If it helps, you’re not alone. I know of regular attendees at my own parish who aren’t sure they believe in God, and have met several over the years with a similarly expressed desire to believe but who struggle to reconcile the seeming impossibility of the claims with empirical methods of verification. I share a similar bias of a modern mind, I’ve always been far more of a head Christian than a “heart” Christian, as some put it. I rarely if ever “feel” anything, certainly nothing like God speaking to me or an active sense of some supernatural presence, at least nothing I can’t attribute the movingness of the music or the impact of the liturgy. I’m skeptical of many claims to divine encounter but maybe none moreso than my own.
That said, something that’s helped me with my own faith is couching it in terms of hope rather than certainty (I love the liturgical phrasing, “the sure and certain HOPE of the resurrection). I sometimes liken it to assessing love. I don’t think there’s any way to empirically prove my love for my wife. Certainly there are details that provide evidence from which one could surmise that my love for her is an acute possibility, but it’s not like you can crack open my skull and point to the little neon sign in the affection zone that says “spouse,” and even the things we can empirically verify, such as the actions I take towards her, the engagement ring I bought her, the wedding we held in front of witnesses, or any of the wonderful aspects of the life we’ve built together, these things are predicated on that unverifiable love more than the other way around. And much like faith in a miracle, they’re a collection of visible evidence predicated upon an invisible truth. I think it’s something like that with faith.
The truth of the Christian story, for me at least, this notion that the entire universe is predicated upon a God whose essential character is that of self-giving love, and that Jesus is the most tangible expression of that, as the human vessel through which God binds himself to suffering to bring about our making…that is the most beautiful story imaginable. It is, in some ways, the best possible configuration of reality, to my mind. As such, that story is almost worth believing in even if I had no reason to think it was true (though for the record I think we have plenty of reasons to think it is true). But like any morals or principles that we hold to be “right,“ these are things we strive to live out even on the days where we don’t “feel them“. My love for my wife is not predicated on a constant sensation of butterflies; as it works in me it evolves into a posture of behavior as much as an emotion. So likewise, if we predicate the entirety of our faith on empirically verifiable claims about the historical Jesus, then our faith will never be anything but ambiguous and uncertain (not that there isn’t room for ambiguity or uncertainty in genuine faith, I think there’s plenty), because empirical history is rightly limited in what it can state with tempered degrees of probability about anything, and many of the most important claims about Jesus are simply not susceptible to objective verification by those methods. That’s why the closest we can get through “objective“ history is establishing that, probably, figures like Peter or Mary Magdalene genuinely believed they had encountered the risen Christ, but there’s no verifiable test we can run to “prove” the Virgin birth or the feeding of the 5,000.
Also, if I may be potentially heretical for a moment and make a too-long comment even more digressive, I’m not entirely sure how central a role the “historical“ Jesus is supposed to play in our faith. The historical Jesus is always, by definition, confined by the limitations of the historical-critical method. Historians aren’t necessarily seeking to answer questions about the relevancy of Jesus for our life today, they are simply trying to ascertain what can or cannot be said about particular historical instances with varying degrees of confidence. But that’s not the Christ attested to by either the New Testament writers, the early Church Fathers, or most other writers of Christian history. All four gospels, despite any historical details they may relay, they first and foremost are written from the perspective of theological reflection on the singular event of the resurrection. There is no non-risen Jesus anywhere in the New Testament, even the stories told about him that take place chronologically before the crucifixion are still, in every meaningful sense, speaking of the Resurrected One. He is only known as the one on the Cross.
And besides, it’s not like we’re ever called as people of faith to encounter the historical Jesus, we are called to encounter the resurrected one. Even the person most certain in their faith doesn’t have access to a time machine to take them back to an encounter in first-century Galilee. For us, Jesus is only encounter-able as a literary figure, or as a relational one in the living body of the church, or as an enigmatic inspiration in our own studies, be historical inquiry or devotional practice. In a sense, a “metaphorical“ Christ, as you were speculating about is, in some ways, the only Christ we have direct access to (at least those of us too skeptical to accept a direct supernatural encounter, even if we had one).
It’s like how sacraments give us tangible means for ascertaining glimpses of the imperceptible. I dont think the bread and wine have to literally transform in our gut to be true encounters with the body and blood of Christ. Is that a metaphorical encounter? A literal one? Somewhere in between? I have no idea. But if it’s a true encounter, how it is so is just a detail, subservient in importance to our posture in receiving it as a gift.
So I dont think you’re as far from being a believer as you might think. You’re already, in some sense, pursing Christ. If you’re a regular student of Christian history and part of a church community, you are a Christ-follower. Even some who saw him face to face cried “Lord I believe, help my unbelief.” I think you maybe just share (as I do) the modern presupposition that empirical verification is somehow a better or truer means of ascertaining reality, and since the miraculous remains a rather inaccessible enigma in that methodology, the resurrected Christ is always too far from your reach for comfort. But that may just be our modern biases getting in the way. The grammar of the early church certainly doesn’t approach these things in the terms we’re used to. And I think sometimes we have a habit of over-emphasizing the importance of confidently affirming abstract propositions as opposed to living our life in alignment with what we hope to be the truth. If you live your life seeking to emulate Christ’s self-giving love, you believe in him truly enough to be counted a sheep instead of a goat.
