The Faith and Reason Lecture
By Lewis Fry
Introduction
“Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith
is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence.”
Richard Dawkins (Lecture at the Edinburgh Science Festival, 1992)
In this quote, Dawkins raises (and claims to answer) a very controversial question:
Is it “reasonable” to have faith? In other words, is faith a sensible thing to have? Is there reason to
it? Is it based on anything of substance? Or is faith as blind and irrational and baseless as Dawkins
suggests?
In my early teens, I would have said, Faith is, by definition, un-reasonable (as Dawkins puts it, a belief
held “in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence”).
But, looking back, I can see how naive my conviction was – because the moment you consider what
the word “faith” actually means, it becomes obvious that this assessment of faith is incredibly
simplistic.
The true answer to our question is not yes (faith is reasonable) or no (faith is unreasonable) but it
depends. Because
Faith is simply another word for trust.
If someone says, “I have faith in this product”, what they mean is, I trust this product will work.
If someone says, “I have faith in my spouse”, what they mean is, I trust that my spouse will do right.
Trust can be blind and irrational and unreasonable, but it can also be thoughtful and logical and
perfectly reasonable - it simply depends on who or what you are trusting.
For example, when I was a teenager, 90% of the boys in my year regularly doused themselves with
Lynx deodorant in the faith that girls would come running towards them from every direction (like
on the adverts).
To my disappointment at the time, I can tell you with confidence that this was an example of
misplaced faith!
But faith can also be very reasonable.
For example, when you sit on a chair you have to exercise faith that the chair will hold your weight.
Until you sit on it, you can’t be absolutely certain that it will (there may be some hidden weakness in
the chair which you’re not aware of) but there’s certainly nothing unreasonable about your faith that
the chair will hold your weight - because that’s what chairs are designed to do!
Consider the following examples of faith and try to decide whether they are reasonable or
unreasonable:
i.
Andy Murray will win Wimbledon.
ii.
iii.
Abraham Lincoln’s life reflects its portrayal in the recent film, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire
Slayer.
German will win Euro 2012.
Why is ii. unreasonable? Because there are no reasons to trust that this is true. Why is iii., though by
no means certain, more reasonable? Because there are some good reasons to believe it (e.g., unlike
England at the moment, Germany are very good!).
So, we can already make two responses in answer to our question, is it “reasonable” to have faith?
1. Faith is essentially another word for trust (which means it can be reasonable and
it can be unreasonable)
2. It is reasonable to trust (have faith) when we have reasons to trust.
But we haven’t yet answered our question adequately because “faith” is usually associated
specifically with a trust in something supernatural, and some people might argue that (whilst it can
be reasonable to have faith in something like the stability of a chair or the character of a person)
faith in anything supernatural is always irrational, illogical and un-reasonable.
To see if this assumption is true I’d like to examine one particular article of faith tonight, which is
held by billions of people across the world: the faith that God - an intelligent, powerful, supernatural
Creator – exists.
So, is it “reasonable” to have faith that God exists? According to what we’ve seen so far, the only fair
way to assess that is to see if there are any good reasons for the belief that he does.
Reasons to trust that God exists
My first reason to trust that God exists is, perhaps surprisingly,
1. The existence of the Universe
I remember one beautiful, winter morning, after I first came to believe in God, when my newfound
faith was rather weak. So during a conference I was attending I decided to take a walk around the
frozen lakes nearby and think things over.
At one point in that walk I just stood quietly, with my eyes closed, for a long, long time.
With my eyes closed there was (obviously!) nothing to see but a lot of black, empty nothingness.
Have you ever asked yourself, why isn’t the universe just a lot of black, empty nothingness? Why
does anything exist at all? Wouldn’t it be much simpler if there was just “nothing” instead?
Because when I opened my eyes, what I saw hit me like a train, for the very first time. What struck
me and amazed me and profoundly moved me was that, instead of nothing, I was seeing this ground
beneath me, these frozen lakes to the side of me, the great blue sky and the 864,400 mile-wide sun
shining above me. I was seeing a flock of geese flying in formation just above my head and, as the
flapping of their huge wings reverberated the air, I was literally hearing the air humming around me.
And in that moment, as I was moved, as I had never been struck before, by how bizarre and amazing
the very existence of our universe is – somehow, I suddenly knew there was a God.
Now, had you asked me at the time, I couldn’t possibly have put into words why I felt that way, but
I’ve since come to see that the truth I came to appreciate that morning intuitively, in a very powerful
and moving way, can also expressed intellectually, in a very rational way.
The argument can be summarised in three points, and they go like this:

Whatever begins to exist has a cause
The basis of reason and logic and Science is that things happen for a reason (so if something exists
now, which didn’t once, it’s because something caused it to exist). For example, let’s say I walk into
my kitchen and there’s a Victoria sponge cake on the work-top. It hasn’t always been there
(obviously!), so I can draw one of two conclusions: either the cake simply appeared from nowhere
for no reason or something (my wife, for example) caused the cake to be there.
The basis of Science and logic and reason itself, is that (sadly) we don’t live in a world where cakes
appear from nowhere without explanation! Whatever begins to exist has a cause. That’s why, if I tell
you I have a four-year old son, you don’t make the assumption that he materialised out of thin-air
four years ago - even though it would have saved my wife a great deal of pain if he had! The second
point is this:

The universe began to exist
There was a time when the majority of Scientists believed that the universe had always been there.
But, prompted by the findings of Albert Einstein, Scientists in the 1920’s noticed that the stars are
not stationery (as they had assumed) but moving outwards from a central point. This led to the idea
that our expanding universe began as a single, infinitely small, infinitely dense point which, at some
point in the past, exploded outwards and eventually led to the universe we see today. This theory
was sarcastically nicknamed the Big Bang and, as you know, the name stuck. While Scientists were
initially reluctant to accept that the universe had a beginning (though Jews had been claiming this
for thousands of years), more and more evidence was discovered in the decades that followed that
this was true. Today, the evidence is so great that Scientists are virtually unanimous in their belief
that our universe began in this way. To quote the gifted physicist, Stephen Hawking, ‘almost
everyone now believes that the universe, and time itself, had a beginning at the Big bang.’
This is a phenomenal conclusion. What Scientists have come to believe, based on hard evidence, is
that the entire universe came into existence at some point in the past – not just all the physical
matter in the universe but everything in the universe, including space and time itself. Yet this leads
us to an even more remarkable conclusion.
Let’s recap. Whatever begins to exist has a cause (that’s point 1) and the universe began to exist
(that’s point 2);

