Theophonics

“I do not feel obligated to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reasons, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.” - Galileo Galilei

One of the most abused concepts in Christianity is the idea of blind faith.  Belief, we are told, should be without thinking and without critique.  The predominant story today seems to be that science and religion are at odds, so belief should be separate from reason.  

When did we pick this up?  It couldn’t have been when Israel survived without any government but a court system of educated judges.  It couldn’t have been in rise of rabbinic Judaism when religious practice was determined by reasoned debate.  It certainly couldn’t have been in the early Christian church–after all, the apostle Luke described the Bereans as noble for hitting the books instead of taking the apostle Paul at his word.  And it definitely couldn’t have been from the beginning, when God expected people to figure morality out on their own before he had to lay a few bits down in writing for the Hebrews!  

If you are made in God’s image, that includes the ability to think and to reason.  Why would you not exercise these abilities?  Is your faith really so weak that you’re afraid of the answers you would find if you asked some hard questions?  

If you believe that science and religion aren’t compatible, it likely because you took some one’s word for it.  If you took a religious leader’s word for it, you should study the greater names of the faith in order to realize that such a stance is directly at odds with their expectations.  If you took an atheist’s word for it, you have let the claim of an atheist determine your religion for you without any evaluation of the claim.  Wouldn’t it be better if you used your God-given abilities of logic and reason to sort the claims out for yourself than to blindly accept the testimony of some one you believe to be wrong?  

No, blind faith isn’t much good.  “Ah,” you say, “But what of people like Abraham who was willing to sacrifice his son, Isaac!  They had blind faith!”  No, in fact, they didn’t.  There is a better term:  Child-like faith.  At first glance they seem very similar, but loathe as I am to be mired in semantics, let me offer an explanation.  

Children do not have faith in their parents blindly.  No, while it is true that children trust their parents to keep them safe, choosing to put faith in their parents superior understanding and abilities in situations that would otherwise seem daunting or bleak, they do it with reason.  Children are able to do this because they have a relationship.  A child cannot prove that his mother loves him, but based on his relationship he can treat that he is loved as fact.  If he learns something contrary to what he believed about his parents, he does not suddenly doubt their love of him, but he reevaluates his understanding of them.  So it is with God.  

Though I take pride in the veracity of the Bible and the joy of miracles, they are not the bedrock of my faith.  They are important for corroboration and education, to be sure.  However, if they were all proven wrong tomorrow, my faith would stand on a relationship.  If you avoid science or reason for fear that it is a threat to your belief in God, perhaps you should take some time in developing your relationship with Him.  After all, how will you ever defend your faith against the accusations of the world if you are unwilling to use your faculties to discover the answers?

A friend of mine that is associated with a Christian high school recounted a story to me involving a particular teacher in a Bible class. I will give you half the story now and half at the end. The teacher was discussing the drinking of wine in Biblical times. Students asked why wine is so frequently mentioned in the Bible, and some went as far as to ask why Jesus himself drank wine. According to the teacher, the predominant reason that wine was consumed during these ages was the poisonous nature of ancient water in the Holy Land. I won’t insult your intelligence by explaining the composition of wine, nor will I comment on the falsehood of the statement. Instead I’d like to examine exactly why this statement was made in the first place.

Most Christians today feel an incredible need to defend the Bible. This is not inherently an unhealthy thing, as the non-Christian world has been making quite a few attacks over the past few decades. I think it is perfectly acceptable, if not responsible, to defend the scriptures of your chosen faith to those who question you about it. The problem exists when we begin to defend our scriptures when we do not possess the knowledge to properly form a statement.

The teacher, much like many Christians today, felt the need to defend the sanctity of the scriptures that were in question. The problem was that the teacher did not know what to say. This eventually led to the statement about poisonous water. I would like to suggest two things that could have radically changed the outcome of the discussion.

The first way for the teacher to have avoided this situation was to properly study the Bible. We all know that alcohol is a volatile subject within Christian circles. That should be a tip off that the topic might come up frequently, especially in a Bible class. Learning the newest and catchiest versions of presenting the Gospel is a fine thing to study, but let us not forget that we as Christians are not simply called to witness, but also to disciple. Diligent and fervent study of issues pertaining to the world around you is never a waste.

The second possible way out of the situation was simply to say, “I don’t know, but I’ll find out.” It is better for us, as Christians, to admit that we do not know every single piece of data covered in the sixty-six books of the Bible than to attempt to answer without knowing. Giving an answer when you don’t know does several detrimental things. It gives a false, and possibly damaging, impression to the questioner. It makes you, and Christianity by proxy, look ignorant if the person finds out your answer is wrong through personal study. And it also might destroy any chance of future conversion for that person. Of course, if you take my first piece of advice and study, you will find yourself needing to use the second much less.

With Christianity growing less popular, more pressure is put on each individual Christian to respond with something other than ”I don’t know.” This should provoke you to get off your spiritual couch and do some studying. But remember, saying you don’t know is infinitely better than spinning a story out of nothing. The teacher in my story probably had the best intentions of defending the scripture. The second half of the story is the sad part. The student told my friend that he would never believe anything that teacher said about the Bible ever again. I leave you with one of my favorite verses.

2 Timothy 2:15- Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth.