Everyone starts with a basic assumption, the assumed truth from which all other truth can be deduced. The materialist starts with the natural, the Christian with the supernatural. Ultimately, no method exists that can convince us of one assumption or another. At this beginning point nothing is proven—everything is asserted.
This assumption, let’s call it the proloquium*, forms the foundation of each person’s worldview. Everyone has a worldview. It composes the framework through which an individual views the world, e.g. the basis for a person’s morality, theology, value system, legal system, method of science, etc. It’s the storehouse of ideas that define a person. It identifies, for example, the values that cause them to oppose ‘bad’ and support ‘good’, the theological beliefs that determine how they relate to a ‘god’. It answers the questions such as: Where have we come from? Where are we going? What should we do?
Back to the proloquium. So why is it assumed? Why can’t it be proved? Simply because nothing exists to prove it with. You see, the concept of proof and assumption—objectivity and subjectivity—come from an idea that we call Reason. We live in a society obsessed with reason. Every product, every strategy, every decision, is subjected to testing and re-testing, evaluation, theories. Science, in other words. We only teach things that are ‘reasonable’ in school. But where does Reason come from? What makes it ‘reasonable’?
The only answer that I can come up with is that our proloquium either is Reason, or Reason is derived from the proloquium. This means that the proloquium ‘predates’ reason, if you will, rendering any discussion of a provable proloquium meaningless.
So which proloquium should we assume? For the Christian, the choice stands clearly before you. “In the beginning, God” explicitly states the foundation of Christian thought in four simple words. Out of God flows every other component of reality: reason, matter, love, truth, joy, choice, thought, etc. An initial assumption of God offers an explanation for every experience in life. In fact, coming up with an alternate assumption that sufficiently accounts for every aspect of reality that we experience is extremely difficult.
Let’s follow a couple of examples through to completion. How about plain old matter? A materialist might proffer eternal matter as a basic starting point. While this can explain the origin of material objects, immaterial entities get left out of the picture. And there are a lot of immaterial things that need explaining. Take reason. Have you ever felt it? Smelt it? Seen, heard, or tasted it? Weighed it’s mass? Measured it’s volume? Then it must not exist. But we undoubtably experience it. Even the statement “Then it must…” is firmly rooted in basic If-Then logic.
Well, matter doesn’t fully explain reality, so how about reason itself? Now we run into the opposite problem. Reason, being immaterial, cannot offer a justification for the material world. It is purely theoretical, and although Reason can utilize material observations to justify material conclusions, it cannot create matter.
No one is going to decide your basic assumption for you, each of us has the responsibility (and ability) to determine what we believe for ourselves. And it wouldn’t be a bad idea to have a solid foundation, because believing the wrong proloquium can have serious consequences.
If assumptions form the basis of all our beliefs, how can we determine the validity of one proloquium over another? Nearly all people share certain common conceptions, and we can use these to decipher the best proloquium.
So, what concepts and beliefs do we share? Primarily, humankind desires ‘good’. Interpretations of what constitutes ‘good’ can vary (but surprisingly, not by much) between individuals, cultures, and countries. But the common denominator remains, we all desire what we consider ‘good’. Conversely, we all avoid bad or ‘evil’. No one will choose to do or experience what they consider ‘evil’. Again, individual definitions may vary—the masochist desires what many people avoid at all cost, but to him, his actions are ‘good’.
A second common factor may be found in Reason. We all behave in relatively reasonable ways. Very few people indeed seek out unreasonable behavior. Take for example John Cage (1912-1992), a musician who devised a system of composing music that depended solely on chance; this reflected his belief that chance formed the basis of life. But when he began collecting mushrooms he “became aware that if I approached mushrooms in the spirit of my chance operations, I would die shortly. So I decided I would not approach them in this way!”† Most of us, like Mr. Cage, desire to stay alive, and take very reasonable measures to ensure that, such as providing our bodies with food and water, keeping ourselves in health, avoiding dangerous or toxic activities, etc. We communicate with a reasonably constructed language, we take reasonable steps to achieve our objectives. Mathematics, a very reasonable field, forms the basis of our economy and many sectors within it.
Several other common concepts exist, however, the ideas of Good and Reason are sufficient to begin explaining why I accept the proloquium of God.
Generally, two views of God present themselves: either God exists or God does not exist. Proponents of each view are referred to as ‘believers’ and ‘unbelievers’, respectively. Unbelievers may have different reasons for their conviction, but they are quite homogenous when it comes to what they believe, viz. God does not exist. Believers, on the other hand, differ widely on topics such as: the nature of God, the relationship between God and man, the duties and responsibilities of man, the rewards and punishments bestowed by God, etc.
For now, let’s just assume that if God exists, it is in the form spelled out in the Holy Bible. I understand the enormity of this assumption, which I shall explore in a future publication. For the sake of argument, I will assume a Biblical God.
Once we make that assumption things get quite simple. In fact, we can describe our ‘options’, so to speak, in the table below.
| God Exists | God Does Not Exist | |
| Believe | +∞ | Undefinded |
| Do Not Believe | -∞ | Undefinded |
You may recognize this as Pascal’s Wager. If so, you are correct in your pronouncement. I’ve modified the original wager slightly to incorporate the idea of hell, which Pascal left out in his original wager. Since we’re assuming the God of the Bible, if God exists believers go to heaven (characterized by infinite positive utility) and unbelievers go to hell (infinite negative utility). Some have raised the question of whether heaven or hell would constitute infinite utility in either direction, but even if they had a finite value the same conclusion would be reached because the Bible clearly places heaven above hell in terms of desirability.‡
What happens if you make a choice that results in ‘undefined’? Well, that’s somewhat open to interpretation. Typically, unbelievers hold to an ‘extinction’ view, where death ends your existence and nothing happens afterwards which concerns you. So the total utility of a life is simply the sum total of all good experiences minus all evil experiences.
This begs the question: If God does not exist, is it better to believe or not believe? Belief, even without fulfillment, may actually be a better choice than disbelief. Studies have found that those with religious affiliations tend to live longer and lead happier lives.§ Basic human nature seems to enjoy perpetuating existence and attempts to avoid death and evil at all costs.
| God Exists | God Does Not Exist | |
| Believe | +∞ | ~50 |
| Do Not Believe | -∞ | ~50 |
For the sake of argument, I’ll just make the two undefined cells roughly equivalent. Now we can do a little analysis of our options. If God exists then belief is, obviously, our best choice. If God doesn’t exist then it’s quite irrelevant which choice we make—in which case we may as well believe and risk eternal life rather than disbelieve and risk eternal punishment.
And that is why I believe in God.
* It would probably be good to offer a formal definition of any new term. For my purposes, Proloquium refers to the most basic belief that a person holds and from which they generate the remainder of their beliefs. (From the latin for assertion, utterance).
† qtd. in The God Who Is There, Francis A. Schaeffer, Intervarsity Press, Illinois, 1998, p. 98.
‡ Luke 12:5 for hell, John 3:16 for heaven. The Bible also offers promises to believers while still on earth, for example Joshua 1:8.
§ William J. Strawbridge, Richard Cohen, Sarah Shema, and George Kaplan, “Frequent Attendance at Religious Services and Mortality over 28 Years”, June 1997, American Journal of Public Health Vol. 87, No. 6.