This I Believe?

July 15, 2010

 

I've been a Christian for my entire life. I find it very easy to believe what is written in the Bible. I also find it very easy, when standing or sitting with scores or hundreds of other like-minded individuals, to believe what we're saying when we recite the Nicene Creed in unison:

"We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen."

"We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father; through him all things were made. For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven, was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and became truly human. For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered death and was buried. On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures; he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end."

"We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father [and the Son], who with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified, who has spoken through the prophets. We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church. We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins. We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen."

These words are easy to speak from habit, or from peer pressure. But how sincerely and intelligently do we actually believe them? These words sound reasonable, and believable, but do they have implications, or are there other implications to being "Christian", that might be less palatable, especially to the more sophisticated among us? If I'm not mistaken, the answer is "Yes". And I will happily enlighten you now with a list of beliefs that can easily be gleaned from the Bible. In all fairness, some of the statements below may be nothing more than stories from which we are to learn important concepts about our relationship with God and Man. But most represent very basic Christian doctrine. You may find yourself swallowing hard at some of these, and do not be surprised if you just plain can't stomach them all.

  • I believe that from the time of Adam through the time of Noah the lifespan of humans routinely exceeded 500 years, and often approached 1000 years. These longevity claims are not the result of wild claims intended to engender great respect for one's ancestors.
  • I believe that, of the millions of young teenage girls who have become pregnant and denied fooling around, one was still a virgin and telling the truth. That she later also claimed her son was supernatural is a belief that I also hold. In fact, based on the sum total of information that is written about her, I find her character among the finest and most exemplary of all people who have ever lived.
  • I believe that a young boy, Samuel, who had recently left his parents to serve in the priesthood, heard God's audible voice during the night. This was not merely his wild imagination activated by personal stress from leaving his parents and living in a new environment among strangers. I believe equally that Moses, who had been feverishly working in the hot desert sun, encountered a burning bush from which emanated the voice of God, and Moses' observations were not the result of sunstroke or heat exhaustion.
  • I believe that a man dead long enough for his body to stink, was raised from the dead by Jesus.
  • I believe that Jesus cast spirits out of people who were possessed or oppressed by them, and that this did not merely represent the psychological healing of those who were mentally ill, but very real actions with evil spirits.
  • I believe that the early Christians were able to speak fluently, for brief periods at least, in identifiable foreign languages which they had never learned, and that some people to this day are able to do the same.
  • I believe that God performs miracles. These miracles are not simply statistical abnormalities, nor the rare but expected occurrence of highly unlikely events given a large enough sample size of events. Miracles don't need explanation, because they are events that occur outside of normal, explainable human experience.
  • I believe that many stories in the Bible, even though highly implausible, actually happened as they are recorded. I believe this because God can work miracles, and miracles are not answerable to scientific method or explanation.
  • I believe that the Bible is the Word of God... because it says so in the Bible.
  • I believe that, of the thousands or millions of men who have claimed to be God... one was actually telling the truth, and I know who He was.

    • Do you believe all of these claims? Or even most of them? None? All of these beliefs are written in, or easily inferred from, the Bible. If you call yourself a Christian you must believe at least a handful of the above claims, perhaps all of them. If you're not Christian, you might find yourself nodding your head approvingly at this candid presentation of some seemingly odd Christian beliefs. If so, you should also find yourself with a nagging doubt at the fringes of your mind, wondering how someone who has seemingly cried out that the emperor has no clothes might still find the emperor clothed. What might there be about Christianity that causes those who look beneath its surface to identify some of its seemingly bizarre claims, to remain confident in it? Whether you are Christian, atheist, or agnostic, how will you deal with the realities of Christian belief?

    I could end this brief essay right here, but we have touched very near the subject of 'faith', and since we have come this far we should be willing and able to trek a bit further. What do you think that faith is? We read in Hebrews 11:1: "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."

    We believe based on evidence. This is how juries determine a defendant's guilt or innocence. No member of a jury witnessed the crime, but the jury draws conclusions based on evidence presented to them. The evidence may be physical items that can be viewed or measured, or it may be personal testimony. Guilt or innocence is proved based on how convincing the evidence is to a panel of 12 jurors, none of whom witnessed the events in question. So faith is how or why we believe. More precisely, it is how or why we ARE ABLE to believe. What is it in which we believe? That Jesus and His teachings are the right way for us. We choose our way of life based on our faith in the written testimony of many individuals who recorded their observations some years after Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection.

    Is faith the substance of our value system? Yes, since our value system represents that in which we hope and trust. In Galatians 3:6-9: "Even so Abraham BELIEVED GOD, AND IT WAS RECKONED TO HIM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS. Therefore, be sure that it is those who are of faith who are sons of Abraham. The Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, {saying,} "ALL THE NATIONS WILL BE BLESSED IN YOU. So then those who are of faith are blessed with Abraham, the believer." Faith is our response to revelation. Grace is what allows us to accept revelation. Such acceptance is not, and should not be, trivially granted by anyone.

    True, we did not see for ourselves the Burning Bush, nor did we see Jesus physically here on Earth so that we might ascertain by our own eyes how it might be that He is God's only Son. But it may be that it doesn't take quite so much faith to believe these things as we are wont to believe. There is no way to prove such claims, so it is true that our belief in these claims cannot be proved wrong. This is quite easy. I can say what I want with no fear of being proved wrong. But what about other statements in the Bible about which some evidence or counter evidence exists? How well do we handle faith when the fear and possibility of being proved wrong are there before our eyes? During and shortly after the time that Jesus walked upon the earth there were many people who could comment on the claims made by Him and His followers. Today, we have no such advantage, nor do we have such limitations.

    Faith becomes a much more difficult issue for us when it comes to matters that relate to science. In our time it is not uncommon to see people suffering from mental disorders when they become very advanced in age. Even if their bodies could sustain them for 150 years we have to wonder what their mental state would be. So now if we talk about people routinely living in excess of 900 years, medical science must call such claims into question. And what of evolution and Darwinism? Shouldn't humans as a species be advancing in physical and/or mental capacity, rather than declining? We are faced with the very real problem of holding fast to the Biblical claims in the face of science and experience which call these claims into question. But is this alternative our way of buckling under pressure? Or an insightful approach that allows us to maintain the integrity of scripture in the face of what we "know" to be true, recognizing that the Bible speaks more to the issue of why things happen rather than how things happen? All ages of history have been subject to prevailing societal beliefs, by which all experiences are measured. Now is no different. 100 years from now our generation will be viewed in a different light, and people will shake their heads in wonder over how we could have believed or done many things that we now believe or do. This does not mean that those who are living 100 years from now are wiser or more learned than we, but that they see differently. The clouds of human perception obscure not only the future, but the present as well as the past.

    Is faith so much about historical events, or is it about how we ought to live? Yes, that is the distinction between easy faith and hard faith. The one is a matter of historical belief, while the other is about our daily choices and challenges. When and where do God's instructions apply? Have we encountered situations which are not covered by His guidance? Can I determine that His words do not apply to a certain situation? How often do I attempt to justify my actions when said actions are contrary to what is taught in the Bible?

    Faith is NOT about believing in spite of sound evidence to the contrary. It is about grace that allows us to believe what we have not directly observed. We then incorporate this belief into our daily lives, hopefully being transformed then into God's messengers here on Earth.