are the same, but my perspective is that: I don't think of faith as a task, a “work” that you must complete; I don’t imagine anyone has perfect faith in that sense (maybe some do, and this is more reflective of me than anything, I’m willing to take this into account.) Many believers hide it, but we continually doubt. I personally think of faith as continuing, to the best of my ability, to follow the Word of God regardless of how I feel in my heart, and getting up again with repentance when I fail. "The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure." And He knows it. How could He not? It's not as easy to be an "innocent" believer in this age as it was in the past. Other Christians should also be honest that it takes a bigger leap with all the available information and historical perspectives. I try not to chase "true faith" in the sense of "assurance in my heart or mind that God is real and loves me" because I know my heart and mind are unreliable. I lean on Christ, who I trust to forgive my sins, including unbelief and the sin of not having perfect trust.
Many people imagine that faith is meant to give you inner peace and comfort. They think that faith is not real unless it gives you these things. If faith gives someone these things, that's wonderful. However, I don't believe it has to in order to be true faith. I don't think faith depends on emotions. Our hearts are vulnerable and changeable. “Sinful” (not in a guilt trippy sense.) Even with believers, I don’t think most of us get a single illumination and go on living the rest of our lives as different beings, this has not been my experience PERSONALLY with conversion. Some days we feel God is with us, and other days we feel abandoned, but our emotions are often deceiving. I don’t think it is a contradiction to pray and go to church even while you do not assent to all articles of faith. I think it’s the opposite of a contradiction. Like, what else are you supposed to do *but* that?
I think it’s wonderful that you pray.
I am no theologian or pastor, just a random teenager, but I don’t think the right move would be trying to convince yourself by working (reading, reasoning ect) of all the articles of faith you just cannot bring yourself to believe in literally. Just keep praying if it brings you comfort. Your prayer is no less valuable than that of a “orthodox” Christian.
What if the word that’s being used is not an approximate for the way that we understand the word “belief“?
The words, courage and conviction in English feel like much closer approximations to faith than simple interiority of possessing a set of ontologically correct beliefs.
I don’t think Yehoshua cared very much about what anyone believed beyond the behaviors that those professed beliefs produced.
This is where I think his teachings on trees bearing fruits becomes very instructive on this question. I don’t think Yehoshua meant for any of us to perform inquisitions and interrogations of our own theologies quite so much as he was interested in our theology producing behaviors consistent with his mission.
Let us presume for a moment that Yehoshua himself was exactly who Christians believe that he is. If we had faith like his, if our beliefs were aligned with him, would we be less afraid? I sincerely doubt it Yehoshua himself had a pretty well documented rough night in Gethsemane. I don’t think there is anything that spares us from fear. The faith they talked about, however, was not about erasing one’s fear or arriving at certainty, but pressing forward, in courage and in conviction, regardless.
I suspect, my hunch is, that the faith he talked about is more like the deep breath you take before jumping off of a high platform into a body of water below. You could kill yourself. You might actually do it too. But faith wasn’t what you were thinking about or how you were feeling when you will your foot to take that first, death-defying step forward.
He doesn’t need you to believe; he needs you to do what he did. He needs your tree to produce the fruit that his actions seeded.
Also last thought. It isn’t that there weren’t many people who followed him. There were many people. Tens of thousands during his own lifetime. What we do forget often is that his group stayed small through most of the first 200 years or so because they were being killed. By dozens and sometimes hundreds.
This doesn’t only reduce the official rollcall by virtue of fewer living members, it also affects how many people openly identified. Lots of his followers went underground within the first few centuries. I believe this is referred to in many circles as a chilling effect.
Moreover, it is also my hunch that most of the people Rome went out of their way to hunt down were the ones who were most diligently following Yehoshua’s teachings. The ones who had found a way to live comfortably with an empire’s rule, book were largely left alone apart from some general social harassment.
The people who had truly formed the Commonwealth in the late 30s and early 40s CE were very clearly and very specifically targeted by the Empire for being a threat to its political control and economic tax revenue system.
