The Foundations of Our Faith—Part 1

I'm reading God In The Dark by Os Guinness. It's about the assurance of faith beyond a shadow of a doubt, or so the subtitle reads. It's pretty good so far. At times, it feels a little too "black and white" for my taste, but I'm working on being patient with things like that.

I'm in chapter 5, entitled "No Reason Why Not" and I had one of those moments where I couldn't keep reading. Not because of disgust or confusion, but one of those moments when you're like, "I can't keep reading without dealing with what I've just read, not if I want to claim to be a person of integrity and honesty."

Guinness made the fairly innocuous comment, that we, as Christians, should "all examine the foundations of our faith." I'm not sure why it grabbed my attention so, but it did. He went on to list questions to ask and I want to write them out here, because I think it's going to be helpful for me to embark on another little quest, another experiment. Here were the questions he rattled off:

1. Why do we believe God is there?
2. Why do we believe God is good?
3. How do we know Jesus ever lived?
4. How do we know Jesus rose from the dead?
5. Why do we trust the authority of the Bible?
6. How do we understand that the Christian faith is true?
7. How would we answer a modern philosopher, a Freudian psychologist, the follower of an Indian guru, each of whom denies the truth of the Christian faith in a different way?
   

Honestly, I wasn't very interested in number 6 or 7. I suppose Guinness was progressing along a line of progressive "knowing", layers of presuppositions that were building on each other. Maybe not though—that's not the point I'm considering here.

On some level, my faith in God is definitely my own. I do so much over-thinking, questioning and doubting that I wouldn't be hanging onto this faith if it didn't hold water, if it was just something I was raised to believe. However, on the flip-side, I am, like everyone else, an initial prisoner of my own presuppositions. What I mean by that is that I will never be able to step outside of myself and check to make sure I'm on the right track in my thinking. I will never be able to explore the what-ifs of whether I had been born into a Hindu or Muslim family, would I be simply struggling to defend those faiths and understand what I truly believe, just like I am with this Christian faith? Since there is no measuring stick, no objective litmus test or questionnaire that I can take to ensure my beliefs are correct, I can only try to have integrity between myself and this idea of God that I can't escape (and don't want to).

I think I have taken many things for granted in my life. Several of them, such as God's existence and the trustworthiness of the Bible, are ridiculously foundational to all I claim to believe. Yet, when prompted by Guinness' questions on the matter, I found that I didn't have concrete answers for myself. Why DO I believe God exists? I say I do. And I'm not just saying it to convince you or myself. I really do. But, I haven't ever really considered why. Let me clarify, I haven't ever really considered why I personally believe that. "Strong answers to such questions are no substitute for faith," Guinness said. Lots of reading and college courses have given me a lot of strong answers to that and other questions, but I don't think I've always internalized them or examined them for myself, though I feel like I'd have plenty to offer a debate on the subject when it arose. Lately, I don't feel like that counts for much in any way that matters.

Maybe this is a do-over with God. I've already wrote about re-thinking prayer. That's been incredibly helpful to me. God doesn't need my fancy words. He wants honesty, vulnerability that implies trust in Him. That really resonates with me and I want to be faithful to that. However, I can't help but consider, "why?" Why do I believe God views us this way? Am I forming God in my homemade image? Or am I anthropomorphizing Him into characteristics that are just easier for me to understand? Am I committing heresy by loosely interpreting scripture in a way that makes more sense, or am I actually internalizing truths within it and personalizing them in a way that implies real faith and understanding?

I'm not throwing out the baby with the bath water. I've just reached a point where no one else's reasons or answers count for me. I can't hide behind a system or a religion, a church or a biblical worldview. Either I am interacting with the Almighty Creator of the universe or I've deceived myself into living in a safe little bubble that I've always known, content to build walls of toothpicks to protect me from a crushing tidal wave of reality.

So, forgive me if the posts taper off for awhile. I don't want to simply hash this out on the internet. I've realized this needs to be utterly personal and real to me, or I should stop dragging God's name through the mud. I'm going to work through these questions that Guinness posed, not so that I can pat myself on the back or feel superior to others in a religious conversation, but so that I begin to gain the settled confidence and humility of someone who doesn't have to pretend, or posture, or project anything other than the integrity of someone who knows, loves and interacts with the risen Jesus Christ.

This post feels extremely melodramatic, and for that, I apologize. This whole thing could be summarized with:

I read some good thought-provoking questions about God and the Bible that I don't think I've really ever taken the time to internalize, so rather than keep going through the motions in some sense, I really want to honor God and have integrity with myself and the world by taking the time to go through these questions slowly and come to some solid, personal convictions on these things, rather than always being somewhat tossed on the waves of my emotions and sensitivities to the doubts and questions of the world around me.

Hopefully, this is what the Bible means when it talks about searching for God with my whole heart...