My Walk – Why I Believe What I Believe
Prologue
This story was written not to convince any reader to agree with my positions on anything. This is merely a summary of my own walk to and with God, and as such it has a somewhat detailed description of my own personal theology. There may be Christian readers who take exception with or question certain positions I may hold with regard to the creation story, the age of the universe, evolution, the purpose of prayer, and God’s level of daily interaction with His children. To those readers I would say that the history of the Church supports my belief that there is enough room in our faith for varying interpretations as long as we all agree upon the most fundamental concepts regarding salvation. If all believers had to agree upon everything there could be no Church. As such, accept or disregard my words. It matters not to my personal walk. In the end Jesus loves us all.
My Walk Begins
I was raised to take action, to be positive, to be loving and caring, to be logical and analytical, to care for myself, to do it myself, and for those things I couldn’t do myself, I was taught to figure it out. To learn. I was raised to observe, file, ponder, conclude, and then act. I was also raised to be relational. I was raised to care for others and love others and to feel for others. And although it was not a big part of my childhood, I do believe I was raised to find God.
My walk with God began when I was 16. I was with either my sister Sherrie or both Sherrie and my other sister Cindy. I don’t remember now. We were at Melodyland, a theater in the round that became one of Orange County’s first mega-churches. At the end of the service the preacher made the routine call for new believers to profess their new found faith and to walk to the front of the congregation to meet with a church representative. I remember standing and walking but little beyond that. It was at that moment that I would say I became a Christian. But I knew little of what that really meant and I certainly had not found God. Step one of many to come, over 40 years ago.
My parents were both raised in church-going homes where religion was a part of their daily life. My mom found a home in church for singing. My dad’s brother found a home in the church as a pastor and missionary. He’s still working for the church today. But I’m not really sure what my dad found in the church. I’m not sure he has every really told me. I can only hope he might share with me sometime. My memories of church, more often with my grandma and grandpa, were of boring sermons sitting in the pews, not understanding anything, and listening to pleasant, but uninspiring hymns. I did admire the little wooden pockets in the back of the pews that were constructed to hold Bible, hymnal, pencil, and a little card. I also liked putting the dollar that Grandpa would hand to me into the collection plate when it came around.
So why I chose to walk down that aisle at 16 is still a mystery to me. I wasn’t particularly religious and I had given little thought to any theology, let along my personal theology. But I think that perhaps there was a little voice in my head that day that just told me to stand and walk, a voice that knew that it was the right thing at the right time. And I listened and accepted the invitation. Looking back, I know this to be the same voice that told me at the age of 17 that I must hold onto this 16 year old girl, Diana. I had dated several girls, but within a couple of weeks of dating her that voice told me to ask her, “What would you say if I asked you to marry me?” Always much wiser than me, she said, “I’d say ask me later.” Which I did, she said yes, and we have created a fantastic family with two amazing kids, and now grandkids. And then that voice came to me again in 1982. It spoke to me the very Friday night before I was scheduled to take the DAT, the Dental Admissions Test, required to apply to dental school. It had been my unwavering plan since 9th grade to be an orthodontist. But that voice said don’t waste your time and life in dentistry. Become a chiropractor. I didn’t even know what a chiropractor was a year before, and I had never been to one even as I decided to give my life to this profession. Diana had been to two chiropractors, and it was due to her experience that I came to know my future profession. Today I believe I was called into this profession. Your definition may be different, but my definition of a calling is an occupation that you don’t retire from, that you do until you physically or mentally are no longer able. It is more than what I do, it is what I am. So, three defining moments in my life, all decisions made with little forethought, nearly on a whim. But in each case I knew it was right. And it was. I trusted that voice three times in my early life but it wasn’t until more recently that I wondered who that voice belonged to.
Fine Tuning
Over the years I don’t know if I ever “felt” God’s presence as some people claim to have, but I have gotten to know a few of His traits as I’ve seen some of His work. I just have to look at His creation, our universe, to see His characteristics. He is patient. He is an artist. An engineer. A designer. A craftsman. He is exacting. He is rational. He is relational. He is humorous. He is stern. He is light. He is dark. He is precise. It is through the examination of His creation that I know that He is real. Many will stand on a mountain and marvel at God’s creation out of the wonder, beauty and grandeur of the vista in front of them. Rather, when I contemplate our universe I wonder at the precision required to make a universe with our little planet here in this remote corner that can maintain and sustain so much life and so much diversity for so many billions of years. Others wonder that we exist. I wonder how we exist.
