God Is Not Found In PhDs

“God is not found in PhD’s. That’s why there are many intellectuals, atheists, humanists, agnostics & so called freethinkers with impressive PhD’s who sadly have still not encountered God. But degree is not the problem, but wrong focus is. God is found by the humble-hearted, those who genuinely yearn and hunger for Him”… Albert Etornam Dogbe. (16th May 2016).

The above was my own quote for the world which I posted 16th May 2015 on my blog www.aedogbeministries.wordpress.com I was inspired to write this after watching a debate between two great intellectuals on YouTube2, on the topic, “Why I am or I am not a Christian”

Dr. William Lane Craig vs. Dr. Keith Parsons both with Doctorate degrees, in fact PhDs. Dr. William Lane Craig had PhD in Theology and a second PhD in Philosophy of Religion whilst Dr. Keith Parsons had PhD in Philosophy and a second PhD in the History of Science.

These are great credentials that I admire as captured in my quote above. According to Dr. William Lane Craig who is a Christian, he says he had always looked in awe at the universe and its wonderful design and always wondered how it came about and that there must be a creator behind it. He said although he believed in God, “God was not a reality in my life”.

He says he tried church in his neighborhood a few times but saw so much hypocrisy from his neighbors’ youngsters, knowing what lives they were living outside of church so withdrew from church for some time. He says he was later touched by a classmate who was always so happy and that angered him all the time.

So when he one day enquired of the source of her joy, she said it was because “I know Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Saviour” What? “But I also go to church”, says Bill. That’s not enough you have got to get him living in your heart”. Why would I want to do a thing like that? She said because “He loves you”. According to William (Bill) this was the beginning of his personal encounter with Jesus Christ living in his heart for the last 30 years.

Dr. Keith Parsons gave his reasons for not being a Christian. One of them, according to him was “a conscientious well considered skepticism of Christianity is an intellectually respectable position”. He also dismissed the evidence of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. One of his arguments was that we cannot say Jesus resurrected when the angels rolling the stone away from Jesus’ tomb was not captured on video to produce extraordinary evidence.

Lessons & issues from this piece

1. Knowing God is a personal encounter that each person must have. Similar to Dr. Craig’s example, many years ago without even college education, I began to question my parents about the evidence of God as a child, looking at the awesome night sky, the moon and the stars and the sun, and the vegetation. As a child, the awesomeness pointed to some super power behind all. No wonder today, science talks about intelligent design of life and living things for example, which point to the evidence that things did not just happen by mistake, they were made by design. And God said let there be light, and there was light was a controlled design, not natural accident.
2. Denying and rejecting God is seen by atheists as an intellectually respectable thing to do? He says “…skepticism of Christianity is an intellectually respectable position”. Pleasing your intellect at the expense of your soul and eternity? Pitiful indeed.

• It is not enough to go to church. We can go to church but still miss God.

1. High learning is precious, but does not answer every question about life. PhD is not a guarantee to knowing God, it takes a searching heart to find Him.
2. Science (or intellectualism for want of a better word) does not explain things beyond the physical. Sadly science ignores or rejects them as non- existing.
3. Without a very high intellectual attainment, one can still acknowledge and see God in his creation. This was the case with Dr. William Lane Craig and many others like my late father and mum (still living). As the scriptures confirm that,

“For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so they are without excuse, because, although they knew God,they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools. (Roman 1:20-22)

• How about the numerous eyewitnesses who saw;

1. the empty tomb,
2. saw the physical presence of the resurrected Jesus Christ
3. and some touched (Him e.g. Doubting Thomas)
4. And inspected the wounds of the nails in his palm and feet before believing that Jesus was alive again?
5. And others who ate meals with him? How can we say all these people were hallucinating?

• God, on daily basis reveals to us that he is love. He loves the sinner (like you and I), the prostitute, the atheist, the agnostic, the humanist, and the armed robber. Despite all these evils, God still sustains our lives with the breath of live, over which the atheist also has no control, waiting for us to repent and come to Him.
• God is truly patient. Out of the love, he does not destroy the sinner. What a good God!

As a fact, I have always been interested in meeting an atheist for some time now (I hear they are now in Africa and even Accra, Ghana) so I can check what their motivations are, how they think and hear their troubles. I have, at least on two occasions put this request on my Facebook wall asking to be linked to any of them.

As the result, I was not surprised to receive a comment from an atheist from Kenya as a reaction to my quote (as above) on my blog www.aedogbeministries.wordpress.com

This is the verbatim conversion that took place between me and the atheist on my blog and if you are interested, may I invite you to join me on my blog www.aedogbeministries.wordpress.com for the full interaction.