I would ask what is holding you back from believing that Jesus was real and is the son of God? I think he would tell you what he told doubting Thomas. Touch me and see that I am real. And once Thomas was able to grasp that he went on to be quite a leader in the early church. Ask Jesus to reveal himself to you, and He will.
Often through other believers , through nature which he created, through his word which was written by his witnesses.
I believe we can have complete confidence that he is real, and that we for sure have eternal life through him and no fear of death. He is leading you on your own personal search, but he will review himself fully to you as you continue to seek him out.
Sometimes it’s just easier to consider how much Christ believes in us rather than how much we believe in him. Because I do believe that he believes in us. ☦️
Hi Joseph, I’ve enjoyed reading your work, and your previous essay on being a heretic. You are not a heretic, btw, but a seeker. Even the apostles doubted - look at Thomas! I am a lifelong Christian, 50+ years, raised Catholic and now evangelical. A few suggestions on your faith journey, from an old fool, who has had no shortage of time and episodes where my faith was all but dead. First, pray. Nothing fancy or elaborate. Ask God to reveal Himself to you. One liners. Invite the Holy Spirit into your heart - even if you don’t believe in Him (He believes in *you* which is all that matters 😉). He’s not put off by your doubts, He will open your eyes to many things you now doubt, but you don’t have to “get it right” before He accepts you and transforms your life. His love is not based on your knowledge or beliefs, it is truly unconditional, and beyond measure. Take tiny steps of trust: pray for parking spaces, lost keys, difficult meetings, tough decisions. I think you’ll be surprised at how this evolves. As far as Gospel challenges (miracles, virgin birth, etc), focus on just one: the resurrection. I recently had a series of essays on this, here: https://substack.com/@drisin/note/c-167550031?r=598tu7&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action. You already believe Jesus was real, which is half the battle. Feel free to DM me any time with questions. And you will be in my prayers, daily.
It's interesting that you close with Mark 9:24 as you ask, "How do I believe? I want to."
I think the answer to that is written in that pericope. It tells the story of a father whose son is demon possessed; Jesus's disciples had tried to drive the demons out but were unable to. So he turns to Jesus for help, but in his mind, he doesn't see how Jesus can possibly do so.
"IF you can, help us," he pleads.
"IF I can?" Jesus asks back. Probably raising an eyebrow. “Everything is possible for one who believes.”
The man still doubts. He cannot comprehend how anything can help his son now. Not when all of the solutions offered so far had failed. But he decides to take Jesus at his word. Even if his mind, his emotions, his heart still think that what Jesus is claiming is logically impossible, he decided to trust that Jesus's authority surpasses his own conceptions of what is and is not possible. And only after that decision point did Jesus heal the boy.
Your problem with the virgin birth, miracles, and resurrection is understandable. Many in Jesus's own day didn't believe it either. Thomas didn't until Jesus actually showed up in front of him. Neither did the church of Corinth until Paul rebukes them in 1 Corinthians 15.
But rather than force you to believe the claims because so and so asserted it happened: allow me to challenge back, on what basis do you say that the miraculous claims recorded in the Bible cannot possibly be true?
Because they're against the physical law? But if God is real, why should His abilities to act in this world be limited by the natural constraints He Himself created?
Because science had disproved it? But scientific and mathematical laws by nature cannot make absolute statements of what is or is not possible. Scientific laws can only tell us what we know about nature based on currently known variables, but throughout its history, science progressed precisely because scientists discover previously hidden variables that make what was previously thought impossible possible.
The term "imaginary number" was first coined by Descartes as a derogatory term because the concept was considered fictious or useless. Yet it is now a staple in electrical engineering, quantum computing, and signal processing.
Quantum mechanics itself operate on principles that violate a lot of classical physics theory, such as determinism, collapse of wave function, and independence from observer effect. Einstein, who discovered its indeterminism, couldn't accept the implication of indeterminism to science as he knew it.
