I don’t believe in a God whose existence can be proven because I don’t believe that the human mind has the power to do such things and because I don’t believe you can prove axioms. However, I do believe in a God who makes everything flourish when He is accepted.
Religion comes from “re-ligio”, which is Latin for “tie together”. It’s a silly notion to suggest that we can be Christians without being religious in this precise use of the word. To do so implies that Christianity is just a part of your life that leaves other parts unaffected.
“Hic non potest.”
This cannot be. When God is accepted into the soul and when the person is accepted into God in Christ, everything is changed, though admittedly with a painful gradualness.
When the grace of God occupies a person’s thoughts, extraordinary things can happen – even if that person doesn’t embrace the grace very much.
Here is an example of what I mean.
Try this if that didn’t work:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51u3QBYA2EA
The text is from Psalm 116, the music is by Mozart, and the breath that swells s it is the same one that breathed life into globs of earth in Genesis 2 and John 16.
Here is an interlinear translation of what they are singing:
Laudate Dominum omnes gentes,
Praise the Lord all nations
Laudate eum omnes populi.
Praise Him all peoples
Quoniam confirmata est super nos misericordia ejus,
For his mercy is confirmed upon us*
et veritas Domini manet in Aeternum
And the truth of the Lord shall remain into eternity
gloria patri et filio et spiritui sancto,
glory to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit
sicut erat in principio et nunc semper et in saecula saecularum
as it was in the beginning, is now, always, and into the ages of the ages
Amen, amen.
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This could not have been composed in a culture that lacks a strong religious sensibility and that flees God instead of fearing Him.
“Panis enim dei est, qui de caelo descendit, et dat vitam mundo.” John 6 :33.
* This is a difficult line to translate. “confirmata est” seems to suggest that His mercy is “confirmed upon us” not in the sense that it is publicly acknowledged, but in that it continually and endlessly reaches us and that it always will. It is reliable, to reduce it to a partial explanation.
