This was written for another publication but didn’t make the “cut”.

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Every child will ask “why?” And every parent will answer “because!” And someone will ask me “why are you, a trained chemist and perhaps philosopher, a Christian?” And I will reply with the same tone of voice that a parent will use, though without the same metaphysical meaning, “because!”

But why should I proclaim a belief in a God when others do the same but advocate violence, hatred, and exclusion? Why should I believe in a man some say is a myth or the creation of some power structure two thousand years ago? Why do I believe in God through Christ instead of God alone as do the Jews and the Muslims? Why do I not believe in some other supreme being that perhaps only exists as some sort of force field in the universe?

You see things as they are and ask why; I see things that never were and ask why not? – Robert Kennedy (from George Bernard Shaw)

I cannot offer you a proof based on empirical evidence simply because the evidence exists in the realm of faith and belief, not in matter or time. Any proof that I should offer cannot be viewed from the traditional or standard form of thought; for Christ offered a new vision of the world and to see it, you must be open to seeing a new vision.

"In every age there comes a time when leadership suddenly comes forth to meet the needs of the hour. And so there is no man who does not find his time, and there is no hour that does not have its leader." (The Talmud)

I am a Christian because that is how I was raised and because it is what I have come to believe on my own through reason and experience. I have never had the experience of Paul on the road to Damascus but I have had the clear knowledge that my life has changed because I have chosen to walk the road with Jesus.

I have come to this conclusion through a reading of the Scriptures, of listening to the dialogue, and through my own reasoning that there is a God and He sent His Son because He loved us and it was His desire that we would have a life that was whole and complete, one with soul and meaning as well as physical evidence. I have come to this understanding as much on my own as I have from my decision to join the Evangelical United Brethren Church in 1965 and my membership in the United Methodist Church since the merger of the EUB church with the Methodist Church in 1968. My understanding can be expressed by what is called the “Methodist Quadrilateral.

 (from http://www.aldersgatede.org/clientimages/28332/quad2.jpg)

“Seek the truth and the truth shall set you free” – John 8: 32

My acceptance of Jesus Christ as my Savior and God as His Father means that I accept all that comes with it. I cannot arbitrarily select what I like from each religion that humankind has created and cobble them together in some sort of religious smorgasbord. Rather, I recognize that humankind has been involved in the whole process of identifying who God is and what God has done. The search for God, in all and whatever forms He may have, is a search for the truth; it is a search that will continue until and beyond death. It is a search made through thought and with an understanding that God created us to question the world and to work towards the fulfillment of His plans on this planet.

In essence, this is a search for one’s own identity and I don’t believe that you can find that identity without finding and knowing Christ. For the decision to accept Christ is as much a decision about one’s own identity. A person who seeks their identity outside Christ can never truly discover who they are. (Adapted from Dietrich Bonhoeffer)

I cannot make you accept my version; I can only offer you some thoughts and ideas and let you make your own decision. So what evidence can I offer that will help you to see that there is a God and that He did in fact send His Son to be our Savior?

“When I was a child, I talked liked a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child.” (1 Corinthians 13: 11 – Today’s New International Version)

No matter how old you think the world may be, we are still children of this planet and it is only reasonable that we should ask “why?” But Our Father does not answer “because!” Rather He has elected to give us the wherewithal and ability to seek out the answers to our questions.

For a long time we thought the earth was flat but there were signs that it was curved. Eventually, we determined the size of the earth and began exploring it. For a long time, we thought the earth was the center of the solar system and that the sun, the moon, and the planets orbited the earth. But then other discoveries and other evidence began to suggest another explanation.

Each question brought forth more questions and we gained more and more knowledge about the world around us. Now we are on the verge of perhaps the greatest cosmological discovery of all time, the recreation of the Big Bang, and with it we will have reduced an exceedingly complex but simple thing, the atom, to its basic parts.

But nowhere in these discoveries, as we work our way back in time to the moment of creation itself, will we answer the question, “why was the universe and humankind created?” Nowhere in these discoveries do we find examples ofgood and evil. Nowhere in these discoveries do we find an explanation for why other cultures have similar stories about the creation. At some point, we have to go beyond the desire for empirical data and explore the murky area of faith and belief.

A number of years ago I wrote about Stonehenge and other megalithic stone structures found on the northern plains of the western United States and the southern plains of western Canada (see “Knowing God”) and how there was a similarity between those various stone circles. That humankind would look to the sun, the moon, and the stars in order to answer basic questions of life is understandable; to have widely separated cultures develop similar solutions suggests to me a higher being; one that I have chosen to call God.

And this world that God created is a world of good and evil. Are we people in which good and evil are part and parcel of our physical being? Or are good and evil forces in the universe that we somehow interact with?

Rather, good and evil are forces in the universe rather than some part of our bodies. If we are born with good and evil in us and we somehow can identify who is good and who is evil, we have the potential of opening a box that even Pandora would not want to look into. If we are created with good and evil as a physical part of us, then we are faced with decisions that challenge the very notion of human existence. And while I cannot construct a specific philosophical argument, it seems to me such a concept defeats itself. The very presence of good and/or evil in each of us suggests a being outside our realm of thought and existence. And if that is the case, then good and evil exist not as parts of our physical bodies but are part of what has become known as our soul.

Good and evil are forces in the universe, each with a power of their own, each with the power to create and destroy. We cannot measure these forces but we can see their affects, the ability to create and the ability to destroy. Each person is born with the capability to do good and to do evil; it all depends on what happens in their lifetimes.

As one example, when humankind developed nuclear weapons, we saw both the awesome destructive power within the atom and the awesome creative power within the atom. Sadly, we have seemingly chosen the destructive power and forsaken the creative power, just as we have done so with so many other discoveries.

It is clear that this mysterious force that we have come to call “evil” takes on many forms. Perhaps the early church with its seven deadly sins (lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride) had it right. But then again, perhaps so did Mohandas Gandhi with his listing of the seven modern deadly sins: wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, worship without sacrifice, and politics without principle.

Our challenge as a Christian in this world is to work against evil, to offer a vision of change and then work to make the vision reality. It cannot be done by describing Christ as a man who offered good ideas and lead a good life, or one who was a political and social rebel who threatened to overturn the status quo but rather an individual who through His Divine Power offered a change in the world, a change that could only be accomplished through the efforts of His followers. It cannot be met by forcing others to believe as we do.

We cannot do as some have done and twist the words spoken two thousand years ago and actions that changed the world for their own personal purposes.

Rather, the challenge is to show that words spoken some two thousand years ago still have meaning in today’s world. The challenge is to show, through our thoughts, words, and deeds, that the words spoken and actions taken some two thousand years ago still offer hope today. The words spoken two thousand years ago spoke of a new life and a new vision; they are still true today and those who truly believe in Christ are empowered to bring those words and vision to the world, to offer the world a new vision for tomorrow.