After years of debate and contemplation, I’ve come to think a heretical form of Christianity might be true. Here’s why
Light refracted through Gerhard Richter’s Kölner Domfenster (‘Cologne Cathedral Window’, 2007). The window comprises approximately 11,500 squares of glass in 72 colours. Courtesy Wikipedia
Light refracted through Gerhard Richter’s Kölner Domfenster (‘Cologne Cathedral Window’, 2007). The window comprises approximately 11,500 squares of glass in 72 colours. Courtesy Wikipedia
is professor in philosophy at Durham University, UK and co-host of the podcast Mind Chat. He blogs on Substack, and his work has been published in The Guardian and Scientific American, among others. He is the author of Consciousness and Fundamental Reality (2017), Galileo’s Error: Foundations for a New Science of Consciousness (2019) and Why? The Purpose of the Universe (2023), and the co-editor of Is Consciousness Everywhere? Essays on Panpsychism (2022).
I rejected Christianity at the age of 14, upsetting my grandmother by refusing to get confirmed in the Catholic faith of my upbringing. Partly it was intellectual issues: why would a loving and all-powerful God create a world with so much suffering? Partly it was ethical issues. It was a time when I was questioning my sexuality, and it seemed to me wrong not to allow a gay person to flourish through a loving relationship with a partner they are attracted to. But, most of all, Christianity just seemed very unspiritual. I got very little out of boring church services, and it seemed to be all about pleasing the old guy in the sky so you get to heaven. Science and philosophy seemed a more rational way to make sense of life, which ultimately led me to become a philosophy professor.
