"Now
faith is being sure of what you hope for and certain of what you do not see" (Hebrews 11:1)
Definition
of faith
noun
[mass
noun]
1complete
trust or confidence in someone or something:
this
restores one’s faith in politicians
2strong
belief in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual conviction
rather than proof:
bereaved
people who have shown supreme faith
[count
noun] a particular religion:
the
Christian faith
[count
noun] a strongly held belief:
men
with strong political faiths
Source:
Oxford dictionary online
Faith:
not wanting to know what is true.
Friedrich
Nietzsche
Faith
is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and
evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because
of, the lack of evidence.
Richard
Dawkins
(Personal
remark: now if that's not a statement of faith then i am not sure
what else would be!)
Today
the theory of evolution is about as much open to doubt as the theory
that the earth goes round the sun.
Richard
Dawkins
A 19
year old man wakes up and decides from his free will to become a
scientist. His rationale and justification has been persuaded
by his desire to find truth about the world he sees and science is
his philosophical mechanism to uncover that truth.
To him
the only form of belief is through what can be seen and understood.
Faith has no merit as it is purely based on a blind assumption and
unseen hope.
He
then decides to hop into his car and drive it to the airport, catches
a flight interstate to look into various universities he's
considering. During his visitation, he enters and exits 22
elevators, 8 conveyer belts, 5 campus buses and walks across 9
bridges connecting various faculties with a minim height of 15
meters.
Watch
now: "faith is being sure of what you hope for and certain of
what you do not see"
Something
tells me this young man is applying faith to very important moments
of every day?
Does
this young man clearly understand and see the combustion engine at
work within his car and how it propels his car? Can he explain and
describe the components and laws of physics that are at work within
the braking system of the car?
Would
he be adept and confident to describe why he knows the truth about
how the law of aerodynamics is keeping his aircraft airborne ? What
of the bus, the lifts or bridges he crossed?
Or
maybe he's just "being sure that his hope in the car and plane
are going to work and he's obviously very certain that even though he
can't see all these natural laws, material components working
cohesively, that they do.
Hang
on, isn't that faith? - ' being sure of what you hope for and certain
of what you do not see"
You
see guys, science and faith are intimately and inextricably linked
and dependent on one another.
As
astrophysicist Paul Davies states:
Just
because the sun has risen every day of your life, there is no
guarantee that it will rise tomorrow. The belief that it will - that
there are indeed dependable regularities of nature - is an act of
faith, but one which is indispensable to the progress of science.
Professor
John Lennox goes on to say: 'This aspect of the rational
intelligibility of the universe is often referred to as the principle
of uniformity of nature. It is an article of the scientists
faith.'
(Has
Science Buried God, p 62)
I
almost fell out of bed (so to speak of course), when I read this,
because what Lennox and other scientists were saying was that the
premise of science is based on a faith itself - being sure that their
hope in the scientific method and regularities of the natural world
hold up and certain that even though they can not see rationality and
intelligibility, they are certain of it's truth and order to
comprehend the scientific method.
As
Richard Dawkins supposedly said in his propaganda movie with Lawrence
Krause called "Unbelievers", "I'm just so in love with
science [ at the exclusion to the idea that God exists and created me
]" Great, but you've got a lot of faith riding on that one buddy
at the exclusion of evidence for a transcendent cause and
purpose of your life.
You
know faith is such a mis-understood term because for so long we have
used it as our grandmothers nightgown to cover everything that can't
be rationally or coherently explained - that is, 'faith' is the
answer that is the generic answer to "everything and anything
inexplicable" by the material world.
One
needs to only look at what is in the Oxford Dictionary to see that
"based on spiritual conviction rather than proof" - that we
have mis-understood and defined "Faith".
