Love Wins

On Monday, I went to a lecture at UNC by Frank Turek, author of I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist. There, he referred us to a video of a debate he had with Christopher Hitchens, author of God Is Not Great. I'm currently in the middle of watching the debate and had to pause to reflect on some things.

Hitchens' main point is not that God does not exist, but that we cannot know that God does exist. I concur. That's what faith is for. I don't want to believe in a God whose existence can be empirically proven by mortals. In such a case, faith is a moot point. If God's existence can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, there is no room for faith, hope, even love.

Apologetics as a field elicits a sort of inquisitive amusement from me. I take God's existence as a given, and I'm totally OK with that. I have no qualms about making that assumption. When people want to debate the "facts" with me, I'll indulge them to a certain extent, but it reaches a point where I simply lose interest, because I've been convicted by a faith that will not let me go and that could be neither convinced nor deterred by ontological, teleological or any other proof.

It's probably good for me to be in relationship with people who understand and are good at apologetics, because it simply isn't my cup of tea. I know all the arguments, but I'm far less likely to talk about the prime mover or creation ex nihilo than I am to share the ways in which God has moved in my life and in the communities of which I am a part.

It simply isn't helpful to people who want the scientific-sounding answers, but that's just how I understand my faith—in relationships of God-given love. Not that I don't enjoy a good theological debate—I'm going to seminary in the fall, for goodness' sake—but I believe all of that should be trumped by the witness of the love reflected in believers' lives. They'll know we are Christians by our love—not by our intellectual arguments. Not that those aren't valid, but basically...love wins.