Emily Parker spoke with author and presenter Justin Brierley about his new book 'Unbelievable', and why he still believes in God after 10 years of conversations with atheists on Premier Christian Radio.

Emily: Some people may not feel satisfied with having to just accept some mystery. How have you got to a point where you felt settled with it?

Justin: This is where obviously it's not just a matter of 'the head', it's a matter of 'the heart' as well. I'm not going to stand here and say, "Only if you can line up all the dots and cross all the T's are you able to believe." Of course, we have to accept that there are things that we can't know this side of eternity and because of that we have to put our trust in the God that we do know, for the things that we don't know. That's where we have to go to Him in prayer and we have to have that kind of a spiritual life that helps us to move through some of those doubts and things that come in.

I think that we are not necessarily meant to know everything this side of heaven. The thing that we have to bear in mind is, what's the alternative? Because if we do hit a snag, a doubt, or a stumbling block in our Christian life, is the alternative simply that none of it is true, and that in fact there is no God and atheism is true? Well, that again means taking on a whole different set of beliefs, all of which have their own problems as well in my experience. There are all kinds of problems with atheism.

I'm not saying that a Christian is going to have all of their doubts answered by any means. But I still think that even with some of those bits of mystery and the parts that we don't know about, it still makes much better sense overall than an atheistic account of the universe and how it functions.

I would just say for those parts of my faith where I'm not sure, I just have to say, do I trust Jesus? And I've always found Jesus to be trustworthy. If I don't understand that bit of the Old Testament, why God ordered that thing to happen, and maybe I do struggle a bit with that in my faith, okay fair enough I do, but when I look at Jesus I see whatever the Old Testament may or may not say, or whether I'm understanding it correctly, God has revealed Himself to me perfectly in Jesus Christ. I know I can trust Him there and that's who I'm supposed to be looking to in the end.

Emily: Ten years is an incredibly long time to have been looking into all of these questions, bringing all these voices together. Is there anybody that you've interviewed, or spoken to, that you would love to talk to again and if so who would that be?

Justin: I would love to talk to Richard Dawkins again, because I think it's always going be an interesting conversation when you have someone like him on.

There's one person that I really wished I had interviewed and never got round to and that's Christopher Hitchens. He was well-known before he died several years ago, as one of the most influential of the new atheists. Part of the reason I would have loved to have interviewed him is because he was such a great communicator, writer, and speaker. Whether you agreed with him or not, he was always entertaining. I've met many Christians who have debated him while he was alive, who said I really just enjoyed being with him because he was such an interesting personality. I may have disagreed profoundly with the things he said, but I actually really enjoyed getting to know him as an individual. I think he was a far more interesting person behind the scene than you might imagine in terms of the way he viewed faith. I once had the opportunity to phone him. He was living in New York at the time and someone gave me the number to his apartment and I just never quite got up the courage to phone him for some reason and I always wish I had in retrospect. He could have just said no obviously, but at least I would have given it a go.

Emily: If there's anybody who wants to get hold of a copy of the book, how can they purchase one?

Justin: There's a website where you can find out more unbelievablebook.co.uk and it's available at Amazon as well. It's simply called 'Unbelievable, why after ten years of talking with atheists I'm still a Christian'. I do hope you enjoy it.