Now
one of the more insightful things i was listening too the other day
was by William Lane Craig, who made the comment that he is of the
persuasion that scientists have no more authority and argues even
less so, to make the judgement about God's existence - which of
course requires Faith. Predominately because that is a study of
the meta physical universe ( study of the something that describes
the physical attributes of the universe but is not material in of
itself). Rather the question of God's existence is more suited
to a philosophical perspective because it is based on a reasoning
about an immaterial (metaphysical) being.
Of
course the scientific method and scientists can not find God, if so
then we would unpack and dissect Him until we could clone him - now
that would be fascinating and of an arrogance beyond Everestistic
proportions.
Now
here's my point coming back to faith: i have often wrestled with the
concept of Faith - that being a blind type hope that God exists and
Jesus did rise from the dead, and that my faith in eternal justice
and righteousness was found in Jesus death and resurrection. And
coupled with the theology that "it is impossible to please God
(without faith) because those that come to God, must believe that he
exists and that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him".
(Hebrews 11)
But
Faith is actually the most logical, rational and true method of
relationship between a material being and an immaterial transcendent
being. How else is a relationship going to ensue without Faith
? (Now faith is being sure of what you hope for and certain of what
you do not see).
What
other mechanism would one ascribe to such a relationship if faith is
not used?
Furthermore,
even on a material person to person level, faith is still very much
in action. That is, i am sure that my wife loves me, wants me and
longs for me to return home (even on the morning i leave before she
gets up to kiss me good-bye) each day i leave the house and i am
certain that even though i can't see her during the day, i am 100%
convinced of the hope she wants me back.
Now as
the oxford dictionary erroneously states, this faith i have in my
relationship with my wife or God for that matter is based on proof
and a lot of it. Yes it is spiritual (that is an experience, feeling
and sense of connection and power/energy/force/weight/value) but it
is certainly NOT founded by a lack of proof.
Now
one might argue that if all of this is true, then why doesn't God
make himself plainly evident to us? Why not become a material form or
have a booming voice in the sky and say hijack our body to prove He's
there? Then this "blind faith" thingy wouldn't be needed
and lowers the barrier to entry to belief or faith in God?
Fair
point. But read the Bible, he did that and see what happens. Better
still, he did that in various forms and material experiences and even
became a human being, and we still say: "ha, that's not enough
evidence for me". We even retort "well, for God to
prove that he exists he'd have to yell from the sky and speak my
name! Then i'd have enough faith !" Yet he did that time and
time and time again.
And
often the person saying this doesn't really want God to exist
because he knows in his heart that the ramifications on his
life would be forever changed. A creation has a creator and the
creator wants something from it's creation.
To
take one step further, when Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 13, the top
3 mechanisms in life are faith hope and love, you can understand why
they are interdependent and necessary. Love without hope and faith is
vacuous and can not function, how can i love if i have no hope in
that love? How can i love if i have no faith in the truth of love?
Now
let me highlight something here, i am not categorically stating that
faith has to be entirely rationally or logically based, if that were
so then we are limiting God's ability to work through His Creation.
For starters love is not entirely rational - just look at forgiveness
and "considering it pure joy my brothers when you face trials of
many kinds" (James 1). God is not bound by reason, he is
the author of reason and we as human beings have faith that reason is
a correct way to view the world.
That
is reason and logic will only take you so far.
What i
am saying is that faith is not an irrational, blind, uninformed
mechanism, but that it's fundamental to all human relationships.
Gents,
my contention is that the world is trying to box Faith into a
"non evidenced based" irrational, "hope
amongst hope" ideologies that is for the weirdo and that science
and material proof are the only forms of obtaining truth.
Well I
think it's clear that this is illogical. God is the author of
Truth, of Faith, Hope and Love. Faith is a very reasonable, rational
and true mechanism. IF Faith was not existent then we would have no
way to relate to the Maker. Hence the skeptic, the atheist
can't relate, yet still uses Faith pervasively throughout
their life..... interesting...
As one
atheist said, "I just believe (have faith) in one God less than
you....."
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