Why indifference is not a lack of evidence about the existence of God, but the perfect excuse not to change one’s life.

There is a scene in the Gospel that is deeply unsettling: Jesus rebukes cities like Capernaum, Bethsaida, Tyre, and Sidon because, despite having witnessed countless miracles in their streets, they remained exactly the same. There was no conversion, no wonder, only apathetic silence. If we transpose that same scene to our present day, the question still resonates with the same force: with the number of wonders that surround us daily, why do we find it so difficult to believe and transform our lives?

The current problem is not a lack of evidence, but the filter through which we choose to view reality. We tend to think of miracles as movie events—television screens where limbs grow back or spectacular resurrections occur—but we overlook the fact that the world is full of daily wonders that defy the logic of human selfishness.

• Physical miracles:  Medical cases where science is left without answers, terminal cancer diagnoses that disappear without a trace, and hopeless lives that gain decades of health.

• Moral miracles:  The radical transformation of people trapped in alcohol, drugs, adultery, or crime. Doctors like Bernard Nathanson, who went from leading the abortion industry to becoming tireless defenders of life after realizing what they were doing.

• The miracle of creation:  The perfection of the universe, the cosmic order of millions of galaxies that do not collide with each other, the perfect instinct of a newborn bird, or the selfless sacrifice of a mother for her children.

Faced with this overwhelming architecture of life, the materialist scientific explanation usually responds by asking for a blank check from faith: it asks us to believe that everything arose from a great fortuitous explosion billions of years ago, without explaining what existed before or why it exploded.

Why then do we prefer the theory of chance to acknowledging a creative hand? Because acknowledging God has direct implications for our behavior.

Accepting the existence of God implies accepting a moral code: “Thou shalt not steal,” “Thou shalt not kill,” “Thou shalt not commit adultery,” “Thou shalt not lie.” For many, confronting this list is incredibly uncomfortable. It is far more comfortable to live in indifference, justifying individual transgressions with the consolation that “everyone does it” or by claiming that human law approves of what conscience condemns. We disguise evil as normality so we don’t have to ask for forgiveness or change our habits.

Indifference is, at its core, an anesthetic for the soul. Believing that we owe no one an explanation spares us the effort of repentance, but it also deprives us of the greatest gift: discovering the beauty of knowing we are loved by a Father, finding a transcendent meaning in existence, and experiencing the true freedom to do all the good we can for those around us.