At the risk of sounding heretical, I want to ask you to forget everything you've heard about "childlike faith." It is one thing if you are a child, but if you are 21 years old and still clinging to the faith in God you had when you were 4 years old because that's what mommy and daddy always told you, I do not think this kind of "faith" honors God at all. There is a certain point in brain development when we are able to question for ourselves what is true. When Jesus said, "Unless you become like the little children, you will not enter the kingdom of God," I do not think he was referring to the doubtless faith of a child (which, as a matter of fact, may not be as doubtless as we believe); I think he was referring to humility and a willingness to admit our mistakes.
"Faith is not a leap in the dark, but it is a leap." - a beloved professor of mine
While I think I get a little bit of what you are saying, I actually think that your analysis might be lacking. You do have a point - it is time for us to own our own faith at this point in our lives. We can no longer ride on the coattails of those who have lead us for years - which is totally true.
ReplyDeleteBut I submit that faith is believing in what is unseen and being willing to follow blindly in obedience. The issue with your analogy of faith is that it attempts to bring a situation that we can have actual evidence (solid, hard evidence) that it is incorrect, but with God - let's be honest, it could be a bunch of nothing and we discover the athiest are correct. If we take a look at God, everything requires faith that is blind... Why did Noah build the ark? Why did the disciples not give up after Jesus' death? They believed that he was who he said he was... and that they wanted, or even needed, to follow him. If we are unable to follow God without reservations or without proof, our faith has no foundation. Faith is belief - for whatever reason - and the only way we can have true faith is to allow ourselves to follow God without direction and know that our hope in him will allow us to continue walking in his path. If you need evidence for the existence of God, you will never find it - at least not without faith.
I'm not saying anyone is right or wrong, but that faith is not something tangible - but something that requires a great deal of belief... and belief sometimes has to be based upon nothing. Unless of course you have seen God, then it becomes much easier to have faith :)
Just a few comments... I would encourage you to continue to dig in and keep searching
Hmmmm... very intriguing. I must point out Kyle that most of the disciples did give up after Jesus' death on the cross. Peter went fishing after all of that. It took Christ to reveal Himself to them in which they regained their faith back. So, it was not blind faith. That is what we are called to as well. While we do not have the tangible Jesus, we have so much historical evidence that makes it real to us. Why do you think Paul was telling the church in Philipi to "work out your salvation with fear and trembling"? It was not because we can gain salvation by our works, but telling us that in our salvation, we must work to prove our faith is real. Paul even tells Timothy to prove those of the Gospel with reason. Paul even uses this tactic to prove that Christ was real. Most of them Gentiles never met Jesus at all. They are basically going by Paul's evidence, which he carefully put together to prove himself as reliant.
ReplyDeleteI do not believe in blind faith at all, mainly because God has shown many ways in which He has revealed himself. First to His people, the Jews, in Old Testament times, to Jesus, and now through the Holy Spirit and His Word. God has revealed us to Him in many ways possible. Nothing is blind. But people choose to rebel against the evidence. Even Alister McGrath, who once was an atheist, once said his conversion was mainly because of viewing the world and reality around him and Christianity helped make more sense of the world around him. McGrath was a seeker as well as Lewis. We now call them the great defenders of the faith for this. They proved a more bigger case for Christianity and why it is true based on the evidence. There is evidence everywhere. There are some who just refuse to believe it despite the case they know it is true.
That is my thoughts on this matter. Faith is tangible if we allow it to. Not tangible in the sense of seeing, but we can feel it and experience it.