Why believe?

I've often pondered the question of "why believe?", either in "some kind of higher power" (ecumenical, AA style) or more specifically in the Person of Jesus Christ and the Gospel (and more specifically, the "Orthodox Christian version" of it.)

What I've noticed is that the further you get away from the root problem, the "easier" it is to discern the matter. This is because first principles are always far more difficult to arrive at and justify than their consequences. The latter more obviously avail themselves to rational examination and critique.

One little bit of cheating many secular-modernists are prone to (and which needs to be called out) is that they tend not to be honest when attempting to demolish the foundations of either "basic theism" or "religiosity" or more specifically, the foundations of Christianity. What they either fail to appreciate (due to a lack of introspection on their own part) or simply are not being candid about, is the fact that the difficulties Christianity has faced in the market place of ideas since the "Enlightenment" do not simply affect religious belief in any form, but having beliefs of any kind whatsoever, or making any claims to genuine knowledge. Epistemological problems touch all areas of knowledge, not simply the supposedly "special case" of religious belief.

Friedrich Nietzsche, by no means a friend of the Gospel (at least not intentionally), hit the nail on the head when he mocked the new priesthood of "scientism" for not having subjected itself and it's own mythos and ethics to the same epistemological scrutiny by which they had dismissed (like Nietzsche himself) religious belief. Nietzsche got something right here - namely, that the problems highlighted by modernity/post-modernity potentially put all knowledge into doubt, not simply that which involves prophesy and prayer.

In my own case, I realize that my attraction to Christianity ultimately centres upon the Person of our Lord Jesus Christ. In all honesty, had I lived a couple of centuries B.C. and had been say, a Hellene in Greek controlled Judea, I wouldn't have found much appealing about the religion of the Jews. Had I been so inclined, I may have found things in their sacred books which were food for thought...but I would have felt little inclination to abandon what Hellenism offered in the way of moral/spiritual inspiration for what Moses and his spiritual descendents committed to papyrus.

But the Lord Jesus Christ... Who He is, what He taught, etc... it all kind of constitutes a kind of "keystone" which on an intuitive level (though I could also explain it rationally as well) brings harmony and sense to the loose ends of both Judaism, and what the greatest minds of the world in ancient times had to say (whether they be the Pythagoreans, the devotees of Confuscius, the early students of the Buddha, or the pandits whose ideas and sayings became the foundation for the Upanishads and other Vedic literature.) This intuition does not simply apply to the past, but to the present as well - just as all things begin in Him, all things here and now find their rest in the Saviour.

As for the more "basic" belief in God (which do not be deceived, was not unique to the Jews when our Lord made His supreme Advent into human history), that for me comes down to a very basic question - is this universe (both seen and unseen) purposeful, or is it not? Is there utility in the things about us, or is that simply a projection of our own? I believe it is not a projection at all, but that the universe is purposeful, which requires that it be a work, and that implies some kind of author. While this of itself doesn't tell me anything about just what those purposes are, and the exact relationship between the kosmos and it's author is (for example, it doensn't exclude say, pantheism or monism), it still says a lot without saying much.

But why do I think this way? Is it just like I flipped a coin - "heads, purpose; tails, nihilism"? No, rather I so "choose" because I think the second, nihilistic option (to view the observation of "kosmic purpose" as an anthropomorphic imposition) implies an absurdity - that it is possible for a man to observe and interpret his world in any way but as a man.

Obviously, I think being mentally chaste is important, and we should avoid projection as far as is possible. You see this kind of projection when men examine both that which is loftier than them, or that which is more primitive. So at one extreme, you'll have people taking certain economic ways of speaking about God with cartoonish literalness (ex. "God really is an old man with a white beard sitting on a big throne, Who at times is subject to passions of either joy or anger, even repentence"), and at the other people attributing to animals all to human motives (ex. the human tendency to read human motives and depth of understanding into the animal kingdom.) But at the end of the day, speaking and thinking as a human being are my only options, and this is no different for the selective nihilists (ex. secular humanists) out there.

The other related problem to the nihilistic outlook, is that it is a thorougly unlivable and unnatural "way" for man. Man must go out of his way to be truly "agnostic" (and not simply selectively, as atheistic cheaters do); it's not something which at all comes naturally to him. Perhaps some of the purest attempts at this came from the likes of Diogenes and other "Cynic" philosophers - but even these attemps were deeply flawed, primarily because they were inescapably inconsistent. This inconsistency was impossible to avoid, I submit, precisely because their foundational agnosticism is itself as impossible to human nature as is seeing U.V. spectrum light or the consequent "colours" that must cause for a creature which can see them (like many insects and even certain mammals.)