Atheism not the key

If atheism is by no means the key to authentic answers, but rather appears to be the underlying cause of a lot of our existential pain, where do we turn next? The search for God has proved to be one of extreme difficulty and has given rise to multiple interpretations, religions, philosophical imaginings… Scarcely the simple key to truth that we need!

Well, help is at hand. We need not despair.

The essential question – not often raised – in this matter, is: who is competent to tell us truth about God? What is the authentic answer to that profound dilemma? What man can pontificate about the Absolute? What puny human mind can hope to assess the infinite divinity? Surely no-one has the monopoly on this deep and vital issue. Well… hold on a minute.

Ultimately only God himself – if he is there – can assure us of truth about himself – no? It’s a bit like the astrophysicists who listens to sounds from space, hoping to find evidence of life out there. They cannot invent such signals – they have to come from beyond our small world. So it must be with God; we are incapable of inventing him – though, bizarrely, that is what, seemingly, all the religions of the world do. Why do they do that? That’s worth pondering for a moment. Everywhere man in found, he is found to be religious: does this intuition not correspond to something real? Or is it rather part of what leads us into confusion and despair – this illusory hope that there is a God “out there” somewhere? Again, we seem to hit a blank wall. But don’t despair, because God actually has spoken. How do I know? I’ll tell you the key next time.

Clive Every-Clayton