I believe in believing in God. Part 1

I believe in believing in God

(A philosophical and theological reflection in 5 parts) 

Part 1: But is it true?

The more I think about the role of God in my life, the more essential he is. That makes the question of whether he actually exists or not more and more important. This is, of course, the be all and end all of the spiritual and religious life. If only we could know for sure that our beliefs are true. This is the stumbling block for many, who would like to believe, but can’t allow themselves to do so without proof – which is the one thing you can never have in the life of faith. Others have made the commitment of faith and are perfectly happy with their choice – they are untroubled in their faith. Others do have faith but are severely troubled by doubts, such that it stifles their faith to a considerable degree.

Yet it is a well-known phenomenon that the benefits of faith in God “work” provided you truly believe – whether God is real or not. It is your faith that energises your life. However, this phenomenon does not work if you try to fool yourself. If you try to argue to yourself: it is faith that matters, not God’s actual existence, therefore I will just believe, this doesn’t work because you don’t actually believe, you are just pretending to believe, or adopting the slogan of belief without it having any real substance. For the “faith effect” to work, you must actually have faith. So, we come back to the question of whether God actually exists or not.

Many believers manage to keep happily believing because, while there is no proof that God exists, they are happy with this because the whole point of faith is to believe without having proof (in fact, if you had proof, or certain knowledge, of God, it may well be literally impossible to have faith in God). As there is also no proof that he doesn’t exist, they feel justified in holding on to their faith. It comes down to an inner sense of what is justified to hold onto. However, some people feel that they must be honest with themselves. If they feel the evidence is 80:20 against God really existing – or worse, perhaps they are just refusing to accept reality. It is not enough to say that, as there is a theoretical possibility that he could exist, and as it is always impossible to prove that he doesn’t exist, they will go on believing despite all the reasons not to. So: is it true?