Are some people just too smart to believe in God? A NASA scientist once asked me why she should believe in my Savior. I started to say, “Well you don’t have to be a rocket scientist . . .” but I thought better because she actually was a rocket scientist. I pointed her to the scriptures and to C. S. Lewis. She promised to read them and come back to continue the dialogue.
Paul was speaking to really smart people on the Areopagus. What did he tell them about God? He said the God who created everything doesn’t need a little stone monument to live in. In fact, God, is self-sufficient. He doesn’t need our help. God is a greater giver. He gives us life and breath and all that we need to live. From the first created man, Adam, he made all the nations.
God doesn’t need anything from us, but what does he want for us? He wants us to seek him. If we reach out to God, we will find him. Believing is seeing! God is not far away as the deists contend. No. The transcendent God of the universe chooses to be immanent, right here with us. In God we live and move and have our being. Then Paul quoted the Athenian poets who said, “We are his offspring.”
A few weeks after she left, my NASA friend came back to my office. She had read the New Testament and Mere Christianity. She also lost her parents in those weeks. Sincerely, she asked me, “Why should I believe in your God?” I answered, “Because God is the only one who gives life and can promise us eternal life.” I remember the morning she walked into our baptistery and identified herself as a follower of Jesus. She was buried by baptism into Christ’s death and raised to walk a new life.
Nobody we know is too smart for God. God created us. If we ask him to open our eyes to see him, he will answer our prayer. If we wait until we can see, we will never believe. But if we believe, we will see.
