Dealing With Doubt

I became a Christian, or rather 'born again,' at age 12 when my dear sister spoke to me in my bedroom, and I made the confession of faith, giving my life to Christ. I felt a joy that I couldn’t express, and colours seemed more vivid and real than ever before.

A few years afterward, I was baptised and, like many, experienced my metaphorical '40 days and nights in the desert,' where Jesus faced temptation by the devil. In my case, this seemed to last about two and a half years. I had depression, or more accurately, I had depressive thoughts and deep doubts about my faith. At that point, I didn’t want God to exist and actively sought reasons to disprove His existence.

I think we all have an innate sense that we are good people, comparing ourselves to others and saying we’re not like ‘so-and-so’ (whose faults seem worse than ours). Or we say we may not be like Mother Teresa, but we’re nowhere near as bad as Hitler or Tony Blair. In other words, my point is that we tend to justify ourselves, mitigating our failings while highlighting others’ failings to their discredit.

In short, I didn’t want God to exist because that would mean I’d be judged by a Holy God, accountable for all my wrongdoings, and I didn’t want to live in such a world.

In trying to disprove the existence of God, I realised three main issues:

1. The evidence for Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection.

2. Moral realism.

3. My personal religious experience.

1. The Evidence for Jesus’s Life, Death, and Resurrection

I’ve written extensively here (The Evidence for the Deity and Resurrection of Jesus Christ)  and here (The Pursuit of Truth and the Question of God), so I won’t revisit the evidence. For an exploration of it, see those posts. Jesus’s death by crucifixion is uncontested in history, meaning he lived, and it’s beyond reasonable doubt that many of his followers believed they saw him alive three days later. Moreover, they claimed the known tomb was empty, and numerous other people saw him afterwards and were willing to die for that fact, and many did.

The point is, it seems incredible that at least 11 individuals knowingly lied about seeing him alive afterward, emptied the tomb unnoticed, and convinced numerous others to believe so fervently that they were willing to die for that truth—and many did.

Maybe it could be argued the duped people were just misinformed zealous individuals (e.g., suicide bombers in Islam or cult members), but the point is, the first founding members that claimed to see him afterwards, at least 3 are known to have died, so they died for a known lie, that is, they died for something they knew to be false! And even if I can’t prove the other 8 were martyrs, they were willing to die for a known lie. These people were either profoundly mistaken or truly believed what they claimed. Meaning, to die for something you know to be false, you have to be incredibly mistaken, mentally unwell, or they actually believed what they saw.

We know from their writings in the New Testament that not only did they claim they saw him, touched and spoke with him, but the tomb was empty and that numerous other people saw him too, our earliest source being 1 Corinthians 15:3-8, the pre-Pauline creed, which even critical scholars date to within 5 years of the crucifixion and some experts to within months of the crucifixion. Making it too early for it to be a late embellishment and, more importantly, making it a falsifiable claim for the individuals in 1st-century Israel. That is to say, if you are trying to make a convincing lie, you don’t make lies that can be easily falsified, and you want to keep your claims to a minimum. As C.H. Dodd wrote, "There can hardly be any purpose in mentioning the fact that most of the 500 are still alive, unless Paul is saying, in effect, “The witnesses are there to be questioned.” In other words, why lie about 500 people being alive? If someone continually made claims that they never backed up with evidence, they wouldn’t be believed for long, if ever. Especially given the culture and beliefs in 1st-century Israel, a Messiah that was crucified wasn’t believed to be a Messiah for long! They found a new Messiah or went home.

The point being, lies do not explain the rise of Christianity at all well.

Hallucinations are equally unconvincing, as, by definition, they are in the mind of the individual, not a shareable memory or event in history! I show in 'The Pursuit of Truth and the Question of God' the likelihood of group hallucinations taking place was 1 in 9.47×10^(−1155), making it practically impossible. Nor, even granting hallucinations, explains the belief of the first followers, nor does it explain why the tomb was empty or why Paul and James believed.

The most plausible explanation, given our shared human experience and assuming people in the past weren’t imbeciles and morons of the highest order or dishonest, is that it is reasonable to assume and is more likely that they actually saw what they claimed.

2. Moral Realism

It seems that some things are truly wrong; when we saw the atrocious acts of October 7th, 2023, in Israel by Hamas, it was truly jarring, the level of malevolence and the visceral feelings of outrage and disgust of the murder, rape, and mutilation of around 1200 and the kidnapping of over 250 people. This point shouldn’t be contentious, but if you’re among the few antisemitic bigots who believe Israel somehow deserved it or that it was justifiable, consider this. The Manchester Arena bomb attack on 22nd May 2017, where 22 people died and over 1000 were injured, is a clear case of evil.