Therefore (point 3) the universe has a cause
If cakes can’t pop into existence without reason, it’s unthinkable that an entire universe could pop
into existence without reason. But that means something must have caused the universe to exist.
Let that sink in. Obviously, whatever caused our space-time universe to exist, must itself be outside
space and time – something eternal and non-physical.
Whatever we believe, we can safely say that there is something “out there” (beyond the confines of
time and space and matter and energy) with the power to bring an entire universe into being.
The question then becomes: is this transcendent, timeless, non-physical, unimaginably powerful
Cause a Something or a Someone?
On a purely intuitive level, it’s difficult to envision a transcendent, timeless, non-physical,
unimaginably powerful Something bringing a universe into being. But we don’t just have to rely on
intuition to draw the conclusion that the universe was created by a Someone rather than a
Something.
Going back to my day near those frozen lakes, it wasn’t just the fact that the universe exists which
led to my assurance of God’s existence, but the breath-taking complexity of what exists. It wasn’t
just the sheer existence of the sun, blazing 93million miles above my head, that struck me; it was the
complexity of everything, like those geese flying in formation above my head, and the sound of the
air around me humming in time with their wings.
And this amazing complexity leads to my second Reason to believe in the existence of God:
2. The Fine-Tuning of the Universe
Isn’t it incredible that the universe is as complex and amazing as it is? Think about it:
At the very beginning of the universe, you have, according to Science, nothing but this infinitely
dense particle, which then explodes outwards in every direction, with a release of energy more
blinding than a trillion, trillion nuclear bombs.
Fifteen billion years later, you have McDonalds, and geese, and David Cameron, and people like you
and me, asking questions about the existence of God.
As I stood in awe by those frozen lakes, it was partly this staggering complexity that so powerfully
persuaded me of God’s existence. And, once again, though I couldn’t have explained why or put it
into words at the time, I’ve since come to see is that what I came to appreciate in that moment
intuitively, in a very personal way, can also expressed intellectually, in a very rational way.
For example, according to Physicists and Cosmologists, one of the reasons our universe is the
amazing, life-sustaining place that it is, is because its basic properties are finely-tuned (with truly
remarkable precision) to make complex life-forms possible.
Before we see how this relates to God, let me try and explain what I mean.
Within the physical laws of nature, which make our universe the way it is, there are various constant
values which emerge when you describe these laws mathematically.
For example, there is a constant numerical value which determines the strength of gravity in any
given situation.
What cosmologists have realised is that if this constant was different by even the tiniest conceivable
amount, the force of gravity would either be so strong that all the physical matter in the universe
would be pulled into a single, dead lump or so weak that all the physical matter in the universe
would be spread so thinly that large objects like starts and planets simply could not form.
But it just so happens that, against almost impossible odds, (and though there is no natural reason
why it has to be this way) the gravitational constant is set at the precise value which makes a lifesustaining universe like ours possible.
Arno Penzias, a Nobel Prize-winner in Physics, puts it like this: ‘Astronomy leads us to a unique
event, a universe which was created out of nothing, one with the very delicate balance needed to
provide exactly the right conditions required to permit life, and one which has an underlying (one
might say ‘supernatural’) plan.’
Another Physicist, Paul Davies, puts it like this, ‘Through my scientific work I have come to believe
more and more strongly that the physical universe is put together with an ingenuity so astonishing
that I cannot accept it merely as a brute fact.’
Many people, including many Scientists, feel led to the natural conclusion that the universe appears
to be astonishingly finely-tuned to support human-life because it is – in other words, there really is a
God behind it all.
The argument which leads to that conclusion can be summarised in three points. Point 1 is this:

If the likelihood of an event occurring by chance is beyond all credibility, we may safely
conclude that the event didn’t happen by chance
For example, if I open my son’s tub of Lego and see a seemingly random pile of disconnected Lego
bricks, I won’t make the assumption that Sam has intentionally arranged them that way – I’ll simply
assume they’ve fallen that way by chance.
If, on the other hand, I open the tub one day and all the red bricks are piled in a heap, I’ll be less sure
that its chance and more inclined to think Sam has arranged them that way on purpose.
But if I open the tub one day and Sam’s Lego bricks have been arranged in the shape of, say, a 6wheeled, flying, super-tank of doom, I will safely conclude that this didn’t happen by chance!
Why do I draw that conclusion? Because the likelihood of Sam’s Lego bricks arranging themselves
into 6-wheeled flying super-tank of doom by sheer chance is simply beyond credibility and if the
likelihood of an event occurring by chance is beyond all credibility, we may safely conclude that the
event didn’t happen by chance.

