It appeared to me that there were two paths to truth, and I decided to follow both of them.—George Lemaître (theoretical physicist, priest, and father of the Big Bang theory)

The question “Is there a God?” can’t be definitively answered.

I’ve concluded that both ideas (that there is a God, that there is no God) are very nearly equally insane.

To be clear, I have zero interest in “converting” anyone to my position. This essay is self-reflection: an argument I’m always having with myself as I wrestle with what I believe and why.

On the “no God” side, we have a story that starts, “In the beginning, all matter was infinitely dense.” One hell of a given. We have life being generated by non-life, hypercomplexity arising from relative simplicity, consciousness from unconsciousness, intelligence from non-intelligence—all this gradually guided by blind mechanisms (self-transcending matter). Accepting that an infinite chain of highly improbable and purely material events conspired to make our universe and all life (arriving at human life) is, I believe, a kind of faith with many cause-and-effect problems. Having said all that, I cannot and will not say that it couldn’t have happened just like that: uncaused, all by itself, and without intention. Maybe it did.

On the “God exists” side, we have an all-powerful Being (of some sort) that is responsible for All Things. Essentially, God is “that without which nothing exists.” The Prime Mover. The Ground of All Being. At least, here, we have a cause sufficient to the effect if we accept that this God is living, conscious, intelligent, and intentional. It is pretty tough, though, to come up with this God’s origin story. We kind of have to decide that this God has always been and that this God transcends time and matter. No small leap of faith.

So, we have two kinds of “magic” to choose from. Purely material magic or supernatural magic.

Two insane stories to explain how we and everything in the universe got here.

Yet, here we are, undeniably.

For me, the pure materialism story collapses under its own logic.

The God story (not any religion’s God—that’s a separate problem, entirely—I’m talking about a non-specific, non-denominational, belonging to no culture or holy book kind of God here) falls apart under “rational” scrutiny as well.

Agnosticism, it seems to me, is the most respectable position. Maybe it leans toward or away from God, but it begins with a Socratic nod to the depth of our ignorance.

Theism, for me, is the more comforting position. Inside my own personal theism, I get to have conversations with God, I get to feel the presence of Spirit in me and in the natural world, I get to lay down my burdens in prayer, and even make room for hope in an afterlife. It also feels right, in both my gut and brain.

Granted, this could be an illusion I sustain because it soothes a mortal facing his mortality.

I’m okay with that.

I have to admit I would not make a good atheist. It doesn’t suit me in any way. I’d be perpetually disgruntled, irritated, dissatisfied, and, frankly, mildly depressed.

Nevertheless, I respect atheism. I think it’s brave. It gets to claim a kind of intellectual, rugged individualist pride. After all, some of the most brilliant people on Earth are atheists.

I conclude that no religion is literally true, but most of them are pointing to kinds of truth about the fundamental unity of all people and what matters when you strip away simple survival, animal pleasures, and ideas of power and acquisition. Both agnostic and atheistic frameworks can arrive at similar principles.

Whatever God is, I choose to believe that he/she/it is personal and good. The God I choose to believe in wants to minister to all of us, hang out with us, guide us to better ways of being than our mere animal selves would allow, and see to it that our souls are taken care of at the end of the show.

I choose, therefore, supernatural magic over material magic.

I might’ve made a choice that doesn’t align with reality. I admit that. I absolutely don’t know I’m right.

It’s the choice that makes the most sense to me and gives me the most peace.

To my way of reckoning, I’d be a fool to choose otherwise, my disposition being what it is.

If I’m wrong, I’m happily wrong.