Why I'm a Christian
Defending belief in an age of relativism
Several months ago, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the famed Muslim-turned-atheist, surprisingly announced her conversion to Christianity to much fanfare and ridicule, from both Christians and atheists.
Most of the ridicule was centered on her reasons for conversion, which mainly involved a strong defense of the benefits of Christianity in resisting the rising tides of illiberal and anti-western forces both at home and abroad. This worldly utilitarian argument was roundly criticized by atheists for its lack of sincerity.
This criticism got me wondering: What type of reason could a high-profile atheist give for conversion to Christianity that wouldn’t have been roundly criticized by other atheists?
It seems like a lose-lose-lose in my mind. If you take the Hirsi Ali route and offer a worldly utilitarian argument, you’ll be criticized for lack of sincerity. But if you take the opposite route and claim spiritual awakening or a true “come to Jesus moment”, you’ll be criticized as a hallucinator or simply written off for advancing a subjective experience as “evidence”. That leaves offering a rationalistic proof of God, and for every proof that exists, there’s a viable counterargument that atheists will inevitably point to.
This lose-lose-lose begs the question, how should one answer the atheist who asks, “Why are you a Christian?”
If worldly utilitarian arguments, subjective spiritual experiences, and rational arguments are all readily dismissed out of hand, what options does that leave?
The following is an argument defending belief in the Christian God, rather than an argument attempting to prove God’s existence. I believe the defense of belief itself is the key to answering the atheist’s question in a way that is convincing to both the atheist and the Christian. Additionally, this argument has the added benefit of immediately flipping the script from focusing on whether God is, to who God is. This subtle change puts the Christian on a more comfortable defensive footing and shifts the conversation from the purely philosophical to the theological.
Why I’m a Christian
I am a Christian because there is no greater way to conceive of the universe and humanity’s purpose in it.
The table stakes for Christian belief are that an all-loving, all-knowing, all-powerful God created humanity to have an individual loving relationship with each one of us. When that relationship was jeopardized, God sacrificed his only Son, Jesus Christ, to ensure that the relationship with His creation would be possible.
Putting aside for a moment whether this worldview is actually true, there can be no doubt that this worldview is the most optimistic way to conceive of humanity’s purpose in the universe, by definition. There can be no greater conception of the role of humanity in the universe than one that holds that an infinitely powerful being desires nothing more than to have a loving, individual relationship with each of us.
The "omni" qualities of God are familiar to many, but the implications of these qualities are typically not fully thought through in my experience. The key quality of the infinite is that it is maximal. God’s infinite properties necessitate that no greater being can be conceived of because God is maximally perfect.
If it is true that God is all-loving, all-knowing, and all-powerful, then, definitionally, there cannot be a more optimistic worldview than one that believes that humanity’s chief purpose is to personally know and glorify that Being for eternity. This is the Christian worldview.
Given the qualities of the infinite and our proposed union with it, the optimism of this worldview necessarily includes all conceivable forms of optimism, including the most hope in a positive and eternal future, an optimized present (Hirsi Ali’s sole reason for belief), our ultimate redemption from evil, a perfectly fulfilled telos, and any other manifested forms of goodness.
Of course, people can choose to not belief in the Christian worldview for any number of reasons, including lack of proof, Biblical inconsistencies, logical contradictions, culture clash, etc. Even though there are plenty of genuine reasons to not believe in Christianity, there are also no definitive proofs that Christianity does not or cannot exist. Atheists have tried for centuries to advance just such a proof. Every argument and apparent contradiction advanced has elicited a plausible response from theists.
After 2,000+ years of debate and hard-fought back and forth, the continued existence of over 2 billion Christians worldwide shows that a definitive refutation of Christianity has never been created. Does the existence of over 2 billion Christians prove that Christianity is true? Of course not, but it does show that given the available evidence, Christianity is undeniably a viable worldview to commit to.
The admission that, at a minimum, Christianity is a viable worldview to hold would have been challenged relentlessly 20 years ago at the peak of the New Atheism movement. As early as 2015, however, the New Atheism movement was in decline. With Hirsi Ali’s conversion to Christianity, that decline is now terminal.
New Atheism and Christianity, however, are not locked in a zero-sum game. The decline of New Atheism does not immediately lend itself towards the growth of Christianity. As James Taylor Foreman so brilliantly puts it in his Substack article, “Why I am Christian again”, the decline of New Atheism gives way to an endless sea of postmodern relativistic worldviews where “there are an infinite number of ways to view reality, and none of them are True”.
Part of what drives the onslaught of postmodern relativism is the inability of Christianity to establish itself as undeniably true. There are many serious, philosophically robust arguments for God’s existence, including teleological, cosmological, and ontological arguments, amongst many others. Additionally, there is near universal historical consensus that Jesus of Nazareth was a real person, and there is also strong evidence for the resurrection that atheists and agnostics need to contend with. The culmination of these rational arguments has greatly diminished the vitriol of the New Atheists and has successfully defended the viability of the Christian worldview.
However, even when taken together, the arguments and evidence for the Christian God don’t amount to undeniable proof. As stated earlier, for every argument, there is a counterargument, and for every piece of historical evidence, there is a possible materialist explanation.
Despite the counterarguments, the key here is that there is genuine evidence that needs to be contended with. Skeptics who claim there is no evidence for God are simply unfamiliar with the evidence. The justifiable skeptical claim would be that the evidence exists, but that the skeptic finds the evidence unconvincing.