The likelihood that our universe is fine-tuned by chance is beyond credibility
We’ve already heard how astonishingly fine-tuned our universe is to support life - how likely is it that
this fine-tuning happened by chance?
Earlier I mentioned that the constant which determines the strength of gravity is set at the
unimaginably precise level necessary to allow a universe in which life can exist. What I didn’t
emphasise is that this is only one of many such “constants” which are finely-tuned to support life.
One of these constants is the ratio between the strength of two particular forces (known as the
nuclear strong force and the electromagnetic force - don’t worry, you don’t need to understand what
these forces are!).
Now, the ratio between the strength of these forces has a fundamental effect on the way our
universe is – and, once again, it just so happens that this ratio is set at the exact value necessary to
make a universe where life can exist.
To assess the likelihood that this particular example of fine-tuning can be explained by sheer chance,
we need to understand just how precise this fine-tuning is.
Cosmologists tell us that if this ratio was different by just 1 part in 1040 life could not exist (1040 is 10
with fourty 0’s after it). If that was completely meaningless to you, what it means is that if the ratio
between the strength of these forces was different, by even the tiniest, tiniest, teeniest amount
imaginable, no life would exist. It is fine-tuned with literally unimaginable precision.
Let me try and illustrate just how absurdly precise this fine-tuning is.
Think of a combination lock for a bike or laptop. Let’s say the lock has 4 dials with the digits 0 to 9
printed on them. To open this lock, each dial would have to be set so that it displays a particular
number. If even one of these dials is out by just one digit, the lock won’t open.
What would be the likelihood of guessing the precise number by sheer chance alone? Amazingly, for
a lock with this many dials there are 10,000 different possible combinations (only one of which
unlocks the mechanism). So, on average, you’d have to have 10,000 attempts to unlock it by sheer
chance. That’s how precise you have to be!
Now imagine this lock had 6 dials. For a 6 dial lock, there are 1 million different combinations.
But the ratio between the forces I mentioned, are fine-tuned to support life to a far greater degree
of precision than this! In fact, to illustrate that kind of precision, you need to imagine a lock with 41
dials.
Now, if I had a lock with 41 dials, and I allowed someone the chance to guess the precise
combination once a second, it would take, on average, about 86 nonillion years to get it by chance
(i.e., trillions upon trillions upon trillions of years – far, far longer than the universe itself has been in
existence!).
So, bearing in mind that, on average, the entire history of the universe wouldn’t give someone
anywhere near enough time to guess such a precise combination by chance, if you saw someone
walk up to a lock like this and casually turn every single dial to the precise number needed on their
first go, what would you be virtually forced to conclude? That’s not down to chance alone!
Amazingly, the ratio between the forces I mentioned is tuned with exactly that kind of precision!
And this is just one of many similar examples.
In fact, the likelihood that our universe has been designed this way by chance is so absurd that the
only other way this remarkable fine-tuning can be explained is if there are an infinite number of
universes, where literally every possible thing that can happen, does happen!
So, there’s one universe where you read this lecture dressed like as you are now and there’s another
universe where you read this lecture wearing a different coloured top and there’s another universe
where you read this lecture wearing the same top but a different pair of socks, and so on.
Amazingly , whilst there is no real evidence that such invisible, 50 billion galaxies-wide universes
exist, the likelihood that our universe is so astonishingly fine-tuned by chance is so far beyond
credibility, that, for those Scientists who (for personal or philosophical reasons) refuse to believe in
God, there is literally no real alternative!
All this seems to point to one inevitable conclusion.
If the likelihood of an event occurring by chance is beyond all credibility, we may safely conclude that
the event didn’t happen by chance (that’s point 1). The likelihood that our universe is fine-tuned by
chance is beyond credibility (that’s point 2).

Therefore (point 3) it is safe to conclude that the fine-tuning of our universe did not occur
by chance
And (as there is no natural reason why the universe had to be so astonishingly fine-tuned) that only
leaves design.
Now, you many well think we’ve already seen two very compelling reasons to believe in God, but I’d
like to really briefly summarise two further reasons before I close.
3. The Existence of Moral Obligations
(i.e., the fact that some things are right and other things are wrong)
Why is this a reason to believe in God?
Once again, this argument can be summarised in three points. Point 1 is this:

If God does not exist, we have no moral obligations
In other words, if there is no design to this universe; if there is no rhyme or reason to it; if we and
everything in it are the products of sheer chance; then, by definition, nothing is objectively “right” or
“wrong” - if we weren’t designed to behave a certain way, we’re not under any obligation to behave
a certain way.
We might have evolved a sense of right and wrong, and we might choose to live as if some things are
objectively right or wrong, but if our sense that some things are right and other things are wrong is
based on nothing more than the way we happen to have evolved, we’re not obliged to heed it.
However we choose to live, if God doesn’t exist, the cold, hard truth is that, as Richard Dawkins puts
it, ‘there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless
indifference’.
Let’s assume there is no God or Designer. Let’s assume we are nothing more than the products of
chance. If you tell someone who murders children that it’s wrong to make innocent children suffer
and they say “no, that’s just your opinion because your brain evolved that way”, what can you say in
return?
As Richard Dawkins acknowledges, if God does not exist, we’re not morally obligated to do anything,
because our sense of right and wrong isn’t based on anything we’re obligated to heed. However,

Most people believe we do have moral obligations
Though we might have different moral values, I suspect that you yourself believe that some things
are morally right and some things are morally wrong. For example, I’m sure you believe, like most
people, that it is categorically wrong to kill innocent children for fun. It’s not just unpractical or
unwise, it’s wrong - people should not do this, we have an obligation not to. To put it another way,
most people don’t simply believe it feels wrong to kill innocent children for fun, they believe it is
wrong.
Even if we can’t prove it, most of us believe that this is true but, if we’re right, why is it true? As
we’ve seen (and as intelligent atheists like Richard Dawkins admit) if God doesn’t exist, killing
innocent children is not wrong in any objective sense of the word, it just feels wrong because we
happen to have evolved that way. Now I don’t know about you, but I just can’t believe that – and I’m
not convinced that anyone truly believes that, deep down in their hearts.
The former atheist, C.S.Lewis, put it like this, ‘Human beings, all over the earth, have this curious idea
that they ought to behave in a certain way, and [we] cannot really get rid of it.’
But if we’re going to insist that some things are objectively wrong (and we should!) we should
recognise where this belief naturally leads us.
To recap: if God does not exist, we have no moral obligations (that’s point 1). But most people
believe we do have moral obligations (that’s point 2),

Therefore (if moral obligations do exist) God must exist
4. The Reported Resurrection of Jesus
Before I say anything I want to emphasise that this is not a tenuous but cunning plan to turn my
lecture into a sermon! I include this because it really is a powerful reason for the belief that God
exists.
The argument can be broken down into four points which I’ll summarise briefly.

Jesus died by crucifixion and was buried in a tomb
How do we know about the lives of people, like Jesus, who lived in the past? How do we know about
the life of Julius Caesar? Come to think of it, how do we know Abraham Lincoln wasn’t a Vampire
Slayer? We know about these people because details of their lives have been recorded and
preserved in writing.
Various ancient writers (both Christian and non-Christian) wrote about Jesus’ life – and we actually
have a huge amount of historical information about him.
Because of this, although historians have different opinions on who Jesus is, there is no doubt
whatsoever about the fact that Jesus really lived, and really died by Roman crucifixion, in about 33
A.D.
Now, this doesn’t prove anything, in itself, it’s just the 1st point of the argument.
The second point of the argument is this:

A few days later his tomb was empty
Whilst I don’t have time to defend this in detail now, let me illustrate why we can take this as read.
Scholars have been studying the oldest and most detailed accounts of Jesus’ life in great detail for
centuries.
Now, some of these scholars believe that these accounts are very reliable (as I do). But many of
these scholars believe that only parts can be trusted, which isn’t particularly surprising.
If, for example, you’re already convinced (for personal or philosophical reasons) that
miracles simply cannot happen, then you have to dismiss the parts of these accounts which
record Jesus doing miraculous things, regardless of the evidence.
But the crucial thing is that virtually all these scholars, including the very sceptical ones, agree that
the same tomb where Jesus was buried, really was empty three days later. For solid, historical
reasons (which I don’t have time to summarise now) this is simply accepted as a straightforward,
historical fact.
So that’s points 1 and 2 – Jesus really died and his tomb really was empty three days later.
So clearly something happened to Jesus’ body soon after his death.
Now we get to point 3,

