Church News Volume 4, Issue 9

Dear friends,

Those who trust in God, no matter what religion they might be, know that He is the complete and adequate explanation for the universe and everything in it.

In saying this there can be no sort of prohibition of the work of the scientists who investigate the composition of our universe and the living creatures who inhabit it. Additions to our human knowledge are welcome and often greatly helpful to our understanding.

As Christians we would claim that the God revealed to us in the Bible and the Church, the Lord, the holy, loving righteous Creator, is in Himself and by Himself, the complete explanation for our existence.

We leave the scientists to their important and admirable work of describing the world, the 'how' of existence; but we claim with St. Paul that in God "we live and move and have our being" (Acts 17:28)

The scientists over the years have had their theories about the world, as they learn more and more about it and its mysteries. But we believe that God does not change; and this is why we should say that all out human questionings about origins and meanings - the 'why' of life - must lead us back inevitably and ultimately to God.

Some people might accuse us of wishful thinking when we claim that God is the explanation of all reality. They will say that our convictions are not different, really, from any of those often rather strange beliefs that bolster up some of the older political or religious creeds.

The answer to criticism must be, that merely because belief in God satisfies our hearts and minds, it is not thereby rendered false. There is so much cynicism and scepticism in our society today that belief is almost a 'dirty word'!

Thank God that there are signs that this attitude is at last changing. Many are searching for a spiritual dimension in their life.

Sometimes our belief in God comes under another pressure, that of so called "psychological intimidation". Our motives for belief in God and His ability and adequacy to meet our deepest needs are challenged on psychological grounds. Do we not have weaknesses in our personalities, or our characters, that need the idea of a gracious God, who can be a father-figure and give us confidence in life, and help us to meet its stresses and strains?

A fair reply might be to question the psychological motivation of our opponents and ask why there is a need in their lives for agnosticism or atheism; what went wrong in their early days to set them on this course away fro belief in God?

The vast majority of the human race throughout the ages have found their deepest needs and troubles met by belief in a god, in a divine system, in survival. These beliefs are so deep rooted in us as to form part, surely, of our basic human nature. Repress them or attempt to destroy them and we become lass than human.

We believe that when we found God - or perhaps better, when God found us - we also found truth. Here is the great truth, on which we and the world hinge, that God is the living God, the everlasting God; and that as we come to Him, so He will meet us and satisfy our needs, as St Paul says 'according to His riches in Christ Jesus' (Philippians 4:19)

Revd Ian M. Finn

News Letter Archive.