Truth Without A Christ Context

LeRon Shults, former professor of theology at Bethel Theological Seminary, wrote:

From a theological perspective, this fixation with propositions can easily lead to the attempt to use the finite tool of language on an absolute Presence that transcends and embraces all finite reality. Languages are culturally constructed symbol systems that enable humans to communicate by designating one finite reality in distinction from another. The truly infinite God of Christian faith is beyond all our linguistic grasping, as all the great theologians from Irenaeus to Calvin have insisted, and so the struggle to capture God in our finite propositional structures is nothing short of linguistic idolatry.

This is a fantastic thought but woefully incomplete. This is truth without the context of Christ. Yes, Christianity (and all the major monotheistic religions) confirm that God is infinite and beyond description. However, if an infinite God wants to communicate to a finite being, He will limit Himself in that revelation.

When a parent speaks to a child, do they use their "native" adult language? Maybe that parent holds a doctorate degree. Do they use high-brow academic language when speaking to their toddler? Aren’t family physicians taught to limit their technical jargon when communicating to their patients?

Christianity says that the infinite God has revealed Himself in a finite way. This is profound when you consider that this finite way was in the physical form of Jesus Christ.

Christ is the ultimate set of propositions. The Scriptures literally call Him “The Word”. The very statement “There are no absolutes.” is an absolute statement.

With the above said, let me also write against the other extreme. God cannot and should not be reduced only to a set of propositions. The scriptures describe this “Word” as living, walking, breathing, talking, dying and resurrecting. He healed the sick, gave sight to the blind and loved all. Unlike other gods who claim to love us, He proved it by giving His life, something your average god can’t do.

BTW, this answers the age-old philosophical question, “Can God create a rock that He can’t lift?” Yes He can and He did. He is infinite so He CAN limit Himself. He HAS limited Himself so that we can know Him. We cannot know the infinite. This doesn't mean He is limited in ability, only in presentation to us.

In other words this God who is infinite in ability, has limited His will. The Godliest thing we can do is to do the same. THIS is why belief in the Christian God is tied to morality, character and integrity.

But people that reduce God to just black and white, tend to be dogmatic out of what appears to me to be a sense of insecurity. I think they are insecure with NOT knowing. This is antithetical to the idea of faith.

Faith is a moderation of belief. It is to believe something enough to not be a persistent, consistent skeptic but to doubt it enough to not be dogmatic. Anything else is extremism of belief. At least that’s what I believe, but I can’t be for sure.

Faith Balances the Extremes

Faith is belief in moderation, the opposite of extremes, the antithesis of the "one-ended stick".

It is obvious that faith can't exist without belief. Whenever Jesus encountered someone who struggled with belief, He would commonly ask, "Where is your faith"?

But notice that He also never asked, "Where is your certainty?"

Just as faith is impossible without belief, it is equally impossible without the presence of doubt.

If you are absolutely 100% certain of any belief, it can NOT be defined as faith. No one has FAITH that they are going to die. No one has faith that the sun will come up tomorrow (although it IS possible, but extremely unlikely that it will NOT come up).

If faith is a belief that is the mean between doubt and certainty, than it appears to in the middle between two extremes.

So why is it that people of faith so often find themselves at the fringes of life?

If you do NOT have faith, then what are you left with except to believe only in that which can be proven with certainty (which is very little) or with a perpetual skepticism that leaves your mind unhinged.

"Let beliefs fade fast and frequently, if you wish institutions to remain the same. The more the life of the mind is unhinged, the more the machinery of matter will be left to itself." - G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy, pg 60.

Such thinking changes nothing, not even its adherent.

I once heard a local pastor say it this way: "If your faith hasn't changed you, then you need to change your faith."

Distracted by meaninglessness, surprised by joy

Is God merely an invention of the human mind to account for death?

This is a fair and common question.

What is the most certain thing that will happen to every living being on this planet and in the known universe?

Is it not death?

What idea is the most uncertain belief held by the greatest number of people in the known universe?

Is it not God?

What is the vehicle to belief in God if it is not faith? And what is faith if it is not a belief that contains no ounce of doubt? Can someone be a person of faith without also embracing the mystery that comes with doubt?

And what does it mean to embrace mystery, if one doesn't also embrace the very questioning process?

Why is it that people who do NOT believe in God go so far out of their way to avoid thinking about this most obvious and certain thing? Why do the skeptics live their lives embracing any distractions that numb their senses to this one universal certainty?

Is it really in our best interests to only embrace certainty, when the most certain thing is death?

Are our distractions inventions of the human mind to avoid God?

Is it not true that the believer is sure about the most certain thing, and the skeptic most doubtful?

Does it not even follow that the believer is most certain about the most important things in life, while the nonbeliever is only certain about the least important?

I close with excerpts of G.K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy (pages 91-92):

"The sceptic may truly be said to be topsy-turvy; for his feet are dancing upwards in idle ecstacies, while his brain is in the abyss."

"Christianity satisfies suddenly and perfectly man’s ancestral instinct for being the right way up; satisfies it supremely in this; that by its creed joy becomes something gigantic and sadness something special and small."

"Christianity satisfies suddenly and perfectly man’s ancestral instinct for being the right way up; satisfies it supremely in this; that by its creed joy becomes something gigantic and sadness something special and small."

"We can take our own tears more lightly than we could take the tremendous levities of the angels. So we sit perhaps in a starry chamber of silence, while the laughter of the heavens is too loud for us to hear."

"Joy, which was the small publicity of the pagan, is the gigantic secret of the Christian."

Now, what was the question again? :-)

An Answer for Everything, Proves Nothing

Someone very dear to me has schizophrenia. He thinks that he's living the life of the Truman Show. He believes everyone in the world knows who he is and is watching his every move. He has an answer for everything.

I challenged his view one day by telling him that if he did a Google of his name, he'd be hard pressed to find himself even listed. I proposed that in a world where everyone is watching you and knows your name, a Google search was bound to prove this.

His explanation was simply that God could have manipulated the results of the Google search to hide the truth. We could all even be a part of a conspiracy. His answer was expected. "You have an answer for everything", I replied. The problem with his way of thinking is that there's nothing anyone can say or do to prove or disprove his beliefs.
He proves nothing by answering everything.

The brilliant scientist Stephen Hawking is very ill right now. He has spent much of his life working on a theory to unify Einstein's theory of relativity (which deals with physics on a large scale) with quantum theory (physics on a very small scale). His hope is that this unifying theory will explain everything.

I can't help but wonder, in the light of my schizophrenic friend, whether or not Hawking is looking for a system of truth that is just as insane.

Reading the doctrinal statements of some churches and Christian universities, I wonder if I don't see the same sort of insanity. They seem to have everything in life figured out. Is Christ anything if not a paradox? Does not the Christian see life in Christ's death, power in the cross, strength in His display of weakness and hope in His suffering?

I have always been skeptical of skepticism, but I am now becoming skeptical of any theory that claims to explain everything. I am starting to bring my skepticism of the "too good to be true" product that "slices and dices" to my philosophy.

Perhaps the best worldview of life purposefully leaves room for mystery. Perhaps the healthiest dogma is that which includes faith.

And why would the best worldview leave room for mystery if mystery wasn't the door for worship?