Life and God

By Bp. Joseph (Ancient Church of the West)

Throughout history, people searched for life beyond the grave, interacting with myths that contextualized humanity within time, space and a cultural and linguistic sense of place, that gave us hope that our lives would continue. Christianity is the ultimate expression of this hope. As St. Paul said, "If there is no resurrection, we are of all men most miserable."

Living, the sensation of presence, willed motion, imagination, logic, interaction, manipulation, memory, emotion, learning, love and life as a whole, are not only beautiful, but are meaningful and frame the universe in a way that is both natural and transcendent - truly "supernatural" in the sense that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Such an impalpable experience such as ours must have a greater purpose, an origin beyond the stars, anchored in ultimate reality. Our consciousness is like a pin-hole camera, projecting an invisible world into an otherwise darkened and monotonous realm of natural existence.

Such is the spark of our own sentiency and our own, innate desire to continue our lives, that to be an atheist is a depressing, life-defeating proposition. It has also been shown that atheism not only depresses and alienates the individual, but also corrodes society and destroys cultural trust as well. Friends from the former Soviet Union and my own experience of 11 years in a morally collapsing East Asia have proven this to me. Belief in God and hope in eternity has noticeable health benefits, not just on the mood, but on the immune system and recovery times. As this study shows, we also instinctively believe people are more positive, more willing to cooperate, and more trustworthy when they are religious. This makes religion integral to the functioning of a moral polity and the engine of an equitable economy.

The question then becomes, "Why are atheists so convinced that they are right?" The answer is simply, they must believe in a truth that is inhumane and that our own nature and thinking have no basis in ultimate reality. From this perspective, all these reflections are projected on the darkened wall from nothing, or only as collective memories of our evolutionary pre-history. Conversely, a belief that the truth is human is Christianity, where ultimate reality becomes a man, becoming our friend, showing us how to live in the light of the transcendent expectation of a glorified and eternal life, giving us bread to eat and wine to drink.

While I understand the logic of atheism and sympathize with those who would use it as a hammer to destroy all the inhumane abuses of religion, I feel that to embrace it denies my most fundamental instinct, the will to survive. In an attempt to quash inhuman abuse, complete rejection of the humane is not necessary. I cannot embrace death. In a universe where atheism is true, life would not occur to begin with, so precious and profound is it in the course of cosmological events, if the appearance of our consciousness did not mirror something that created and sustains everything. Life itself has deeply ingrained in us to fight for it, to love it, to pass it down, and to hope for its continuation that an accidental origin defies belief! To embrace death is to reject life, and to reject life is to cease to be fully and truly human. And this is why I believe God must be fully and truly one of us!