Christians are people of faith, and that by simple
definition. We neither deny it, nor are we
embarrassed by it. By the standard usage
of faith defined as trust, in the example, “Jon,
You have shown yourself trustworthy in the past, I have faith that you will
finish your project,” we Christians likewise place our faith in the God who
is shown to be reliable. While,
biblically speaking, faith is distinguished from fact (2 Corinthians 5:7),
faith is not in contradiction to fact.
Faith rather is the logical stepping out onto a foundation shown to be
secure. A leap in the dark without
substantial grounds is not faith, but instead credulity. Faith, by definition, is the reasonable activity of entrusting
ourselves to that very foundation which we have good reasons to believe is capable
of bearing our weight. For Christians
this means specifically entrusting our lives to Jesus Christ as truly God’s
Son, whose death on the cross paid for our sins, and whose resurrection from
the dead is an actual fact that, by extension, leads to our own resurrection to
everlasting life.
So today’s blog title is not a denial of the centrality of
faith in the Christian life. My
objection to the term “people of faith” is not what it affirms about
Christians, but rather what it implies (apparently denies) about everyone else. Are Christians and adherents to religious
belief in general the only ones who exercise faith? What about secularists who deny the authority
of religious dogma? And what about materialists who affirm as
truth only what we manage to reason by our own thought processes, and as
knowledge only that which is apprehended by empirical analysis of the material
order? May secularists and materialists truthfully
claim freedom from the so-called “superstition” of religious faith?
It is highly significant that the Bible never entertains that
possibility. The Scriptures instead
assume (without judgment) faith to be a universal human activity. At the level of the ordinary and the mundane,
daily decisions are carried out only by means of healthy doses of faith. We hardly ever take time to reflect on how
much of human interaction involves mutual trust of one another. In terms of the large picture “Who is god?”
kinds of questions, namely, Where did we come from?, Why are we here?, What is
the point of life?, and How should we live?, the pervasiveness of faith becomes
more weighty.
On December 10 at 7:00 pm at Everett (Washington) Community
College I will be debating atheist, Jim Corbett of the Humanist Association of
North Puget Sound on the following question: “Does
God Exist? Where Do the Facts of Science
and History and the Insights of Human Experience Point?” He (I hasten to say I am glad to call him
friend) has already disavowed all exercise of faith. To the arguments I laid out in previous blogs
that the universe had an absolute beginning out of nothing, he replied in the
presence of the last audience that my evidentiary case was of no consequence since,
as he stated, it is more reasonable to leave those questions unanswered than
appeal to the existence of a so-called “god” in order to account for the
universe. I think, at bottom, that it is
best for an audience to listen to both sides of our debate so as to come to one’s
own conclusion about where the evidence best leads. But I leave with you the reader this
question: On what grounds does my
opponent build his case? Is it on a body
of solid scientific facts? Or is it
built on faith…faith in something that cannot, even in principle, be
demonstrated?
The Bible never expresses interest in faith as
an abstract concept. Its question is,
instead, on whom (or what) is our faith founded? If one’s life is not founded on the Maker of
heaven and earth who for our sake sent His only Son, it is not because faith is
absent, but because it is wrongly founded on an idol.
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