Essential to quantum theory is the Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, which tells us that some information genuinely doesn't exist in a definite form until directly measured/observed. It seems non-intuitive, but this principle enables quantum tunneling that allows the construction of semiconductors (although it is now a major roadblock to its future developments).
Even today, there are many people who have experienced miracles - being healed of disease and uncurable conditions. Many of the claims could be bogus of course, but there are proper academic research done on the topic which affirms the credibility of the claims, and at a certain point dismissing all as hoax would require more faith than simply accepting that the miracles did happen.
We cannot choose what we believe. But we can choose whose voice we are willing to follow. The heart that says, "this cannot be possible," or Him who say, “Everything is possible for one who believes.”
Having said all this though, I really commend your willingness to continue to wrestle with the faith despite your doubts instead of just walking away. I don't expect this post to fully convince you, but I hope it helps you see the way more clearly.
Joseph, your recent posts have prompted me to reflect on what I actually believe, at this point in my journey. I wanted to post my thoughts here, but it turned out to be way too long for the comments section. If you're interested, check out my next post. I'll talk about it there. Thank you for your courageous honesty and vulnerability.
What a person really believes is shown in how he/she behaves. If you accept the existence of a real God, a supernatural being and not just a projection of our collective constructs, why not then accept the reality of supernatural events? Shortly after I believed in and committed my life to Christ at age 14, I received a vision of Christ in His glory. Later, when I finished 3 years in the Army and went to university, I took an honors philosophy course and was confronted with many intellectual doubts that questioned my faith. But by recalling and holding on to that vision which was more real to me than material reality, my faith held fast.
Astrophysicists have deduced that "dark matter/energy" makes up at least 95% of everything in the Universe. This "whatever-it-is" dark matter/energy is beyond our rational and scientific ability to detect, but these experts say that without it, the universe could not exist. Mathematics and Logic are not material, but without them the universe could not exist. "He (the Logos) is before all things, and in Him all things are held together" (Colossians 1:17). And we know now that the universe is not infinite, it can be measured (about 13.5 billion light years across), so if we can measure it, it's finite. But the law of conservation of matter and energy says matter and energy cannot be destroyed, only converted back and forth. So how did it come into existence? Why is there something rather than nothing? These questions all point to the existence of something outside of time and space, a Being that is not natural, it's supernatural.
Joe, you're behaving as if you believe, you go to church and sense something there you can't explain, although you're saying - "Lord, I believe, at least I want to believe. Help my unbelief!" Keep on saying that, and ask that Unknown and unknowable uncaused Cause for a vision, a revelation. He will answer and make Himself known to your inner being.
"I think he saw himself as a human chosen by God to inaugurate the kingdom, where he would then have a place of higher prominence."
Why do you think that Jesus thought that he would have a higher prominence? Leave that part out, see Jesus as an example of us and not for us, and maybe, just maybe, you would be closer to the truth.
One sentence in scripture is comforting: Seek, and you will find. Just keep seeking honestly.
I don't think that believing is about not fearing death and having a better life.
I just want to preface that I really appreciate your page! One of my favourites on here and I love your honesty as well— I’d love to push back on this statement a little.
“I’ve never felt God’s presence the way people describe. I’ve never experienced anything I would call supernatural.
Do I wait for the day that I do? What if it never comes? Is there a thought process that will make me a believer? What is it?”
I think you have experienced God! You experience supernatural things every day. The sun in the sky giving us light, the trees breathing out essential oxygen for us only to be met with our essential carbon dioxide, the miracle of life at all, never mind just the basic concept of human consciousness and conception. The rotation of planets and the irreducible complexities of anatomical systems. From your testimony, when you pray, love, are generous, etc, you experience something. You are surrounded by miracles man. That’s God speaking to you.
And Joseph, you do believe! Everything you do is based on faith. You have faith that your wife isn’t going to leave, that the chairs you sit in won’t break, the planes you fly on won’t crash, the banks where you put your money won’t fail. What is one more step of faith towards Christ?
