What I don't know:

There are a lot of things that Christians just can't explain. We might try, but we find ourselves stumbling over our words, looking for answers that we just don't have. Those things may include questions like, 'Where the heck did Cain's wife come from?!' (Cain, if you don't know, was one of Adam and Eve's sons). A Canadian guy once said to me, 'So, like, if we all come from two people, why don't I have, like, 3 thumbs and one leg?'. I found that very annoying, because I couldn't really tell him. Sometimes we don't exactly know. But then sometimes we don't need to.

That might sound a bit naïve. I mean, how can I just swallow this stuff when there are such big gaps in my knowledge? Actually, though, whatever your beliefs are about the world, there are a lot of things you can't explain. You have to accept that. Even the most educated biologist on earth cannot give you all the answers. The main difference between the theist (believer in God) and the atheist (the opposite) in this instance is that the theist has someone greater to fall back on. When we come to the brink of our understanding and are left with the impossible, we find God, for whom nothing is impossible. So we don't have to have absolutely all the answers. The atheist does not like God, or the responsibility that belief involves, so he hides from the impossible. However, he can never remove it.

To explain what I mean, I want to continue talking about origins. The most popular non-religious explanation is the 'big bang' theory. This avoids the Adam and Eve issue, and also the discomfort of personal accountability before God. But we only have to ask, 'and before that?'. Even if we ignore the other problems with this theory, we are left with the fact that there had to be something there to explode in the first place. It's impossible to produce something from nothing. It's also impossible for a set of particles to exist eternally and then, after eternity, explode randomly and create a universe of order and beauty.

Both the Christian and the atheist face impossibility, and there is a point when the atheist also runs out of answers. It seems to me, though, that in those instances the questions are bigger. The impossible may confuse the Christian, but it utterly confounds the atheist.