But that’s just one man’s rambling opinion. Thank you for your willingness to share your struggles. I know it helps many of us to realize we aren’t alone in our uncertainty.
Thank you for your rambling opinion. I Appreciate your honesty. And Just to add some point to your understanding of Jesus Christ, and a little doubt I sense in your faith about His existence, let's keep in mind that all past history is just a story to us, because it does not happen in front of our eyes. And yet we believe it to be true. Thanks to historians, artists, writers, journalists, the approved academics, and regular people like you and I, writing personal journals before, sharing life experiences like we present here on substack are doing now. Exchanging views, sharing experiences-beyond the academic-but does that makes us fake?
The most beautiful and yet most drastic, according to me, is the past of our history that took place over 2000 years ago. The episode that gave us the most beautiful, the most genuine, the most reliable lesson to learn. Of Love, of Mercy, of Integrity, of the most ruthless rabbi doctrine induced man made Sacrifice, the Resurrection, Another Sample of Divine Mercy, and the Ascension to Heaven.
The most genuine Expression of Love. Of God.
Not so easy to find among men.
But obviously something to aspire for.
And though we get discouraged to believe in God, let me remind that disciples were in the same position after they buried Christ's body.
But Jesus came back to them after He was resurrected, to once again remind them to KEEP FAITH, for HE never disappoints!
And that's why it is important to keep believing, and keep coming back to gospels, and not be influenced by life troubles or skeptics:
Hey Joseph, thanks for writing so vulnerably and honestly. The tension is a sign of honest-to-God work in religion. I think it's best to think of Christian faith as a kind of trust, rather than an irrational or blind faith. I conceive of my own faith as a mosaic of reasons, arguments, feelings, relational, mystical, and practical considerations. Primarily, it's built around a felt, intersubjective relationship with Jesus, but it also draws heavily from a rational critique of all other positions (and argument in their support). Thinking in terms not just of arguments or evidence for Christianity but arguments against other worldviews. There are many in this latter camp. Ultimately, I think other worldviews fail. While Christianity isn't without epistemic conundrums (problem of evil, etc.), I think we can safely say no worldview is without such conundrums. We need not be irrational, per se, but we do need to accept that reality is strange. And so our understanding of reality must be on par with its existential strangeness!
And Christianity is attractive not just for its intellectual or rational position (which I believe is strong), but for its role as a source of meaning whereby, as C.S. Lewis says, I believe in Christianity like I believe in the sun, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else. But admittedly, this makes the "leap" somewhat existential, though again, not irrational or anti-intellectual (even Kierkegaard wasn't anti-intellectual, surely). In this vein, if I can offer some encouragement as one stranger on the internet to another writing about religion that you would simply open your hands. Cast away all considerations and allow the heart to open up. You've done a lot of hard work to think and process. Now, perhaps, opening one's hand can open up a new spiritual avenue--do not cling to your own position, or thoughts, or beliefs, but simply open the door of your soul and listen. We are all limited in our epistemic scope but if Christianity is true (assume for argument), then flinging open one's hands and heart in a posture of openness may lead to where you want--towards something radical, peace-giving, and joyful.
I appreciate your honesty about your struggle. I understand to a degree your frustration with not coming to some conclusion. I’ve been a Christian for over 50 years, and there are still many things I struggle to understand. For me, a God who is easily understood is a God who is far too small, and defined by my own limited, intellect and understanding of things far beyond me. To understand God is to make him a creation of my own mind. What I have learned is this God, and Jesus his son, love me beyond all measure. They seek an intimate relationship with me, based on *trust* rather than understanding. This is not to diminish the importance of seeking truth and understanding about the nature of God, Jesus, and the early Christian church. If your response to every piece of evidence is “yeah, but…” you will spend your life chasing salvation and deliverance through knowledge alone, which will fail and leave you miserable and empty. If you can conclude these things: Does God exist? (He does). Is He good? (Yes, far beyond our limited conception) Can I trust Him? (Absolutely, in all things). Will I choose to trust Him? (That’s up to you, and even the smallest measure of trust will be rewarded beyond measure).
My life verse brought me to trust in Christ: Prov 3:5-6 - “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding…”
‘Nuf said.
Btw, avoid the JW’s like the plague. They meet all the criteria of a religious cult. Have studied them *extensively*, no question about it. More info on request, if interested.
Sorry, I touched send prematurely. I wanted to say only that you are right, faith does have most of the psychological effects you mentioned. And the presence of God is the most overwhelming and positive thing I have experienced, with no exceptions.
Something still niggles at my mind though. It seems that you see belief as a kind of intellectual assent to a proposition. Whereas for me it definitely is not that. Other believers should maybe comment for themselves. But for me belief is more like recognising the presence of a person, just as I recognise when my wife is present with me or absent. This is weird because it can be local (God is here) or non local (God is). The *latter* is the one that gives me the deepest comfort and joy. It is much more like seeing something invisible than assenting to the truth of something. In that sense, my faith felt a little like a superpower or extra sense at first (sounds silly but that is how it feels). After many years it feels like normality, a constant radiance that is definitely *not* felt in a sensory way, although I did feel it in the past.