I have come to understand that there are hundreds and hundreds of very precise points of fine tuning that if off by very minor fractions of degrees, you and I cannot exist. For example, if the mass-density of the early universe just after the Big Bang were a tiny bit larger or a tiny bit smaller, our whole universe would be dramatically different. A bit too heavy and the universe collapses in on itself, a non-starter. Too light and the universe expands so fast that stars, the ovens that create all elements heavier than hydrogen and helium, never form. Also, our solar system is in just the right location in the outskirts of our galaxy to block us from the intense cosmic rays from the massive black hole(s) at the center. Our sun is just the right size and luminosity and at just the right age. Our planet is at just the right orbit and is just the right size. We are protected from outside bombardment by just the right size and location of large gaseous planets. Our moon is so extremely unique. Again, if it is not there, or is not in its precise location, or is not just the right size, tidal and tectonic activities would be inhospitably different. Our planet is tilted just right to create seasons. We are a relative water-poor planet with just the right amount of water, and with a stable water cycle. Our atmosphere went through several iterations coming to the just right formation with the just right chemistry and just right thickness and density. Our magnetic field is just right to protect us from solar and other sources of radiation. Our continents and land masses are largely organized in a vertical manner to allow for proper tidal effects. Tectonic activity is big enough to have churned our crust to bring necessary heavy elements and minerals to the surface for our utilization, but not so violent as to fill our skies perpetually with poisonous gasses and the life choking greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. Our planet was not created with all the elements it has. The heavier ones were brought to us by asteroid impacts long long ago when our galaxy was in its relative infancy. And the list goes on and on to include more than 900 points of fine tuning. The atheist embraces the anthropic principle that we are here because we have to be here to observe that we are here, and he has faith in the laws of physics. You might say his theology is physics. I conclude that we are here because someone or something designed this universe and everything in it, including the laws of physics, in order to create us. Even in a universe as large as ours, this planet defies the statistical odds.
Evolution
I also believe that life on this planet argues for a creator. Evolution is the ruling theory as to how we acquired such abundance and diversity of life for so many billions of years. We can see and measure that the physical universe evolved over time, so why should not the biological universe as well? Makes sense on the surface of it. There is evidence of bacterial life in 3.2 to 3.8 billion year old rocks recently found in Greenland. Life is old and life clearly evolves in some sort of manner. How do we reconcile this? Well, when it comes to the term, “evolution,” we must tighten our definition to illuminate our discussion. I have come to understand that there are actually five subdivisions of “evolution” that influence my theology. First is chemical evolution. This describes life evolving from lifelessness, biochemistry from organic chemistry in a sea of inorganic compounds. I am skeptical of this as a naturalistic process. Scientists are trying to accomplish this very thing in the lab, and probably soon will. They will say “this is how life evolved from lifelessness” all the while forgetting or ignoring that it took a designer(the scientist) and a highly controlled environment(the laboratory) to pull off this “miracle.” The second type is microbial evolution which postulates that viruses, bacteria, and other microscopic life change according to their environmental stressors. This is of course well established and is the root problem with antibiotic resistance, and why a new flu shot is developed each and every year. Third is micro-evolution, again well established, the example of which is the peppered moth in England. This moth was originally a white moth with black spots but as soot from coal burning began to cover the birch forests, the native habitat for the moth, birds found it easier to prey upon the white moths. Predation selected for the blacker moths and soon the entire population was composted of black moths with white spots. Once coal burning was cleaned up, the birch trees quickly washed off and slowly the white moths prevailed and today they are the original peppered moth as in yesteryear. This is a perfect example of natural selection as described by Darwin. All organisms evolve to a greater or lesser degree to their environment in order to survive. This is part of our design. Fourth is speciation, the example of which is the Galapagos Finch. Geographic separation, food competition, and sexual selection led to the evolution of a sister species of Finch with a much larger beak size than the original homogenous population. The two Finches are today distinct but related species. Fifth and last is macroevolution which is the process by which a new largely unrelated species evolves from a predecessor. This last category of evolution is what science subscribes to in order to narrate human evolution from other hominids, or birds from dinosaurs, or all of us from archaea and bacteria.
