Tell me, what's your attitude to religion?

«Do angels really exist?"
«No.»
«But...»
«I used to think so too.»
«Why...»
"You just believe they exist.»

I am reproducing here a dialogue between my devout five-year-old daughter and my atheist eleven-year-old son. I think it's good that they are discussing the problem of theodicy. Only communication can overcome fundamentalism. At the same time, the topic leaves me in need of an explanation. What would I say if they asked me?

I am a would-be believer. I imagine that there is a God so that we are not lonely when we are alone, that he helps us when we ask for it. I don't imagine that this is true, but I would like it to be.

But what are my children supposed to do with such a vague explanation? In my search for a way to introduce them to my would-be faith without messing up their own theological ideas, I came across an American short film.

Of mistakes, lies and sins

In it, a young father tells a little everyday parable. It is about mistakes, lies and sins. And about how they always catch up with us in life. The eldest son is caught lying, but not punished. (It was about a small ball he had stolen from a neighbour's boy.) When he lies a second time a few days later, his mother - pedagogically clever - confronts him with the first lie.

The boy runs upstairs and bangs the door. He stays there for hours, hiding under his parents' duvet - because sometimes it's easier to run upstairs and hide than to face the truth. His mother is annoyed, his father goes upstairs and thinks about what to do next: The boy has to admit his guilt, even though he's probably being unreasonable. He has to give the ball back and apologise. I'd rather hide up here too, thinks the father and sits down with him.

I would have grumbled annoyed, too tired to get really loud, too uninterested to explain Kant's categorical imperative to him.

What do you do now as a parent or guardian? A huge question. The whole pedagogy basically boils down to this question. In the film, the father says to the boy: «There is nothing you can ever do that would make me love you less.» (No matter what you do, I will always love you.) Great, isn't it? In all seriousness, I wouldn't have thought of that; I would have grumbled annoyed, too tired to get really loud, too uninterested to introduce him to Kant's categorical imperative.

The film ends with the reference that God will always love us, no matter what we do. («Neither death nor life, neither angels nor powers, neither the present nor the future, can separate us from the love of God», Romans 8:38).

A profession of faith

Now a child who is ashamed and knows that they have done something wrong is perhaps not the most difficult challenge - it is much more difficult when the child does not want to recognise that they have done something wrong. What does God say to this? «No matter what you do, it won't change the fact that you've done something wrong»?

The film is very American, but it's good. Because it describes my feelings for my children with irresistible clarity: There is nothing you could do that would make me love you less. It's my creed (even if my children don't understand).

I should tell them when I get the chance.