And a weird thing: I don't actually think God "exists" in a sense of being in the Universe. The more I have looked at him, the more I have realised that he is definitely outside the universe that I know. This does not mean I cannot perceive him, but that I can perceive something ("everything") is perhaps a better word) that is outside the universe. That in turn makes the universe itself feel smaller, and that in turn does indeed mitigate the fear of death, which is simply a movement out of the known universe into somewhere else, or as I imagine it, into God and thus outside the universe.
I don't know if any of this is even vaguely interesting, but it is my experience!
This comments section is already filled with so many mic drops, but let me be one more voice in the chorus.
Think upon how much the early Christians spoke of Christ experientially. There was a Spirit speaking in their hearts, and they held their love for one another as the highest manifestation of their faith. They didn't have creeds, they had relationships.
Think upon how Jesus spoke in parables. Almost the entirety of his public teaching is metaphor. It is said he explained these parables to his disciples in private, but we have received more parables than explanations in the writings his first followers left behind. And when he came closest to speaking from first principles, when asked to lay forth the foundation, he spoke of love.
These weren't people theorizing about the cause of reality, these were people describing their experience of reality. What reality is "like." They didn't have faith in a proposition. They had faith in something they experienced. They didn't want you to take their word for it. They wanted you to experience it for yourself.
Don't get caught in the brambles of epistemology. Jesus admonished others for many things, but being factually incorrect was not among them. The question that "agnosticism" answers was not a question any of the early Christians bothered to ask. Because religion isn't about sucking on the finger, but rather going where it points. Believe what you must in order to get yourself there, because that's what actually matters.
Thank you so much for your honesty. I could not help but notice the way your chosen piece of art pairs with your last paragraph. You selected a depiction of the precise moment in the Christian story in which Jesus himself experiences the kind of absence you feel. Maybe you would say that this is a coincidence? I don’t know. But I do wonder if your resonance with that scene holds greater significance than it first appears.
Hi Joseph! I really appreciated your honesty in this piece, and felt your struggle as well. Just wanted to say, if you’ve not met anybody who’d advised you to learn to live with uncertainty yet, now you have! My own Christian walk has been a strange, strange story—maybe I’ll tell you about it sometime. But I wouldn’t say I ‘know’ God exists or Jesus resurrected or anything, which you seem to be coming up against here. I would say I trust, and I acknowledge that trust and knowledge are not the same thing. In fact, I don’t think I ‘know’ anything, not does anybody else! Unless any of us are omniscient, how can we know that there are truths out there which, if we knew them, would completely upend everything we think we know?
When it comes to the stories of the Bible and early Christians, whom we look to for understanding who Jesus was and what his life meant, I think your approach of imagining these stories as ‘metaphors’ has merit. I think all anybody can do is gesture in the direction of truth, and we naturally lean upon symbols and abstractions to convey what we feel in our souls. What would expect of mere apes with an entire cosmos awakened within their consciousnesses?
Sorry, this is turning into a big long thing… Just wanted to say I’m loving your writings and wishing you all the best. Happy to chat if you’d ever like to… if you’ve still got any appetite for chatting after those Jehova’s Witnesses stop by 😝
Great article. Once again, you have captured the thoughts and feelings of us Christian skeptics (honestly I don't even think this label fits haha) so well. The longing to be part of the Church yet wanting to have the intellectual freedom to resist dogma, the feeling of God being so near yet so far, being touched by the Gospels but unable to fully accept its metaphysical claims — you have expressed these so well in here and in your other posts as well. Lord help our unbelief!
I wish I had time to write a deeper response, and will try to when I can. I’ve found process theology a very helpful framework for approaching Christian faith in a way that can accommodate both the existential and the rational dimensions — a way of making sense of faith’s truth-claims without giving up on reason. It doesn’t solve all the problems for me but it’s an interesting rabbit hole to go down. I appreciated the candor of your writing. I am in a similar situation in some respects — not at home in my own tradition, exactly, but also acknowledging my deep need of what it has to offer.
Yes, that’s the Christology articulated by Cobb and Griffin in A Process Christology. In another sense, Jesus (like everything, and I mean everything, this is the nonsubstantive process metaphysic) is an event that begins in the concrete historical life of Jesus of Nazareth and continues as this event embraces more and more persons, as it grows in history, as other human beings “catch fire” (“Lo, I have come to cast fire upon the earth…”). So a process Christology might include the entire reception of this Jesus in human history, which of course folds into ecclesiology, into a deeply small-c catholic appreciation of the meaning of the Church as the “body of Christ.” Jesus is larger than the historical Jesus, in short, not meant in some vague mystifying way but in a very precise metaphysical way. It is less of a jump from this view to the intuition that something unprecedented and utterly extraordinary is happening in this process, particularly if with a heart-inflected vision we see just what this process has brought into the life of humanity — the sense of the inalienable dignity of the human person, of the apophatic depths of personhood, of the supreme call of conscience, of trusting service of love in the face of all the world’s vicissitudes and suffering, etc., I could go on for a long time.
Brother that's exactly how I am currently feeling, like a fraud. But you mentioned that people get frustrated by your take and I felt it too as you were mentioning it not because you were mentioning it but because I am feeling that same kind of uncertainty being mirrored back at me. I call myself more a seeker than a believer and I feel rested in this part. Because I want to believe and I also want to know. But I also don't want to constantly wrestle and be exhausted. At times I want to just be at peace at where I am on my journey and I wish you the same wherever you are.
