Exploring Christian Belief Today

A recent painting by the author. As Keats related truth and beauty, I find a deep connection between the goodness seen in our created universe and the soul’s desire to enter that goodness and plumb its very depths. Art is a response to that desire. Something deep inside our souls resonates at a profound level with what we observe and experience in nature and the world around us. When art satisfies through doing or seeing, it is because somehow that connection is made.

For readers of the Top Down or Bottom Up series of posts, this post marks a major transition of focus. Most of the 100 or so posts have critically analyzed the physicalist belief system that dominates our education, journalism and other major cultural drivers. My conclusion is that what we know today through science and philosophy does not support the physicalist belief system. In other words, there is “something more,” a form of transcendence, a mental/spiritual realm ignored or denied by physicalists.

If physicalism is wrong, then what is right? That is the question I propose to explore in future posts, focusing on the belief system of biblical theism (shared by Jews and Muslims) and specifically Christianity (not shared by Jews and Muslims). To begin that exploration I felt it important to define what I mean by Christian belief today. That is mission impossible, of course, as differences far outnumber similarities. But, are there core ideas or beliefs that can serve to define Christian belief from others? I think so, but I’m not sure how much agreement there would be even on those most basic ideas. This may be considered an effort to identify those, or, better, just one Christian believer’s ideas about the content of his belief.

Christians worship “God.” They are called “Christians” because they believe the God they worship entered into spacetime in the form…