We’ve all felt it, that quiet tug inside when we see someone mistreated, or that swell of joy when love shows up in unexpected places. Morality and emotions are woven into the very fabric of who we are. But have you ever stopped to wonder why? Why do we instinctively know that kindness is good, and cruelty is wrong? Why do our hearts break for losses that aren’t even our own?
In his book I Believe in Santa Claus and I Believe in God, J. Lynn Currie suggests that these inner signposts aren’t random quirks of biology. Instead, they’re whispers of something greater, a moral lawgiver, a God who wired us with both a conscience and a capacity for deep emotion.
When Lynn Currie set out to write I Believe in Santa Claus and I Believe in God, he wasn’t trying to deliver a scholarly textbook or a flawless theological argument. He was writing as a man in his seventies, looking back on a life filled with questions, joys, losses, and reflections about faith. His goal was simple yet profound: to explain why belief in God makes sense to him, not just intellectually, but personally, experientially, and emotionally.
One of the most fascinating parts of his book is his chapter on morality and emotions. Currie points to something we all recognize but rarely stop to question: our built-in sense of right and wrong. Cultures may differ in what they call “good” or “bad,” but the very fact that every culture has a concept of morality is striking. As he puts it, a rock has no sense of morality. A rock isn’t conscious, it doesn’t deliberate, and it certainly doesn’t care about right and wrong. So why do we?
Currie’s answer is clear. Morality is not a byproduct of matter, nor a random outcome of evolutionary processes. Instead, he poses, our universal moral compass points to a moral lawgiver, God Himself. Like a straight line that allows us to recognize a crooked one, God’s moral nature provides the standard by which we even conceive of justice, fairness, or love.
He extends this reasoning to emotions. Love, grief, joy, compassion are not mere chemical reactions, though they may have physical expressions. They are deeply personal and deeply human. We cry real tears at fictional tragedies. We wince at someone else’s pain as though it were our own. We ache when our children hurt. Currie himself shares the raw grief of losing a child, acknowledging that no one could tell him that pain wasn’t real. For him, these profound emotional realities are not explainable by neurons firing alone; they, too, point to something beyond matter.
What makes Currie’s reflections moving is that they are not detached abstractions. They come from lived experience, decades of parenting, friendships, joys, and sorrows. They come from a man who once believed in Santa Claus as a child, felt betrayed when he learned the truth, and yet found that the idea of Santa still carried meaning as a joyful tradition. Likewise, his belief in God has matured, not as a fairy tale, but as a conviction that best explains the deepest realities of human life: morality, emotions, love, and loss.
Currie reminds us that belief in God is not blind. It is a reasoned trust built on the evidence of creation, conscience, and personal experience. He doesn’t claim to have all the answers. Instead, he invites readers to consider what their own sense of right and wrong, their own deepest emotions, might be pointing toward.
And maybe, just maybe, those inner signposts are quietly leading us back to the One who placed them there.
Purchase I Believe in Santa Claus and I Believe in God: Why I Believe” by J. Lynn Currie via these links:
- Walmart: https://www.walmart.com/ip/I-Believe-in-Santa-Claus-and-I-Believe-in-God-Why-I-Believe-Hardcover-9798893894424/10717607468?classType=REGULAR&from=/search
- Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Believe-Santa-Claus-God-Why/dp/B0CYSQBDPW
- ARPress – https://authorreputationpress.com/bookstore/i-believe-in-santa-claus-and-i-believe-in-god-why-i-believe/