So, we have established that Christianity is a reasonable position to take given the evidence, but that the evidence is not strong enough to make it undeniably true. Against the sea of relativistic, materialist, or alternative religious worldviews that one could hold, how should we choose one worldview over another?
We should choose to believe in the worldview that offers the most optimistic conception of humanity’s ultimate purpose in the universe. Doing so aligns our individual path and humanity’s collective path with the greatest transcendent good that we can conceive of. Definitionally, the most optimistic worldview is Christianity. This is why I am a Christian.
Addressing Some Rebuttals
“What about Islam or secular humanism or Buddhism? Don’t these worldviews provide positive conceptions of humanity too?”
The answer is no, not like Christianity. Again, the infinite qualities of the Christian conception of God cannot be overstated. Too often, especially in the west, the all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-loving qualities of God are glossed over and downplayed due to over-familiarity.
The key quality of the infinite is that it is maximal. God’s infinite properties necessitate that no greater being can be conceived of because God is maximally perfect. The idea that a maximally perfect being wants an individual loving relationship with each of us, therefore, is the greatest way to conceive of humanity’s role in the universe. Definitionally, there can be no greater purpose, joy, or desire than sharing a relationship with a perfect creator-being.
“But what if I don’t want that relationship?”
Impossible. A relationship with a fully revealed, perfect creator-being whose existence was not in doubt would never be resisted. A perfect relationship would definitionally be freely chosen every time.
“Couldn’t God have created this relationship without all of the pain and suffering?”
The problem of evil deserves a much longer discourse, but the short answer is no. An all-powerful and perfect God definitionally does everything perfectly. Just because we cannot see or understand the ultimate purpose of pain and suffering does not mean that an ultimate perfect purpose is not at work. Again, this is a short answer for a question that deserves a much longer response, so I’ll plan to write about the problem of evil in a later post.
“What about the spitefulness, childishness, and inconsistency of the God of the Old Testament?”
As the old Christian response goes, “I don’t believe in the god you don’t believe in, either”. A straw man caricature of an imperfect God is simply not the Christian God. The normative Christian conception of God is one of infinite perfection. As soon as any negative attributes are assigned to God, we are talking about two different gods. Your god, with all of his faults, and the Christian God, who is definitionally perfect.
At this point, you’re likely tired of reading the word “definitionally”, but the point cannot be overstated. Pluralistic society tends to believe that different worldviews each have their merit and that different people can each believe in the worldview that is right for them individually. Because each worldview is justified for different people at different times, the thinking goes, each worldview is created equal.
While it is true that everyone can and should be able to follow the worldview of their choosing, it is not the case that every worldview is created equal. The Christian worldview, as formulated by Christians, conceives of humanity’s role in the universe and humanity’s relationship with the Creator in a fundamentally different way from any other worldview.
“What about Islam and Judaism? Don’t the other Abrahamic faiths believe in the same perfect God?”
The difference is Christ. In Christ, God sacrificed His only Son for humanity. This sacrifice was the ultimate archetypal sacrifice, incorporating every aspect of sacrifice known to man, including pain, suffering, betrayal, humiliation, wrongful punishment, and tyranny, all while being actively forsaken by friends, family, and the heavenly Father. This is the archetypal sacrifice because no greater sacrifice can be conceived of. In the Christian worldview, this perfect sacrifice proves the perfect love of God and makes possible the perfect relationship with us that God desires. Any worldview missing this perfect sacrificial element will necessarily not have as robust a view of God’s loving relationship with humanity as Christianity does.
“Wouldn’t a worldview where God sacrificed two of his sons be better than a worldview where he only sacrifices one?”
To avoid descending into absurd hypotheticals, the statement that “Christianity offers the greatest way to conceive of the universe and humanity’s place in it” is assumed to be preceded by “Out of the set of serious worldviews with a certain minimum number of global adherents and a certain minimum level of genuine history and tradition…”. Unserious hypothetical religions are overdone and tiresome.
“The inability of atheists to disprove Christianity does not make Christianity any more likely than a flying teapot”
Again, Christianity has genuine deductive arguments and empirical evidence in favor of its existence that atheists need to contend with. Even though this evidence may not rise to the level of irrefutable proof, it does put Christianity in a league above absurd flying hypotheticals.
TL;DR
There is genuine evidence and lines of argumentation in favor of the Christian God, so even though the evidence does not rise to the level of irrefutable proof, Christianity is a reasonable worldview to subscribe to.
Amongst the set of reasonable worldviews to subscribe to, we should pursue the one that has the most optimistic conception of humanity’s ultimate purpose in the universe.
Given the omni qualities of God and the perfect sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the Christian claim that the chief end of man is to personally know and glorify God for eternity is, by definition, the most optimistic worldview one can hold.
Therefore, the Christian worldview is the one we should pursue.
Special thanks to
, who reviewed and provided great feedback for this piece. Check our her Substack, for well-researched and insightful apologetics material.
So this is the piece we get when you find a conversion tweet? We gotta lock you in a room with an iphone and get a series out of you.
Really though, what an outstanding piece! You make very good arguments. The two that I particularly appreciated were, in laymens terms, "What do you have to lose by accepting an all knowing, all loving god?" and my favorite, based on the evidence available, the burden of proof does not lie on Christianity.
Have you ever read the book "I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist"? A massively important book of Christian apologetics. I know your outstanding blog post here didn't really have room to go into all the real evidence that Christianity is true, but this book brings up a lot of extremely valid and at least by me, unknown concepts.