The Opposite of Inferiority

I used to have an inferiority complex when it came to interactions with pure materialist/atheists, because I thought they had the advantage over people who believe in God. Mainly because they had an argument that seemed more logical. We can’t see God, We can’t sense him, if we look about us in the world, we don’t seem to see his influence coming to bear. People of faith, to a materialist/atheist, look foolish and naïve. We go about our lives ignoring reality and the plain evidence of our senses. Why should we live by outmoded rules made by religious zealots of long ago? Why shouldn’t we eat drink and make love whenever and however we like?

The truth is, though, that this is the shallow view. Ordering your life solely by what your senses and observations (and appetites) tell you ignores history, reality, and the possibility that what can be perceived by the senses don’t tell the whole story (the latter being the main inconsistency in a purely materialist outlook). The real argument for belief in God doesn’t come from the headlines, but by the history books. It doesn’t come from the rantings of the intellectual elite, but by the real lives of the faithful. There is more truth to be gleaned from the story of one anonymous saint who lives on your own street than there is from all the writings of all the “enlightened” philosophers combined.

And while faith can’t be defined by personal experience, there has to be something to be said for the personal experiences of so many people in so many eras who experienced God directly. Charlatans and false mystics aside, the evidence is convincing, if you look for it, that God does take part in our lives. Further, logic dictates that if God really is not obviously present, then revelation would be the way he would commune with us. That’s the key. His revelations in scripture, the incarnation, and the teachings of the Church are how he becomes immanent to us. But it takes a swallowing of pride, that many of us can’t abide, to come to grips with this.

In the end, I’ve come to believe that the pure materialist/atheist has missed the boat. He is at an inferior position. Rather than feel superior, I feel pity, and sorrow, and thankfulness that somehow God got through to me, despite all the roadblocks I put in his way. The thing I feel most for him, though, is hope, because I believe that the atheist is closer to finding God than the lax, self-satisfied theist. I think God may have a special place in his heart for atheists, because they seem to be the ones who are doing the most genuine searching for Him.