Category Archives: Faith

We need to address 2 obstacles. Part 1: What if I just don’t feel God? 2. What do we expect God to do for us in the material world? How might we begin to respond? To the person who just doesn’t feel God’s presence, I don’t really know what to say! Wait – but thatContinue reading “The foundations of faith (12)”

Love is personal. Part 2: Love is received from God and passed on; it is not generated by me When we encounter God, it is not enough to say we encounter the value or principle of love. What we encounter is a person who is loving us. This is totally different to simply believing inContinue reading “The foundations of faith (11)”

Love is personal. Part 1: Love is more than a value; it’s a personal relationship One objection an atheist might make to me is: “We can see that your faith in God gives you wonderful values. Because you believe in God, you believe in the supreme importance of love, compassion, forgiveness, gentleness, peace etc. WhyContinue reading “The foundations of faith (10)”

Religious experiences are real and certain, even if God isn’t. Part 4: Judging from our end of the relationship with God restores the concept of knowledge because we do know what we are experiencing inside ourselves My hope is that for both believers and atheists they will be able to abandon the idea that theContinue reading “The foundations of faith (9)”

Religious experiences are real and certain, even if God isn’t. Part 3: We accept that we’ve lost our former foundation stone but also accept that we have sufficient grounds to justify our leap up to reach God See how we have by-passed the moment of conflict, doubt and possible rejection of faith – by bothContinue reading “The foundations of faith (8)”

Religious experiences are real and certain, even if God isn’t. Part 2: We do know what is happening inside us So, let’s stick with what we do know. The religious experience definitely exists. Whether God is the cause of the experience is not certain – and never can be. Perhaps before your doubts you feltContinue reading “The foundations of faith (7)”

Religious experiences are real and certain, even if God isn’t. Part 1: The evidence is clear, but we still have a choice to make Religious experiences are the heart of my faith. I regard myself as very blessed that I have them pretty often. In Religious Studies philosophy of religion A level terms, the basicContinue reading “The foundations of faith (6)”

God is unknowable, but we can experience him. Part 2: Why worry that we cannot grasp God, just delight in meeting him Now we need to face up to a big problem – for both believers and atheists. We both tend to start at the cause of the argument, not the fulfilment. Many believers feel,Continue reading “The foundations of faith (4)”

God is unknowable, but we can experience him. Part 1: We cannot measure God to assess him. It’s a bedrock of faith in God, from the very beginning, that God as he truly, fully actually is, is unknowable. Our ability to express in words the full wonder of who God is, is inadequate. Even moreContinue reading “The foundations of faith (3)”

Introduction. Part 2: A few “framework” issues Many atheists have abandoned, or never begun, a life of faith because of the obvious weaknesses in our position, such as proof that God acts in the world to make things better, and scepticism that life after death is possible. They assume that people who haven’t given upContinue reading “The foundations of faith (2)”