Faith Is a Start

We must attempt our commencement somewhere.  NB:  the principle is that where you start has a lot to determine where you'll end up!  Athanasius said that the only system of thought that Christ will fit into is the one where He is the starting point.  Paul says we progress "from faith to faith."   But today we see Secularists screaming "Down with God, up with man!'  They seek to dethrone Him and exalt man.  The Bible assumes unapologetically that God exists, and if it appealed to any authority figure or discipline it wouldn't be the final arbiter of truth, which it claims to be (e.g., if we appealed to a historian to verify the narrative, historians would be the authority not the inspired Word of God).  Scripture says a man has no excuse (cf. Rom. 1:28) and suppresses the truth.  The Bible says that denial of God stems from the heart of man that is depraved (cf. Psa. 14:1), and there is a God-shaped vacuum only filled by God!  So man is searching (really for the benefits, not the Benefactor) and has an innate sense of eternity, but that doesn't mean he'll find Him unless he is willing to do His will and diligently searches for Him with all his heart (cf. John 7:17; Jer. 29:13; Isa. 55:6).

When someone challenges your faith saying, "I don't believe in God!' Retort back as a comeback that objective truth is true regardless of belief or not.   Something isn't true because it's believed nor false because of denial.   We cannot wish God out of existence--He's the God who will not die!  We may not see Him but we don't see the wind either--we can see what it does though!  Likewise, with God, we cannot see the invisible, but we can see Him at work in the world and in our lives!  Just like when the sun comes out we can see everything else, so it is when God opens our eyes and we see with the eyes of our spirit and heart! Faith is not a throwback to our need for a father figure, a projection of an authority figure, nor to fulfill a psychological need to believe; the skeptic has a psychological need not to believe--his lifestyle may be at stake!

NB:  Science is inappropriate for finding or proving God; He's not tangible, audible, nor visible, and certainly won't subject Himself to our tests, test tubes, and experiments.  We cannot measure two feet of His love nor weigh a pound of His justice--these things are metaphysical!   But we know they exist, nevertheless!   Remember:  doubt is not the opposite of faith, but merely a sign of courage and intellectual integrity.  NO one has perfect faith.  Learn to doubt your doubts. Doubt, in essence, is an element of faith, for there's a doubt-faith continuum with various degrees of the certitude we all progress through on our way to the Celestial City as pilgrims.  We all must take the LEAP!  

The Bible says in Prov. 1:7 that "the fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge"--that's what we must seek.  In other words, if we don't know God or assume Him in the equation of life, we can know nothing for certain--it's all relative and all truth, morals, and values are only relative and not fixed, objective, universal, absolute, and eternal.  No God--no truth!  When we remove God from the metric of our life we lose our bearings and the moral compass we need, a sense of "ought."  This leads to erosion of the moral fiber of society and finally its demise or takeover.

All knowledge is contingent and must begin somewhere.  We know the Lord as a gift of faith and revelation:  "Taste and see that the LORD is good!"  The proof of the pudding is in the eating!  We don't believe in the sun simply because we can see it in the sky, but because we can see everything else.  Scientists also assume things they cannot prove; all knowledge begins with some presupposition or premise that cannot be proven.  Scientists and Secularists (those who believe in naturalism or that every event has a natural explanation and that science is the ultimate arbiter of truth in the physical world) both of these persons are people of faith the same as religious people--they just presuppose something different.  You can be religious without even having a religion!  But Secular Humanism is when someone is trying to be good without God in the calculus, giving himself the praise, glory, and honor.

Now let's assume you know that fire is hot!  Either you took it by faith or found out the hard way, empirically!  But that knowledge depends upon the senses you have being accurate and that you're not delusional or imagining things.  You may be dreaming!   But in saying it is hot, you're assuming that hot is an accurate description and you are intelligible and communicable.  But when you touched the fire, your suspicion turned to experience and experience as well as rationalism and revelation are ways to arrive at knowledge.  Skeptics like to say that they have facts and the naive and religious have faith, but in reality, both are people of faith and will be accountable for what they do with it.

