I envy my Christian friends for the faith I cannot share

Over last weekend, I often envied some of my friends. I did share some of the splendour, listening to both the Matthew Passion and the B Minor, surely the two greatest of all musical works. Et Resurrexit Tertia Die. I did not go to Church. but the Easter solemnities should be magnificent under the baton of an able ecclesiastical conductor. Although we know what is going to happen, there ought to be an air of suspense, right until the climax, when Christ is Risen.

Music, painting, sculpture, architecture, the scriptures: Christ’s Passion has inspired the highest outpourings of the human mind and spirit. Yet many believers, fully appreciative of great art, would insist that faith transcends aesthetics. I admire, respect and to an extent envy such faith. But I cannot share it. I cannot believe, and I would find a simple refutation after any concert or service, on a starlit night. The stars, stretching towards infinity, make it impossible to believe in a God who created humanity and made it His central preoccupation.

The greatest atheist of the twentieth century, Mr Prendergast in Decline and Fall, lost his faith because he could not understand why God had bothered to make the world. How much harder is it to understand why He created all the galaxies in endless space. For Christians, medieval cosmology made sense. So did the belief that the world was created in 4004 BC, by Archbishop Ussher‘s calculation. But once the cosmology was refuted, and with it, later on, the chronology, the Sea of Faith was bound to retreat. When the universe is so vast, how could anyone believe that we are at its centre?

I may find faith impossible. This does not mean that I find unbelief easy. Christianity offers meaning. And relief from the two awesome questions. If God exists, then in some respect the universe will make sense, and with it human life. But if there is no God, we are condemned to console ourselves with religious fantasies on a small planet, cast adrift amidst infinity, a concept which is almost impossible to grasp. If there is no God, then we are mere sentient animals, condemned to perish like all the other animals. Oh Death, where is thy sting? Waiting for us all, just round the corner. Christianity often inspires humans to rise above themselves, but time, that ever-rolling stream, can only be defied for a season. 

I do not enjoy these conclusions, especially as a Tory. Even if I cannot believe, I would hope that as many people as possible should do so. Religion can be an effective social cement. England would be better off if the Church of England was still the Tory party at prayer. So would the Tory party, and so certainly would the C of E. That said, two of the finest Tory intellects, David Hume and Michael Oakeshott, were both atheists, which was also almost certainly true of Thomas Hobbes, a more or less Tory. But all three were quietist by temperament. Stoicism and eupeptic pessimism came easily to them. Most humans are restless beings, who would benefit from the curb and discipline of faith. 

There is an obvious counter to that. What about the many wars of religion? There is an equally obvious rejoinder. Christianity offers a way, a truth, a life. But it does not promise to make men good. Original sin is still the best summary of the human condition. Christ may be risen: man has fallen. Christianity does the best it can with imperfect material. There is plenty of evidence for the proposition that if a man does not believe in God, he will believe in something worse.

So I envy my Christian friends with their more or less certainties: their stronger or weaker faith. Moreover, there is one point that they can make in their favour. During that first Easter in Jerusalem, something occurred. Christ arrived, with followers. He had assured them that His kingdom was not of this world. We can assume that a fair number did not believe Him. He knew that His route lay from Gethsemane to Calvary to Golgotha and only then to Glory. Many of his followers believed that He would chase out the Romans, deal with Herod, the Chief Priest and the other vichyites, freeing His nation and His people. Instead, He endured the Passion. In face of horror and death, how many followers despaired of their faith? It seems unlikely that Peter was the only denier: John, the only fugitive.

The Romans had scourged Him. mocked Him and killed HIm. On the morning afterwards, Pilate might well have thought that he would have no more trouble from that fellow and the scattered and demoralised rabble who now knew how Romans dealt with troublemakers. But a few hours later, a great religion was born. From a Stable in Bethlehem to a Cross in Jerusalem, something happened and is still happening. World without end? Christ is Risen, now and for ever? Even writing this has moved me from atheism to agnosticism. I suspect that I will continue to envy the faith which I cannot share.

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