Why do some people reject faith?

In a meeting with a certain fellow, a leader of a group that denies the existence of God, he told me: “Many call us atheists. We believe in the extraordinary power of human thought. But we reject belief in God for the following reasons:

“a. We reject the existence of an invisible being that controls human life, demands what is not within our power, and threatens us with eternal punishments; this is what some religious people portray under the name of ‘God.’ There is no spirit of love apparent in their

44 G. L. Prestige, God in Patristic Thought (SPCK, 1936).

45 Herodotus, The History of Herodotus 2.52.

46 St. Clement of Alexandria, The Stromata, or Miscellanies 1.29 (ANF 2:341).

47 St. Athanasius of Alexandria, De Decretis or Defence of the Nicene Definition 3.11 (NPNF II/4:157), amended.

portrayal. Some find belief in God offensive because of this disfigured image of the fatherhood of God; even for young children, where the family, the priest, or the servant present Him as an extremely strict judge, nit-picking for errors, and ignoring our weaknesses. On the other hand, the parent or the leader who conveys the spirit of love attracts souls to God, of whom it is said: ‘God is love.’

“b. We have no need for faith in things that cannot be seen or touched.

“c. With regard to the behavior of religious people, we refuse to associate with any particular group that includes people who belittle those who do not accept their faith, and who argue with them in a spirit of arrogance.”

I recall in 1971 in Los Angeles, a young woman walked into church around midnight together with a group of young people. I asked her about her relationship with God, and she said to me: “And who is God?” I answered her: “He is our Father and your Father.” She said: “What does it mean that He is our Father?” And when I suggested that it was like her own actual father, she replied that she did not know where either he or her mother lived; nor did she want to know where they lived. She had never tasted fatherhood or motherhood from her parents, nor marital love between her parents. So, she was incapable of tasting the love of God, and faith in Him no longer had any place in her heart.

I asked her about her life, and she answered frankly before all present that she lived with her boyfriend.

I asked her: “Are you thinking of marrying him?”

She replied: “I am enjoying a period of amusement, dancing, and drunkenness with him, but I will replace him with someone else after a few months.”

I asked her: “Are you happy?” She answered frankly, “It might appear that I live a life full of happiness. Some may count me the happiest person on the face of the earth. But the truth is that I am desperately miserable, because the life of entertainment in all its manifestations does not give me inner satisfaction, or peace, or security, or true joy.”

This is the harvest that some of us receive from our sons and daughters because the family does not convey the icon of heaven.

Here is the true story of a young man who lived in Alexandria in 1972: This young man was a senior high school student. He snatched up a bible and threw it on the ground, and said in front of all those present: “If there is God, then let Him stop me from trampling on this bible!” His fellow Christians took him to the Church of our Lady, the Virgin Mary in the suburb of Moharam Bek. He spat on her icon, and said to them, “If the Virgin Mary is present, let her wipe the spit from the icon.”

His fellow students asked me to visit him. So I did indeed go, together with servant who is a deacon. When the young man’s father opened the door and saw me, he exclaimed,

“Rescue me, or I will die because of my only son! Prove to him that God exists.” Quietly I asked him to calm down, and told him that I would talk to his son. The father asked that I conduct the discussion with his son in his presence and that of the boy’s mother. I took hold of the son’s hand, and said to the father, “Just let me sit with him.”

I took the boy into his room and said to him, “I heard about you from your colleagues. I have not come to argue with you, but to chat with you in the spirit of love, for the sake of your own inner peace.”

After we spoke about the words of St. Augustine — that behind every atheism there is lust — I said to him, “I know that in your depths you want to meet with God. But what is blocking you from Him is either that you want to marry an unbelieving girl, or that you suffer from lusts that you think you cannot escape, or in haughtiness, you desire to attain some particular kind of success that you feel to be unattainable.”

He answered me, “I do not suffer from any of these things. What impelled me to deny the existence of God is my parents. I am an only son, and my father and mother are suffocating me with their unwise love. They want to control me like a chess piece. I wanted to be a leader, with people gathered around me who think of me as a hero.”

I replied, “Why don’t you return to God? For He loves you and died for you.”

He asked, “Can God accept me after I trod on the Bible and spit on the icon of the Virgin Mary?”

I replied, “They look upon you as a child who acted in his anger. The Lord reaches out His hand, not to reproach you, but to kiss you.”

He asked again, “When can I confess?”

I answered him, “You have confessed, and your God rejoices at your return to Him!”

He asked, “When can I go back to church?”

I replied, “Even now, you are in the bosom of the Church, your mother.”

We left the room, and his elderly father asked me, “Can we start the discussion?”

The young man replied, “Please, Dad, leave me to work it out with our father.”

Another time, about five years ago, a young university graduate came to me and asked me if he could confess. He said, “I had come to a decision that I would declare my atheism to all my friends. But at the last moment I asked myself: I see my mother constantly rejoicing with Christ, so what should I do? My mother’s constant joy and her endless happiness restored me to the Lord Christ. I want to be with her in the great day of the Lord!”