DOES BELIEVING IN God really matter? Is there relevance or meaningfulness in believing in God?
Theists would readily proffer their reasons for believing in God, agnostics for being skeptical or doubtful, and atheists for not believing at all. But what is more exigent to find out is what impact is their belief or unbelief on their particular real lives.
Back in my philosophy studies in the seminary, I have come across some witting reasons why people, in the realm of real-life experience, tend to believe in God. One, for instance, dubbed as “foxhole religion,” argues that people do believe in God only because of fear – in particular, about the uncertainty of what lies beyond death. Then, there’s the Freudian (Sigmund Freud) explanation that God is nothing but an “obsessional neurosis,” or simply a product of human instinctual desire or anthropomorphic thinking. Also, there was the Marxist critique of religion and “dialectical materialism” postulating that belief in God is only embraced by the hapless masses as an illusory escape from their deprivation, and at the same time advanced by the capitalists and ruling bourgeoisie to maintain their hegemonic control.
‘Amid the imperfections of life and regardless of the uncertainty about the afterlife – isn’t it more practicable, convenient and comforting to believe in a “transcendent yet immanent” God…’
GOD IS REACHING OUT
But, for Sarah Coakley, professor of divinity at Cambridge, believing in God, aside from stimulating rational arguments for God’s existence, evokes personal relevance and meaningfulness in terms of transformative desire. “Let’s say that God is reaching out to you in some way on your niggle that you would like to believe in him. And let’s say there are some arenas of your life which have a sort of element of vulnerability – of love, of desire, of pain – where God could get in.
“Under what conditions do you think such vulnerability might lead to something? And then I would ask you the big existential question, which is, where are true joys to be found? That encircles back to the question, what are you seeking? That’s actually the central query why people want to believe in God”
Then, there is Christopher Ishan, first-class physicist at London’s Imperial College. For Ishan, who was baptized as Christian only on his 40th birthday, there is a room for a realm of existence beyond the physical, for mystical experiences beyond the mundane, and for belief in the existence of God – and the avenue for such is the personal experience of suffering. “I’ve been involved over the years with fool-proof science and religion interaction. But it always seemed to me that the wrong thing to be talking about was not actually science and religion, but the problem of evil and suffering, which is nothing to be science per se. I have a neurological disease that has landed me in the hospital for several times. And out of my personal encounter with suffering, I felt at the very heart of reality, at a profound level, that there is God, providing a sense of meaningfulness to my suffering.”
BELIEVING IN GOD
And, for my part, here’s my take.
Of course, I cannot disregard the different theistic positions or arguments I’ve learned in philosophy: the ontological argument of St. Anselm, “God is the being none other than which can be conceived” and that the very idea of God implies his existence; St. Thomas Aquinas’ causal argument that God is the “uncaused cause” and “unmoved mover”; the teleological argument of God’s existence as inferred from this world’s design, value, and purpose.
But, more profoundly, in the practical scheme of things, my stance is simple. Amid the imperfections of life and regardless of the uncertainty about the afterlife – isn’t it more practicable, convenient and comforting to believe (than not) in a “transcendent yet immanent” God, and thus find MEANING in all of life’s joys and sorrows, happiness and pains (including natural and moral evils)?
After all, for me, what is more important in life is not proving or disproving the existence of God but experiencing or living a meaningful, happy and satisfying life – as can be derived from “believing” in God.
