INTRODUCTION
Why would a physician write about the existence of God, and why should I read what he says? These are the first questions that may enter your mind when you preview this book, and they are the questions I want to address in this introduction.
I was a "seminary baby," born in 1956 in Louisville, Kentucky while my father was preparing for the pastorate. It is not an exaggeration to say that my formative years revolved around the church and that I developed at an early age an appetite for all things religious. Before I could read or write, I could sing all the familiar hymns by memory, even the oft-ignored third verses. I can remember reciting in order the sixty-six books of the Bible before I could name the fifty states. I would read children's Bible story collections from cover to cover, then read them over again. By the age of seven, I knew enough about the Christian faith to realize my need for repentance and conversion. I became a Christian then (to this day, I have no doubt that I knew what I was doing) and was baptized into the fellowship of the Church.
Unlike many of my peers, my teenage years were marked by obedience to my parents. I never did "sow my wild oats," electing instead to keep my life pretty much "between the white lines." All the while I kept accumulating knowledge—all of it in a conservative, Southern Baptist format—about God and the Bible. By the time I graduated from high school, I can honestly say that I knew more Bible facts than any person I had met who was my age and more than most who were several years my senior.
It is not surprising, then, that I left home for college in 1974 fully intending to become the fifth minister to dot the family tree. I quickly declared religion as my major, to which I later added history as a second major. My beliefs at the time of my enrollment were largely a reflection of my exposure as a child. I believed in God almost as a reflex, never entertaining the possibility He might not exist. My view of the Bible was typical of most mainstream Southern Baptists—conservative, without any trace of leftward leanings. As is true of many conservatives, I knew what I believed and never questioned why I believed it. Unaware of its shaky subjective foundation, I considered my faith to be rock-solid.
This all changed the fall of my sophomore year. It was then I became aware of a galaxy of thought much different than my own. I studied in one class history's greatest philosophers, many of them atheists, and found their incessant questions about life and God unsettling. In another class I read the works of theologians whose views of the Bible tilted in a moderate-to-liberal direction. I listened to fellow students, most of them upperclassmen, who in typical cocksure fashion poked fun at anyone within the narrow confines of traditional belief. To say the least, it was a time of soul-searching, the first time I remember doubt and my faith mentioned in the same breath.
I am not implying that all I experienced that sophomore year was negative. In fact, I embrace today many views about God and the Bible that were introduced to me then. The problem for me was not so much that I faced new ideas but that they were thrust upon me in a short period of time in such volume. Much like a novice rider on a powerful motorcycle, I was being asked to control more than I could safely handle. As would be expected, given the implications, the arguments I heard against God's existence troubled me the most. The men and women espousing them seemed to be so educated and so passionate in their defenses. They appeared to have so much to say and could say it with certainty and flare. I, on the other hand, had no immediate answers. My college professors helped a great deal by presenting counterarguments to the atheists, but these rebuttals were new to me and not yet internalized by me. It would take a while—years, in fact—for them to take root. All the while my ship of faith, continuously rocked by waves of doubt, began to show signs of wear and tear.
While this intellectual struggle raged within me, I continued on a practical level to live as if God's existence were certain. No one who observed me on a casual basis would have imagined me to be in any degree of perplexity. Only my closest college friends, with whom I shared my questions and doubts, knew what was going on. They knew the rest of the story, that I was being forced to reevaluate everything I had been told as a child and had accepted "hook, line, and sinker." Such second-hand, subjective belief was no longer enough for me. I needed an objective foundation for my faith and began to search in earnest for it.
This curious mixture of faith and doubt colored all the major decisions I made in the next few years. If someone had looked close enough for long enough, my internal dichotomy would have been evident. I finished my studies in religion and history, graduated with honors from college, visited seminary as a prospective student, then shunned the ministry in favor of the pursuit of medicine. In light of my wavering theology, I envisioned some difficulties in the future standing before a congregation whose basic beliefs were different and, worse yet, more secure than my own. I began to feel out of step with my denomination, and I feared covert or open reprisals from the convention hierarchy if my convictions turned out to be too "unconventional." So I opted for pre-medical instead of pre-ministerial studies, medical school instead of seminary, a Doctor of Medicine instead of a Doctor of Ministry degree. And I remained the consummate paradox, serving as minister of music at a small suburban church to help pay medical school expenses in an attempt to avoid the ministry altogether.
As is so often true in times of theological upheaval, subtle cracks began to form in my character. My moral fiber began to have frayed edges, as slowly and almost imperceptibly the relativism of the day pervaded my thoughts and actions. The lines separating right and wrong became blurred, which produced in me something good (a tolerance of others that I sorely lacked in my conservative days) and something not so good (a tendency to rationalize my behavior). Gradually I saw key relationships in my life deteriorate due to neglect or injury on my part. I was not as moral on the outside as I once was, even less so on the inside. Although stopping shy of outright rebellion against the morality of my youth, I detoured enough that those closest to me could notice the change and enough that I could consider myself to be every bit of the hypocrite.
Fortunately, I never gave up on faith. I kept searching for answers to my questions. As time would allow, I read the theological works of some of the greatest believers, past and present. I understood most of their arguments and, after rejecting a few that seemed to me a little strained, accepted the majority as true. I listened to their brilliant analogies and illustrations, internalized them, and added to them some of my own. In time I found myself solidly in their camp, not just because of pedigree or emotion but because of objectivity and reason. I came to fully believe in God once again because I discovered that the universe in which I lived made the most sense if He existed. I maintain that same faith today, a faith that has met doubt head-on and, while not eliminating it entirely, has rendered it meaningless. Although my belief in God may not be as dogmatic as in my youth, it is a conviction with deeper roots and is today a source of genuine happiness and peace.
What you are about to read is a summary of my reasons to believe. To those of you who possess nagging doubts about the existence of God, I extend to you an invitation to join me on a sixty-day sojourn. Atheists and never-a-doubt believers are also encouraged to come along. I will serve as your guide as we ascend the slope of God's existence. I will tell you why I believe in God and will try to do so in a way that is sensitive to everyone in our group. I realize that I may at times seem a little hard on the atheists among us, but this is inevitable if my task is to show why I believe they are mistaken. If the setting were different, I am confident we would be able to enjoy each other's company and earn each other's respect.
My purpose, then, is to present an old concept—the existence of God—in fresh and understandable light. My prayer is that you will acknowledge and, better yet, embrace Him. To this end, I encourage you to meet me tomorrow to begin our travels. Our time of departure is at hand.
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