Maybe you’ve got God all figured out. Maybe your faith is well articulated, user friendly, and approachable. I’m happy for you. We all are. But I still have doubts—and not just doubts, but lame doubts. I don’t have any of those more sexy doubts, like “what about violence in the Old Testament?” Or, “what about evolution?”
My doubts are homely and pedestrian:
(1) Traffic!
There are too many people! This doubt strikes most saliently when I’m rubbing bumpers in rush-hour traffic. Endless cars chugging in woeful monotony as far as the eye can see. Look how many of us there are! And this is just one freeway, in one city! There are many, many, many more.
How many people exist right now? Or have existed? Will exist? (I read that over 100 billion people have tasted life on this little planet of ours).
The doubt is quantitative: how many of these people are we to expect in the supposed afterlife? How will they all fit in the supposed kingdom? The doubt is also qualitative: can God have any semblance of a relationship with this many people? It doesn’t seem feasible that I might get to know Jesus on a personal level. What, will I get to shoot a game of pool with him every 4 billion years or so?
And we haven’t even begun to think about animals. Think of all the dogs there have been. Are they all going to be there, too?
Hey! Don’t downplay this. If this supposed eternal kingdom is real, I fully expect my dog Ansel to be there. He is, after all, the greatest dog ever. Just look at him! Can you even imagine heaven without this dog?
Humans often treat animals like they are insignificant, but the bible suggests that God values them each greatly (Mt. 10:29).
(2) Time!
What’s taking so long! We’re an impatient people. If my flight to LA is delayed I throw a micro-tantrum, even though I’ll be on the other side of the continent in mere hours. Not too long ago this same journey would’ve taken months and could’ve cost great suffering. Yet here I am at the airport, with my caramel latte, fuming. I’m actually heated! “Stupid airlines!”
So when the Bible promises the return of Jesus… well, 2,000 years is about as long as I can wait. Can’t the deity who created the universe in 7 days take care of whatever conflict he has in less than two millennia? Is he facing cosmic productivity challenges? Has he not heard of the 80/20 rule? Is he suffering from Imposter Syndrome? Not thinking outside the box?
What is the delay?
(3) Nothing!
There is so much nothing, so little something! In the movie The Truman Show (about a man whose whole life, without him knowing it, was a reality television show), Truman had to merely get on a boat and row across some troubled waters to get to the edge of his stage. Our stage is far more grandiose, stretching infinitely through a cold, weightless nothing, stretching on and on and on, with no oxygen, no mile markers, and no convenience stores.
Are we really so significant? Can this slowly rotating speck of dust really be the main stage of God’s great show? Why so much extraneous filler? Why so much nothing? The emptiness is intimidating (videos like the one at the end of this post really make this qualm ring).
(4) Where is God!
Don’t tell me God is “all around” or that he is “right here in my heart” or any of that lala. I’m not talking about God mysteriously helping you find your car keys. I’m not talking about “still, small whispers,” or magic intuitions, or a mystical presence that nudges your innermost parts. I’m talking about a Genesis 3 presence, where Adam and Eve could hear the brush rustle when God approached from the garden (Genesis 3:8). I’m talking about John reclining against Jesus at the dinner table, his head resting on Jesus’ chest (John 13:23). I’m talking about real, tangible presence.
At some point authentic relationship requires such proximity, as does love.
If God really exists, well, he is profoundly cloaked. “Omni-hidden,” if you will. Believe me, I take great comfort in the fact that the bible does not hide from this reality. Jesus told his immediate followers that they were blessed because they had intimate, physical proximity with him. He went on to say that those who would come later (us believers, right now), who don’t have the advantage of God in real, tangible form, are more blessed because we believe despite lacking such advantage (John 20:29).
We are born into a crisis situation. We are hidden from God. Kicked out of the garden. I take comfort that the bible doesn’t pussyfoot around this crisis. You’ll find no tap dancing in these pages. Repeatedly, like a cowbell, we are called to “seek God,” to “seek God like a treasure,” and that “the Lord is looking down for anyone looking up” ( Deuteronomy 4:29, Proverbs 2:3–4, Psalms 14:2).
The blatant implication is that God is not obvious. It takes work.
Yes, but what about those people who make grandiose proclamations, like: “God is really calling me to do such-n-such”? Or, “God is guiding me to blah-di-blah”? Some Christians talk as if God is not-so-hidden. As if contact with the deity is easy. Like, maybe, they turn their head in just the right way, or hold their hand up at the right angle above their head, and they receive a flood of heavenly transmissions. How do they do that? How do they know what God wants in the little moments of their days?
Well, they don’t. I simply don’t believe them.
They are trapped in the anti-garden with the rest of us. I’m not accusing them of lying. It is more that they are deluded. They thirst for God, like all of us, and strain to find his presence. That’s when their built-in pattern-finding abilities, their self-confirming mechanisms, and their theological imaginations take over, and they conjure these personal moments of special revelation. God told me this. God wants me to do that. God is calling me to go here. It is all wonderfully specific and unfalsifiable, which keeps the delusion so contagious.
This is not to say that God doesn’t speak directly to people. I’m sure he does (though not to me, apparently). Also, I’m not saying God isn’t doing anything in the world. I believe God is doing a great deal. We just don’t know the details. Pretending like we do is, at best, arrogant.
For more spiritual meltdowns, follow me on Twitter: @thatdankent
