To Wrestle At All Is To Wrestle With God

"Why do materialists argue so passionately if truth doesn't matter? A philosophical exploration of morality, meaning, and the cross that challenges pure materialism."

Wrestling Like Cats and Dogs

I love my cat, and I know she loves me. She purrs when I stroke her little face, she smashes her nose up against mine, and when she walks away, her tail stands straight up with a little curl at the top—like a question mark, as if asking whether I truly understand her mystery. But guilt? Not a trace.

She nearly killed my poor jade plant. I didn’t even discuss it with her. She never cared.

Now, I don’t have a dog, but there’s one where my wife works—a total extrovert who’s never met a stranger he didn’t love. But when I walk in to pick up my wife, I know immediately if he’s done something wrong. His ears droop. His sad little eyes refuse to meet mine. He slinks down in the hall, an embodiment of canine regret.

Dogs wrestle. Not in the way we do, but enough to recognize consequences—to sense disapproval, to intuit relationships beyond mere instinct. Cats, on the other hand, exist in their own detached confidence, completely unconcerned with guilt, expectation, or meaning. They do as they please, indifferent to standards beyond their own.

And yet, when people argue against absolutes—when they push to defend a purely material existence—they prove they are not philosophical cats. They wrestle. They engage. They insist that their view of reality is correct, that meaning is relative, that morality is evolutionary—but in doing so, they betray their own premise. Because the moment they argue, the moment they care about proving their point, they show me that truth matters.

And that is why I believe that all who wrestle—wrestle with God.

How the World Betrays Pure Materialism

I tried to buy into the idea that existence is random, and that life stumbled its way into complexity by accident, but I just couldn’t do it. That would mean everything—cells, replication, thought—had to assemble itself perfectly, without guidance, within impossibly tight constraints. And yet, here we are.

While there are some solid arguments for materialism, I find it impossible to bank against intentionality.

Look at the way things are set up. The universe had a beginning—that’s not speculation, that’s science. We live in a reality bound by cause and effect, where things that start don’t start for no reason.  The deeper we dig, the tougher it gets to explain how our existence came to be. Reality always seems to point to something beyond matter and chance. And when randomness doesn’t do the trick, alternatives crop up—theories that multiply worlds, speculate on unseen dimensions, anything but acknowledging the possibility of design.

And even beyond beginnings, there’s an undeniable sense that things are arranged just so. The constants that govern our universe—the precise values that allow physics to function—don’t seem arbitrary. They look chosen, fine-tuned in a way that defies probability. The odds of getting them right by accident? So slim that even the most committed materialists acknowledge the problem. That’s why many turn to theoretical constructs beyond our observable universe, hoping that somewhere in infinite randomness, blind luck becomes plausible. But the fact that they feel compelled to look elsewhere says everything.

Then there’s life itself—an intricate code built into the foundation of existence. We talk about DNA like it’s just a molecule, but what it really is, is a set of instructions more advanced than anything humans have ever designed deliberately. And the rub? Life doesn’t just need complexity, it needs complexity that works immediately. Molecules decay, amino acids don’t survive long without protection. That means everything required for even the simplest form of life has to come together fast enough to sustain itself before it breaks down. The math doesn’t look good for blind chance.

People try to explain it away with hypothetical self-replicating molecules, or gradual processes building toward order, but at some point, probability starts laughing at you.

And speaking of math, not only does mathematics precisely describe reality, it has predicted reality before we discover it. It was Eugene Wigner who said that math’s predictive power is “unreasonably effective.” Random chance just doesn’t add up, so to speak. 

Similarly, morality also defies pure materialism. The universality of moral absolutes—justice, compassion, sacrifice—these all suggest that ethics are more than evolutionary conveniences. If someone condemns evil, they invoke a standard that materialism alone cannot account for.

But the counterarguments are real. The challenges to design that materialists always bring up are not flimsy. And I respect them.

The Argument for the Material

If the universe were finely tuned by an intelligence, why would it include suffering? If there were a designer, why would nature be filled with brutal, indifferent forces? Carefully planned systems just shouldn't include calamities like hurricanes, earthquakes, or genetic mutations. Would a purposeful universe be so full of limitations, breakdowns and imperfections? Why such a fractured world if it was deliberately set in motion? Why would a carefully planned system be so inefficient?

A great argument can be made that if life were the goal, then the universe wouldn’t need to be so massive and so inhospitable. There is just no need for the sheer scale of it all—so much empty space, so many worlds where life seems impossible.

Materialists see disorder as evidence against intentionality, but what if the unfolding of reality is part of something more intricate?

These are real challenges. And I won’t pretend my answers fully resolve them.

But neither do theirs.

They reject absolutes, and yet they argue. They insist morality is arbitrary, but then they condemn injustice. They claim suffering is random, but they wrestle with its weight.

If someone were truly indifferent, they wouldn’t fight these questions at all. They wouldn’t debate, analyze, insist. They would simply exist, unbothered. But they don’t.

And, at the end of the road, there is no justice against evil, no healing for the pain, no comfort for the brokenhearted.  Just a cold, dark end.

The Responsibility of the Cross

But here’s where my hope lies—not in a flawless defense of design, but in the reality that God does not dismiss these challenges either.

Any God who would create a world with so much pain and suffering really should be crucified.

And thank God—He was.

I don’t dismiss the suffering. I don’t pretend the answers tie up every loose end. But the cross tells me that if the weight of suffering is an argument against God, it’s also His response to it.

Not distant. Not detached. Not indifferent.

If God was content to let suffering stand unanswered, there would be no cross. But instead, He took responsibility. He wrestled with the very reality that makes people doubt His existence—and bore it Himself.

And if suffering itself is a reason to doubt, it is also the reason to wrestle.

A cat? You dog!

Materialists want to convince me that they are cats—unbothered, detached, untouched by absolutes. But I see it clearly now. They are dogs. Just like me. And if you’re reading this, you sly dog, you’re wrestling too.

Because all who wrestle, wrestle with God. (Genesis 32:22-32)