When you have faith in someone and they betray you, you can lose some faith or break faith completely.  You can also lose faith by finding out by experience you are right--then you have knowledge.  Knowledge is defined as "justified true belief."  A belief is some idea we hold concerning our reality.  There is no universal belief but there is the universal, absolute truth!  Don't confuse the two.  In the seventeenth century, it was justified to be in a geocentric solar system, and in the fourteenth century, you were justified to believe in a Ptolemaic one as well as flat earth!  The Copernican revolution changed our ideas of science just as the Reformation did about theology.    Experiment or scientific empiricism is what changed everything!   This requires measurement, observation, experiment, repeatability, testing, hypothesizing, and controlling of variables.  You may also need laboratory conditions and/or a test tube.

Now, theology is considered the queen of sciences and Christianity the mother of modern science! Sir Francis Bacon is considered the "father of the scientific method."   Why?  Because they were first to actually know something in a metaphysical way, making sense of the physical universe and making it possible in their worldview to have a rational study of nature.  The Bible actually says that there are laws to nature (naturally what you'd expect from a Divine Lawmaker) in Job 38:33, and in several passages, it's ahead of the scientific knowledge of its day to prove its divine origin and inspiration.

Now, infinite regress is impossible in math, logic, and philosophy!  It's impossible to cross infinity, like trying to run an infinite distance in a finite time span.  But God is timeless and lives independent of it as being eternal (He created time as the corollary of space and matter).  It is known in the kalam cosmological argument for God that everything that begins to exist (in time) has a cause--this is logical.  The universe began to exist and ergo had a cause--I daresay God!   We cannot say, for instance, that life evolved because we have to start with the assumption that life was in existence in the first place.

We believe in God because we are convinced and see it as a rational and reasonable choice; thus we take a leap of faith and "experience God" as good.   Our faith transfers to a properly basic belief or a kind of knowledge based on experience--like finding out fires are hot! How many don't really know that yet!   We see the direction the evidence is leading, going with the flow and preponderance and making a decision to exercise our sense of faith, even if we don't have all the evidence (like juries often do) and may not have any "smoking gun" evidence either.  No one can disbelieve due to lack of evidence!  But God doesn't force faith, it's a gift for us to exercise.  We are not exhorted to exercise blind faith or lend credence without a valid reason or evidence.

Faith has a reason with some being more valid:  I want to believe it; I have vested interest in it; it will cost me something (a job or grade not to believe it); everyone believes it; it's always been believed!  We must believe rationally, for God respects our minds and doesn't expect intellectual suicide or for us to kiss our brains goodbye!  Our faith is defensible in the open marketplace of ideas, even the public forum, and public square!  God requires no one to believe what seems irrational or unreasonable!  We believe something just like a jury does--we are convinced by the weight of evidence and see the big picture.

Now that newborn or beginning faith has room to germinate, it must be tested, tried, and proved as to whether it's genuine, saving faith, or bogus faith that gets choked on weeds, being distracted or has too thin of a soil. Faith grows, but it's still faith because we aren't asked to have perfect faith, only sincere faith.  If we knew everything perfectly then we'd have knowledge, and faith is what pleases God.  For God is not going to reward us according to our faith, though, but what it produces--its fruit!  God doesn't want our achievements in the flesh, what He wants is us and this entails obedience.  A disobedient Christian is a contradiction in terms!  We must "trust and obey."

Now, faith the size of a mustard seed is all that's necessary, but we can ask for more faith and Jesus can help us with our unbelief (cf. Mark 10:9).  The point of faith is that we don't believe in faith, for faith doesn't save, Christ does--it's the object that matters!   It is to no avail to have strong faith in a lie or be deceived into fanaticism.  Sincerity matters, but it's no everything and someone can be sincerely wrong.  Paul said (cf. Rom. 10:2) that Israel had a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge--they were sincerely wrong!