I don’t think it’s an evidence issue, at all. Because there is compelling biblical and historical evidence that Christ believed himself to be God incarnate (I have written an article on this, and also why the Trinity matters, if you are interested).
There is no magical thought process, and for many people there is no blinding Damascus Road moment. For others it’s an Emmaus Road experience like in Luke 24 where Christ appears as an unrecognized stranger invited in to break bread, and for others it’s from simply reading the Scriptures like the Ethiopian eunuch did in Acts 8.
Belief is first and foremost a choice that we make based on one part of the picture, even before we see the full picture. That apocalyptic prophet you see is just one part of the whole.
I am praying for you brother, not just that you will see Christ in all his glory, but that you and your family would be blessed and encouraged, and that you would experience the power and love of God.
This is an interesting perspective. Thanks.
I think I hear what you are saying, Joseph. I used to be a church attending person but realized that I didn’t really believe that Jesus was God or that he was the only way to God. I did not have a “personal relationship with Jesus.” So I started telling myself and everyone that I was not a Christian, even though I attended church, retreats, etc. I was seeking Truth. I spent over 3 years in pain living with the honest fact that I did not and could not believe in claims of Jesus as God yet I was drawn to try to find out. I believed that as a true skeptic and a doubting Thomas myself, it was impossible to ever prove (intellectually/philosophically) the existence of God and claim of Jesus as God.
The question I have for you is: are you sincerely seeking Jesus as God from your heart? Are you willing to give up everything you have to find your answer and then to follow and serve Jesus? If you are, then Jesus will reveal himself to you, I have no doubt, and answer all your questions in ways you do not expect.
My concern for you Joseph is that in your article you already said that you are not ready or willing to give up all your possessions to personally know Jesus as God and follow him, who is eternal life. I just hope and pray that one day you will desire to know Jesus as the way, the truth, and the life so much that you would be able to give your life for him. Like they say, when the student is ready, the teacher will show up.
For me, I came to know the truth of Jesus through the power of his Holy Spirit. There could be no other way. It had to be this way for me because no intellectual, historical, or philosophical argument or evidence was enough for me. I had an encounter with the Holy Spirit (or the Spirit of Jesus) in whose presence I trembled and shook for hours and entered into state of awe inside a chapel whose fourth door miraculously opened for me in an otherwise locked church. After that night, for 4-6 months I was constantly trembling, filled with sense of awe, joy, and even ecstasy just about everyday. I became so convinced in the truth and divinity of Jesus that I prayed God take these experiences away since I no longer needed them to convince me.
But, before all of this happened to me, I prayed to God from the bottom of my heart the following prayer: “Jesus, if you are who you and others say you are, if you are the way, the truth, and the life, then reveal yourself to me and let me inside this locked chapel and I will serve you and your people for the rest of my life.” Then, a door to the chapel miraculously opened and when I walked inside alone on a Friday night, the Holy Spirit came upon me for the first time in my life, and I’ve never doubted ever again. That was 37 years ago.
It is my personal belief that you need to know the supernatural power the Holy Spirit, which you can only receive if your heart conditions are right in God’s eyes. And only God is the judge of our hearts. I hope and pray that one day your heart will be ready to offer everything to Jesus and God the Father. God is faithful and trustworthy, and you will be blessed eternally.
Thank you for sharing your story. It was inspiring to read. I pray one day I'll have a moment like the chapel door.
Thing is this: if the whole experience is about looking for a relationship with God or with Jesus or with reality or something beyond reality, aren’t you doing it? The questions, so searing and sincere, show that you are searching, and if any of this is true then the one who seeks finds.There is something wonderful in your seeing of Christ the human, a clever, charming, persuasive man. If he is out there, wouldn’t it be great to imagine he heard/read that and thought ‘yes! Someone sees me as real, not just a beautiful stamped icon of the king of kings but a person.’ I cannot persuade you even if that was the right thing to do: I can hardly persuade myself. But I think what you see /feel is worth pursuing . It feels like there is something real in it. I ask you to go on.
