So I've been asked to speak on why I am now a Christian...
It's very difficult to answer this (satisfactorily) with concision, but it more or less comes down to the immense force of the Holy Spirit drawing me to God. This is why I said "not by my own strength, but by His alone." I agree with the Calvinist doctrine that head knowledge and a half-hearted "eh this is probably true" alone is not sufficient to be saved. Why? Because without the Holy Spirit we are dead spiritually, and we do not WANT to be saved nor do we have true faith. I felt the Holy Spirit tugging on my heart for weeks, and it grew to a crescendo this past Sunday. At that moment, giving myself to Christ seemed irresistible to me. Lord knows I would have found some excuse to put off the decision otherwise, I am the most reluctant convert there ever was. It's extremely difficult to describe.
Anyway, I have followed the "head knowledge" route all my life until this point. I grew up in a Christian family, and have known the tenets of the faith for a long time, but I never truly BELIEVED in them nor did I really desire to up until now. I've always taken an intellectual interest in this stuff though, especially since I realized that eternity could hang in the balance. When I was taught Darwinism and Old Earth Theory it conflicted with the hyper-literalist interpretations of scripture I was brought up on, and for a long time I've been an agnostic because of it. I've spent a long time researching into arguments for and against the existence of God, the divinity of Christ, the reliability of Scripture, the relationship between Scripture and science, interpretations of Genesis and other passages, etc. I could never resolve the conflicts in my mind until recently. There are questions that I still don't know (and may not ever know) the answers to. But I've been granted the gift of faith by God.
Now, this isn't to say there aren't solid, rational reasons for belief. There are plenty.
- The Cosmological Argument (why is there something rather than nothing? You must have a cause outside of space, time, and matter to create space, time, and matter)
- The Teleological Argument (there is overwhelming, inescapable evidence of fine-tuning and design by an intelligent source)
- The Argument from Abiogenesis (intelligent scientists in expensive laboratories can not create life after decades of trying. Why should we expect unintelligent, natural forces to accomplish what they couldn't?)
- Laws of Morality, Logic, Math, Physics, etc. (A purely naturalistic world has no notion of transcendent law)
- Consciousness (The human consciousness is inexplicable by science)
- Unexplainable truths... the world is beautiful, and I stand in awe of it. I enjoy music. I love stories. I laugh. I dream. I love. God's creation is tainted by sin, but the remnants of the perfect world in which God created many things for us to enjoy remains.
- Prophecies in Scripture fulfilled (there are some insane mathematical calculations that show how improbable this was aside from divine guidance)
- The nature of Scripture itself (dozens of writers over thousands of years, talking about the same story)
- Early, eyewitness accounts of Jesus that can be corroborated by extra-Biblical sources (Especially Luke, the man included historical details that eyewitnesses only could have known. Also, most of the gospels contain details that are just SCREAMING to be contradicted by critics if they were false. Why did the Pharisees explain away the empty tomb with theft? Because the tomb WAS empty.)
- The story is unembellished and honest, portraying the events in great detail (and to the great embarrassment of the disciples). If I was getting together with my buds to create a giant lie in order to accomplish my goal of getting myself martyred, I wouldn't weave a tale that depicted me as being utterly stupid (failing to grasp Jesus' words), a coward (I hide as the women investigate Jesus' tomb, I deny my Lord 3 times after swearing I would not), careless (me and the bois fell asleep on our Lord in his time of need), and unbelievable (the story defies Jewish expectations of what the Messiah would be. Not the type of story you concoct when you want Jews to believe you).
- The fact that these men were martyred for their beliefs, when they would be in the unique position of knowing whether the faith was based on a lie. No one dies for a lie, especially not one that brings them NO benefits. The Watergate lies lasted a measly 2 weeks. Imagine how much quicker the apostles would have cracked under pressure of death if this were a lie? These were the same men that cowered in fear after Jesus' crucifixion while the women went to Jesus' tomb.
- Personal experiences. What I felt and continue to feel is real, and that is enough for me to believe. It's not just me either, look at the millions the faith has affected and changed.
- much more...
This and more is why I believe.
