Looking for God in All the Wrong Places

Q:What makes the best 'case for God' to a skeptic or non-believer, an open-minded seeker, and to a person of faith and Why?

1) The message of scripture?
2) The scientific evidence for an Intelligent Designer?
3) The 'words' that God has 'spoken' - Torah, Jesus, the Qur'an?
4) A compassionate lifestyle?
5) Personal, subjective experience?

-- Karen Armstrong

I deeply appreciate Karen Armstrong's new work, The Case for God. I am so taken by her idea that faith in God has been made such an easy, even cheap, consumer item. People are looking for God in all the wrong places, and talking about it incessantly. Armstrong says, "We are talking far too much about God these days, and what we say is often facile."

There is no "case," however. In fact, I think when you finish Armstrong's book you realize that the case for God is that there is no single case, but many truths.

What I also believe, however, is that there is no scriptural text, no argument from nature, no human or divine words, and no example of human kindness that works to inspire faith until there is a "Why?" that springs from the human heart.

"Love the questions." That's what I learned many years ago from Dr. Letty Russell, the wonderful theologian who taught for so many years at Yale Divinity School. Letty has died, but her teachings live on, especially in this sentence she would say so often. "You've got to love the questions."

It's the questions that move people from unfaith to faith; in my experience, there is no "case" one can make that works without a question.

"Why?" can be spoken as a plea, screamed in agony, or only asked as a secret, subversive thought from someone trapped in a pew where they hear everything but what they most deeply want to know. "Why?"

I think the question "Why?" is the fertile ground of which Jesus spoke. Jesus too seemed to puzzle over how it could be that the same gospel message could be believed by one person, and rejected by another. So Jesus told this parable. "A sower went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop--a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. (Matthew 13)

Even Jesus couldn't get his message across without fertile ground. Some people have hearts of stone and the seed will not take. Some people are about an inch deep, and the message withers. And sometimes the message takes root in fertile ground. I believe that fertile ground is found in the depths of the human heart--whether it does or does not open itself to seeking the mystery of "Why?"

And why is this so, that some have hearts of stone and some have open, questioning hearts that seek after more than they can know?

I have no idea why that is so.

I just know that it is.

By Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite  |  October 8, 2009; 11:30 PM ET
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