I don't know how much this will help, but I'll offer my two cents from personal experience.
I'd say you're closer to believing than you think. If prayer comes naturally to you, that means something. Faith isn't just intellectual assent. Protestants believe in sola fide; not all theological traditions are the same, but my perspective is that: I don't think of faith as a task, a “work” that you must complete; I don’t imagine anyone has perfect faith in that sense (maybe some do, and this is more reflective of me than anything, I’m willing to take this into account.) Many believers hide it, but we continually doubt. I personally think of faith as continuing, to the best of my ability, to follow the Word of God regardless of how I feel in my heart, and getting up again with repentance when I fail. "The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure." And He knows it. How could He not? It's not as easy to be an "innocent" believer in this age as it was in the past. Other Christians should also be honest that it takes a bigger leap with all the available information and historical perspectives. I try not to chase "true faith" in the sense of "assurance in my heart or mind that God is real and loves me" because I know my heart and mind are unreliable. I lean on Christ, who I trust to forgive my sins, including unbelief and the sin of not having perfect trust.
Many people imagine that faith is meant to give you inner peace and comfort. They think that faith is not real unless it gives you these things. If faith gives someone these things, that's wonderful. However, I don't believe it has to in order to be true faith. I don't think faith depends on emotions. Our hearts are vulnerable and changeable. “Sinful” (not in a guilt trippy sense.) Even with believers, I don’t think most of us get a single illumination and go on living the rest of our lives as different beings, this has not been my experience PERSONALLY with conversion. Some days we feel God is with us, and other days we feel abandoned, but our emotions are often deceiving. I don’t think it is a contradiction to pray and go to church even while you do not assent to all articles of faith. I think it’s the opposite of a contradiction. Like, what else are you supposed to do *but* that?
I think it’s wonderful that you pray.
I am no theologian or pastor, just a random teenager, but I don’t think the right move would be trying to convince yourself by working (reading, reasoning ect) of all the articles of faith you just cannot bring yourself to believe in literally. Just keep praying if it brings you comfort. Your prayer is no less valuable than that of a “orthodox” Christian.
This is intriguing.
What if the word that’s being used is not an approximate for the way that we understand the word “belief“?
The words, courage and conviction in English feel like much closer approximations to faith than simple interiority of possessing a set of ontologically correct beliefs.
I don’t think Yehoshua cared very much about what anyone believed beyond the behaviors that those professed beliefs produced.
This is where I think his teachings on trees bearing fruits becomes very instructive on this question. I don’t think Yehoshua meant for any of us to perform inquisitions and interrogations of our own theologies quite so much as he was interested in our theology producing behaviors consistent with his mission.
Let us presume for a moment that Yehoshua himself was exactly who Christians believe that he is. If we had faith like his, if our beliefs were aligned with him, would we be less afraid? I sincerely doubt it Yehoshua himself had a pretty well documented rough night in Gethsemane. I don’t think there is anything that spares us from fear. The faith they talked about, however, was not about erasing one’s fear or arriving at certainty, but pressing forward, in courage and in conviction, regardless.
I suspect, my hunch is, that the faith he talked about is more like the deep breath you take before jumping off of a high platform into a body of water below. You could kill yourself. You might actually do it too. But faith wasn’t what you were thinking about or how you were feeling when you will your foot to take that first, death-defying step forward.
He doesn’t need you to believe; he needs you to do what he did. He needs your tree to produce the fruit that his actions seeded.
Also last thought. It isn’t that there weren’t many people who followed him. There were many people. Tens of thousands during his own lifetime. What we do forget often is that his group stayed small through most of the first 200 years or so because they were being killed. By dozens and sometimes hundreds.
This doesn’t only reduce the official rollcall by virtue of fewer living members, it also affects how many people openly identified. Lots of his followers went underground within the first few centuries. I believe this is referred to in many circles as a chilling effect.
