Recently, on a forum, a poster challenged believers of any faith to prove that their God exists in reasoned, balanced arguments, not mindless and repetive spoon-fed drivel. My response to that was that to do so over an internet message board is impossible for me because proof of such a thing, for me, is borne out in my actions and I do not live on an internet message board – and I hoped that the person who issued the challenge did not, either.
But the point is a valid one. Belief should be reasoned and measured, not blind adherence to a system of words one is trained in from birth to accept as true, but has never examined or questioned – never investigated or tried to deliberately poke holes in or challenge for veracity. God gave us minds with the intent that we should use them.
In Mr. Goodkind’s tenth book of the Sword of Truth series, Phantom, one of the supporting characters makes a point that struck me: “I need to see proof I understand.”
No man comes to God without some form of proof. No one. That proof may take any form – boldly public or deeply personal, because God reaches people in any number of ways, but faith is not and never has been blind. Even Abraham didn’t just randomly trust some unknown entity he conjured up in a dream some night after some bad lamb – Abraham trusted in a God who had consistently and repeatedly proven Himself to Abraham and Sarah over many years’ time, even though both Abraham and Sarah made some really bad choices along the way which proved that they did not take it on blind faith that this God guy was going to do what He said He was.
So what is proof we understand? In Abraham’s case, it was a ram. Then, it was a son. There were other things along the line, certainly, but those were the big ones.
If you attempt to prove the existence of God to a man who cannot read and who has no means with which to support his family using particle physics, do you think that man will care about you or your God?
If you attempt to prove the existence of your God to a man of science using crackpot science that says the earth is a mere ten thousand years old, do you think that man will come to believe in your God? Before or after he laughs you out of his office?
In I Corinthians 9, Paul says that he has become all things to all men that he might save some. This is not saying that Paul has become a hypocrite or put on a mask depending on who he is with. It is saying that he relates to people according to what their needs are, that he gives them proof that they can understand. To the scientist, he gives science; to the farmer, he gives proof in how crops grow; to the scholar, he gives knowledge. All are equally valid and all have one thing in common: all require both faith and the active use of man’s reason, working together, to draw a conclusion.
God did not give us minds so that we could blindly adhere to insane notions of tradition and morality foisted upon us by others. God did not give us free will so that we could be stripped of it by well-meaning (and not so well-meaning) individuals who believe they hear God better than others or that God hears them more clearly than He hears others by virtue of their “position” or their calling. God is not like human parents – He does not play favorites and He loves all of His kids equally and He hears all of His kids with equal clarity and concern.
We are given free will so that we may make choices – for good or for bad – and even God will not override that.
We are given minds with which to reason, to think. And I believe in all earnestness that God gave them to so that we would use them for that purpose – so we would question, doubt, test, challenge and debate what we are taught so that we would truly know Him and what is His will…not mindlessly believe the words of others as truth without testing them.
If we are to credibly witness for God in the world, we need to show the world proof they can understand – we need to use the gifts God gave us: our minds, our free wills and our hearts, not some fervently zealous blind devotion that does little except to make us look like raving idiots. Jesus was not an idiot and I am pretty sure He’d appreciate it if we didn’t run around making Him look like one.
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Hmm….yes. I am reminded of a story told me by a Wiccan friend. It made both angry and sad, She said that a friend of hers was sitting at a bus stop one night, reading a book and waiting for hte bus. He saw a car pull up across the street with several people in it. They looked and him and seemed to be talking. Then they got out and one young woman, who seemed very nervous, was pushed to the front. The rest of the group urging her on, she crossed the street and came up to the man and standin very stiffly and formally, asked, in anervous but earnest sort of way, “Have you found Jesus?”
Now this person had been preached at a few times before and was not impressed with the whole thing. He was a druid and had no mind to alter that. He was fairlyannoyed at her appoach and the questioin itself. So, he answer, ” No, have you lost him again?”
Many ‘Christians’ would be highly offended at that response and condemn the man. Hmm….my reaction is to get angry at religion and it’s mind control that says you have to ‘witness’ in a specific way – and to weep for the damage it does.