Gnter Bechlys Journey to Faith – Discovery Institute

Photo: Gnter Bechly in a scene from the documentary Revolutionary, via Discovery Institute.

I was fascinated by a new article inSalvo Magazineby our paleontologist colleague Gnter Bechly about his journey to faith. He commented to me:

I embraced ID for purely scientific reasons many years before I embraced theism and Christianity, for totally unrelated philosophical and historical reasons. Indeed, I have no theological issues with Darwinism at all, and my faith would be unaffected if Darwinism were to turn out to be true, and my critique of neo-Darwinism and endorsement of ID would be unaffected if Christianity or even generic theism should turn out to be false. After all, my preferred model of ID is not based on direct divine intervention but on a kind ofquantum computation on the level of entangled genes.

That said, please read his remarks atSalvo. I found the conclusion to be particularly candid and moving:

In hindsight, I think it was definitely due to the grace of the Holy Spirit that I did not give up but always returned to do more reading on remaining issues, which included all of the usual suspects, like the problem of evil, atrocities in the Old Testament, biblical anachronisms, contradictions in the Gospels, and unbelievable miracles you name it. Ultimately, I reached a point where the evidence and arguments were so overwhelming, while most of my problems with Christianity could be resolved, that I had no choice but to surrender to the call of Christ.

So how has my Christian faith developed since my conversion? Actually, it turned out to be very difficult to pray when you had never prayed before your fiftieth birthday. Even though I delved into Scripture and prayed for a more direct experience of Gods presence and personal relationship with Christ, this has not manifested yet. I hope this will change with time. Maybe it is simply my destiny to be an evidentialist Christian, or maybe I still have some way to go on this remarkable journey.

I can identify with the last paragraph, in the context of my own different religious tradition, with certain other differences as well. Thank you, Gnter, for your openness about all this.Read the rest atSalvo.

Link:

Gnter Bechlys Journey to Faith - Discovery Institute