The people who want to debate with you perhaps have this feeling too and get riled up when it is mentioned and therefore somehow want to debate to prove someone wrong to feel good about their "beliefs". It's good to debate, but they too are on their journey and who doesn't want certainty in uncertain times.
All in all I enjoy your rumination and the work you produce.
Yep, it’s like a drug. “all joy and peace as you trust in him” Romans 15:13 and a myriad of other verses. It says in the Greek the emanation point is visceral, from the gut John 7:37-39. “God has shed abroad his love in our hearts by the Holy Spirit he given you” Know you not that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you from God”
This crude, low class Pentecostal, evangelical, charismatic type calls it Crystal Sea Meth and shamelessly relies on sourcing it regularly. And my heart goes out to you in your journey and search and frustration.
I agree with what Mark Legg just wrote: the Greek word for "believe" or "have faith" is "pisteuo" and in conveys the idea of trust or entrusting oneself to another, much like the marriage pledge of faithfulness/commitment to one's spouse.
Fr. Stephen Freeman, an Anglican turned Orthodox, has a good description of it in his article https://glory2godforallthings.com/2026/03/04/st-patricks-protection-against-secularism/ - secularism or materialism breaks everything down to mere matter, devoid of meaning. Another author, perhaps the greatest writer of the 20th century, is C.S. Lewis. In his books "Mere Christianity" and "Miracles" he very ably defends the divinity of Christ and reality of miracles: see https://agape-biblia.org/literatura/#lewis (scroll down from there).
I really enjoyed your post, or rather appreciated your sincerely expressed views.
It leaves me with a nagging question. Why do you feel you would like to be a believing Christian? Why wouldn't you rather be a convinced Buddhist, a dogmatically persuaded Deist, a Jew or anything else?
I suspect that would be an interesting place to start. I have met a lot of people who wished they were Christians. I have also met Christians of one flavour (especially Protestants) who wished they were Christians of a different type. Again, I always ask: why? What is so great about believing in Christ? What is so wonderful about standing in St. Peter's Square and viewing yourself as part of a community of 1.3 billion people who all hold similar dogmas or attend similar services?
I am a father of three sons, and myself a convinced Catholic, and as it happens also a Discalced Carmelite. So that means I believe in God, in Jesus Christ, in the Catholic account of him, and also in the approach of St. Teresa of Avila to encountering God. However I said (and still sometimes say) to my son's: don't process belief in anything unless you think it is true. And don't deny the truth of anything if you think it is true. I think this kind of honesty in speech about faith often helps people to identify the things they really do and don't believe.
Not only propositions, but "realities". Things you think are there, not just statements you think are true.
You are certainly on a journey if faith, but no-one but you knows what you truly believe.
In truth, I have scarcely explored traditions such as Buddhism, Deism, or modern forms of Judaism. I sometimes joke that I know more about ancient Judaism and Christianity than I do about their modern counterparts, though the remark isn't really a joke. It's true.
I was born into Christianity; it forms part of my cultural and familial inheritance, and that fact alone partly explains why it remains the tradition I find myself returning to.
More importantly, I suspect that belief itself might offer a kind of psychological and existential relief. If I were a believer, I imagine I might live with a greater sense of hope. I might fear death less—perhaps not fear it at all. I might feel a deeper sense of security, and I would likely fit more comfortably within the social and cultural circles that already surround me.
Edit: I also speculate the presence of God would feel really good. As I said in the essay—like a drug.
Thank you, your response makes the reasons so much clearer. I can't explain why, but as a strong believer myself it always makes me feel emotional - mostly joy - to see people grappling and working with faith (including unbelief, losing faith etc.). Perhaps it is because it seems so important to me so even if people are "losing it" I am always relieved when they are giving it their attention.
I suppose I would just say, you’re already on the journey of faith, whether you like it or not. But it doesn’t have a destination. Those who feel they have arrived have, in fact, never started.
This is why certainty isn’t the goal, and is actually antithetical to the goal. Aligning your life with what you believe to be the most good and true is always the next step. I believe the promise of the gospels is that when we do this, we learn to see the world imbued with God. We meet the person of Jesus then in the faces of those suffering, those that feel lost, and in ourself.
Maybe it might help to not worry about believing the right things or believing enough. Maybe it is enough at this time to walk alongside others, to engage in church activities (though it is necessary to find a church that will support you and won’t judge you), and then you won’t have time to worry about believing. Faith tends to take of itself.
“ALL profound things, and emotions of things are preceded and attended by Silence. What a silence is that with which the pale bride precedes the responsive I will, to the priest’s solemn question, Wilt thou have this man for thy husband? In silence, too, the wedded hands are clasped. Yea, in silence the child Christ was born into the world. Silence is the general consecration of the universe. Silence is the invisible laying on of the Divine Pontiff’s hands upon the world. Silence is at once the most harmless and the most awful thing in all nature. It speaks of the Reserved Forces of Fate. Silence is the only Voice of our God.”
If it helps, you’re not alone. I know of regular attendees at my own parish who aren’t sure they believe in God, and have met several over the years with a similarly expressed desire to believe but who struggle to reconcile the seeming impossibility of the claims with empirical methods of verification. I share a similar bias of a modern mind, I’ve always been far more of a head Christian than a “heart” Christian, as some put it. I rarely if ever “feel” anything, certainly nothing like God speaking to me or an active sense of some supernatural presence, at least nothing I can’t attribute the movingness of the music or the impact of the liturgy. I’m skeptical of many claims to divine encounter but maybe none moreso than my own.