After his death, many people encountered what they genuinely believed to be Jesus, risen
from the dead.
Even though many scholars don’t (or, for personal reasons, can’t) accept everything the ancient
accounts of Jesus’ life say, they almost unanimously agree that, after Jesus’ death, various people
really did have encounters with what they genuinely believed (rightly or wrongly) to be Jesus, very
much alive.
Whatever we make of these extraordinary encounters, an abundance of historical evidence supports
the belief that they really happened.
And whatever we believe they saw, one thing we can say with absolute confidence is that the first
Christians did not risk ridicule, death and imprisonment to tell people they had seen Jesus alive
when they knew full well that they hadn’t! So, rightly or wrongly, they genuinely believed this.
Now let’s recap. So far, we’ve considered 3 points, none of which are controversial because,
whatever we make of them, the historical evidence to support these three points is so strong that
even those scholars who view the accounts of Jesus’ life with much scepticism freely acknowledge
that Jesus really did die, his tomb really was discovered empty, and various people really did
encounter what they genuinely believed to be Jesus, raised to life from the dead.
Now, none of these facts in isolation are particularly overwhelming but, when taken together, what
they create is a bizarre mystery that demands some kind of explanation.
If it’s true that Jesus really died, why was his tomb found empty and why did all sorts of people
sincerely swear blind that they had seen him alive?
What becomes clear, the moment you start trying to find a natural explanation for these facts, is
that it’s virtually impossible to do so, which leads us to point 4:

