MY AGNOSTIC FRIEND

Rom 1:17-20:  For the gospel reveals how God puts people right with himself: it is through faith from beginning to end. As the scripture says, "The person who is put right with God through faith shall live." God's anger is revealed from heaven against all the sin and evil of the people whose evil ways prevent the truth from being known. God punishes them, because what can be known about God is plain to them, for God himself made it plain. Ever since God created the world, his invisible qualities, both his eternal power and his divine nature, have been clearly seen; they are perceived in the things that God has made. So those people have no excuse at all!

Agnostic! A term I did not know existed until I met him.  

For those of you reading this, who like me, did not know what the word agnostic means, let me explain it to you:  An Agnostic is a person who believes that the existence of a greater power, such as a god, cannot be proven or disproved. So in the most simplistic form; an agnostic is a person who takes the middle ground between a Theist (Those who believe in the existence of God) and an Atheist (those who do NOT believe in the existence of God). He is only stating that he is unsure of the existence of God.

Before meeting him, my world view was safely divided into Theist and Atheist.  Oh my, how ignorant I was (and still am depending on who you ask, Lol.) That word and our meeting introduced a new view in my world.

You see I live in a place in Africa, where believe in God is taken for granted. The problem Africans have is not in the existence of God or the supernatural, but in the identification of which of the several gods is the true God. Other problems are that we have a lack of true devotion to God(to the extent of having that devotion affect our life and conduct), wrong belief systems and several doctrinal ailments which I will not go into today.

Today, my focus will lie on my interactions with my agnostic friend. When in our several discussions, we finally got round to talking about religious views, he told me that he was an agnostic. Of course, I needed an explanation of the term, and when I got one, I was silently glad that I wasn’t dealing with a complete atheist because I held on to the believe that at least he would give a fair hearing to my arguments for the faith, since he was basically unsure of the existence of God.

I tried not to push my belief in his face, but responded in the most logically appealing way I could to his inquiry when he asked questions that bothered on faith. I tried not to quote so much of the scriptures(a task I found a bit hard to do initially) but using the real message behind them to present a defense for having faith in God. I defended passionately because I believed his questions to be from a heart that was clearly undecided, genuinely seeking answers and also I spoke in defense of my faith in God.

He constantly scanned the internet, and his mind, and threw all sorts of tricky questions at me. To this, I tried the best I could to give an honest logically answer. After a while, I had to rely on his childhood memories of scriptures (he once was a “Christian” and still remains one in name at least), to defend some questions he got from watching youtube videos of Atheists and some “Christians”(I referred to this trend in my piece on Kingdom-mindness) that make mockery of the faith.

After several months of interaction with my friend, I have come to some conclusions. (Please note that these conclusions are based on my interactions with only ONE agnostic).

I noticed that my agnostic friend seemed tolerant enough to listen to my views and conceded to a lot of my arguments. Having said that, all my best arguments and reasoning aside, I came to the conclusion that the agnostic chooses a safe middle ground and will do absolutely nothing. He expects God to prove Himself to him and is not really seeking to know which side holds a true view of the existence or otherwise of God.  He waits for something to magically fall on him and bring an understanding of God. He is unwilling to search the scriptures to find out why people believe in it. He is cowardly and clearly would hold his views rather than seek to know who has it right. To be honest, he leans more towards an atheistic world view but does not want the label of an atheist. He agrees to evolution but will not consider himself an evolutionist.  He has a world view that is more willing to believe in the non-existence of god than in the existence of god. He smiles constantly when he thinks he has found arguments that disprove the existence of God and with much joy pushes it.  He asks questions  that are against having faith, more than those that will seek to understand the lack of it. 

He is already biased and his sitting on the fence about the issue of faith shows a weakness in character, that leans towards being politically correct or a path that offers the least offense (Sadly a number of Christians have also adopted this approach to issues, forgetting that Jesus never promised us that the world would give us an easy ride for our faith.)

The Bad news for him, though, is this, not trying to explore the notion that God does exist, will not be a good enough excuse on the day of judgement.  You cannot afford to sit on that pretty fence with regards to your eternal destiny! Why don’t you be sure that there is a God or there is no God to answer to at the end of life? Cause belief me I would rather belief there was God and wake up in eternity and find out there was none, than the alternative.

Though he is still dear to me and in my prayers, I have come to the end of my desire to present my arguments to him and can only trust that God can use some of what I have shared with him to capture his heart. But the clearest message such an individual will have about the existence of God, is in creation itself.