As with chemical evolution, I am skeptical of this final type of evolution for many reasons. For just one example, the archeological record shows that there have been many species of whale that have come and gone on this planet. However, their reproductive rates are far too slow and their gestation period far too long for natural selection to have created entire new species in the time-lines indicated by the fossil record. Additionally, there have been five extinction events on this planet that we know of and after each one the repopulation of the planet seems to occur in a geological instant. Even the naturalist has a very tough time explaining how this could be. But with regard specifically to homosapien sapien, there is a complete lack of fossil evidence of intermediary species to demonstrate that we evolved from hominids. We just appear about 100,000 +/- 50,000 years ago. Additionally, each new hominid fossil discovery forces a rewrite of our theoretical evolutionary family tree. Rather, I think of the hominids as distinct species such as the great apes, that were here to fill a distinct biological niche, that then became extinct as their niche closed, the same as happened to the sabretooth tiger or the wooly mammoth as further examples. In conclusion, I argue that evolution does exist, but chemical evolution and macroevolution can only be explained by the presence of a designer or a creator. Some theists say God guided evolution by miraculously intervening from time to time. Perhaps. Others say that God simply created species just as he created the universe, ex nihilo, from nothing, with a snap of his fingers, so to speak. The Bible clearly favors this latter take by its verbiage. Which it is I’ll never know, but it is clear to me He was involved. So I find that I must believe in a God.
God of the Big Bang = God of the Bible?
When I was 16 I just naively assumed that the God of the Bible was the one true God. He’s the only one I knew. As I grew older I heard of different religions that made different truth claims. Were they all right? All wrong? Could one alone be right? I found that the very same verses in the Book of Genesis that chase scientists away from the Bible convinced me of the authenticity of the Bible, and conclude that this book must be of God’s work or at least of His divine influence. Let me explain.
Science agrees that the universe had a beginning which we call the Big Bang (The Big Expansion would be a better name). We know through scientific observation how our solar system can into being. We know something of the development of our atmosphere, of the water cycle, of the development and order of introduction of plant and animal species on our planet. Science further says the universe is 13.8 billion years old and our own solar system 4.5. But doesn’t Genesis give 144 hours of creation time, a scant 6 days? That is the interpretation of some, particularly a large component of the American Evangelical movement. If I were a scientist looking into the Bible, I would have a huge problem believing in the claimed inerrancy of a book that says that what I can see of the universe that I know that took billions of years was, in fact, made in 6 days. The Christians who do believe in this interpretation must spend enormous time and energy trying to alter science to fit scripture. Some simply disparage science and scientists and ignore observed reality. And all-the-while they simply look ignorant to scientists, thereby pushing scientists away from God, the exact opposite goal of God’s great commission. Jews, interestingly, tend to think of Genesis 1 as mythology, a story that explains the diversity and enormity of life, a story that never happened as it is described but happened somehow none-the-less. Perhaps an analogy. I take a third tack. I have come to understand that ancient Hebrew had but 30,000 words (as compared to around 200,000 English words in use today), so context was critical. And I have come to understand that the word “yom,” which is translated as “day” in all of our English Bibles, has four actual translations; all of the daylight hours, part of the daylight hours, a 24 hour period, or a long but finite period of time. If you use this last definition for the word “day” to interpret Genesis you can begin to see that this religious tome is the only one of the world’s major religions that describes the physical creation of our solar system and planet just about exactly as we have come to know it happened. It describes the creation of the sun, of the atmosphere, the clearing of the atmosphere, the establishment of the water cycle, the introduction of plant life, sea creatures, land creatures, and then finally Adam the farmer and taxonomist, and of course Eve. Either the author Moses guessed really well or maybe he had a small voice in his ear, perhaps the same voice that I have heard at least 3 times in my life. While this is not proof this is evidence enough for me to accept that the God I know is the God of the Bible. Additionally, my scientist friends can understand this interpretation, thereby perhaps opening a gap for God’s voice in their ear.
Son of God?
