Hello everyone,
I've posted here in the past a time or two, but I have something slightly different on my mind this time around. I am currently a soft agnostic-atheist (basically a truth seeker living as an atheist would), and I would like to start off my truth seeking with Christianity. It seems good to start here (as a religion) since I know more about the faith than any other, it's the world's largest, and it seems to have some wonderful, respected philosophers backing it. I should say my MAIN reason for this endeavor is not to know the truth; it's to avoid a "hell."
My question to you all is this: How (or by what way) am I supposed to come to intellectual belief in Christ? How is this normally done?
For me, examining the evidence won't work since I don't feel intelligent enough to sift through what has caused top intellectuals to disagree with each other. If the world's smartest disagree on how to assess the evidence, there's no way I am going to come to a conclusion that way. All that reading apologetic works does is leave me more skeptical. God is essentially hidden.
Since He seems to be hidden, the only option I can think of is testing Him somehow, or there being some way that He will reveal himself to me such that it brings me to an intellectual belief. But will He reveal Himself to me if I ask in prayer (God supposedly doesn't hear prayers of the unsaved though)? Is that even Biblical? And the MAIN issue for me is that if He does reveal himself, I might attribute it to "wishful thinking" or "coincidence" or some other psychological process - as in if we are looking for something to be true, our mind will play tricks and we will "see" what we expect or want to see, although it may not actually signify anything out of the ordinary. Belief eludes me.
And the "sensus divinitatis" doesn't seem to be a thing since I feel that God's presence isn't obvious.
Another idea is the He is hiding himself from me because of my sin. So what, I am supposed to live like a saint and see if He comes closer?
I seriously don't understand how we are supposed to come to belief. I appreciate hearing your thoughts on my predicament.
I've posted here in the past a time or two, but I have something slightly different on my mind this time around. I am currently a soft agnostic-atheist (basically a truth seeker living as an atheist would), and I would like to start off my truth seeking with Christianity. It seems good to start here (as a religion) since I know more about the faith than any other, it's the world's largest, and it seems to have some wonderful, respected philosophers backing it. I should say my MAIN reason for this endeavor is not to know the truth; it's to avoid a "hell."
My question to you all is this: How (or by what way) am I supposed to come to intellectual belief in Christ? How is this normally done?
For me, examining the evidence won't work since I don't feel intelligent enough to sift through what has caused top intellectuals to disagree with each other. If the world's smartest disagree on how to assess the evidence, there's no way I am going to come to a conclusion that way. All that reading apologetic works does is leave me more skeptical. God is essentially hidden.
Since He seems to be hidden, the only option I can think of is testing Him somehow, or there being some way that He will reveal himself to me such that it brings me to an intellectual belief. But will He reveal Himself to me if I ask in prayer (God supposedly doesn't hear prayers of the unsaved though)? Is that even Biblical? And the MAIN issue for me is that if He does reveal himself, I might attribute it to "wishful thinking" or "coincidence" or some other psychological process - as in if we are looking for something to be true, our mind will play tricks and we will "see" what we expect or want to see, although it may not actually signify anything out of the ordinary. Belief eludes me.
And the "sensus divinitatis" doesn't seem to be a thing since I feel that God's presence isn't obvious.
Another idea is the He is hiding himself from me because of my sin. So what, I am supposed to live like a saint and see if He comes closer?
I seriously don't understand how we are supposed to come to belief. I appreciate hearing your thoughts on my predicament.
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