I’m tempted to answer that people are Christian because it is impossible for rocks, goats and trees to be Christian. But, although perfectly true, it does not look like a very helpful answer… Until we think about it a bit; and we find that it is a very helpful answer indeed. Only people can be Christians, there is no such think as a Christian cow, a Christian school or a Christian political party. Although we use these terms they are inaccurate because you have to be an individual person to be a Christian. But that helps us to answer why people are Christians instead of, say, Hindus, but I’d hazard a guess that the person asking the question was not after a comparison of beliefs but after some fundamentals. So let’s go a bit further back.
To answer the question in a simple and contextual way. People are Christian because God is not a delusion.
There is more than one way of knowing something to be true. I’m not sure how many ways there are, but there are certainly more than one. Most of us who have grown up in a Western nation have been subject to a Greek style education. For which I hope that we are profoundly grateful. It has given us a second nature ability to think, solve and communicate in a rational and logical way. It is such a useful tool that we tend to over-use it. We think that every problem is solved by only rational means (Hear carefully what I say, I believe that every problem is solved rationally, but not by rationality only. It’s one of the reasons why the ancient Greek word for ’spiritual’ also meant ‘rational’ or ‘reasonable’). We have a process that we call scientific but let’s not assume that any other process is somehow inferior.
Now don’t get me wrong, the scientific process is an outstanding one that has given us humans huge amounts of knowledge and power, but it does have limits. Not everything that can be known is known scientifically. Thus when Steven Hawking says, in ‘A Brief History of Time’, that if we could find the reason for our existence that it would be “the ultimate triumph of human reason for then we would know the mind of God.” He is assuming that of all that God could possibly be, only God’s mind can be known, he says this despite the fact that humans are known on many levels besides intellectual ones. His error is that he is overly reliant on the scientific method of knowing.
We know that we cannot rely solely on facts, because, as Professor J.B.S.Haldane (a geneticist and evolutionary biologist - 1892–1964 at Oxford, Cambridge and Trinity) said so clearly, “If my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain, I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true … and hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms.”
So the scientific method of knowing is useful when it comes to things that are testable and falsifiable. But it is not very useful when it comes to things that are relational.
For example: If I was required to prove to someone, other than myself, that my wife loved me… how would I do it?
I might be able to prove that she did not love me, someone may supply some evidence that she’s lying. But I could not supply scientific proof that she does, indeed, love me the way that she says that she does.
And yet I know that she does better than any expert could possibly know!
Well, for the Christian, it is the same with God. All through the bible He speaks in these individual, relational terms. He introduces Himself in family terminology and he expects and offers relationship for anyone who want’s it. Unlike the pagan gods of old the God of the bible does not offer earthly blessing in exchange for worship. Actually He says that he will remain hidden intellectually because He is after intimacy.
The story can be told in a parable: A wise and powerful young king had made for himself a massive kingdom, he was feared and respected all over the world. One day he decided that he wanted to get married. But as soon as people realized that he was looking for a wife they began to seek his attention, young maidens would bat their eyelids at him; kings from distant lands sent him gifts in the hope that he would marry their daughters… But how would the king know that the woman he chose would truly love him, under those circumstances?
So he announced to his subjects that he would take his army and go and conquer a far off nation. He sent his army off and disguised himself as a humble laborer and traveled throughout his land from village to village. Eventually he found a beautiful, faithful girl who grew to love him openly, honestly and deeply… Only then did he reveal that he was the king.
It is very much like that with God. In both what He promises in the bible and what we observe in life generally. And because the observation matches the Word which matches the personal experience, people are Christians.
