Faithful Doubt

A healthy doubt creates a stronger faith. 

This is the statement we discussed today, and it was by far my favorite discussion to date in this school.  Nat got into all the different aspects of faith, and a lot of the aspects which we think are a threat to faith. 

He started with rationality, and how a lot of atheists say that faith is completely irrational.  Nat's argument was that they are completely right, but they are also completely wrong.  There is a lot that is irrational about loving someone that doesn't love you back, or that is a very revolting person.  There is a lot that is irrational about believing in a person that you can't see or physically touch.  But there's also a lot of rational arguments for a God.

The next thing Nat got into was the illusion of faith being about us as individuals.  Faith is not about our story.  It's about God's.  This is what I wrote down in my notes: "When we define our story as God's story, our idea of a, 'happy' ending changes dramatically.  When we see our lives as part of a greater and grander story, we don't worry about a personal happy ending.  We are concerned with God's story".  The best example for this is Steven.  He was stoned to death, but to him that was probably the best ending he could have had: being persecuted and killed in the name of God's great story.

Nat then talked about faith of what God is.  He said this is where a healthy doubt is key.  If we make up concrete ideas about God and how He works, then we in a sense making up a pagan God.  We are making our own image of God.  We know nothing about God, except that He made us, He loves us, and He's interested in being involved in our lives.  We don't know how or why or anything other questions, and as soon as we start to make up answers for questions we hardly even understand in the first place, we are destroying our faith.  If we make God into a scientific hypothesis, then atheists are right.  God is a living being, and He is completely unpredictable.  A God we can manipulate is a God not worth worshipping.

Then Nat touched on indifference versus faith.  All I wrote down for that was this quote: "If Christ is not risen, then nothing else matters.  If Christ is risen--then nothing else matters."(Jaroslav Pelikan).  Everything matters.  God created everything.  Everyone matters.  Many people say they believe in God, but that's it.  They do nothing with their, "faith".  Faith should be life-altering.  Too many, "christians" are indifferent to the world and the people in it.

We then began discussing Faith and the art of lamenting.  Too many christians have no idea what to do in an emotional situation.  Someone in small group shares something deep and starts crying and everybody kinda backs off like, "whoa".  Or someone gets up in church and shares that they just aren't feeling God and are having a hard time loving God.  Everyone freaks out like being upset is an evil sin from the pits of hell.  Those christians haven't read the Psalms.  Or Ecclesiastes, or Lamentations, or Jeremiah, or the part of the crucifixion where Jesus Himself cries out, "My God!  My God!  Why have you forsaken me??".  We read Psalm 88(I think that's what it was).  It is one of the darkest Psalms ever written.  The last sentence is as follows: "You have taken from me friend and neighbor—darkness is my closest friend".  Faith is trusting that God is big enough to handle how we feel about Him--even if we are supremely angry at Him.  Israel was not afraid at all to tell God how they felt, and we shouldn't be either. I really connect with the art of lamenting, because I think it is huge in the world of film and the arts. 

As a last point for the art of lamenting(that last paragraph was getting too big so I started a new one), Nat made this statement: "If the church is to be the body of Christ, how can we expect to not suffer?  How can we expect no pain when the physical body of Christ endured crucifixion?  How can we expect to not carry our own cross?".  The idea that life is fun and easy is a twisted illusion.

Next was faith versus uncertainty.  Certainty is not a good thing.  We are in relationship with God, and anyone who has been in a dating relationship or very good friendship knows that a relationship is about throwing your whole self into it, and making yourself so vulnerable that the other person could definitely hurt you if they wanted to.  We can never be certain of anything with God, other than His love and existence.  To create other concrete things about the image of God is dangerous and usually wrong.  Nat gave us this quote: "Those who believe..without uncertainty, without doubt...believe only in the God idea, not God Himself."(Miguel de Unamuno)

Nat then told us a story about a Physics student who nearly failed an exam in which everything was perfect save for one question.  The questions was something along the lines of, "how to find the height of a building with a barometer".  The correct answer was to measure the air pressures at the top and bottom and somehow find the height with an equation, but the student went at it differently. 

The student said tostand at the top of the building with the barometer attached to a rope.  Lower the barometer until it touches the ground.  Then measure how much rope you have used.  The student had several other answers, all unconventional, but all perfectly good ways to measure a building using a barometer. 

The point of this story is that faith invites us to see the world in a whole new way.  If our faith is not changing the way we see things, we don't actually have faith.  We have ideas.  Faith is participation in God's story.

Nat's final statement to us today was this: "One must first dwell in the sheer wonder of the Christ event before trying to make sense of what it demands of us."

Catch you all tomorrow.