Why the Christian God?

[Fauken]

I always wondered why I believed the Christian God was the true God. Why Him, out of the thousands of beliefs and interpretations of his form and actions? I came up with an answer only relatively recently. I think most religions focus on how we humans serve God(s). That is our purpose, our main unified goal. But we’re such poor tools for the job. Look at us. We feud amongst ourselves for who is “right”, even kill each other over it. We do horrible things in the name of our god, whoever they are. We are easily corruptible, petty, and fickle. Any God who continues to allow us to live and continue to serve in their name is either insane, or loves us. Christianity alone can claim our God loves us. Only a loving, caring God could allow us to choose to do what we do.

This isn’t a perfect answer. It’s only my opinion and it’s certainly fallible. But I hope it provides some help and something to think about to those of you who also struggle with this question.

 

[Polluted]

Honestly it sounds like hippie hogwash to me. We believe in him because he is the 1 true God and some intense hellfire awaits for all whom opose him or his ways

 

[ChurchSoldier]

I always wondered why I believed the Christian God was the true God. Why Him, out of the thousands of beliefs and interpretations of his form and actions? I came up with an answer only relatively recently. I think most religions focus on how we humans serve God(s). That is our purpose, our main unified goal. But we’re such poor tools for the job. Look at us. We feud amongst ourselves for who is “right”, even kill each other over it. We do horrible things in the name of our god, whoever they are. We are easily corruptible, petty, and fickle. Any God who continues to allow us to live and continue to serve in their name is either insane, or loves us. Christianity alone can claim our God loves us. Only a loving, caring God could allow us to choose to do what we do.

This isn’t a perfect answer. It’s only my opinion and it’s certainly fallible. But I hope it provides some help and something to think about to those of you who also struggle with this question.

I am glad to hear you are thinking about these things and growing in your faith. Keep it up!

 

[1neophyte]

Honestly it sounds like hippie hogwash to me. We believe in him because he is the 1 true God and some intense hellfire awaits for all whom opose him or his ways

Sure, but Jesus reminded us over and over that His ways are not our ways. Usually when someone talks about hellfire like this, what they really mean is that it awaits those who oppose their ways, not God’s. The technical term for this is “Pharisee hogwash.”

 

[JurisPrudens]

I always wondered why I believed the Christian God was the true God. Why Him, out of the thousands of beliefs and interpretations of his form and actions? I came up with an answer only relatively recently. I think most religions focus on how we humans serve God(s). That is our purpose, our main unified goal. But we’re such poor tools for the job. Look at us. We feud amongst ourselves for who is “right”, even kill each other over it. We do horrible things in the name of our god, whoever they are. We are easily corruptible, petty, and fickle. Any God who continues to allow us to live and continue to serve in their name is either insane, or loves us. Christianity alone can claim our God loves us. Only a loving, caring God could allow us to choose to do what we do.

This isn’t a perfect answer. It’s only my opinion and it’s certainly fallible. But I hope it provides some help and something to think about to those of you who also struggle with this question.

Our decision to become or(and) to remain Christians cannot be justified by reason alone. This is an act of will, inspired by the Holy Spirit. God chose us.

 

[carefullytread]

I think the answer to this is the Resurrection. I don’t mean as theologically (although it is maybe the most important point of Christianity), but historically.

I struggle a lot with atheistic or deistic tendencies. But what brings me back is the historicity of the Resurrection.

Every faith tradition has their (supposed?) miracles, so those don’t sway me much. Every faith tradition gets some aspects of human desire for mystical experience right, so those don’t sway me much either. And, frankly, I find the humanistic explanation for why evolution may have left us with that desire convincing. I don’t see evidence of God in the mostly universal search for something beyond ourselves.

I don’t find Aquinas’ explanation convincing.

I find most of the ways in which religions evolved to be very consistent with how humans develop beliefs and institutions. I mean, I know the standard explanations for all the apparent inconsistencies in the Bible for instance (two different creation stories in Genesis, two different Nativity narratives, one Gospel completely different from the others, etc.), but I still find the ‘yeah, that was people making things up’ more plausible.

But then you get to the Resurrection. If it was just St. Paul who converted and had a religious experience, I wouldn’t be convinced. One guy can be schizophrenic or a liar. But it was so many of them. It happened within a relatively short period of time. Myths don’t develop so quickly.

What was it that shook so many different people at the same time to go out and die for this belief? There were a lot of itinerant apocalyptic preachers in those days. That explanation for Jesus doesn’t get at the incredible change in his followers. Apollonius of Tyana didn’t have 500 believers who went across the entire known world to risk their lives for his message.

I haven’t found any other event in history to be anything like the Resurrection. Without the Resurrection, it’s just another understandable human creation like all the other elaborate traditions, rituals, stories we create. But with it, it’s something totally different.

For me, it’s all about the Resurrection.

 

[LiamNL]

I always wondered why I believed the Christian God was the true God. Why Him, out of the thousands of beliefs and interpretations of his form and actions? I came up with an answer only relatively recently. I think most religions focus on how we humans serve God(s). That is our purpose, our main unified goal. But we’re such poor tools for the job. Look at us. We feud amongst ourselves for who is “right”, even kill each other over it. We do horrible things in the name of our god, whoever they are. We are easily corruptible, petty, and fickle. Any God who continues to allow us to live and continue to serve in their name is either insane, or loves us. Christianity alone can claim our God loves us. Only a loving, caring God could allow us to choose to do what we do.

This isn’t a perfect answer. It’s only my opinion and it’s certainly fallible. But I hope it provides some help and something to think about to those of you who also struggle with this question.

Interesting insight.

Kind of reminds me of the comment that “God stoops to conquer”…
In spite of ourselves God will go to heroic lengths to reach us, save us.
Ever read “Hound of Heaven” by Francis Thompson?