That said, something that’s helped me with my own faith is couching it in terms of hope rather than certainty (I love the liturgical phrasing, “the sure and certain HOPE of the resurrection). I sometimes liken it to assessing love. I don’t think there’s any way to empirically prove my love for my wife. Certainly there are details that provide evidence from which one could surmise that my love for her is an acute possibility, but it’s not like you can crack open my skull and point to the little neon sign in the affection zone that says “spouse,” and even the things we can empirically verify, such as the actions I take towards her, the engagement ring I bought her, the wedding we held in front of witnesses, or any of the wonderful aspects of the life we’ve built together, these things are predicated on that unverifiable love more than the other way around. And much like faith in a miracle, they’re a collection of visible evidence predicated upon an invisible truth. I think it’s something like that with faith.
The truth of the Christian story, for me at least, this notion that the entire universe is predicated upon a God whose essential character is that of self-giving love, and that Jesus is the most tangible expression of that, as the human vessel through which God binds himself to suffering to bring about our making…that is the most beautiful story imaginable. It is, in some ways, the best possible configuration of reality, to my mind. As such, that story is almost worth believing in even if I had no reason to think it was true (though for the record I think we have plenty of reasons to think it is true). But like any morals or principles that we hold to be “right,“ these are things we strive to live out even on the days where we don’t “feel them“. My love for my wife is not predicated on a constant sensation of butterflies; as it works in me it evolves into a posture of behavior as much as an emotion. So likewise, if we predicate the entirety of our faith on empirically verifiable claims about the historical Jesus, then our faith will never be anything but ambiguous and uncertain (not that there isn’t room for ambiguity or uncertainty in genuine faith, I think there’s plenty), because empirical history is rightly limited in what it can state with tempered degrees of probability about anything, and many of the most important claims about Jesus are simply not susceptible to objective verification by those methods. That’s why the closest we can get through “objective“ history is establishing that, probably, figures like Peter or Mary Magdalene genuinely believed they had encountered the risen Christ, but there’s no verifiable test we can run to “prove” the Virgin birth or the feeding of the 5,000.
Also, if I may be potentially heretical for a moment and make a too-long comment even more digressive, I’m not entirely sure how central a role the “historical“ Jesus is supposed to play in our faith. The historical Jesus is always, by definition, confined by the limitations of the historical-critical method. Historians aren’t necessarily seeking to answer questions about the relevancy of Jesus for our life today, they are simply trying to ascertain what can or cannot be said about particular historical instances with varying degrees of confidence. But that’s not the Christ attested to by either the New Testament writers, the early Church Fathers, or most other writers of Christian history. All four gospels, despite any historical details they may relay, they first and foremost are written from the perspective of theological reflection on the singular event of the resurrection. There is no non-risen Jesus anywhere in the New Testament, even the stories told about him that take place chronologically before the crucifixion are still, in every meaningful sense, speaking of the Resurrected One. He is only known as the one on the Cross.
And besides, it’s not like we’re ever called as people of faith to encounter the historical Jesus, we are called to encounter the resurrected one. Even the person most certain in their faith doesn’t have access to a time machine to take them back to an encounter in first-century Galilee. For us, Jesus is only encounter-able as a literary figure, or as a relational one in the living body of the church, or as an enigmatic inspiration in our own studies, be historical inquiry or devotional practice. In a sense, a “metaphorical“ Christ, as you were speculating about is, in some ways, the only Christ we have direct access to (at least those of us too skeptical to accept a direct supernatural encounter, even if we had one).
It’s like how sacraments give us tangible means for ascertaining glimpses of the imperceptible. I dont think the bread and wine have to literally transform in our gut to be true encounters with the body and blood of Christ. Is that a metaphorical encounter? A literal one? Somewhere in between? I have no idea. But if it’s a true encounter, how it is so is just a detail, subservient in importance to our posture in receiving it as a gift.
So I dont think you’re as far from being a believer as you might think. You’re already, in some sense, pursing Christ. If you’re a regular student of Christian history and part of a church community, you are a Christ-follower. Even some who saw him face to face cried “Lord I believe, help my unbelief.” I think you maybe just share (as I do) the modern presupposition that empirical verification is somehow a better or truer means of ascertaining reality, and since the miraculous remains a rather inaccessible enigma in that methodology, the resurrected Christ is always too far from your reach for comfort. But that may just be our modern biases getting in the way. The grammar of the early church certainly doesn’t approach these things in the terms we’re used to. And I think sometimes we have a habit of over-emphasizing the importance of confidently affirming abstract propositions as opposed to living our life in alignment with what we hope to be the truth. If you live your life seeking to emulate Christ’s self-giving love, you believe in him truly enough to be counted a sheep instead of a goat.
But that’s just one man’s rambling opinion. Thank you for your willingness to share your struggles. I know it helps many of us to realize we aren’t alone in our uncertainty.
Profound. Thank you.
