Look, I realise some people will never be satisfied with this title and will say, that’s way too few! Maybe it is. There are many people who will never be satisfied with any number of reasons for why they ought to become a Christian Mysticism. So, let’s start with six; it may not be enough for everyone, but it may just help you (and no one else!) to cross the line.
- EXPLANATORY POWER
No other world view fits reality precisely at every point. The explanatory power of historic, biblical Christianity touches all of reality; from how the magnificent cosmos was created by the all-wise and all-powerful living personal God, to how there is significance written into everything, including ourselves. Internationally, the rise and fall of world empires is best accounted for by the biblical story of human pride and the egocentric lust for power. At an individual level these biblical truths reveal the shocking malignancy of sin in the broken relationship with God our Maker and his overwhelming provision of Jesus Christ as Saviour – Deliverer from our rebel shame and misery. Despite the explanatory power, we also note that the force of logic by itself never made anyone a Christian.
- A FRAMEWORK FOR SCIENCE
Biblical Christianity claims to reveal a finally true philosophy and explanation of reality. A review of the modern history of thought will show that the rejection of medieval superstition and the recovery of biblical Christianity around 400 years ago, led to the discovery of the scientific method. Now thinkers gained a basis for an understandable cosmos and a reasoned approach to designing tests and modelling reality that have continued to be of such use, even to the present. Now, long after secularism has tried to jettison Christianity, it relies on the heritage borrowed from that same Christianity – a rational, dependable framework for scientific enterprise in a meaningful and credible cosmos.
- A SECURE BASE FOR REASON
Ultimately, the roots of our personal rationality are grounded in our being made in the image of the personal living God. But we need a Christian base to accept that there are ample reasons for becoming a Christian. Make no mistake; the Christian position assumes with utter realism the terrible potency of unbelief as it vehemently defies God, all the while borrowing its rationality from him, for, ‘in him we live and move and have our being’ (quoted in Acts 17:28).
Non-Christians also use their God-given reason in futile attempts to justify their unbelief, and cannot escape the serious charge of using what they have been given to deny what they have been given – a rationality that transcends electro-chemistry and which grants a sense of correlation with final reality and a personal significance deriving from the Creator.
