Why I Am Christian: 5 (Mostly) Philosophical Reasons

Bertrand Russel once wrote an essay called Why I Am Not a Christian. Though I spent a number of years being an atheist, I had not read Bertrand Russel’s essay until after I converted. No surprise, it did nothing to cause me to reconsider, though it did cause me to think Russel had little understanding of Christianity and was largely objecting to a cartoon. Shame, really.

My journey to Christianity/Catholicism was largely, though not entirely, philosophical. (There are, of course, other evidences for Christianity, whether historical or from “confirmatory signs,” etc. For a general apologetic, the interested reader can refer to my cumulative evidential case for Catholicism here.)

Below are 5 (mostly) philosophical reasons I became — and remain — a Christian. I begin with reasons favoring theism (God’s existence) then narrow in on reasons favoring Christianity then finally Catholicism. Note: to set the appropriate expectations, I will not be defending these reasons in depth, only mentioning them and linking to resources for further elaboration.

Reason 1) Because Theism Offers the Best Ultimate Explanation

There is good reason to think that only a classical theistic worldview can affirm that the universe is completely intelligible (= that there exists the complete set of answers to the complete set of questions that can be coherently asked) by reducing the number of brute facts to zero. No atheistic alternative I’ve examined comes close to explanatory power: that is, being able to explain the most with the least.

Other contemporary examples of contingency-style arguments — which claim explanations must ultimately cash out in the non-contingent, self-subsistent absolute, which is God — include iterations from Alex Pruss, Joshua Rasmussen, Robert Koons, Gaven Kerr, Edward Feser, Robert Spitzer, and Timothy O’Connor.

Christianity goes further by giving reasons for God having made us: answers to questions of meaning (why are we here?), morality (what is the good life?), origins (where did we come from?), and destiny (where are we headed?). While one may not find these reasons convincing by themselves, it is hard to argue that they are 1) beautiful and 2) worth investigating. The question, then, is if one already has reason to believe in God, why not see what, if any, evidence there is for God revealing himself?

Reason 2) Because Theism Satisfies the Conditions for Knowledge.

To avoid (radical) skepticism we must take the posture of assuming our cognitive faculties are generally reliable even if not infallible. Theism — that is, an omni-attributed designer that built us for (among other things) attaining truth, plus a commitment to the Principle of Sufficient Reason — supports this posture whereas non-theistic frameworks invite significant doubts. In other words, theism makes the best sense of our being knowers, including scientific knowers.

As Alvin Plantinga and others have argued, naturalism gives us reason to NOT automatically assume our cognitive abilities would be naturally inclined toward truth (or generally good at getting it), since falsehood may prove just as useful for survival in many instances—hence, the probabilities surrounding the reliability of our belief forming mechanisms are either low or inscrutable (this is further supported by computational evolutionary psychology), which causes an epistemological nightmare for naturalists: namely, even if naturalism were true, one could never be justified in saying that they know naturalism is true.

But if God exists, then there is good reason to believe that he made us to come to know the truth about things (even if it is not always easy), which ultimately means coming to know God. Thus, if we better expect to be knowers if theism were true, and if we are convinced we are knowers, this favors theism.

Next: the principle of sufficient reason states that contingent beings (= anything which exists but could have not existed. For example: electrons, cats, Donovan McNabb, etc) have a cause distinct from themselves; in which case contingent beings can be made intelligible via a causal explanation. This is required for knowledge because if the PSR were false then something having “no explanation” becomes just as competitive as any causal explanation. Maybe human evolution is true or maybe (if the PSR is false) something lizard-like walked into a swamp and—for no reason whatsoever—two human beings popped out and began to procreate. Obviously, this “no explanation” possibility would be ruinous to human inquiry—not to mention, fundamentally absurd. However, once the PSR is admitted, one is ineluctably led to theism, because in order to explain why any collection of contingent facts obtain one must admit (to avoid circularity) at least one necessary fact, and it is only a few short moves from necessary fact to God.

Reason 3) Because Theism Offers the Best Account of Objective Morality.

Ethics also depends upon the general reliability of our cognitive faculties (including intuition) plus a commitment to essentialism and teleology. Apart from theism it becomes almost impossible to meet the conditions necessary for a robust ethical account (ontological and epistemological) and to bridge the is-ought gap. While naturalistic accounts that incorporate essentialism and teleology can do some work, most atheists reject these (obvious) components of reality (hence why many of them are nihilists, which is absurd), and these components are best (if not only possibly) explained by God.

Reason 3.5) Because Evil.

Argument here. Short of it: To make sense of the problem of evil as a legitimate complaint assumes conditions that are best (if not only possibly) explained by the existence of God. In which case, evil is evidence for God’s existence, not against.

Reason 4) Because the Good (God) is Self-Diffusive.

There are good philosophical reasons — harkening back to the neo-Platonic tradition — to think if God exists and is subsistent goodness itself (as classical theism affirms), that it is not surprising that 1) God might create a world distinct from himself to share his goodness and 2) would draw all things back to himself that have, for whatever reason (fallible liberty?), departed from their proper trajectory. Given this philosophical backdrop, *something like* the incarnation and atonement begins to make a LOT of sense; and given that we have historical evidence for the emergence of a religion around these incredible claims, this counts in favor of any hypothesis that might lead us to expect something like this would (or could) occur. Hence, Christianity pairs well with — or is befitting, given— philosophical theism.

Think of this way. If some hypothesis predicts x (or something like x) and we see x (or something like x), this counts in favor of that hypothesis. I claim theism predicts — that is, provides a reasonable degree of expectation for — something like the incarnation and atonement and that these claims are so incredible it is difficult to imagine they would have emerged if classical theism wasn’t true. (The upshot of this consideration is that it assists in shouldering the epistemic burden borne with historical evidences for, say, the resurrection.)

Reason 5) Catholicism Is Befitting of Human Nature (and uniquely solves epistemological issues concerning revelation).

We are not just rational animals, but social, dependent, and political animals that must rely on tradition, testimony, and authority to flourish. We are not — nor could we ever be — radically individualistic. This is important because if God has created, then in virtue of being a wise governor, God is going to move things according to their mode of existence (= in accord with their nature).

There is an argument for Catholicism here, provided by Robert Koons.

• God wills that the Church be (visibly) one = a datum of Scripture.

• If God wills an end for X, he must will some effective means that is appropriate for the nature of X.

• The only effective means for the visible unity of the Church that is appropriate to human nature is the historic episcopacy. 

A modified argument, this one epistemological: if God is going to will that we believe true and important things about God and Christ (i.e. grasp the essentials of God’s revelation), we can expect God to will a means appropriate to human nature, and given that we are rational-social-political animals, and given that God has revealed Himself, then for such revelation to be effective requires a visible, hierarchical, successional, authoritative Church and Papacy (or something like it).

That we should expect (something like) apostolic succession and a papacy (= “chief executive”) given our social-political nature, and that we do in fact discover apostolic succession and a papacy — no less, an intuition that has lasted 2000 years while preserving Christian unity and doctrinal purity — is what, in combination with the myriad issues with Sola Scriptura, plus a study of early Christianity and ancient Judaism, led me to become Catholic.

Conclusion: G.K. Chesteron, himself a convert, once remarked, “The difficulty of explaining ‘why I am a Catholic’ is that there are ten thousand reasons all amounting to one reason: that Catholicism is true.” What I’ve provided here is only a sampling of the considerations that caused me to consider Catholicism. For seekers: This article is not meant to be a question ender but a conversation starter. I hope it serves you.