However, if, as my introduction alluded to, this 'innate' sense of being a moral person, if God doesn’t exist, there are no objective moral truths, at best, they are subjective to individuals or a culture that adopts a moral framework, but there is no obligation or 'ought' to any moral propositional statement, like 'murder is wrong' or 'we ought to tell the truth'.

As Hume suggested in his is-ought gap argument, any moral claim on closer inspection is an 'is' statement, that is, it is what is the case of affairs, not what we 'ought' to do. So, when we say murder is wrong, that is an 'is' statement, that’s just a true fact, but to derive an 'ought', we have to add an additional proposition like we ought to preserve life or life is a good.

I explore this topic further here (The Moral Argument and Normative Force) if you wish to delve into my reasoning.

The point being, even if we grant the atheist can have some rationale for accepting a moral framework, it has no normative force to bind someone who disagrees. So, in other words, if I, as an atheist, say X is wrong, and you disagree, there is no way for me to rationally compel you to accept my moral framework, except through threats of physical force or punitive action, which themselves could be deemed immoral, spiralling the debate into an infinite regress of trying to justify ourselves.

This forced me to accept that there must be a transcendent ground, that anchors 'ought's' to a transcendent supernatural being, that is omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent. This meant, for me, the moral imperatives to love God and love my neighbours as myself, was grounded in a mind that knows all true facts including moral truths and His omnipotence, means He has the power to force its normative weight on individuals, even if some individuals escape judgment on earth, they will face ultimate justice by God.

3. Personal Religious Experience

Despite my doubts, I had my religious experiences, which were vivid and real, to contend with. Which, for any believer, is probably the most important and sustaining reason and motivation for faith, which I couldn’t deny or rationalise away, like seeing something that wasn’t really there. I couldn’t dismiss these sensory emotions. Obviously, at the age of 14, I couldn’t have expressed my views as articulately as I can now.

I hadn’t heard of moral realism, read anything by C.H. Dodd, or known about ‘properly basic beliefs’, but what I couldn’t articulate in words and speech, I knew in my gut as an innate truth that told me that what I’m experiencing is real and I’m rational to believe it.

So, although the months of being 'in the valley of doubts' I had deep depression and existential angst, I had these real experiences that could not be dismissed. Additionally, on very rare occasions, I still felt God’s presence, that sustained my faith.

Finally,

Almost 26 years on from this point, and my doubts are for the most part gone, the issues that troubled me, that of the problem of evil (PoE) and suffering, have largely gone; I think the PoE is an emotional problem rather than a logical one, the far more difficult atheistic challenge, is Divine Hiddenness, I address both the PoE here (The Evidential Problem of Evil) and here (The Problem of Evil: Why so much pain) and here (The Logical Problem of Evil) , and Divine Hiddenness here (Divine Hiddenness). 

I am far stronger in my faith and more certain of God’s existence. But I’d still prefer a world without God, where I could be the author of my own destiny, free from answering to a higher power. But I am compelled by some of the reasons I gave here, but many more besides, and my personal relationship with God, that it is in deed a fact God does exist, and my preference doesn’t change reality.

Objections 

1. 

Joesph Smith (Mormonism) and Ron Hubbard (Scientology):

The point being, other religions have started and grown fairly rapidly and yet they are obviously false, meaning we have cases where false beliefs grown in popularity. 

Response: 

Superficial similarities does not make it analogous to Christianity, it would be on the objector to show any concrete evidence that would make Christianity false.

Joesph Smith was a known swindler, lair and con-man. Moreover, he was shown to be lying and couldn't decipher even basic Egyptian hieroglyphics, meaning he couldn't have translated his bible. Moreover, the misplacing or destruction of the golden tables is more than convenient, to avoid scrutiny. 

More importantly, Joesph Smith was materially benefiting from money, women and was gaining power and influence in his circle, satisfying all 3 of the criteria of why people do things. Conversely, this cannot be said of the New Testament believers, Paul, James and Peter didn't get rich, there is no evidence they got women and they certainly didn't get power! They knowingly faced dangers in spreading the good news! If you were getting rich, getting women and power, you don’t risk it by repeatedly going into danger.

Joesph Smith died in jail because he angered a lot of people (seducing members wives among other things)and died trying to fight his way out! A clear contrast with the first disciples, who willingly went to their deaths.

Similarly, Ron Hubbard is gaining materially in his movement, I do not considered Scientology a religion as traditionally understood. As I understand it, is a secretive membership which requires substantive financial cost to join and continued monetary cost to remain. 

But either way, these cases do not undermine the early belief and sudden rise in Christianity and the objector needs to provide actual evidence that the New Testament authors and founders were somehow dishonest like Joesph Smith. 

References 

C.H. Dodd, “The Appearances of the Risen Christ: A study in the form criticism of the Gospels,” in More New Testament Studies (Manchester: U. of Manchester Press, 1968), p. 128.