A Spiritual Spring: Part IIIB -- Faith Sprouts

In a former post, I mentioned that faith, love, fear of God and humility have been sprouting up with greater force in recent months. I'd like to describe my faith sprouts to you.


Faith Sprouts: type A

Faith seems to have a couple different aspects in the Bible:  belief of certain ideas, and trust in certain people in certain ways. In Part I, I already put some of the first kind of faith sprouts on display: evidence for the Christian God acting in history at the time of Jesus has, for whatever reason, seemed more formidable to me than it used to. Further, the many uncanny"coincidences" that faithful Christians experience today while following God's lead have made a similar turn. Together they've made the Christian worldview seem more credible to me, and this nurtures my walk with God.

"But Tom," somebody might ask, "didn't... uh didn't you already know all that? Hadn't you read the apologetics books, and heard the accounts of God's uncanny work in the lives of your friends and family, and even in your own life? And didn't you think that your reasons for thinking the Christian worldview mistaken were decisively stronger than the reasons for belief that you already had? What really changed?" That's hard to answer, but here's a stab at it. When the acid of skeptical, critical thinking is poured on a something like Christian religion, it can (in a sense) dissolve many claims. For example, a lot of the positive feedback in the Christian worldview might be explained by expectations: maybe people puzzle over the Bible until they find a way to interpret it that is intuitively edifying (which is possible even if from a more objective point of view, the text isn't all that edifying). similarly, maybe people see God's hand at work in what is actually meaningless events in life, just because through expectantly looking for it they're able to make "sense" out of all sorts of random events and make lemonade out of almost any lemon . Maybe also through trusting God, Christians willfully ignore and forget all kinds of evidence that they're wrong, but notice and take to heart any evidence that can be construed in the other direction. In fact, I would be surprised if we humans didn't do a lot of all this sort of thing, Christian or otherwise. So the skeptic may lose that positive feedback, and in fact be encouraged to be more skeptical because so much of the motivation to believe doesn't need the truth on its side to work.

Seeing stuff turn to slime, it's easy to suppose that the whole deal is doomed to slimehood eventually. If so much is so easily explained away, maybe the rest of it's bologna whether you see why or not. Still, what happens when you revisit the experiment after a while and find that though some parts have their shell eaten away, something pretty sturdy remains underneath, more than you would have expected? Suppose you give it some extra special attention with your corrosive agents and it still seems more-or-less solid? Time and more kinds of chemicals that you haven't obtained just yet may still do the trick... but then again maybe not. You don't have forever to keep hacking away at this one question. So you start fiddling your theories. Your attention and your expectations may change. Maybe you decide to reorganize your resources to favor different types of investigation.

Does it look to you like there's an obvious reason compelling the change? It actually kinda doesn't to me. But I contend that this sort of processing is exactly how humans work to make sense of things all the time, whether we're scientists or sandwich makers. Maybe it just comes with being Homo sapiens; maybe there's no real way around it. Are these choices to change direction and the shifting currents of our intuitions essentially arbitrary?Are we all just waves on the sea? Well what do you think?



Faith Sprouts: type B
A retired theology professor from my old church has a way of trying to lend me books I don't want to read. In an earlier meeting, I essentially opted out on an unfriendly book about predestination. As we continued to meet, he kept on pushing this stuff across the table. The Westminster Confession of Faith and some other book of a similar stripe met with a similar reception to Predestination. The next book that made its way in my direction was a little book by an old Puritan named John Flavel called The Mystery of Providence. My friend thought it would be relevant to my faith struggles, perhaps because there is evidence for God's existence to be seen in how he provides for us. I think he had other reasons too, but I don't always grasp exactly what goes on in his head. Anyway, I gave it a try.

Puritans aren't really known for being buckets of fun. I'm not about to dispel that stereotype. But there are more important things in life than either having fun or being fun, and this guy's got some of those. His reverent fear of God and proclivity for talking about duties to God and working one's self into a proper mindset may feel a bit disagreeable at first to people like myself. But with some patience, I've found humbling depth there.

Being able to satisfyingly explain something away doesn't always mean you should.

I've been missing out and negligent when it comes to looking for God's hand at work in things. Supposing God is in fact orchestrating all sorts of events together for my good, he doesn't have to make it obvious from the face of things, and if he likes to develop our trust muscles, he may have reason not to. It's a solemn shame not to give him credit for it. Suppose he gives me lemons with the express purpose of making lemonade. I'm kind of a loser if I say "hm. Lemons." and sit around with a sour face. There's all kinds of joy and encouragement waiting for us in trusting that God's at work in the entirety of our lives, and meditating on what he could be up to.

 It might even help me notice the stuff that's harder to explain away; God seems to do more uncanny things when people, in faith, take risks serving him. And if I'm paying attention to what he's doing and saying, God may actually respond by leading me and helping me grow in ways that wouldn't have happened otherwise.

Maybe the "doubt", the "double-mindedness" that James 1 says keeps us from receiving God's generous gifts of wisdom has to do with asking for God's help, but not really putting your attention and trust in providence, and thus not giving him credit when he does stuff for you. He doesn't get the thanks and honor he deserves, and you don't learn from the lessons he gives you, because you don't study them or even acknowledge what they are. Maybe you even complain. So why should he try to teach such people? He wants us to work with him, not sit around hoping maybe there's an off-chance he'll just zap us with instant understanding. Nor is it enough to ask him to work with us and show us what we need to know through our own projects; though he may on occasion graciously condescend to that, he's the Lord in the relationship, and we need to act like it.

I've resolved to not be "double-minded" like that. I think I was being "double-minded" in this way a fair amount, and I need to stop. To trust more clearly and fully in God's wonderful providential hand to be at work in the pleasant and the uncomfortable things, whether or not I have any idea exactly what he's doing, and to work to be attentive and fittingly responsive to what he is up to, this is growth in faith.

But I need help making sure it happens. It would be a pity if this all turns out to be a passing phase, with pious-sounding words that don't end up meaning a whole lot in my life. Part of the help I need comes through Christian community. If you're part of my Christian community, would you remind me of all this and encourage me in it, should you see times when it might help?