For too long, the West has pushed the idea that belief in God is a matter of blind faith—a leap into the dark, a gamble with no certainty. This narrative has seeped into the thinking of clerics and scholars alike, who repeat it without realizing its origins or its implications. But this is not just an innocent philosophical mistake, it is a carefully cultivated distraction. By convincing people that truth about the ground of reality is forever uncertain, the masses remain busy chasing unresolvable doubts, while those in power secure control over knowledge, direction, and meaning.
The truth is simpler. Coherence itself points to the reality of the source that sustains it. Intelligence, order, mathematics, and logic are not arbitrary, they are powered by something. Just as a functioning flashlight is powered by a battery, the coherence of reality is powered by an objective ground. We don’t need to speculate endlessly about whether a battery exists if the flashlight is already shining.
Following the trail of coherence leads to a fundamental crossroads, a hypothetical edge case at the limits of reality. Here, we encounter two possibilities:
Absolute nothingness.
A singular, objective, necessary ground that sustains coherence.
Neither can be proven empirically from within the universe. Yet the existence of intelligence, order, and coherence rules out the first option. Coherence relies on coherence otherwise the entire line of thought falls apart. Just as opening a working flashlight reveals a battery rather than an empty casing, examining reality reveals that coherence cannot sustain itself; it points to something beyond the universe that powers it. This singular objective ground cannot enter the universal set of contingent beings. If it did, it would depend on the very system it is supposed to sustain, collapsing intelligibility and making coherence impossible.
The criteria for this singular, objective ground are therefore clear:
Singularity: there is only one; it cannot be multiplied or fragmented.
Universality: it applies equally to all components of the system.
Independence: it exists outside the contingent framework it sustains; it is not created or limited by the system.
Impartiality: it underpins coherence without favoring any component or perspective.
Necessity: its existence is required for coherence, intelligibility, and order; without it, reality (or the system) itself would collapse.
And yet, this is exactly what happens in practice. Some hold the flashlight and insist there is no battery at all. Others admit the flashlight works, but claim we can never know if a battery truly exists. Still others argue the flashlight powers itself, or that some hidden force keeps it running without a battery. These positions may sound sophisticated, but they are clever ways of denying what is obvious. Meanwhile, the light is right there; guiding, steady, reliable. To sit in the dark with a working flashlight and build elaborate theories about why no battery is required may impress an audience, but it leaves you blind to the path in front of you. Worse, it leaves you vulnerable while others make use of the same light to move forward and advance.
This is the theft at work: skepticism, uncertainty, and “leaps of faith” are manufactured to keep people paralyzed, doubting what is right in front of them. Theologization of religion plays directly into this theft. By reframing religion as a domain of unverifiable beliefs and subjective feelings, people are kept endlessly debating the battery instead of using the flashlight. Meanwhile, epistemology and ontology, the sciences of knowledge and existence, quietly reveal the truth in plain sight: that in every unknown case, we can trace our way back to an objective structure, a single universal point of reference that grounds coherence and ensures truth is always attainable.
Secularism discovered the fountain of knowledge hidden in religion, then co-opted it. By fragmenting religion into “theology” and stripping it from epistemology and ontology, the West positioned itself as neutral while in fact consolidating power. It kept the pursuit of objectivity in the hands of a few, while the masses were trained to see religion as blind faith and to dismiss their own role in discerning truth from noise. The result: people remain productive but distracted, educated but without clarity, informed but without wisdom.
Religion, at its core, was never about cultivating private feelings or mystical highs. It was humanity’s attempt to make sense of existence itself, to find clarity in a sea of competing voices and subjective noise. Its history preserves humanity’s struggle to defend truth for all against the ongoing threat of distortion and concealment. Its rituals, when understood properly, can serve as disciplines of attention and exercises of perception, sharpening one’s ability to discern coherence from distraction.
Just as the number π can never be fully written out but can still be recognized and relied upon, truth may be endlessly pursued without ever being uncertain. The recognition of π is not a leap of faith; it is a recognition of its reality. Likewise, coherence is not a leap of faith; it is reliable, guaranteed, always available as a compass no matter how much noise surrounds it or even in the absence. This is the unity at the heart of existence: a singular, objective ground that sustains all things impartially while remaining distinct from them. Epistemology and ontology both point to it, whether they name it or not.
The danger lies in conditioning skepticism. If people can be trained to doubt the very ground of coherence, they will falter when the stakes are highest. They will hesitate, give up, or surrender their agency just when resolve is most needed. This benefits only those who profit from maintaining control.
God is not a leap of faith. God is the recognition that truth is always universally attainable by seeking coherence, even in the face of lies, confusion, and distraction. To recognize coherence as objective is to recognize its source as certain. The flashlight works. Stop speculating about whether or not a battery exists. Use the light. Walk forward. Because if you remain seated in the dark, lost in endless theories about how the flashlight could glow without a battery, someone else will use it to take the path meant for you.