Apologetics Aren't Enough to Connect You with a Person

This morning I was thinking about someone who left a comment
on our blog last year.  After immersing
himself in apologetics, “Searching” had found himself struggling with his
faith. Since I first read his comment, I’ve heard virtually the same story at
least twice more, so I suspect that talking about this could be helpful for
some of you—if not to deal with a current situation, then at least to avoid
these difficulties in the future. Below is an abbreviated version of his comment
followed by my (edited) response:

Having been a committed and serving
Christian for nearly 30 years, I have been going through a real crisis of faith
over the past few years. During that time, I have been increasingly engaging in
the debate that has arisen with the New Atheists, and I have come to the
conclusion that the case for God's existence cannot be finally settled one way
or the other. The evidence is inductive, rather than deductive, and cumulative.
It will get you so far and then the move from merely cognitive to relational
and existential takes place, and one places one's trust in God.

But that's where it has broken down
for me. For, at the same time as I was exploring the apologetic arguments, I
suffered from a very severe case of depression (induced, most likely, by an
underactive thyroid). I was overwhelmed by a whole series of completely
non-rational emotions that caused me to doubt almost everything in life,
including my relationships with those closest to me.

I have leveled off emotionally now,
and am much more in control of my feelings. However, the nagging uncertainties
remain; I think I still trust in God relationally, but I am often
assailed by doubts from my analytical side—you’re deluding yourself, you've
been suckered into this, this is purely wish fulfillment. Set against this are
30 years of very real experience of the truth and reality of my relationship
with God.

So which do I believe? How do I
reignite the existential side of my relationship with God without being
bombarded by questions and doubts from parts of my rational thinking? I
desperately want to reclaim my faith, but I fear I am slipping into the
agnostic camp.

When it comes to putting our trust in God, I wouldn’t
describe it as analytic thinking getting you “so far” and then
intuitive/relational thinking “taking over.” I don’t think that’s exactly
what’s going on. I think, rather, that we get information from both of these
types of thinking and they interact with each other. So in your case, when you
lost all accurate input from your relational thinking because of your
depression, you were working on less complete information, and your confidence
failed (just as it did with your other relationships). 

Now think about how spending a large amount of time on
atheist blogs will affect you when you’re in a less-than-optimal emotional state.
Imagine if, while you were feeling severely depressed, you had spent all your
time with someone who was constantly trying to prove to you that your family
and friends didn’t care about you. How would your relationships have come out?
Not so good. So it’s not surprising that you’re feeling this way now about God.

We’re such complicated beings, and our physical bodies
affect so much of how we think and feel. I know from experience what depression
does for a person’s relationship with both God and man, and it’s not pretty. I
don’t blame you at all for feeling disconnected from God and not knowing where
to go from here.

The important thing to remember is that our relationship with
God is a relationship with a person. Sometimes I think we forget this and start
treating Him as if He were a thing that we walk around, look at, and learn
about, rather than a person whom we know and relate to. When you’re asking what
to do about reigniting the existential side of your relationship with God, ask
yourself what you would do about reigniting the existential side of any
relationship after a situation of distrust like this.

First, you’re going to have to work through your cognitive issues against the
relationship, just as you would with a friend whom you no longer trusted, but
with whom you wanted to try again to develop a friendship. Keep looking for
answers. You’re probably better off reading some good, new apologetics books than
hanging around blogs. It’s just quieter that way. Give yourself a chance to
focus on one question at a time.

But secondly, if you were working to reignite a relationship
with someone, you would also spend time
with that person, right? Again, speaking from my own experience with
depression, if you stop spending time with anyone—God or man—the relationship
will seem shaky, less real, distant. The trouble is that when we’re depressed,
we don’t have the strength to keep going back to a shaky relationship when it’s
not immediately rewarding. So here’s the oh-so-annoying answer: you have to do
it anyway. Even if it’s boring and plagued with doubts.

What I’ve found with prayer is that it’s very difficult to
start up again after being away from it. But don’t stop. Because I’ve also
found there’s a dramatic difference in my life when I pray and when I
don’t pray. The older I’ve gotten, the more God has not allowed me to drift.
I’m forced to depend on Him and stay close because as soon as I stop meeting
with Him, things get very difficult. Not in terms of my belief necessarily, but
my life, and drive, and love for God, and connection to Him.* I’ve learned
firsthand that my soul is real, and it’s a spiritual reality that if I don’t
eat and drink prayer and the Bible, my soul will starve. I wrote about this here: “The
answer to your apathy or despair might be as simple as beginning to eat again.”
You need to place as much urgency on these things as you do on eating physical
food. This makes all the difference for me.

In addition to prayer, I highly recommend you try something
like this.
Pick one of the shorter books in the New Testament (Ephesians, Galatians, etc.)
and read it twice or more a day for a month, then move on to the next one.
Memorizing whole chapters can also help you to meditate on them. See what
happens.

I also recommend you get out of apologetics a little and
start listening to people who plumb the depths of God. Apologetics aren't
always focused on the person of God, so you're not getting the full picture if
that's where you're spending all your time. Read some books that are hundreds
of years old (I love this
autobiography and this
book). Listen to these.
God is bigger than the discussion that's happening right now, and maybe it
would help to see that.

I’m not saying spending time with God will make up for
intellectual doubts, but neither would I say that answering intellectual doubts
will make up for a lack of time with God—don’t go after one at the expense of
the other. Remember that God is a real person, not just an argument. If you’re
not interacting with Him as a person—even if only weakly—you can’t expect to
strengthen your relationship just by thinking about arguments about Him. You
wouldn’t approach a relationship with any other person that way, right?

And just as it would be the case with a person other than
God, it means something that you have a past relationship with Him that you
remember and cherish. Don't forget that—it’s something for your analytic side
to keep in mind. Knowledge of that past relationship makes it worth doubting
your doubts about the current relationship and trying again.

___________________

*Of course, I’m speaking of my subjective sense of connection here. My actual connection with God is objective
and unshakable because it depends on Christ’s work on the cross, not on my
feelings. Think of the difference this way: I am securely my earthly father’s
daughter no matter how well I know him, and yet there are real relational
benefits from closely and consistently interacting with him and knowing him
more deeply. In the same way, my standing before God depends only on my union
with Christ, and yet the relationship can be experienced more deeply by me, and
I will be more affected by it, as I spend time with Him.