If Christ is not the son of God, then I guess I’m converting to Judaism since I’ve established that the Old Testament is God inspired. So what about the New Testament? First, it is beyond argument that Jesus did exist and that he was a great teacher. He died by crucifixion at the hands of the Romans, He was entombed, and then His tomb was found empty. These are largely agreed upon facts by biblical and extra-biblical sources, even skeptical Roman and Jewish historians. But what became of His body? This is the critical moment of Christianity, hanging an entire religion and teaching upon one single event, the resurrection of Jesus. If one discounts the possibility of a miracle, then the body had to have been stolen by the Romans or by Jesus’ followers, for He certainly didn’t walk out of his tomb after what he went through. If the Romans stole the body most assuredly they would have produced it to squelch this troublesome new upstart religion. And if the disciples stole it to create a mythos why would so many of them martyr themselves over a lie? Why would all of them report seeing and conversing with the resurrected Jesus, Thomas even touching His wounds? Why would up to 500 others report seeing Him as well? And most importantly, why would Saul of Tarsus, the ardent anti-Christian persecutor, report seeing and talking to Jesus, then convert to Christianity, and become one of the biggest contributors to the early faith and a primary author of what became the New Testament? As far as miracles go, modern physics describes nothing less than a miracle when it argues that our entire universe came from a singularity, a point source. If one believes that God created the universe which I have stated I do, and that this God lives outside of our time and space, then it’s not so difficult to conclude that He can reach in and bring a dead man back. Jesus did it with Lazarus. God did it with Jesus. Abductive reasoning (inference to the best explanation) would lead me to conclude that the resurrection of Jesus is the inference to the best explanation.
Human and Devine?
And the final question: Was He God in flesh? Did He have both a human and divine essence? When considering the totality of the writings, only three conclusions can be drawn; Jesus was a nut job who believed he was God, or Jesus was a liar, or that He is God in the flesh. Jews, Muslims, and Hindus each in their own way say Jesus was a teacher or perhaps a prophet, but those conclusions are incoherent considering the claims by Jesus that “I and the Father are one”, and that “there is no way to the Father except through Me.” Seven times He refers to Himself as “I am” clearly invoking the name God gave to Moses in the book of Exodus. Nope, He’s either a liar, He’s crazy, or He’s God. Of course this loops back to His miracles, His resurrection, His subsequent appearance to His followers, and their willingness to drop their lives and teach His message and in many cases to martyr themselves for Him. They do not start their journeys as the bravest of men. They each abandoned Jesus at the last minute, Peter most famously. They do not come across as heroes in the Gospels. But they knew Jesus’ character and when absolutely convinced of who He was, caused the early church to explode due to their conviction. I must conclude that Jesus is God come to earth to create a pathway to His father. This is my decision based upon the evidence, and then held in faith. Humans are so broken that we can never measure up to God’s expectations, so our pathway to Him is through His son, His sacrifice and the blood he spilled for us.
Actually, it seems quite logical. Let’s say I’m a parent who has a child that has strayed far from my hopes and expectations, who has made a multitude of poor decisions, and one day he or she decides to return home, atone, and ask to rejoin the family. What proofs do I require of him or her? What atonement? None of course. For my part, all he or she would have to say is father, I have strayed, please forgive me, may I return to the family. And it is done. He cannot “work” his return to the family, but his works following his atonement will reflect his new heart. That is what Jesus did for me, for us. I cannot go directly face to face with the creator of the universe, meet in His living room, and ask to rejoin the family like my child can of me. So rather we have a representative of God, sent to earth to do that very thing for us, to give us a person, a face, a symbol of God’s faith in us so that we can regain our faith and trust in Him. Jesus is hope, something that no other religion has, and redemption, something no other religion describes. At best, all other religions offer righteous judgement for your actions during this life, leaving all of us on the short end. Christ offers us a welcome hand. All we have to do is reach out and take it.
