Greetings
Dear Reader,
As I
approach this discussion I wish to be sure to define my purpose. I am not attempting to rehash things that
people already know but rather to review the things that led me to the
reasonable faith I hold.
It does
seem that anything that requires a leap of faith immediately becomes less than reasonable. This, however, is not true in practice. We reason our way to acts of faith
often. The face of faith in our daily
lives is trust. I trust that chairs will
hold me even if I have never used them.
I trust that a door will open when I pull or push as the sign says.
Even
though I have encountered locked doors and been the victim of weak chairs it
has not shaken my faith in doors and chairs.
We do, however, treat God this way.
We see failures in others and use that as an excuse to blame God and
weaken our faith in him.
The idea
of God requires faith no matter where you land on the line of belief or
unbelief. Someone who says they do not
believe in God is actually saying I believe there is no God. It is still an act of belief or faith. This then leads to the question of what is
reasonable in matters of God.
If there
is no God and no design to our existence then I must ask if the accidental occurrence
of man is truly reasonable. An honest mathematician
would concede that the mathematical possibility of man’s ascent through
evolution is very improbable. Even if
one can reason his way to this point one comes to a precipice that requires a
leap of faith. So I then must ask which
BELIEF is more reasonable? Did we emerge
from some primordial ooze due to billions of mathematically improbable perfecting
mutations over billions of years? Or did an intelligent architect design and
build a world for us that was to his liking?
I would
not presume to tell you what to think but for me ruling out the existence of a
designer seems much more a leap of faith than accepting one. One might argue that it is unscientific to
accept as real that which we cannot observe.
That too is a faith based requirement.
It is impossible to prove that the only things that are real are those
things we can observe. This is a belief
not a proven fact. Further true and
accurate science draws conclusions often from the effect of an event that
cannot be observed.
At best
an honest person must say that it takes a measure of belief to accept or reject
the existence of God. An honest person
must also concede that we indulge in faith based actions on a daily basis. Given a choice between the two the existence
of God is the simpler of the two explanations.
I, therefore, believe that God exists.
If this premise is true, then it is reasonable that he would have an intellect. I will ponder the mind of God tomorrow.
I
welcome your thoughts.
Wishing
you joy in the journey,
Aramis
Thorn
Mat
13:52 So Jesus said to them, "That is why every writer who has become a
disciple of Christ’s rule of the universe is like a home owner. He liberally
hands out new and old things from his great treasure store."
Posts
This topic is interesting. The idea that faith is reasonable is a difficult one to parse. I have something to say about all of these assertions, but all of that may be of little use. It seems to me that the exertion of faith has in it an inherent irrationality or at least a certain subjectivity.
ReplyDeleteThe example you use for the rationality of faith is overly simplistic at best. Doors and chairs being reliable have little if any bearing on whether or not I can feel that an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent being is real or even trustworthy. The things that shape people's faith or distrust of God or gods are the likes of famine, war, genocide, violence in general, injustice in general. No number of doors or chairs working or not working will match the gravity of these things.
An honest mathematician can tell you that there is probably other life in the universe. The shear vastness of the universe adds up to a fine probability that the evolution of life on Earth might have happened more than once and for that matter could happen again somewhere beyond our capability to tell. The evolution of species has been proven through scientific study. Anyone that denies this is attempting to hide what we have discovered or simply has not investigated the matter far enough.It is more reasonable to believe in evolution than intelligent design because of the facts that we have discovered. Faith is less reasonable.
Deciding what is a greater or lesser leap of faith seems to be a moot point if believing in the reliability of what we can see (ie chairs or doors) leads to the same conclusion as believing in what we cannot see. There are a great many assumptions in the statement that one belief is more or less reasonable than another. There may be certain beliefs that are reasonable and there are certain beliefs that anyone would call unreasonable. Those are all based in observable, tangible, real consequences of those beliefs. Belief in the supernatural requires one to stop observing nature in the first place and to move into a realm that has nothing to do with the observable. It has everything to do with things that we cannot observe. It is not scientific and is often not logical.
It certainly takes a measure of faith to accept the existence of any god. If it takes a measure of faith to reject a god, which measure of faith is greater? In a society that pressures one to believe in a certain god with a certain set of rules and may reject you if you reject those ideals does it not take more faith to hold to your beliefs? My chief point in that question is that in different circumstances different beliefs start to require different measures of faith if there are in fact measures. In an atheist society the Buddhist must persevere. In a Muslim society the Jew or the Christian must persevere. In Western society the Muslim must persevere.
These are facts that require no faith. Everyone faces persecution for their beliefs somewhere on this planet. To measure someone's faith you must at least step outside of your own beliefs and take in a broader view. Perspective makes an hard-line American-Christian belief system much less simpler. There is no monopoly on righteousness or rationality with perspective in mind.
Faith is not always reasonable to be sure. Attempting to put together all of the pieces of faith and then assessing a measurement without understanding or appreciating the beliefs outside of your own is futile. What can we really know unless we move outside of our worldview and accept something from that of others?