I am glad that Christianity doesn’t make sense. If it could totally fit inside my rational mind, I would wonder whether it could have been invented by some other human mind. As it is, I don’t think any man could have (or at least would have) invented a system so baffling. Yet it is mysteriously beautiful and coherent. Christianity is built on top of several paradoxical claims about reality. The best way to see the heart of the Christian message is to understand (not resolve) these paradoxes. I choose four big ones.
- The Trinity: God is one being, yet has three distinct persons.
- The Problem of Evil: God is both infinitely good/loving and omnipotent, yet evil exists.
- Sovereignty vs. Free Will: God ordains everything that happens, including men’s decisions, yet man has the responsibility to choose what is right.
- The Hypostatic Union: Jesus was fully God and at the same time fully man.
These are perhaps the four biggest intellectual objections to Christianity – many Christian sects have attempted to tweak their doctrine in order to alleviate the pressure of the apparent incoherence in these paradoxes. But I suggest that it is inside these very paradoxes where lie the core truths and enrapturing beauty of the story that Christianity tells.
Ben Taylor 