Searching for a Credible Faith?

From time to time I meet people who are searching for a dependable faith. The older woman I mentioned in my April 23, 2009 blog post “I Believe in the Absence of God” was one of them.

I met this same woman again recently at my swimming pool and she questioned me intensely about my faith. This surprised me since she hardly knows me. She is searching eagerly for a source of hope before she dies—but she is not prepared to settle for any belief that lacks credibility. The blind faith she had as a child disappointed her. She now wants to find TRUTH, not just pleasant myth. Finding a reliable faith has been my life-quest as well.

I use the term “faith” (or religion) to mean our ultimate road-map for life. This concept applies to an individual, and also to a family or a community of people. It helps to have a group of people living together who share the same values and the same “faith” road-map. That is a faith community.

So in a sense, a Materialist or an Atheist can also have a “faith”—faith is defined as whatever system of living and thinking that we are willing to bet our life on.

Both Albert Einstein and the renowned British historian Arnold Toynbee included Communism and other secular belief systems in their observation of religious phenomena. I quite agree with them: any system of thought and practice that drives its adherents with consuming passion is a kind of “religion” or “faith”.

I would include “Environmentalism”; in my category of faith. Some of my friends believe that there is nothing more worth living and dying for than to save the fragile planetary environment. Heroes of Greenpeace have risked their lives in trying to save the planet and its endangered species. Although their faith is not supreme wisdom for living, I have no quarrel with most of their goals. On the other hand, they may fail to address some of life’s most perplexing questions. Or they may worship Creation, but forget its CREATOR.

The term faith implies principles we believe intensely, but that cannot be proven to a skeptic. True faith involves struggle and contention, almost by definition.

Faith is also something we value so much that we naturally want to share it with friends. That may cause conflict, particularly if we become too zealous and impatient to convince others.

Any search for faith that is not linked to finding wisdom and understanding will eventually prove unsatisfying. Real faith changes our emotions, but it should persuade our minds as well.

The religion of my childhood seemed too peculiar for me to accept without question. People in my Amish Mennonite community in the 1950’s followed their traditions as best they could. However, they believed some things that seemed naive, if not foolish to me.

My father was an example of this naivete, although he was also a marvelous man in many respects. My Dad was born over a hundred years ago in 1906. He dropped out of school after grade six to help support his family when his mother died in the great flue epidemic of 1918. Like many rural people, Dad had some far-fetched ideas that seemed laughable to his better educated children.

For instance, my father claimed that fishing worms fell down from the sky whenever it rained. There is no doubt that whenever there was a heavy rain at our farm, the ground was covered with earthworms; they came out of the earth to avoid drowning. My father’s interpretation, however, was that the worms fell down out of the sky together with the rain. His observations fit the facts as he understood them, but his line of reasoning was humorously deficient. His approach to the Bible seemed equally haphazard to me.

Traditional religions often become mixed up with elements of superstition or folk tales. We see this ofttimes in other people’s religions, but not always in our own tradition. I notice that city dwellers have their own superstitions, such as astrology. Whenever there is an absence of real faith, then folk tales and superstitions fill the vacuum.

Albert Einstein famously remarked: “All men are equally wise and equally foolish before God”. The Infinite One must laugh at the pretentions of small earth dwellers. How little we humans truly understand; but our preachers and academic teachers hold forth with bland confidence nonetheless on subjects none of us understand very clearly.

After years of observing religion and faith in its many forms, I have become less critical of primitive and traditional religion. I did not realize as a boy that people admired my Amish Mennonite family. I thought we were far too peculiar to be accepted by our neighbors. However, most people have considerable respect for sincere believers: whether they are Catholics, Baptists, Jews, Buddhists, or Environmentalists. In one sense, each of these faiths is incredible. Perhaps that is the very nature of faith—to believe profoundly in what other people do not (yet) find convincing.

I have concluded that even the ignorant and simple people rarely go far wrong when they sincerely try to follow their scriptures—that is exactly what scriptures are for. Thus in my older years, I find that I believe many if not most of the things that my father held dear. I don’t accept all of his superstitions, but I find faith in God, in Jesus, and in the Bible better for me than any of the alternative faiths/religions that I have investigated.

Although some people may be struck by the lightning of God’s truth at any age, authentic faith must be proven genuine on the battlefield of life. Faith that is not pure gold will not endure the refiner’s fire.

It is God who fortunately reveals Himself to those who seek Him; it does not depend on our intellectual sophistication. That is why highly educated people may never find faith, while simple folks are still finding God all around the world. Humility before the ULTIMATE INTELLIGENCE is the only requirement for faith and worship.

The language of faith is mysterious because it attempts to describe a REALITY so much larger than human intelligence can grasp or explain. Faith may sometimes seem vague or precarious, but it is a lifeline. It brings hope, enthusiasm, courage and vision. It depends more on guidance from above, than our mental gymnastics.

Where faith is totally lacking, people find life very dark. However, there is always light available for those who will follow it. That light grows gradually brighter as we approach the ONE who lives in LIGHT. St. Paul describes God to his young friend Timothy as the one … “Who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see. To him be honour and might forever.”

Faith should be credible, but it will also remain tantalizingly and spectacularly incredible.