The incredible power of truth and joy

I would be remiss to the world of blogging if I did not relate a rather surreal and somewhat jarring experience that I recently had. It has only been a day hence, but I have already given it much thought, being the active thinker that I am. Here is what happened, mixed with my impressions along the way. I'm not much of a storyteller, but I'll try my best to be engaging.

Yesterday, a pretty close friend of mine gave me a call. He calls me often enough. We are theology buddies who met on a forum a couple of years back. We're also mutual admirers in that we each appreciate the intellectual gifts the other possesses. We talk theology, philosophy, video games, women, you name it. About a month ago, he began to indicate to me that he had something important to tell me and that he would E-mail me about it. Last night, he laid it on me.

"Do you want me to ease into it, or just smack you in the face with it?"

"Just lay it on me."

"I'm not a Christian anymore, and I haven't been one since Summer of 2008."

I was dumbfounded. This guy was a pretty committed Christian since I first came to know him. His thirst for knowledge, truth, and the gospel led him from system to system as he tried to seek out Scriptural, theological, and philosophical truth. Now he was telling me that he no longer embraced Christianity. It felt like time slowed down, like I was in a dream. Immediately I began to re-interpret our relationship throughout the past 7 months in light of this stark revelation. I prayed with this guy, talked with him about theology, and even was a groomsman at his wedding in the course of that period! What does this all mean? It felt like I had stepped into another world.

"Yeah, that is surprising!" I muttered honestly, with a hint of nervous shock.

I spent the rest of the conversation trying to understand his current views as he spelled them out and answered my various questions. My friend has become an agnostic. And he is a pretty consistent one, too. He is unwilling to make lofty knowledge claims about God, whether we claim (1) God exists, (2) God does not exist, or (3) We cannot know that God exists. He realizes that these are all equally lofty knowledge claims, and thus He professes ignorance with respect to the truth value of each. In fact, he is so consistent that he is agnostic about his agnosticism. So in reality, he is not really taking a position. He is simply professes a psychological state that lacks knowledge about ultimate questions.

What convinced him that he is ignorant and does not know? Remember, it's not as if he has come over to a position (or so he says). Well, he said that the more he studied these issues, the more ambiguous they became. Scripture became more and more unclear, atheological arguments presented difficulties, experts were found to disagree about these matters, and so on. Thus, he concluded after a long period of searching that he does not know whether or not God exists. He claims that it is a legitimate option for critical thinkers to suspend judgment upon matters on which experts disagree. A corollary to this is that he now thinks all religion is primitive and that we need to evolve past it. I hope I am representing his views accurately; they are coming from one conversation which was fairly limited, and there is more I could relate but will not due to space constraints.

"Well, you've certainly given me a lot to think about!" I said, knowing that it was quite an understatement.

And so I hung up the phone and began to reflect intently. I shared it with my roommates, with my philosophy professor, and with other friends, trying to make sense of what had just happened. After reflecting upon it and conversing with others about it, I have some initial thoughts and impressions on the matter.

First, I must say in all honesty that I would be lying if I said it didn't shake me a bit. It did. I think one would have to be imperviously arrogant not to be at least a little shaken when a close friend whose abilities and commitment to truth are evident switches positions on something like Christianity's truth value right in front of your eyes. I think it ought to raise some questions and ought to cause us to reflect upon why this has happened.

Second, I realized how valuable it is to have good reasons of your own to believe what you believe. If I tried to find the confidence in my beliefs in the fact that my friend was confident in his, I would have been utterly devastated. I've done this in the past with multiple people, and it has never worked. Not only are you in danger of being crushed if that person changes positions, but you are also a slave to that person's every opinion and whim before you give yourself a chance to think through an issue yourself. Whenever there is a challenge or objection, you have to call immediately them lest you sink into the mire of despair and doubt, for his confidence is your confidence. I'm not saying we don't need others to help us see things; we do need this, and that's healthy and okay. I am saying that we cannot fundamentally look for assurance for our beliefs in the fact that people we respect are assured of them. That will not sustain belief in the long run for those who are committed to truth. And at any rate, from a Christian perspective this makes sense if we are to fear God and not men. And of course, I think the basics of Christianity can be known immediately through the Holy Spirit.