Taken together, these facts can only be plausibly explained if there is a God, who raised
Jesus from the dead
Many people assume that it’s perfectly easy to explain why Jesus’ tomb was found empty and why
many people came to believe they had seen Jesus alive. But after two thousand years of trying to
explain these facts away, what’s become clearer and clearer is that these explanations simply don’t
stand-up to scrutiny.
For example, many of us have this rather naive idea that, whilst, we are intelligent, educated people,
people in the 1st century were basically superstitious simpletons who believe anything. But this is
simply not true.
Those who came to believe they had seen Jesus alive didn’t do so easily, on a whim, as if that kind of
thing happens every day. According to all accounts, their initial response to seeing Jesus was either
confusion, disbelief, or a mixture of both.
You don’t need to live in the 21st century and have a PHD in Biochemistry to know that dead corpses
don’t come back to life!
In fact, one historically significant account of Jesus’ life (John), records that one of those people who
had the most reason to believe Jesus had been raised from the dead, initially refused point-blank to
do so, even when his closest friends, who he had no reason to doubt, told him plainly that all they
had seen Jesus alive!
Far from believing anything, he refused to believe his own friends and said, ‘Unless I see in his hands
the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails...I will never believe’ (John
20:25).
And yet many such people, including this sceptic, had encounters with Jesus that they considered so
obviously physical and real and true that they were willing, in many cases, to lose their own lives in
the pursuit of telling others about it!
Regardless of whether or not you can bring yourself to believe that Jesus rose from the dead, the
stubborn fact remains that, in two thousand years of trying, no one has been able to come up with a
single, historically-plausible, alternative.
What conclusion should we draw from this?
Clearly, without a time-machine, it can’t be categorically proved that Jesus rose from the dead, any
more than we can categorically prove that Abraham Lincoln didn’t have an interest in Vampire
Slaying!
The question is, where does the evidence lead us?
Obviously, we must draw our own conclusions. But if it’s true that these facts can only be plausibly
explained if Jesus rose from the dead, I think we should take that explanation very seriously indeed.
And as anyone with a medical mind will tell you, crucified corpses can’t naturally be restored to life
and health. If Jesus did rise from the dead, it can only be because there is a God with the infinite
power and intelligence necessary to do it.
So let me end with a final illustration of how persuasive the evidence is.
The Israeli historian and Jewish theologian, Pinchas Lapide, was a scholar with a world-wide
reputation before his death in 1997. Now Lapide was not a Christian; he didn’t believe Jesus was the
Messiah. Yet, as a historian, Lapide came to the conclusion, on the basis of the evidence, that Jesus
rose physically from the dead.
Conclusion
We began this lecture with a rather bold statement about faith, that ‘faith is the great cop-out, the
great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even
perhaps because of, the lack of evidence.’
We began by recognising that faith is simply another word for trust and that, while trust can indeed
be blind and misplaced, it is not at all unreasonable to exercise trust, when we have good reasons to
exercise trust.
In the rest of the lecture, I applied this to a particular example of trust – the trust that God exists.
Having reflected on the fact that whatever begins to exist has a cause, I argued that the very
existence of the universe demands a cause outside the natural universe itself – something
transcendent and timeless and unimaginably powerful.
Reflecting on how astonishingly fine-tuned our universe is, I argued that the breathtaking complexity
of our universe seems to point us clearly to the existence of a Designer.
We then considered our common belief that some things really are right and some things really are
wrong – and that this conviction is more than just a meaningless quirk of evolution. I argued that this
can only be true if God exists.
Finally, we considered the astounding mystery that, though Jesus of Nazareth really did die, his tomb
was found empty and many people really did have encounters with what they believed firmly to be
Jesus himself, risen from the dead. I argued that the one plausible explanation of these facts is that it
is true – and that this can only be true if there is a God with the remarkable power and intelligence
necessary to do it.
But there’s one final question I’d like us to consider before I close.
If the reasons for the faith that God exists are as strong and compelling as I have argued, why is it
that many people (including many intelligent people) insist that such faith is blind and irrational?
To suggest an answer to that, I’d like to turn your attention to the quotation, from Richard Dawkins,
that appeared on the publicity for this lecture.
He said, ‘The question of whether there exists a supernatural creator, a God, is one of the most
important questions that we have to answer.’
He’s right. How tragic would it be, if there is a God, to live your whole life without ever knowing
what the purpose of life even was! If there is a God, nothing could be more important than finding
out what he made us for. Perhaps if we understood this, life would have a richness and a meaning
that would satisfy us in a way that nothing else in this world ever has.
Exciting as that thought is, I suspect there’s another part of us that quite likes the thought that it’s
just us. Perhaps, as a child, you can remember wishing that your parents vanished for a day so you
could have the house to yourself and be free to do whatever you want!
Perhaps part of us feels that way about God. Maybe that’s why some Cosmologists choose to
believe, in faith, that there are an infinite number of universes, in order to explain away how
astonishingly fine-tuned our universe really is. Maybe that explains why, when I was a teenager and
my formerly sceptical Dad came to believe in God, I immediately dismissed his belief as something
silly and unreasonable, even though he was one of the most sensible and reasonable people I knew.
Before he sadly died fairly recently, a famous and very intelligent atheist, Christopher Hitchens, took
part in a public debate about whether God exists. Towards the end of the debate, the man he was
debating asked him whether he was absolutely certain that God didn’t exist. Despite his enormous
reputation as a spokesperson for atheism, instead of saying yes he tried to avoid the question. When
pressed again for an honest answer he said it depended which side of the bed he wakes up on,
before taking back his words and saying, let’s put it this way, if God did exist, I’d be very depressed.
When my Dad came to believe in God, it wasn’t a lack of evidence for God’s existence that made me
sceptical, it was a lack of desire. Like the child who wishes his parents would vanish for a day, I
suspect now that underneath all my apparently logical objections to God’s existence, a part of me
preferred the idea that I was free to do what I liked.
But, as Richard Dawkins rightly reminds, whether God exists is too important a matter to brush
aside.
And, to their surprise, what millions of people, including myself, have come to believe, is that asking
this question was actually the best thing they ever did. Because the conclusion they came to (and
the conclusion that I have come to), is that this God is not only real but good; that he can be known;
and that he is willing to forgive us for our preference for life without him, if we turn back to him. The
conclusion I have come to is that if we realised how good God is, we wouldn’t wish we were alone in
the house, we’d want him around, every day, for the rest of our lives.
As this is a lecture, I won’t go into this now but I if you do wish to find out more about this by all
means get in touch.
I hope you’ve found this lecture interesting and that you have opportunities to continue reflecting
on what is one of life’s most important questions.