Thank you for your rambling opinion. I Appreciate your honesty. And Just to add some point to your understanding of Jesus Christ, and a little doubt I sense in your faith about His existence, let's keep in mind that all past history is just a story to us, because it does not happen in front of our eyes. And yet we believe it to be true. Thanks to historians, artists, writers, journalists, the approved academics, and regular people like you and I, writing personal journals before, sharing life experiences like we present here on substack are doing now. Exchanging views, sharing experiences-beyond the academic-but does that makes us fake?
The most beautiful and yet most drastic, according to me, is the past of our history that took place over 2000 years ago. The episode that gave us the most beautiful, the most genuine, the most reliable lesson to learn. Of Love, of Mercy, of Integrity, of the most ruthless rabbi doctrine induced man made Sacrifice, the Resurrection, Another Sample of Divine Mercy, and the Ascension to Heaven.
The most genuine Expression of Love. Of God.
Not so easy to find among men.
But obviously something to aspire for.
And though we get discouraged to believe in God, let me remind that disciples were in the same position after they buried Christ's body.
But Jesus came back to them after He was resurrected, to once again remind them to KEEP FAITH, for HE never disappoints!
And that's why it is important to keep believing, and keep coming back to gospels, and not be influenced by life troubles or skeptics:
"Beware lest your light be darkness"
Hey Joseph, thanks for writing so vulnerably and honestly. The tension is a sign of honest-to-God work in religion. I think it's best to think of Christian faith as a kind of trust, rather than an irrational or blind faith. I conceive of my own faith as a mosaic of reasons, arguments, feelings, relational, mystical, and practical considerations. Primarily, it's built around a felt, intersubjective relationship with Jesus, but it also draws heavily from a rational critique of all other positions (and argument in their support). Thinking in terms not just of arguments or evidence for Christianity but arguments against other worldviews. There are many in this latter camp. Ultimately, I think other worldviews fail. While Christianity isn't without epistemic conundrums (problem of evil, etc.), I think we can safely say no worldview is without such conundrums. We need not be irrational, per se, but we do need to accept that reality is strange. And so our understanding of reality must be on par with its existential strangeness!
And Christianity is attractive not just for its intellectual or rational position (which I believe is strong), but for its role as a source of meaning whereby, as C.S. Lewis says, I believe in Christianity like I believe in the sun, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else. But admittedly, this makes the "leap" somewhat existential, though again, not irrational or anti-intellectual (even Kierkegaard wasn't anti-intellectual, surely). In this vein, if I can offer some encouragement as one stranger on the internet to another writing about religion that you would simply open your hands. Cast away all considerations and allow the heart to open up. You've done a lot of hard work to think and process. Now, perhaps, opening one's hand can open up a new spiritual avenue--do not cling to your own position, or thoughts, or beliefs, but simply open the door of your soul and listen. We are all limited in our epistemic scope but if Christianity is true (assume for argument), then flinging open one's hands and heart in a posture of openness may lead to where you want--towards something radical, peace-giving, and joyful.
Prayerfully,
Mark
I appreciate your honesty about your struggle. I understand to a degree your frustration with not coming to some conclusion. I’ve been a Christian for over 50 years, and there are still many things I struggle to understand. For me, a God who is easily understood is a God who is far too small, and defined by my own limited, intellect and understanding of things far beyond me. To understand God is to make him a creation of my own mind. What I have learned is this God, and Jesus his son, love me beyond all measure. They seek an intimate relationship with me, based on *trust* rather than understanding. This is not to diminish the importance of seeking truth and understanding about the nature of God, Jesus, and the early Christian church. If your response to every piece of evidence is “yeah, but…” you will spend your life chasing salvation and deliverance through knowledge alone, which will fail and leave you miserable and empty. If you can conclude these things: Does God exist? (He does). Is He good? (Yes, far beyond our limited conception) Can I trust Him? (Absolutely, in all things). Will I choose to trust Him? (That’s up to you, and even the smallest measure of trust will be rewarded beyond measure).
My life verse brought me to trust in Christ: Prov 3:5-6 - “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding…”
‘Nuf said.
Btw, avoid the JW’s like the plague. They meet all the criteria of a religious cult. Have studied them *extensively*, no question about it. More info on request, if interested.
You remain in my prayers. Sorry to be long-winded
Sorry, I touched send prematurely. I wanted to say only that you are right, faith does have most of the psychological effects you mentioned. And the presence of God is the most overwhelming and positive thing I have experienced, with no exceptions.
Something still niggles at my mind though. It seems that you see belief as a kind of intellectual assent to a proposition. Whereas for me it definitely is not that. Other believers should maybe comment for themselves. But for me belief is more like recognising the presence of a person, just as I recognise when my wife is present with me or absent. This is weird because it can be local (God is here) or non local (God is). The *latter* is the one that gives me the deepest comfort and joy. It is much more like seeing something invisible than assenting to the truth of something. In that sense, my faith felt a little like a superpower or extra sense at first (sounds silly but that is how it feels). After many years it feels like normality, a constant radiance that is definitely *not* felt in a sensory way, although I did feel it in the past.
And a weird thing: I don't actually think God "exists" in a sense of being in the Universe. The more I have looked at him, the more I have realised that he is definitely outside the universe that I know. This does not mean I cannot perceive him, but that I can perceive something ("everything") is perhaps a better word) that is outside the universe. That in turn makes the universe itself feel smaller, and that in turn does indeed mitigate the fear of death, which is simply a movement out of the known universe into somewhere else, or as I imagine it, into God and thus outside the universe.