Third, I felt humbled. At first I didn't quite know why, but I think I know why now. There is no doubt that I can be arrogant at times. The combination of pride, insecurity, and unrighteous anger sometimes color the way I argue and speak. That isn't to say that the pace, tenacity, or vigor of my argumentation come from these sources most of the time. Usually they don't. But at times, my attitude, or air, or demeanor just becomes too haughty. I think too highly of myself and inflate how much I actually know. This is not all that intentional, but it comes out at times nonetheless. Now here is why I think I felt humbled: I can't be that way with my friend anymore. He will detect when my claims are inflated or overstated, as even I often do right after I make them hastily (which is why I prefer print, but even then at times I am too strong - or too weak!). It will cause me to lose some credibility if I am not sufficiently modest in my claims and arguments. I have been aware of this tendency for a while now, but I almost felt as though I handed at least part of it over to God in that moment, that I surrendered in faith at least part of that tendency and God transformed it to greater humility. God heals and transforms the infection of unholy tempers even in those over whom sin has lost its power and dominion through regenerating grace. This does not mean I think my generally vigorous, outspoken, and passionate demeanor is wrong; I don't. But it does mean I have to keep myself by the power of God appropriated through faith from slipping into an arrogant attitude, lest the truth go unheard for needless reasons. I want to speak truth boldly and strongly challenge people to find the truth, but not in a way that lacks Christlike humility. If there is boasting, it is in Christ Jesus, not in my abilities. After all, the very substance of Christianity was revealed by a gracious God, not discovered by the ingenuity of human beings.

Lastly and paradoxically, my faith was actually strengthened by this event. You may be wondering why I titled my post what I did given the nature of what happened. Well, after talking it over, thinking it over, and going for a walk with my dog, I was struck with how strong Christian joy and truth is and remains in me. Christianity not only can withstand the criticism of the best minds, but the joy of a Christian who knows God vitally cannot be undermined by those who turn away from that joy in unbelief. I already knew my belief in God was strong through a combination of rational thought and the unmistakable presence of the Holy Spirit, but like witnessing a strong wall being pounded by a storm without hardly moving, my conviction that Christianity is true was strengthened immensely. One comes to see that all truth is God's truth, and that someone with a hopeful heart is never harmed by a critical evaluation of the faith. I truly care about my friend, and I am genuinely regretful that He has turned away from the faith. But I will continue my relationship with him as much as it is good for both him and I, and I will continue to chat with him about these matters as well as pray for him - even though I'm sure he will not see the value of the latter activity any more. He is far from a lost cause, and this is also far more than a merely intellectual issue. But I have been amazed by the power of truth and joy, and more and more I am coming to see that joy cannot be defeated by despair, that goodness cannot be defeated by evil, and that the truth wins out in the end. God bats last, and He's a slugger.

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However, there does seem to be something amiss here lurking underneath this allegedly mere profession of ignorance on the part of my friend, something very subtle, namely, that it does seem like he is making some veiled knowledge claims about ultimate questions. He has come to know that these matters are unclear (at least, to him), and thus that he does not know if they are true. Granted, he is unwilling to say that we cannot know something about God, but the fact is that he does claim to know something about ultimate questions, namely, the fact that that they are unclear to him. This is certainly a modest knowledge claim, but it is a knowledge claim about ultimate questions nevertheless. And it seems to me that the only way to avoid incoherence in such a full-blown agnostic position as he is trying to espouse is to say that he is also agnostic about whether or not these matters are unclear to him. But that can only be true if he has never investigated them, which he has. So it seems that there is a very subtle, yet real incoherence in his agnosticism about ultimate questions.

Or maybe "they are unclear to me at the moment" is merely an expression of subjective experience on his part, not a proposition about ultimate questions. "I do not know right now. I don't know if I can know or if I can't, or if anyone else can or can't." But if that's what your state of mind it, it seems crazy to me to leave these matters unresolved if you have no reason to believe they can't be resolved. If I were in such a state of not knowing, given what is at stake (eternal happiness, goodness defeating evil, heaven and hell), I wouldn't stop until I knew that (1) I cannot know, (2) God does not exist, or (3) God exists. If either of the first two were true, I'd be a hedonist if I were able to delude myself sufficiently, or I'd kill myself - and I'm not kidding.

I'm sure we'll be talking about this a lot in the future, as I have several other problems with his current views and how he came to them.

Grace and peace,

Kyle