40%. Why 40% of the public have made a mistake. Part 4

40%. Why 40% of the public have made a mistake

Part 4: God can be understood as the embodiment of profound principles, but, somehow, if we try to extract the principles from the person, they crumble into dust

Hence my bold and aggravating assertion that 40% of the population have made a mistake. Once we clarify what we mean by God and what the cognitive process we are attempting to achieve are, then it becomes a commonplace to say, “Believing in God is the right thing to do”. It is the way to understand reality correctly. And if we want to live well, the important thing is to understand reality correctly.

I should return to the objection that secular-minded people can revere all these wonderful principles that I have – in their terms, wrongly – attributed to God. Some might like what I’m saying, but simply despair that I insist on bringing God into the equation. I can make a practical objection that in practice a secular mindset may well shut off the possibility of the immensely positive experience that I describe as an encounter with God, and which they may wish to portray as a principled commitment by a human person to profoundly good principles – shut off because they have shut down the attitude of faith. However, perhaps the possibility of this positive experience is still open to secular-minded people in practice? Possibly. They would have to say so. However, I doubt that they can precisely because the life-enhancing effect of believing in God is only activated in the “God-faith” circle. Certainly, a person can be inspired by these wonderful principles, but they only “come alive” in the context of a relationship of faith in God, where an appreciation of the person of God inspires a faith response in an ever-deepening life-giving encounter. The human person is elevated beyond measure by the experience of God, which is the same as the experience of believing that you are encountering God. If on a point of principle you have excluded the possibility that this can happen because you have made an active commitment to atheism and a secular world-view then I think it extremely unlikely that you are open to the possibility of faith – and now you are dependent on God surprising you – and even God can find this difficult if he is trying to surprise you against your will.