I don't know if any of this is even vaguely interesting, but it is my experience!
This comments section is already filled with so many mic drops, but let me be one more voice in the chorus.
Think upon how much the early Christians spoke of Christ experientially. There was a Spirit speaking in their hearts, and they held their love for one another as the highest manifestation of their faith. They didn't have creeds, they had relationships.
Think upon how Jesus spoke in parables. Almost the entirety of his public teaching is metaphor. It is said he explained these parables to his disciples in private, but we have received more parables than explanations in the writings his first followers left behind. And when he came closest to speaking from first principles, when asked to lay forth the foundation, he spoke of love.
These weren't people theorizing about the cause of reality, these were people describing their experience of reality. What reality is "like." They didn't have faith in a proposition. They had faith in something they experienced. They didn't want you to take their word for it. They wanted you to experience it for yourself.
Don't get caught in the brambles of epistemology. Jesus admonished others for many things, but being factually incorrect was not among them. The question that "agnosticism" answers was not a question any of the early Christians bothered to ask. Because religion isn't about sucking on the finger, but rather going where it points. Believe what you must in order to get yourself there, because that's what actually matters.
"Which of the two did the will of his father?"
Good points.
Thank you so much for your honesty. I could not help but notice the way your chosen piece of art pairs with your last paragraph. You selected a depiction of the precise moment in the Christian story in which Jesus himself experiences the kind of absence you feel. Maybe you would say that this is a coincidence? I don’t know. But I do wonder if your resonance with that scene holds greater significance than it first appears.
That's a profound observation. Thank you! I would have never put that together.
Hi Joseph! I really appreciated your honesty in this piece, and felt your struggle as well. Just wanted to say, if you’ve not met anybody who’d advised you to learn to live with uncertainty yet, now you have! My own Christian walk has been a strange, strange story—maybe I’ll tell you about it sometime. But I wouldn’t say I ‘know’ God exists or Jesus resurrected or anything, which you seem to be coming up against here. I would say I trust, and I acknowledge that trust and knowledge are not the same thing. In fact, I don’t think I ‘know’ anything, not does anybody else! Unless any of us are omniscient, how can we know that there are truths out there which, if we knew them, would completely upend everything we think we know?
When it comes to the stories of the Bible and early Christians, whom we look to for understanding who Jesus was and what his life meant, I think your approach of imagining these stories as ‘metaphors’ has merit. I think all anybody can do is gesture in the direction of truth, and we naturally lean upon symbols and abstractions to convey what we feel in our souls. What would expect of mere apes with an entire cosmos awakened within their consciousnesses?
Sorry, this is turning into a big long thing… Just wanted to say I’m loving your writings and wishing you all the best. Happy to chat if you’d ever like to… if you’ve still got any appetite for chatting after those Jehova’s Witnesses stop by 😝
Great article. Once again, you have captured the thoughts and feelings of us Christian skeptics (honestly I don't even think this label fits haha) so well. The longing to be part of the Church yet wanting to have the intellectual freedom to resist dogma, the feeling of God being so near yet so far, being touched by the Gospels but unable to fully accept its metaphysical claims — you have expressed these so well in here and in your other posts as well. Lord help our unbelief!
Have you ever encountered process theology?
I hadn’t, but I’m now looking into it and I’m intrigued. I like this. Thank you for introducing it to me.
You might enjoy ... https://www.chansonetoiles.com/p/the-tender-appearance-of-the-quiet typical of my maunderings
I wish I had time to write a deeper response, and will try to when I can. I’ve found process theology a very helpful framework for approaching Christian faith in a way that can accommodate both the existential and the rational dimensions — a way of making sense of faith’s truth-claims without giving up on reason. It doesn’t solve all the problems for me but it’s an interesting rabbit hole to go down. I appreciated the candor of your writing. I am in a similar situation in some respects — not at home in my own tradition, exactly, but also acknowledging my deep need of what it has to offer.
So who is Jesus in a process theology framework? The one who followed God’s lure perfectly?
Yes, that’s the Christology articulated by Cobb and Griffin in A Process Christology. In another sense, Jesus (like everything, and I mean everything, this is the nonsubstantive process metaphysic) is an event that begins in the concrete historical life of Jesus of Nazareth and continues as this event embraces more and more persons, as it grows in history, as other human beings “catch fire” (“Lo, I have come to cast fire upon the earth…”). So a process Christology might include the entire reception of this Jesus in human history, which of course folds into ecclesiology, into a deeply small-c catholic appreciation of the meaning of the Church as the “body of Christ.” Jesus is larger than the historical Jesus, in short, not meant in some vague mystifying way but in a very precise metaphysical way. It is less of a jump from this view to the intuition that something unprecedented and utterly extraordinary is happening in this process, particularly if with a heart-inflected vision we see just what this process has brought into the life of humanity — the sense of the inalienable dignity of the human person, of the apophatic depths of personhood, of the supreme call of conscience, of trusting service of love in the face of all the world’s vicissitudes and suffering, etc., I could go on for a long time.
You’ve opened an intriguing door for me. Thank you again.
You’re very welcome, thank you being such a sincere voice here, deeply appreciated.