Moreover, it is also my hunch that most of the people Rome went out of their way to hunt down were the ones who were most diligently following Yehoshua’s teachings. The ones who had found a way to live comfortably with an empire’s rule, book were largely left alone apart from some general social harassment.
The people who had truly formed the Commonwealth in the late 30s and early 40s CE were very clearly and very specifically targeted by the Empire for being a threat to its political control and economic tax revenue system.
This is a fascinating way of looking at it.
I would ask what is holding you back from believing that Jesus was real and is the son of God? I think he would tell you what he told doubting Thomas. Touch me and see that I am real. And once Thomas was able to grasp that he went on to be quite a leader in the early church. Ask Jesus to reveal himself to you, and He will.
Often through other believers , through nature which he created, through his word which was written by his witnesses.
I believe we can have complete confidence that he is real, and that we for sure have eternal life through him and no fear of death. He is leading you on your own personal search, but he will review himself fully to you as you continue to seek him out.
I do believe he was real. I struggle to believe that he was, say, born of a virgin.
Considering that humans can now make a virgin have a baby through IVF, God came up with that first!
Sometimes it’s just easier to consider how much Christ believes in us rather than how much we believe in him. Because I do believe that he believes in us. ☦️
You have captured my thoughts on this topic so well, these days I don't know what I am either. Lord, help our unbelief!
Hi Joseph, I’ve enjoyed reading your work, and your previous essay on being a heretic. You are not a heretic, btw, but a seeker. Even the apostles doubted - look at Thomas! I am a lifelong Christian, 50+ years, raised Catholic and now evangelical. A few suggestions on your faith journey, from an old fool, who has had no shortage of time and episodes where my faith was all but dead. First, pray. Nothing fancy or elaborate. Ask God to reveal Himself to you. One liners. Invite the Holy Spirit into your heart - even if you don’t believe in Him (He believes in *you* which is all that matters 😉). He’s not put off by your doubts, He will open your eyes to many things you now doubt, but you don’t have to “get it right” before He accepts you and transforms your life. His love is not based on your knowledge or beliefs, it is truly unconditional, and beyond measure. Take tiny steps of trust: pray for parking spaces, lost keys, difficult meetings, tough decisions. I think you’ll be surprised at how this evolves. As far as Gospel challenges (miracles, virgin birth, etc), focus on just one: the resurrection. I recently had a series of essays on this, here: https://substack.com/@drisin/note/c-167550031?r=598tu7&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action. You already believe Jesus was real, which is half the battle. Feel free to DM me any time with questions. And you will be in my prayers, daily.
Thank you for the sound advice, Dr. Bob. I read your series.
It's interesting that you close with Mark 9:24 as you ask, "How do I believe? I want to."
I think the answer to that is written in that pericope. It tells the story of a father whose son is demon possessed; Jesus's disciples had tried to drive the demons out but were unable to. So he turns to Jesus for help, but in his mind, he doesn't see how Jesus can possibly do so.
"IF you can, help us," he pleads.
"IF I can?" Jesus asks back. Probably raising an eyebrow. “Everything is possible for one who believes.”
The man still doubts. He cannot comprehend how anything can help his son now. Not when all of the solutions offered so far had failed. But he decides to take Jesus at his word. Even if his mind, his emotions, his heart still think that what Jesus is claiming is logically impossible, he decided to trust that Jesus's authority surpasses his own conceptions of what is and is not possible. And only after that decision point did Jesus heal the boy.
Your problem with the virgin birth, miracles, and resurrection is understandable. Many in Jesus's own day didn't believe it either. Thomas didn't until Jesus actually showed up in front of him. Neither did the church of Corinth until Paul rebukes them in 1 Corinthians 15.
But rather than force you to believe the claims because so and so asserted it happened: allow me to challenge back, on what basis do you say that the miraculous claims recorded in the Bible cannot possibly be true?
Because they're against the physical law? But if God is real, why should His abilities to act in this world be limited by the natural constraints He Himself created?
