Your Big Question

This is a question with quite a history. The basic accusation is that God is for people who cannot cope with the toughness of life. 

It was the line very much taken by both Freud and Marx. Freud felt that we created God because we needed a father figure. Marx memorably called religion the opiate of the people. Others have taken up this batton. Modern thinkers have tended to paint the world as a remorseless and hopeless place – we are alone and we’d better get used to it.

Interesting this same accusation – that religion is good if you need it to make you feel better, but actually it’s untrue – came up on a TV programme on BBC 2 (Am I Normal?).

But is God really just for people who can’t face the truth of life? Is it true? There a few ways of looking at this?

We could argue that atheism can sometimes act as the great opiate – the great crutch for people who can’t face the glory and personal consequences of there being a God. If we take the position that there is no God, no judgement, no right and wrong, then we are free to do as we please. This can be a convenient crutch for those who want to evade responsibility. I would contend that atheism is the real crutch.

This isn’t to say that athesists are incapable of good acts and living a peaceful and considerate life. It is just that atheism can be a way of evading being held to account. I would also contend that athesim can have a problem with really being clear about right and wrong. Where do we get our sense of right and wrong? Who decides? Is right just what is right for the greatest number? It is at least worth considering that the source of our moral knowledge is God. It is very hard to operate under a consistent sense of right and wrong without a trustworthy and moral, moral law-giver.

Second if we were going to create a divine being to prop us up would we create the Christian God. C.S. Lewis characterised God as a lion. Lions bite. Lions create a sense of awe. We are a little bit afraid of lions. The Christian God is passionate and demanding.  He is bigger and more beautiful than we can imagine. He is love. He holds us to account. He knows what we are thinking and doing. He calls us to pick up our cross and follow Him.

Is this the domesticated deity we would create to smooth us through life? I think not. Interestingly, Freud seemed to have some kind of apprehension of this. It is reported that, once, at a dinner party the name of Jesus was mentioned and freud had a huge panic attack. perhaps he realised too that our God is not a simple tranquiliser to get us through a messy life.

Then there is the question of whether Christians are weak? No they are no. Christians are dispensing love and aid in warzones. Throughout history Christians have been inthe tough places dispensing the medicine of God’s love.

But there is another way altogether of answering this question. Do we need God becuase we are weak? I would answer yes. We are weak. Everyone is. Perhaps we need to understand our weakness and let go of the pride that says we can do everything on our own.

We can also tackle the issue of wish-fulfillment head on. Just becuase we wish for something does it mean that it can’t be true? We wish for sustinence and there is food. We wish for companionship and there are friends/other people. In fact all our major wishes are catered for. So why not a wish for a loving God and a heavenly home to return?