Brother that's exactly how I am currently feeling, like a fraud. But you mentioned that people get frustrated by your take and I felt it too as you were mentioning it not because you were mentioning it but because I am feeling that same kind of uncertainty being mirrored back at me. I call myself more a seeker than a believer and I feel rested in this part. Because I want to believe and I also want to know. But I also don't want to constantly wrestle and be exhausted. At times I want to just be at peace at where I am on my journey and I wish you the same wherever you are.
The people who want to debate with you perhaps have this feeling too and get riled up when it is mentioned and therefore somehow want to debate to prove someone wrong to feel good about their "beliefs". It's good to debate, but they too are on their journey and who doesn't want certainty in uncertain times.
All in all I enjoy your rumination and the work you produce.
Happy to hear I’m not alone.
Yep, it’s like a drug. “all joy and peace as you trust in him” Romans 15:13 and a myriad of other verses. It says in the Greek the emanation point is visceral, from the gut John 7:37-39. “God has shed abroad his love in our hearts by the Holy Spirit he given you” Know you not that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you from God”
This crude, low class Pentecostal, evangelical, charismatic type calls it Crystal Sea Meth and shamelessly relies on sourcing it regularly. And my heart goes out to you in your journey and search and frustration.
I agree with what Mark Legg just wrote: the Greek word for "believe" or "have faith" is "pisteuo" and in conveys the idea of trust or entrusting oneself to another, much like the marriage pledge of faithfulness/commitment to one's spouse.
Fr. Stephen Freeman, an Anglican turned Orthodox, has a good description of it in his article https://glory2godforallthings.com/2026/03/04/st-patricks-protection-against-secularism/ - secularism or materialism breaks everything down to mere matter, devoid of meaning. Another author, perhaps the greatest writer of the 20th century, is C.S. Lewis. In his books "Mere Christianity" and "Miracles" he very ably defends the divinity of Christ and reality of miracles: see https://agape-biblia.org/literatura/#lewis (scroll down from there).
I really enjoyed your post, or rather appreciated your sincerely expressed views.
It leaves me with a nagging question. Why do you feel you would like to be a believing Christian? Why wouldn't you rather be a convinced Buddhist, a dogmatically persuaded Deist, a Jew or anything else?
I suspect that would be an interesting place to start. I have met a lot of people who wished they were Christians. I have also met Christians of one flavour (especially Protestants) who wished they were Christians of a different type. Again, I always ask: why? What is so great about believing in Christ? What is so wonderful about standing in St. Peter's Square and viewing yourself as part of a community of 1.3 billion people who all hold similar dogmas or attend similar services?
I am a father of three sons, and myself a convinced Catholic, and as it happens also a Discalced Carmelite. So that means I believe in God, in Jesus Christ, in the Catholic account of him, and also in the approach of St. Teresa of Avila to encountering God. However I said (and still sometimes say) to my son's: don't process belief in anything unless you think it is true. And don't deny the truth of anything if you think it is true. I think this kind of honesty in speech about faith often helps people to identify the things they really do and don't believe.
Not only propositions, but "realities". Things you think are there, not just statements you think are true.
You are certainly on a journey if faith, but no-one but you knows what you truly believe.
In truth, I have scarcely explored traditions such as Buddhism, Deism, or modern forms of Judaism. I sometimes joke that I know more about ancient Judaism and Christianity than I do about their modern counterparts, though the remark isn't really a joke. It's true.
I was born into Christianity; it forms part of my cultural and familial inheritance, and that fact alone partly explains why it remains the tradition I find myself returning to.
More importantly, I suspect that belief itself might offer a kind of psychological and existential relief. If I were a believer, I imagine I might live with a greater sense of hope. I might fear death less—perhaps not fear it at all. I might feel a deeper sense of security, and I would likely fit more comfortably within the social and cultural circles that already surround me.
Edit: I also speculate the presence of God would feel really good. As I said in the essay—like a drug.
Thank you, your response makes the reasons so much clearer. I can't explain why, but as a strong believer myself it always makes me feel emotional - mostly joy - to see people grappling and working with faith (including unbelief, losing faith etc.). Perhaps it is because it seems so important to me so even if people are "losing it" I am always relieved when they are giving it their attention.
I suppose I would just say, you’re already on the journey of faith, whether you like it or not. But it doesn’t have a destination. Those who feel they have arrived have, in fact, never started.
This is why certainty isn’t the goal, and is actually antithetical to the goal. Aligning your life with what you believe to be the most good and true is always the next step. I believe the promise of the gospels is that when we do this, we learn to see the world imbued with God. We meet the person of Jesus then in the faces of those suffering, those that feel lost, and in ourself.
Maybe it might help to not worry about believing the right things or believing enough. Maybe it is enough at this time to walk alongside others, to engage in church activities (though it is necessary to find a church that will support you and won’t judge you), and then you won’t have time to worry about believing. Faith tends to take of itself.
“ALL profound things, and emotions of things are preceded and attended by Silence. What a silence is that with which the pale bride precedes the responsive I will, to the priest’s solemn question, Wilt thou have this man for thy husband? In silence, too, the wedded hands are clasped. Yea, in silence the child Christ was born into the world. Silence is the general consecration of the universe. Silence is the invisible laying on of the Divine Pontiff’s hands upon the world. Silence is at once the most harmless and the most awful thing in all nature. It speaks of the Reserved Forces of Fate. Silence is the only Voice of our God.”
—Melville
Love this quote. Thanks.