God, if You are real, show me?

Dear Mr. Michael R. Burch,

I have spent some time reading your arguments and thinking about what appears to be a rather unusual relationship you have with Christianity, Christ, and the question of God. I am not entirely sure where your line in the sand is. Is your disagreement really with Christ, or is it with what people have done in the name of Christ? Are you rejecting Jesus himself, or are you reacting to the centuries of religion, institutions, hypocrisy, politics and human interpretation that have surrounded his name? Those are not necessarily the same thing, and I think the distinction matters.

What interests me is the extraordinary amount of time and intellectual energy you appear to invest in a subject you seemingly reject. That, in itself, raises a question for me. Why spend so much time examining, analyzing and challenging something you believe to be fundamentally untrue? Perhaps the answer is simply intellectual curiosity. Perhaps there is another explanation. I cannot know what is happening inside another person, and I do not want to pretend that I can. But I do think the question is worth asking.

There is a particular kind of intellectualism that can become its own trap. A person can read thousands of books, become familiar with ancient languages, study historical documents, understand theology and philosophy, and accumulate an impressive amount of information while still missing the thing he is actually attempting to understand. Knowing about something is not necessarily the same as knowing it.

A person can study love without ever loving someone. He can study music without ever being moved by a song. He can study hunger without ever experiencing it. And, perhaps most importantly for this discussion, a person can study God without ever actually allowing himself to encounter the possibility that God might be real.

That is the distinction I struggle to see in some of your writing. You clearly have read extensively. That much is obvious. But accumulated information is not automatically understanding, and intellectual sophistication does not automatically make an argument sound. Sometimes a person can become so accustomed to analyzing a subject that he never actually encounters the subject itself.

This is also where evidence becomes important. If someone makes a historical, philosophical or theological claim, I do not think the reader should simply accept it because the person making the claim is educated, experienced or articulate. Show me the evidence. Show me where I can examine it for myself. Give me the source, the manuscript, the historical record, the archaeological evidence or the underlying argument. Tell me how the conclusion was reached and allow me to examine the reasoning.

That is how serious intellectual discussion should work. It should not depend upon the reputation of the person making the argument. It should not depend upon how many books someone has read or how sophisticated the language sounds. A convincing argument should be able to stand independently of the personality presenting it.

This is one of the things that troubles me when discussions about Christianity become increasingly complicated. Sometimes the terminology becomes so sophisticated that the reader can lose sight of the fundamental question. Beneath all the philosophy, textual criticism, historical argument and theological debate, there is still a basic question that cannot simply be buried beneath intellectual language: What is the evidence for the conclusion being presented?

There is also an irony I cannot help noticing in your own name. Michael traditionally carries the meaning, “Who is like God?” There is then the history of your own professional life, including your description of yourself as the owner of Alpha Omega Consulting Group, apparently a faith-based company. Perhaps there is a history behind that which I do not know. Perhaps there was a change in your thinking. Perhaps there were experiences with Christianity or Christians that changed your perspective. Perhaps you encountered hypocrisy, disappointment, intellectual dishonesty or religious manipulation.

If you did, I can understand why that might cause someone to question Christianity.But there is a fundamental distinction between Christ and the people who claim to represent Christ.

Christians can be hypocrites. Christians can be arrogant. Christians can manipulate Scripture. Christians can abuse religious authority. Christians can behave in ways that are completely inconsistent with the teachings of Jesus. Churches can become institutions concerned more with themselves than with God. None of that proves that Christ is false. It demonstrates something rather obvious about human beings: we are capable of corrupting even the things we claim to believe.

And perhaps this is where the problem with intellectualism becomes particularly interesting.

There seems to be an assumption in some circles that the person with the most education necessarily possesses the greatest understanding. I do not accept that premise. A person who has spent his life studying theology may know considerably more about theology than someone who has never opened a theological book. But that does not automatically mean he understands God better.

A simple person can ask a profound question. An uneducated person can recognize an inconsistency. Someone without an academic background can see through an argument that has been dressed up in complicated language. And someone who cannot explain his beliefs using philosophical terminology can still understand the basic meaning of what Jesus taught.

Jesus did not build his message around making ordinary people feel intellectually inadequate. He spoke to fishermen, farmers, women, tax collectors, the poor, the sick and people who had been rejected by respectable society. His message was not reserved for people with libraries, academic qualifications or impressive vocabularies. It was accessible to ordinary people.

That does not mean Christianity is intellectually simplistic. It certainly is not. Christianity has generated centuries of serious philosophical, theological and historical scholarship. But the accessibility of the central message should not be confused with intellectual weakness. Perhaps the problem is not that God is complicated. Perhaps the problem is that we are.

Human beings have an extraordinary ability to complicate simple things when the simple answer requires us to confront ourselves. We want to define reality. We want to establish the rules. We want evidence on our own terms. We want God, if He exists, to fit within the boundaries of our intellectual framework before we will consider surrendering anything to Him.

But if God exists, then God is not merely an opinion. God does not become real because I approve of Him, and He does not cease to exist because I reject Him. The question is whether we are willing to investigate the possibility honestly.

And this is where the issue becomes uncomfortable: pride.

