The year was 1980. It was approaching midnight as I drove through Chicago. My heart rate seemed in single digits. My eyelids sagged.
I turned on the radio to find stimulation. After negotiating past several noise purveyors, I discovered a talk show on station WGN.
The interviewer was Milt Rosenberg, a psychology professor at the University of Chicago and long-time host of that program. He was talking with philosopher Mortimer Adler.
Born into a non-observant Jewish family, Adler fell in love with philosophy in his teens. In his early twenties, he became captivated by Thomas Aquinas. Although he didn’t confess his faith until later, he wrote that Aquinas “put the study of theology highest among all of my philosophical interests.”
When I heard this discussion, he had just published a book entitled “How to Think About God: A Guide for the Twentieth-Century Pagan.” At that time, Adler considered himself a pagan.
When I tuned in, it was near the end of the program. Rosenberg was asking a question something like this: “Obviously the God of the philosopher and the God of the Bible are different. The God of the philosopher is an idea, but the God of the Bible is a real Person who loves and cares about us. I wonder: Has there been a time, in the dark days, when you were tempted to turn from the God of the philosopher to the God of the Bible?”
I thought I had driven out of the range of the station. Silence. Then Rosenberg came back on. “I guess that question was a little close,” he said, and cut to a commercial. Four years later, Mortimer Adler made his confession of faith in Christ.
The fact is, it’s impossible for anyone to be a true atheist. Everyone is built to have Something or Someone at the top of the pile. If the God of the Bible is rejected, something will rise to take His place. Pantheists still must have a god of gods, like the Roman Jupiter or the Greek Zeus. Or it may simply be my little pea brain that is my god, and I won’t believe anything I can’t fit into it.
Observing the wonder of life and the world’s intricacies, it’s as much a contradiction to believe in a Godless universe as in married bachelors or square circles.
Saul of Tarsus, also a Jewish scholar who became a Christian, would pen these words:
“The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For His invisible attributes, namely, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.” (Romans 1:18-20)
The God of the philosopher may make for an interesting debate, but the God of the Bible cares about you! Take the Bible’s most famous sentence and make it your own: “For God so loved [put your name here], that He gave His only Son, that if [your name] believes in Him, [your name] should not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)
Then you’ll know it’s true: God is now here.
Article by Jabe Nicholson first published in the Commercial Dispatch, Saturday, July 29, 2023