44 acting like 4 at Punctum Saliens

44 acting like 4

Published

on June 16, 2007

in born again, christian apologetics, faith, jesus and logic

Ok, so we have to be as little children to believe in Jesus but then we grow in the word and move from milk to meat and learn to defend our faith to anyone who asks. The problem is that many of the people “defending” their faith sound like 44 year olds defending a 4 year old belief in something like Santa Claus. At least the people do who maintain a very rigid, literal view of the Bible and Jesus and God. Just look at my posts on Josh McDowell and Ravi Zacharias. Pick up and really read The Case for Christ. Strobel accepts things without questioning and without the probing questions one would expect from a journalist — exactly as a child would. Which is fine and dandy for new converts to Christianity but when you start holding that unquestioning faith up as a logical defense, it falls apart under its own inconsistencies. Defending your faith means you have to go above and beyond blind faith.

2 Responses to “44 acting like 4”

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1 Inquirer
July 19, 2007 at 9:33 pm

I enjoy your authenticity, Ken—in a way, you’re a cerebral version of iMonk, in that both of you are very transparent about your inner wrestlings. That is rich.

Just a thought, for whatever it might be worth, in reference to “Defending your faith means you have to go above and beyond blind faith.” First, while it’s true that there is blind faith (and anti-intellectual faith, too), that doesn’t strike me as what the Scriptures call a Christian to. As just one example, the primary underpinning of a believer’s faith would be the Resurrection.

Second, there are Christians who struggle with some of the things you mention here at your blog, and whose bottom-line motto, as a result, is “in hope against hope he believed” (ROMANS 4). They’re stumped by many of the things that don’t make sense (whether in life and the world around us or in the Bible), and maybe even at times have been downright angry at the conundrums, but at the end of the day, they know that the True Manna is still their soul’s only sustenance.

Take care,

Inq
2 Ken
July 21, 2007 at 12:03 pm

I am still trying to figure out faith. I think that faith (and “blind” faith) is as subjective as beauty — not to God, of course, but individually. For example, you cite the Resurrection as the basis of a believer’s faith but I would say, “how do you know the Resurrection actually took place?” I suspect you would say something like, “Well, it says so in the Bible.” And I would say something like, “Well, how do you know that the Bible … ?” And we would go back and forth and I would probably not end up with the same faith as you and you probably would end up with the same faith. It’s very subjective.

I agree that blind faith is not “what the Scriptures call a Christian to” but I think that many Christians have exactly that — blind faith. To use “because the Bible tells me so” as the “reason” for believing all that you believe, to me, is blind faith. Something has to convince you that the Bible makes a good initial condition for the rest of your beliefs.

And that is exactly where your second point enters into it. I’m (almost) convinced that experience makes for excellent evidence. If you were to talk to my parents they would, indeed, use “because the Bible tells me so” to defend just about everything they say they believe. But if you talked to them more and talked about every day life, you would find that God works in a very personal way in their lives all the time. And they use this personal experience of God as the real basis for believing that the Bible is true so they can base everything else on the Bible. Now, to many other people, my parents would be naive, delusional, crack pots. Just because the insurance company sent them money back for an overpayment on a medical bill does not mean that God was behind it. But to them it does. They choose to interpret life in this way and so, I think that for them, it’s valid.

This is really no different than what the Buddha says. “Do not believe what I say. Experience it for yourself and make up your own mind.” My parents’ faith is based on a lifetime of experience and, to them, is anything but blind — it makes no matter what anyone else says about it.