I do not use that word because I consider myself intellectually or spiritually superior to you. I do not. I am not writing this from the position of someone who believes he has all the answers. Quite the opposite. I believe Christianity begins with the recognition that I am not God. That is an uncomfortable position for the human ego.4

We want to be the final authority over our own existence. We want to determine what is true, what is false, what God should be and what God should not be. We want to decide what evidence is acceptable and what evidence is insufficient. We want to remain the judge.

But Christianity begins by turning that arrangement upside down. It says that perhaps I am not the centre of reality. Perhaps I am not the highest authority. Perhaps there is something greater than my own understanding. Perhaps God does not need to fit into my intellectual framework. Perhaps I need to recognize the limitations of my own framework.

That is not an argument against reason. It is an argument for humility. And I think humility is essential if anyone is genuinely searching for God.

This brings me to a question that I think is more important than another hundred arguments on the internet. Have you ever actually asked God to reveal Himself to you? I do not mean rhetorically, and I do not mean as an intellectual exercise or another experiment designed to prove that nothing happens. I mean privately, when nobody else is watching, when there is no audience and no reputation to defend. Have you ever put aside the books, the arguments, the scholarship, the criticism and the accumulated conclusions and simply said, “God, if You are real, show me”?

Not, “Prove Yourself according to my conditions.” Not, “Give me evidence that conforms to my existing conclusions.” Simply, “If You are there, show me who You are.”

Perhaps you have done that. Perhaps you have not. I cannot know. That is ultimately between you and God. But there is something about the way you continue to engage with this subject that I find difficult to reconcile with complete indifference. You have invested considerable intellectual energy in Christianity, Jesus and the question of God. Perhaps that is simply the work of a committed critic. Perhaps it is academic interest. Perhaps it is something else entirely. I will not tell you what is happening inside your heart.

But I will say this: sometimes a question continues to occupy a person precisely because it has never been completely settled within him. That does not prove that God exists, nor does it tell me what you personally believe. It simply means that the persistence of the question itself may be worth examining honestly.

And this brings us to Jesus. Jesus was certainly Jewish. He lived within first-century Judaism, knew the Scriptures of Israel and interacted with Jewish religious authorities. Those are historical matters. But Christianity does not claim that Jesus is significant merely because He was a Jewish teacher who lived two thousand years ago.

The Christian claim is much greater. The Christian claim is that God entered human history through Christ. It claims that Jesus was not simply another philosopher, prophet or moral teacher, but that in Jesus humanity encountered God in a uniquely personal way. That is an extraordinary claim, and it should not be accepted merely because someone says it is true. But neither should it be rejected simply because some Christians have behaved badly.

It deserves examination on its own terms. Who did Jesus claim to be? What did His earliest followers believe? What do the earliest Christian sources actually say? What historical evidence exists concerning the origins of the Christian movement? What happened after Jesus’ death? Why did His followers become convinced that He had risen from the dead? What explanations adequately account for the historical evidence?

Those are legitimate questions, and they deserve serious examination. But serious examination means applying the same standard to every side of the discussion. If an argument requires evidence, then provide evidence. If a historical claim depends upon a source, identify the source. If an interpretation goes beyond what the evidence actually establishes, distinguish the interpretation from the evidence itself. That standard should apply whether the person making the argument is a Christian scholar, an atheist historian, a pastor, an academic or simply an ordinary person trying to make sense of the world.

I am not writing this because I think I am smarter than you. I am writing because I think there is a human being behind the arguments, and that human being matters more than winning an argument.

Perhaps you are completely convinced that Christianity is false. Perhaps you have examined the evidence and reached that conclusion honestly. You have the right to reach your own conclusion. But intellectual honesty requires that the same standard be applied in both directions. If you demand evidence from Christians, then evidence should also support your conclusions. If you challenge Christian interpretations, then the distinction between historical evidence and personal inference should remain clear. If you criticize Christians for relying upon faith where evidence is required, then assertions should not replace evidence simply because they come from an opposing intellectual position. The standard should not change according to which side of the argument we happen to occupy.

And perhaps that is ultimately what I am trying to say to you.

I am not asking you to become a Christian because I have written a convincing letter. I am not asking you to accept my interpretation of history, and I am not asking you to abandon reason. I am asking you to consider whether you have perhaps spent so much time studying the arguments surrounding God that you have never stopped long enough to ask the question of God Himself.

Because God cannot ultimately be reduced to a paragraph in a book. He cannot be contained within a theological system, and He cannot be defeated by an intellectual argument any more than He can be proved into existence by one. If God is real, then He is real regardless of what either of us thinks about Him. The question is whether we are willing to investigate that possibility with enough humility to allow the answer to challenge us.

So perhaps, Mr. Burch, the next step does not require another article. Perhaps it does not require another argument or another exchange of intellectual blows. Perhaps it requires silence for a moment. Perhaps it requires setting aside the need to be right, the need to defend a position and the need to demonstrate intellectual superiority, and simply allowing yourself to ask the question without an audience.

 “God, if You are real, I am here. Show me who You are.”

That is not a sophisticated theological argument. It is not a historical proof. It is not an academic thesis. It is simply an honest question. And perhaps that is exactly where a genuine search for God has to begin.

Because if He is there, no scholar can ultimately introduce you to Him. No book can contain Him completely. No argument can make Him exist. And no critic can make Him disappear. If He is not there, then an honest search has nothing to fear.

But if He is real, then perhaps the greatest intellectual mistake any of us could make would be to become so certain of our own conclusions that we never stop long enough to listen.