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"None of those who have Hell before their eyes will fall into Hell. No one of those who despise Hell will escape Hell.... Nothing is so profitable as to converse concerning Hell. It renders our souls purer than any silver."  

~St. John Chrysostom~

BOOK - God’s Revelation and Why Some Don’t Want It

 Dear Aaron,

             It is good to hear that your roommate took what you had to say fairly well. From what you wrote he seems to be a nice guy who is just off the narrow path at the moment.

Your conversation with him was interesting and dovetails nicely with my last e-mail, as he is clearly thinking along the lines of the enlightenment. This has him believing that everything must be proven either by the scientific method or philosophical logic. As I said before he is typical of most Americans, in that, although we believe in God, we don’t believe that He will reveal Himself to us. As a result we don’t believe we can know who the real God is, and therefore conclude that the right religion and by extension the right morals cannot be known. So all that can be expected of us is to believe what we think is right, and do what we think is best. In other words do and believe anything we wish.

This in my opinion is the unofficial national religion of America. The logic is sound, but is dependent upon the belief that God cannot be known, which is dependent upon the enlightenment way of thinking. If the enlightenment was right then we are right, but if it was wrong then we are wrong.

On the one hand everyone must decide for themselves what they think about enlightenment philosophy, but on the other hand in whatever we choose to believe we should at least be consistent, and I don’t believe that we have been. For example as Americans we tend to believe in the existence of a loving God, and at the same time we believe that He is unwilling to make Himself known to us.

Now I understand that God’s ways are not our ways, but I think we are pretty safe in saying that for both God and man love is primarily relational. If we love someone we want to know them and to have them know us. So why, if we believe that God loves us, do we also believe that he is unwilling to make Himself known to us so we can have a relationship with Him? It not only doesn’t make sense, but it seems as if we are randomly stringing together beliefs to fit our lifestyle.

Another aspect of love is that it always desires the highest good of another. It certainly seems to me that it is in our highest good to know our Creator. It doesn’t seem like an act of love to leave us floundering in this fallen world with all its traps and pitfalls not letting us know what it is all about or how to navigate through it.

If you can get your roommate to understand this then you can inform him that if he wants to know the truth he can begin to ask God to open up his eyes.  Certainly he would have nothing to lose and everything to gain. If God never reveals Himself then he simply continues to be ignorant of the truth, and if he does then your roommate will gain the knowledge of God. He has everything to gain and nothing to lose. This of course would hold true for everyone not just your roommate.

The one problem you may run into is that many people, despite protestations to the contrary, really do not want to know God especially if this means obeying Him. This is particularly true of college students, who for the first time in their lives are out from under their parent’s authority, and can finally decide for themselves how to live. The last thing many of them want is a God with commandments telling them what to do. This makes them particularly susceptible to enlightenment thinking. They already want to choose their own beliefs and morals so it is easy for them to buy into the idea that God cannot be known. In addition we have become so intoxicated with the power of choosing our own morals and beliefs that this has become more important to us than being right and knowing truth.

One way to show your roommate or fellow students that his way of thinking is foolish is to first ask them to imagine that they are on their deathbed looking back on their life. Then ask them whether at that moment it will be more important to them to have done and believed as they pleased, or to have done what is right and believed what is true. I think the answer is obvious, and this is the reason why the great saints of the ages would tell their disciples to always keep death in front of their eyes. It is only if we know what is important in death that we will we know what is important in life. It may sound a bit morbid to the American mind, but it helps to keep things in perspective.

Don’t lose heart with your roommate, and don’t let him come between you and your evangelism. Sometimes people have to explore the depths of sin before they reach out to God. That’s the way it was for me, and maybe it’s the same for him. Keep up the good work.