Conclusion
The other reason I am attracted to Jesus is that His existence helps me to understand how God can be relational and how He can understand love. He created humans “imago dei,” in His image. We share traits with God by design. Humans are nothing if not relational. God understands relationships not just because He is God, but because He is in an eternal relationship with His son Jesus, as well as with His more poorly understood, but vitally important representative with us and within us, the Holy Spirit. And this leads me back to that little voice in my ear. God created the universe, and who knows what else He is up to outside of this creation, maybe making other universes? This is no way to know. But we do know that He set into motion laws of physics that maintain our universe in its existence. It appears that He reaches in a tweaks things from time to time, but rarely. We call these miracles. I am at odds with some of my Christian brothers and sisters on this point but I think it’s critical for our salvation that He is mostly hands-off. He sent His Son to redeem us and to act as a physical symbol for us to know that we can have redemption, a path back to Him. He imbues within us a little bit of Him, the Holy Spirit. This is our connection with Him. This is the little voice that we hear that guides us when we will shut up and listen, which for me is not often enough. This is the power in prayer. I do not believe that God hands out the earthly things we ask for. He does not heal this man and let that one die. That would be cruel…I’ll save this child because enough people liked and prayed for him, but I’ll let this child die in a Nazi gas chamber since he is alone. No one will miss him. Cruel! He does not reward us for good behavior and punish us for bad. That is Santa Claus. We get to make the decisions. Life happens to us. And then we bear the consequences of our decisions, of the unfairness of life, the randomness, the bad luck, the resident evil. The unfairness of life is necessary. For us to come to know and trust God, to love God, to want a relationship with Him, we have to do so of our own accord. We are not automatons. I do not think that God pulls our strings. He willfully limits His power in our universe so that life may happen, so that we may choose to come to Him or not, to have a relationship with Him or not, and ultimately, to be with Him or not when we leave this tiny little speck of a planet. This is why bad things happen to good people, and why bad things happen to all people. For more on this I would refer to my article on pain, suffering, and evil.
When we pray, or converse with God in any manner, He gives us strength when we feel overpowered. He gives us patience when we really want it now. He gives us calm when all is in chaos. He brings others to us to help us when we are in need. He speaks to young people to guide them to become preachers and nurses and doctors and scientists and teachers and counselors to help others, to make the world better. He leads a neighbor to bring a meal to a sick friend. He brings us to the side of a loved one to hold their hand and sit with them as they go through medical procedures. He comes and sits by us in our last moments and guides us to Him. In short, He leads us down a path to Him, if we but listen and take His hand.
I have probably listened to that voice more than the three times I have related here, but I know of these three instances for certain. I know that God will never abandon me and that if I stray far, I need but ask Him if I may come home. It’s a calming thing. Similarly, when I was younger, I knew my mom and dad would always hold a hand out for me. They always held the path open for my return for whatever needs I may have had. And by their wisdom, teaching, and guidance, my children also know that I will never abandon them, that they will always have a pathway home and a safe place in my heart and in my arms. My parents taught me this, and it has taken me a lifetime to understand that God’s family and my earthly family are one and the same.
Written by Rick Lindwall March 2017, edited November 2019.
Post Script
We do not know what really exists outside of space and time. If heaven is a physical place it must exist outside of space time. Perhaps it’s not a place at all but more of a presence. If hell is the eternal absence of God then perhaps heaven might be the eternal presence of God, an eternal relationship doing who knows what. Maybe we get to play at making other universes with alternate laws of physics and biology. Certainly we get to know more than we know now, get let in on so many secrets. There are promises of a second coming, of resurrected bodies, of a new creation. These are beyond my pay grade.
But if I’m right about all of the above then my future is pretty good. And if I’m all wet about God and Jesus and all of that then I’m in the same place as the atheist, gone forever. Logic says that it would be better to hedge my bets, but clearly this is not what God has in mind. He wants all of me, not part of me, not a contingency plan. But if the unbeliever is thinking about hedging bets and investigating this Jesus thing, I would pose a question for him or her to consider. If atheism is correct and there is no designer, and we are the product of an unguided mechanistic process, just how did this random process of evolution create the mind of a man who could postulate the minute workings of the universe at the subatomic quantum level without being able to see at the subatomic level, only to have his theories continually supported and confirmed by science and technology that would not be possible for 100 years after his ideas were first published? Of course I speak of Einstein (as a most exceptional proxy for all of humanity. In fact, how does the naturalist explain life from lifelessness, consciousness, eukaryotic cells, morality, abstract thought, sexual reproduction, symbolic representation, the discovery of mathematics, love, art, and the shear exceptionalism that is homosapien sapien? To ignore the existence of God requires explanations of these and many other unexplainable realities. My God is the God of the Bible. The naturalist’s God can only be the laws of physics… but who created those laws and why are they what they are? Why are there four forces in the universe and not five, or three? So many questions, but for the afterlife, if indeed there is an afterlife, there is only one. That question…Jesus? Choose wisely.
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