Because science had disproved it? But scientific and mathematical laws by nature cannot make absolute statements of what is or is not possible. Scientific laws can only tell us what we know about nature based on currently known variables, but throughout its history, science progressed precisely because scientists discover previously hidden variables that make what was previously thought impossible possible.
The term "imaginary number" was first coined by Descartes as a derogatory term because the concept was considered fictious or useless. Yet it is now a staple in electrical engineering, quantum computing, and signal processing.
Quantum mechanics itself operate on principles that violate a lot of classical physics theory, such as determinism, collapse of wave function, and independence from observer effect. Einstein, who discovered its indeterminism, couldn't accept the implication of indeterminism to science as he knew it.
Essential to quantum theory is the Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, which tells us that some information genuinely doesn't exist in a definite form until directly measured/observed. It seems non-intuitive, but this principle enables quantum tunneling that allows the construction of semiconductors (although it is now a major roadblock to its future developments).
Even today, there are many people who have experienced miracles - being healed of disease and uncurable conditions. Many of the claims could be bogus of course, but there are proper academic research done on the topic which affirms the credibility of the claims, and at a certain point dismissing all as hoax would require more faith than simply accepting that the miracles did happen.
We cannot choose what we believe. But we can choose whose voice we are willing to follow. The heart that says, "this cannot be possible," or Him who say, “Everything is possible for one who believes.”
Having said all this though, I really commend your willingness to continue to wrestle with the faith despite your doubts instead of just walking away. I don't expect this post to fully convince you, but I hope it helps you see the way more clearly.
Joseph, your recent posts have prompted me to reflect on what I actually believe, at this point in my journey. I wanted to post my thoughts here, but it turned out to be way too long for the comments section. If you're interested, check out my next post. I'll talk about it there. Thank you for your courageous honesty and vulnerability.
That's wonderful. Happy to hear it. Looking forward to reading.
Just posted.
What a person really believes is shown in how he/she behaves. If you accept the existence of a real God, a supernatural being and not just a projection of our collective constructs, why not then accept the reality of supernatural events? Shortly after I believed in and committed my life to Christ at age 14, I received a vision of Christ in His glory. Later, when I finished 3 years in the Army and went to university, I took an honors philosophy course and was confronted with many intellectual doubts that questioned my faith. But by recalling and holding on to that vision which was more real to me than material reality, my faith held fast.
Astrophysicists have deduced that "dark matter/energy" makes up at least 95% of everything in the Universe. This "whatever-it-is" dark matter/energy is beyond our rational and scientific ability to detect, but these experts say that without it, the universe could not exist. Mathematics and Logic are not material, but without them the universe could not exist. "He (the Logos) is before all things, and in Him all things are held together" (Colossians 1:17). And we know now that the universe is not infinite, it can be measured (about 13.5 billion light years across), so if we can measure it, it's finite. But the law of conservation of matter and energy says matter and energy cannot be destroyed, only converted back and forth. So how did it come into existence? Why is there something rather than nothing? These questions all point to the existence of something outside of time and space, a Being that is not natural, it's supernatural.
Joe, you're behaving as if you believe, you go to church and sense something there you can't explain, although you're saying - "Lord, I believe, at least I want to believe. Help my unbelief!" Keep on saying that, and ask that Unknown and unknowable uncaused Cause for a vision, a revelation. He will answer and make Himself known to your inner being.
These are interesting and profound points. Also, I wish I could experience a vision like that.
Just ask. He'll answer.
"I think he saw himself as a human chosen by God to inaugurate the kingdom, where he would then have a place of higher prominence."
Why do you think that Jesus thought that he would have a higher prominence? Leave that part out, see Jesus as an example of us and not for us, and maybe, just maybe, you would be closer to the truth.
One sentence in scripture is comforting: Seek, and you will find. Just keep seeking honestly.
I don't think that believing is about not fearing death and having a better life.
Interesting. Thanks.