Belief in the Unseen

I was asked yesterday in a friendly discussion how I "could believe in a God that is unseen", and indeed; why would I need such a belief at all to be a "good human being?" These were very good questions; questions that I once wrestled with myself as an atheist. 

The basic idea is this: something needs to be seen to be believed in; a thing cannot be true unless we are able to verify it empirically. Religion, then, was something that 'primitive' man used to cope with the forces around them. A flash of lightning streaks across the night sky and the people tremble. The rains fall, the crops bear fruit, and the people give thanks. Because 'primitive' man did not understand the world around them, they had to attribute these forces to something supernatural, to something unseen. This is why in primitive mythologies 'the gods' were most often seen as elemental forces. The priests and shamans were seen as holy men and women that could interact with those forces and serve as intermediaries between the people and the gods. 

Fast forwarding a bit; as the middle ages gave birth to the Enlightenment, man's thinking began to shift from the supernatural to the sciences and from the unseen to the seen. The view of a personal and knowable God that once dominated the thought of theologians and philosophers gradually gave way to a deist version of God; a God who is a divine watchmaker that set the universe in motion, but is altogether unknowable. 

But it was the Modern era that forever shifted our thinking towards the unseen. Man had progressed to new heights. Our achievements in industrialization, technology, the arts and the sciences (among other things), left us with a world that no longer needed the supernatural to explain the nature of things. Nietzsche, who was seen as a precursor to Modernism famously proclaimed that 'god is dead, and we have killed him'. It was his view and that of many other philosophers of the time that religion and God was the invention of man. Man had needed a God to explain the world. Man had needed a God to derive a system of ethics from which to guide the masses. Science had taken us beyond that point and man could now create their own morality.

In this way, belief in the supernatural was seen as irrational. If it cannot be seen; it is not there. But is this view as sensible as it sounds? I would argue that it presents us with a logical fallacy. If I make the statement "a thing cannot be true unless it is empirically verifiable", then by reason of my own argument what I just said cannot be true! I am unable to empirically verify that statement; I have no way of measuring whether it's true or it isn't. 

Huston Smith likens science to a searchlight beam probing the night sky. "For a plane to register, two things are required: it must exist, and it must be where the beam is." Science can illumine our understanding certainly; but it can only do that at fixed points. It is a powerful beam, but it does not light up the entire night sky. Science can't answer questions like "why am I here?" and "does life have meaning?" 

And ultimately; neither can I if I believe that there is no objective reality or universal truths. I am left only with the sum total of my subjective experiences. The Christian philosopher Francis Schaeffer put it this way: "Without the infinite-personal God, all a person can do as Nietzsche points out, is to make “systems.” In today’s speech we would call them “game plans.” A person can erect some sort of structure, some type of limited frame, in which he lives, shutting himself up in that frame and not looking beyond it. This game plan can be one of a number of things. It can sound high and noble, such as talking in an idealistic way about the greatest good for the greatest number. Or it can be a scientist concentrating on some small point of science so that he does not have to think of any of the big questions, such as why things exist at all”.

In a materialistic culture we would define that 'game plan' as achieving personal wealth and satisfaction. One could argue that this is the 'greatest good' of our postmodern society. Just as we can only believe in what is seen, we can only measure self-worth by what we possess. We are constantly bombarded with advertisements for the latest, greatest things. We stand in line for hours for the latest gadget. We seek romantic love as perhaps the highest ideal, because we think that it will somehow validate us. But as Pastor Timothy Keller suggests; all we have done is attach ultimate meaning to conditional 'things.' We have made our own false gods.

Religion warns us against such views. In the 4 Noble Truths of Buddhism; we are taught that our suffering comes from our attachments. Buddhists see the things of this life as transitory; as "passing phenomena." There is nothing wrong with seeking a happy life. All of us want that. But at the same time; we cannot attach ultimate meaning to conditional states of being, because as the Buddha says, "there are no permanent states of being." The Book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible echoes this truth; likening man's relentless pursuits for material pleasure and wealth as "chasing after the wind". But if we cannot hold onto external things or even our own states of being; is there anything we can hold onto?

I would argue yes; that we can hold onto the very thing that the Modernists were so quick to deny; the unseen. This is why the Lord said to "lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal." Just because the searchlight beam of scientism cannot find this unseen reality in the night sky doesn't mean it isn't there. Religion teaches us that reality is much bigger and much greater than what we can comprehend spatially.

Still, this is not something that is easy for us to do. In postmodern thought, religious belief is seen as taking "a leap of faith"; as though we are somehow moving from the rational to the irrational. This was an error of some of our own theologians in the 20th century; divorcing belief from the rational. It is more a product of Existentialism than it is traditional religious belief. Our greatest saints from ages past would have never held such a view. For them, belief in the unseen was not only rational; but super-rational. The things of God; the eternal, the infinite, transcends our perception altogether. This is why the Mystics have always said that we must put on a "Cloud of Unknowing" to truly seek God. We must empty ourselves of our own sense of perception so that He might fill us.

But again; this is difficult for us to do. The question, as in my discussion yesterday ultimately becomes "if God is real, then why doesn't He reveal Himself?" We say "If God revealed Himself, then I would believe." This is a sound objection. I wrestled with that same issue for many years. Now as a Christian, I certainly believe that God has revealed Himself in revelation; both in His Word and in creation. The fact that I exist at all is a 'sign' to me. But what if we had an even more direct revelation? What if the voice of God suddenly bellowed from the Heavens, "I am here", would it really help?

All one has to do is study the Sacred history of the three great Abrahamic faiths to see that this is not the case. God parts the Red Sea and leads the Israelites out of Egypt and feeds them with Manna on their journey. Yet when Moses goes up on the mountain, the people begin to build idols for themselves. In Islam, the Polytheist tribes made war on the early Muslims; and yet the Muslims won battle after battle even when they were hopelessly outnumbered. But so many still refused to believe that the One God was on their side. The Holy Koran says "And they swear their strongest oaths by Allah that if a sign come to them they would certainly believe in it. Say: signs are with Allah. And what should make you know that when they come, they believe not?"

I can think of no greater example than when hearing of the appearances of the risen Lord; Thomas still refused to believe. It wasn't until he placed his hands on the wounds of Jesus that he was finally able to believe. Thomas, I think, represents our human condition. We are hardwired to believe in God and the unseen on the one hand because it is the Image of God reflected in us; but at the same time our fallen and broken nature rebels against that and refuses to believe without 'signs.' In that sense, our very nature is in a perpetual state of conflict. Even when the miraculous is in our midst, we still struggle to believe.

That is why the Lord says to Thomas after he touched Him: "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."

This is the essence of our faith. It is not a belief that is irrational; rather it is a belief that transcends our own limited understanding. If God were to shout from the heavens demanding us to worship Him; it wouldn't be faith and mankind wouldn't be free. The unseen reality is there; but God gives us the choice to believe in it or not.

God does not speak to us in a booming voice from the heavens, He speaks to us in a whisper. He speaks not as a roaring lion, but as a gentle wind rustling in the trees. Let us strive to hear that small voice; for we are blessed because we have not seen and yet we believe...