Understanding the World)

Mankind has always had the desire to understand the world around us. Indeed, the desire to comprehend our reality seems to be as great as our desire to know what is morally right. Long before our modern conception of the scientific method, people would try to explain life and death, disease, the changing seasons, and the different elements of nature by telling stories of unseen cosmic forces. Even with the advent of the scientific method started to take hold, people would still give naïve, pseudo-scientific explanations for the world, such as the medical descriptions of the four humours of the body.

Because of our great hunger to understand ourselves and the world we inhabit, we tend not to accept a belief system that does not fit with our perception of reality. To believe in God we have to believe that He is the cause of the world as we see it today. Conversely, if we do not see God as the cause of the world, then we do not feel it right to believe in Him. As a result, just as the scientific explanation for the world has parted itself from intelligent design, the general population has increasingly parted ways with their spiritual beliefs.

Limitations of Our Models)

Of course, no model for understanding the universe is complete. Much as the die-hard atheist might have us believe otherwise, we have no explanation for why the universe is comprised of an ordered nature, or how the first proteins could have formed by random chance. This is a topic of such depth and breadth that I won’t attempt to cover it here, but just know that the idea that the building blocks of life randomly collided together without any intelligent intervention has serious mathematical problems. The odds against such an occurrence are astronomical beyond belief, and require assumptions that go against the tenets of natural selection. Thus, the scientific explanation is actually at war with itself in trying to model these developments.

But most devotees of science don’t delve that deep into their own subject. They see clear, natural explanations for the realities that are immediately at hand, such as for how a ball drops, and a balloon rises, and ice melts, and fire consumes wood, and they are content to say that because everything they see is accounted for, there is no need for a God. So long as the edifice looks complete around us, we tend to not care whether there’s a rational foundation down below.

The Resistance to Change)

And there is something about this which we can abstract into a general rule for disbelief. Materialists will passionately reject rational, scientifically-backed criticisms of their materialistic beliefs because they are afraid of having their conception of reality upended. They might claim all sorts of rational superiority, but when they face a rational argument that they cannot refute, many of them will become emotional and openly hostile. Ironically, it is just the same when a theist who does not actually understand his doctrine has the flaws in his faith pointed out as well. In both cases, what is being challenged is the person’s core desire to hold to a model for the universe, an intense fear of what would happen if they let that model go.

And that basic human instinct is true whether we are talking about scientific materialists, or disciples of social opinion, or a theist that refuses to consider a different doctrine, or any other sort of person that dismisses the true God out of hand, even in the face of rational arguments. People of all sorts have concocted their personal model of the world, and adopting a more divine belief system will always break that model to one degree or another.

As such, those who proselytize Christ’s gospel should have reverence for the fact that when they ask to share a message, really they are asking to shatter that other person’s entire view of reality! Yes, it is a flawed reality, and it would be replaced with something better, but it’s understandable why the other person is so hesitant and unsure. Their reluctance is understandable, and a great deal of love and support is usually necessary for them to make the transition.

Reason #5 for Disbelief is that we have a previously-established model of reality that doesn’t allow for Him. We would have to shatter our existence in order to make way for His existence, and that prospect terrifies us.