There is no God. It’s not an unfamiliar statement. In fact, it permeates much of our modern thinking, which begs the question if our modern thinking is really either ‘modern’ or ‘thinking.’
We Don’t Want a God
I think that the mentality that ‘there is no God’ is centered primarily on the fact that we don’t want a God. Therefore, out of convenience, we simply declare that there is none, for we fear that the experiences that we crave will be snatched from us, the pleasures that we wish to indulge in will be made taboo, that we will somehow be punished if things feel too good, and that this doting judge-like figure will frown on most everything that makes us happy. So, we decide that we don’t want a God. And subsequently, we declare that there is no God.
Becoming Our Own Gods
Subsequently, we then become our own gods, for the absence of a God does not eliminate our need of one. So, we fill the role. But because we demanded that we be these little gods and become the captain of our own ships, sunken ships litter the seas of our lives and they lay strewn across the endless shoals and windswept beaches as far as the eye can see. Because we want to be our own gods, wreckage is everywhere. Everywhere.
Guarding the Validity of Our Claim
And because the validity of our god-hood is thrown into question by the repeated occurrence of such disasters, we shake our fists and we declare that there must be no God because He would not have allowed tragedies of this magnitude to happen. How could a loving God permit so much carnage? We ask how a compassionate God could stand by and consent to devastation and destruction of this magnitude. Clearly then, our hypothesis that ‘there is no God’ is supported by the shipwrecks, when what we’re really proving is that we are no god.
The Real Issue
So really, the issue is ‘not’ that there is no God. The issue is that we are trying to be god, and that we don’t do it all that well. In fact, we are reaping the consequences in monumental ways. And if we are enraged by the shipwrecks made up of missed opportunities, broken marriages, fractured families, financial destitution, crushed dreams, hopes gone hopeless, friendships aborted, a culture in demise, losses without number, and so much more, it is ourselves to whom we must be enraged. For we said, there is no God, and we presumed the power, and the wisdom, and the intelligence, and the discernment to take the place of the God that we said didn’t exist. And if we are actually going to do that, we also have to assume the consequences of that choice.
The Evidence for God
Therefore, maybe the greatest evidence ‘for’ God is the destruction that we have caused in claiming to be god. Maybe the thing that we should be looking at is the failure of mankind to be his own god and the captain of his own ship. For if you look around you today, all that we have done is to sink those ships. And we’ve sunk thousands of them. We’ve sunk opportunities, marriages, families, finances, dreams, hopes, friendships, and a entire culture. And does not the evidence ‘for’ God shout from every shattered hull and every broken bow. There is no God, we say. But doesn’t the evidence of our attempts to be god suggest the existence of the very thing that we deny? Does not what we have done evidence the God that we say doesn’t exist? Maybe we want to think about that before we sink any other ships.
“The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’”
Psalm 14:1
Craig Lounsbrough
M. Div., LPC