Steven Colborne - An Almighty Predicament: A Discourse on the Arguments For and Against Christianity

This is an essay that I hope will appeal to truth-seekers everywhere who like to think deeply about the major questions of philosophy and theology. I hope that it will shed light on some of the struggles that Christians encounter as they seek to reconcile a passion for the gospel with intellectual curiosity.

There are certain areas of Christian doctrine that I have found very difficult to understand and therefore to accept and believe. In recent years, however, I have strived to humble myself in relation to God's Word, accepting it as truth, and suppressing the confusion that I have felt concerning various areas of Christian theology. You could say I have chosen faith over reason. But as I have done so my mind has been restless, sometimes to the point of despair. For there are certain truths, fundamental to my understanding of the God/world relationship, that from an intellectual standpoint make Christianity seem foolish.

In this essay, I take for granted the existence of God, as that is a matter concerning which there is no doubt in my mind. If you are reading this and don't believe in God, you may wish to read my arguments for the existence of God, which can be found in Part 2 of my book The Philosophy of a Mad Man (SilverWood Books, 2012).

In the pages that follow I will begin by writing a little about the recent events that have caused me to consider abandoning my Christian faith quite unexpectedly and suddenly. I will go on to discuss the specific problems I have with Christian doctrine, and after that I will look at some of the major arguments to the contrary (i.e. those in support of Christianity) and will explain why the Christian faith continues to exert a powerful pull over my soul. Finally, I will conclude with some closing remarks, summing up the arguments on both sides of what is, for me, a deeply troubling predicament.

On Tuesday evening I was in a cafe in Putney, London, and a man came and sat opposite me. He must have seen me reading the Bible as after some time had passed he asked me if I was studying theology. We proceeded to have a long conversation about spiritual matters, with him talking from an Ahmadi Muslim viewpoint and me arguing from a Christian perspective.

We talked about Holy Scripture, Jesus, Muhammad, sin, eschatology, the Trinity, and more, and I was pleased to have the opportunity to defend the Christian faith and its doctrines. We were actually asked to leave the cafe, as we were still immersed in debate when it was closing. We carried on talking and walked to the train station together, covering a variety of issues, and disagreeing in a respectful way.

After our conversation finally ended I got the train home. I felt energised by our discussions and was grateful that God had given me this opportunity to witness to a Muslim. I felt I had been able to draw upon years of study and Bible reading, and present good arguments in defence of Christianity.

Later that evening I was in prayer in my bedroom and thanking God for the events of the day. God began to speak to me very clearly and continued to speak to me for around two hours. He spoke to me in a very loving way about the things He had promised me and the things He was going to do for me in the future. God has always spoken to me in a loving way, but on this occasion, I felt a joy and a peace like I had never experienced before.

I won't go into detail about what God said to me as I believe some things are personal and should be kept just between an individual and God. But the words He spoke related to my health, my future, my beliefs, and my past troubles. I felt He was being really open with me in a way that was truly wonderful, and He spoke in a way that was full of goodness and mercy.

It became clear during my conversation with God that He really appreciates the reasons why I find it so difficult to embrace many aspects of the Christian faith. It seemed, from what God was saying, that I may have a role to play that is outside of the confines of the Christian faith. God assured me that I would not be sent to hell because of this and that He was not going to make me suffer in any significant way in the future, during this life or in the life to come. He assured me that all of my past sufferings, which have been many and varied, are valuable, and are among the reasons why He will bless me in the future.

I was really taken by surprise by this conversation with God. It happened at a time when I think I have never felt more Christian. I have been so determined not to depart from the Christian faith, and in recent weeks I have witnessed God perform miracles that only served to strengthen my faith. I have been convinced that Jesus is Lord and my faith has become the lens through which I view all moral and spiritual issues and all the big problems and questions of life.

I feel that God is now telling me that the problems I have with Christian doctrine are not insignificant. I wish to now explain some of these problems for the sake of clarity and to aid your understanding of my predicament. The difficulty is not so much that I'm confused, but on the contrary, the problems I will discuss below arise because I have certain convictions, or one might say insights, concerning the nature of God and those aspects of Christian thought that don't make sense.

There are certain things that are foundational to an understanding of God that we might call His attributes. Philosophers and theologians debate what these attributes are, but it is generally agreed that omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence, are definitional of God. I am in agreement, as it seems to me that any being who did not possess these attributes would be limited in such a way as to be disqualified from being God.

The only caveat I would add is that God is actually limited in one specific way, which I will now explain. Instead of saying God has knowledge of everything, I prefer to say God has knowledge of everything of which it is possible to have knowledge. For instance, God doesn't have knowledge of other omniscient gods, because they don't exist. God doesn't have power over other omnipotent gods, because there are no other omnipotent gods. God is unable to destroy Himself because His very nature is being. So, the point that I am making is simply that God's attributes apply only in respect of reality. You might regard this as a minor philosophical quibble, but I wanted to state the argument for the sake of clarity.