We don't understand God because we don't understand love, and vice versa
Why are love poems simultaneously so indirect and vivid? Shakespeare compared a woman to a summer’s day. Do people do this anymore? Are we too advanced for such over-the-top flowery language? We’re rational creatures. Instead of love poems we send memes and flirtatious texts. We make each other laugh. The love poetry of the past was nice, but wasn’t it a bit much? I don’t think it was too much. We just aren’t enough.
Isn’t love one of the most powerful forces on Earth? Men have died for love. Men go to war for love. We weep for it. We put on our biggest celebrations for it. Is there anything we wouldn’t do for love? Are we so cold and calculating that we think we can measure this feeling and describe it fully by only speaking of it only in cold medical terms? Oxytocin?
When we stand at the altar we say “till death do us apart.” It’s arguably the most important choice in our lives. Hardly anything else compares. Is it really possible to commit to someone without knowing what life might throw your way in 20 years? What if they turn out to be the wrong person and you had kids with them already? We think about love as if there’s a sea of people out there. There aren’t. There’s just as many men as there are women, and we’re all looking for our match. And the other crazy idea is that we don’t find love, we make it happen. Love is a choice.
People who understand love have an easier time understanding God.
Many people believe in God for the wrong reasons and I believe this because of how most people talk about God. They treat God as an obvious fact to accept rather than a mystery to ponder. “Of course I love you, honey” It’s disgusting. They say, “How can you look at the world and tell me there’s no God?” Would they still believe if I could explain nearly everything without invoking the supernatural? “How can you be a moral person without God?” What if I had an answer for this too? Instead of a considered, they respond with incredulity.
How can you be sure that God exists if you’ve never seriously considered the alternative? Are you afraid you might lose your faith? Your faith is weak. You’re like the husband who doesn’t ask where his wife went because he “trusts her”. He doesn’t trust. He just doesn’t want to know because he’s afraid of the truth.
Love isn’t blind trust, but faith. Faith isn’t against reason, but it also isn’t merely reasonable. This is not a question to resolve, but something to keep in tension. When she asks you why you love her, you better not have an answer for her. Is love so weak that it hangs on a set of conditions?
If you can be reasoned into believing in God, you can be reasoned out of it. I tried reasoning my way into it, found it wanting, and quit. Agnosticism is fine, but it’s far more honest to call yourself an atheist if you don’t believe there’s someone looking over your shoulder. You don’t get to God by a proof or even personal revelation. After all, how can you be sure your mind isn’t playing tricks on you? God and love exist axiomatically. He’s the answer that hasn’t been found yet. He’s the invisible force that gives civilizations their success.
Faith and love are a choice and then a commitment.
We don’t understand God because we don’t understand love.