The Leap of Delight
Guest Essay by My Pastor Bradley J Helgerson at The Church on The Square
At the Dissident Dialogues conference in May, renowned evolutionary biologist and atheist Richard Dawkins questioned author Ayaan Hirsi Ali about her recent conversion to Christianity. During the discussion Ali admitted, with surprising candor, that her newfound faith is not based on empirical evidence but a conscious choice. Having been deeply moved by the Christian story, she simply chose to believe it. For Dawkins and many modernists like him, such willful belief represents a brazen disregard of epistemic duty, the intellectual equivalent of the unpardonable sin. But is it always “madness” to believe something on insufficient evidence, as the modern maxim dictates?
The Will to Believe
The nature of belief is such that its creation is not within our immediate control. Similar to how we blush when encountering sufficient embarrassment, we believe only when the threshold of proof has been met. Yet, some beliefs are stubborn and, regardless of one’s diligence in deliberation, require a movement of the will to embrace. This is particularly true of consequential credences like “Jesus is Lord.” Becoming a Christian often requires the choice to believe.
Managing Epistemic Expectations
Until a seeker becomes a believer, the true nature of regeneration remains a mystery to him. Like the hidden beauty of stained glass, the splendor of the Lord's temple must be experienced from within. Christian discipleship is also not a casual commitment like a gym membership that can be tried for a month and then abandoned. The King of kings demands perfect fealty upfront—a readiness to renounce it all for the promise of eternal life.
Therefore, when a seeker contemplates embracing the faith, he faces a decision for which he seems to lack sufficient evidence. For how can he adequately compare the two possibilities (i.e., becoming a Christian or remaining an unbeliever) when one path involves a complete metaphysical change that can only be fully appreciated once the choice has been made and (at least according to much Protestant theology) cannot be undone?
Philosopher Laurie Paul provocatively illustrates the nature of this dilemma by comparing it with the choice to become a vampire. Imagine one’s life forever changed in a single bite—a permanent metamorphosis that brings forth a plethora of new, revelatory experiences as well as a physical preferment to unparalleled strength, speed, and agility. This "enhancement," however, also bears the cost of having to consume blood and shun sunlight for survival.
Given the incomparability of the two possibilities (i.e., becoming a creature of the night or remaining mortal), how should one adjudicate such a choice? For even if his confidants, who have already made the transition, were to testify to the superiority of vampirism, such attestation seems rather insufficient evidence, especially given that those bearing witness are no longer human.
It is commonly thought that rationality requires choosing a course of action only when its expected value exceeds alternatives. Such prospective judgments, however, are often unavailable when it comes to consequential beliefs. Therefore, if a choice is to be made, the decision must be motivated by something other than ordinary, instrumental reasoning.
The Primacy of Beauty
A growing number of philosophers believe that aspiration is what bridges this analytic gap. That what would inspire an inquirer to take the leap into vampiredom is the splendor of its eudaemonic vision. And while defeater beliefs must be addressed, for one is not going to become a member of the undead (presumably) if it necessitates having to hunt humans for nourishment, in the end, it’s not the push of reason that proves decisive but the pull of delight—or, at least, the aspiration of delight. In the realm of consequential beliefs, beauty takes precedence over reason.
I See That You Are Very Suspicious
But, how can one be sure that the beauty of the Christian symphony is not a siren song luring him into shipwreck? That it is the Son of God who beckons, and not the Son of Perdition dressed as an angel of light? The truth is that he can’t be sure, and therefore, the decision to believe always involves risk. A bet on beauty that can seem a long shot in an increasingly suspicious age where truth comes only in the uncovering of deceit and corruption—the exposing of the man behind the curtain. In late modernity, true truth is always a negation—the unearthing of a grand conspiracy or great cabal. It is a cynical age when even the sublimity of eminent cultural achievements like Michelangelo’s La Pieta must be soured by some scandalous disclosure such as divulging the contemptible labor conditions of those who quarried its stone. The ultimate end of such negation is to spread incredulity toward glad tidings as such, to deceive the world into believing that if something sounds too good to be true, it is.
Faith Favors the Bold
But, there are good reasons to be suspicious of such suspicion, not the least of which is its incoherence. For if everything is a cabal, than nothing is. The only way to truly free oneself from modernity’s acute cynicism, however, is to restore one’s faith in beauty itself. Confirmatory signs and wonders will come, but one must first be willing to take the leap of delight.
 | A guest post by
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Well stated. The leap of Faith for Beauty!
Keri, you know me well enough to know that I hold deep respect for you—both as a person and as a Christian. I hope nothing I say here throws that into doubt. I've read this piece several times now, and I find myself genuinely mystified by it. I know how highly you regard your pastor, and I hope he writes more—this was certainly thought-provoking, even if not always in the ways he may have intended.
The central truth claims of Christianity—that a god-man was born of a virgin, lived a perfect life, was unjustly executed by the Romans, and rose from the dead three days later—are either true or they’re not. What I can’t wrap my head around is the idea that one can become a Christian simply by choosing to believe they’re true.
If belief is just a matter of will, then what distinguishes belief from imagination? If it’s possible to choose to believe something because you want to, then why not choose to believe that 2 + 2 = 5? Or that Elliott Page is and always was male? I think the arguments people make for those beliefs are often absurd—but at least they offer arguments. “I simply choose to believe it” feels like a different category altogether.
Do you—and other Christians—truly experience your relationship with Christ as something you simply chose to believe into existence? If so, doesn’t that imply you could have just as easily chosen to be Muslim, or Hindu, or a follower of any other faith, with equal validity?
If belief is that fluid, why this particular faith, and not another?
Take reincarnation, for example. In many Hindu traditions, the soul passes through countless lives, shaped by karma, evolving toward a deeper alignment with the divine. That’s a worldview rooted in cosmic justice, and one that—in a purely philosophical sense—feels more internally coherent than the idea that one single life, one singular decision, seals the eternal fate of an immortal soul. If the choice to believe is all that’s required, why choose the version that hinges everything on one life, one choice, and no do-overs?
And then there’s this quote, from *A Prayer for Owen Meany*, that’s stayed with me for years:
“Anyone can be sentimental about the nativity; any fool can feel like a Christian at Christmas. But Easter is the main event; if you don’t believe in the resurrection, you’re not a believer."
“If you don’t believe in Easter,” Owen Meany said. “Don’t kid yourself—Don’t call yourself a Christian.”
That quote cuts to the heart of it. The Resurrection is the dividing line. It’s not the warmth or the ritual or even the ethics—it’s whether you believe a man came back from the dead. And if that’s what makes one a believer, I can’t imagine how one simply decides to believe it. Either you do, or you don’t. Or maybe—like me—you wish you could, but find that wanting doesn’t make it so.
And more personally: if religious conversion is a simple matter of choice, why choose the one where you’ll spend eternity in fellowship with my parents—but not with me and Josh?