There's no excuse not to believe: there's ample evidence for the willing but never enough for the unwilling.  The real reason people don't believe is that it's a choice and they don't want to believe (cf. John12:37).  We all must choose Whom we will serve--we're all servants, it just differs who our master is!  The heart of the matter is that it's a matter of the heart.  Sin makes man rebellious and stubborn, unwilling to obey or please God.

Finally, you must start somewhere: How about first base?   In every truth claim, you begin with a premise you can't prove. Knowledge has its beginning, but don't jump to the conclusion that everything had a beginning, then nothing would exist because you'd have the problem of infinite regress or crossing infinity--there was a beginning, just as the Bible says!   You either start with man and explain everything else, (Homo mensura, or "man is the measure of all things), or you begin with God and explain man!  The Bible doesn't start out, "Once upon a time," but  "In the beginning God."  Every journey of faith begins somewhere and God says to begin with Him in our calculus focused on Him.

In other words, we don't rationalize to God, but reason from Him.  You can neither prove nor disprove Him, you only can offer evidence and arguments, neither being conclusive, but possibly compelling or convicting.  Either there was just the material cosmos or there was God!  Either God created everything or it evolved by some fluke or accident of nature; there's no other choice except the Eastern philosophy of Maya or that the cosmos as an illusion.  God hides (cf. Isa. 45:15) with just enough light for the searcher to see and just enough darkness for the trifler not to see.

In sum, a seasoned believer has been there and done that so to speak and has a faith tried as if by fire and knows in Whom he believes and his calling, gifting, marching orders, and mission in life.  He isn't likely to be tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine (cf. Eph. 4:14).  He may have ups and downs in feelings or moods, but his faith has a foundation and is steadfast.  Sometimes he is called to act merely in faith and walk with the Lord in the Spirit, having fellowship during the hard times.  For we walk by faith, not by sight!  Faith can be seen as knowledge in action; it's not how much we believe but how well we obey.  (cf. 2 Cor. 5:7).

The True Place of Fear

"The fear of the Lord" is the beginning of wisdom.  Christians have learned a healthy respect and awe for God (Hebrews 10:31 says, "For is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God").  If we fear God we need not fear man.  "The LORD is my strength and my salvation, of whom shall I be afraid?" (Psalm 27:1).  Jesus did mention that we need not fear man, but Him who can destroy both body and soul in hell.  Jesus mentioned hell twice as much as he did heaven and believed it to be literally a place of eternal torment ("where worm does not die and fire is not quenched" and "there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth")--sounds frightening, doesn't it?

There is a place for caution and respect for danger, and not to tempt God or others.  Perfect love does cast out fear and we do not have a spirit of fear like the unbeliever, but we can overcome it by the power of the Spirit and we truly have nothing to fear, but fear itself as FDR famously said.  Don't let the enemy dominate your thinking into being fearful, instead of courageous.  We don't flirt with danger or tempt fate as they say, or purposely go into harm's way apart from God's will.

Satan uses scare tactics to get his agenda and plays on our fears to manipulate us, (he holds the sinner captive by the fear of death [Heb. 2:15] and this is a sin), but there is only one legitimate fear:  The fear of God!  It is much like parental fear in that we don't want to disobey because we know there may be severe consequences ("For whom the Lord loves, he chastens", per Heb 12:6).  The Christian isn't just worried about God punishing him and hurting him--though this is a reality--but he doesn't want to hurt God!  Our sin hurts God more than it does us! This fear is the true beginning of wisdom.

I know that they say you shouldn't become a Christian for "fire insurance" as they say, but I was greatly convicted of the reality of hell when I was 19 and it sobered me up to repent of my sins--there does come a time when we will meet our Maker at judgment and that should be a scary thought for some.  Jonathan Edwards preached a fiery sermon in 1743 entitled "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," and it woke up the Colonies from their dogmatic slumber and began the Great Awakening that shook America.  People were in fear of hell because Edwards made it so real to them.  There is a DVD out about a man who was granted "thirty minutes in hell" to tell the world of its horrors and that no one should want to go there--avoid it at all extremes, at any cost.  The cost of being a Christian is high, but the cost of not being one is even higher.

There is quite a bit of preaching out there these days that there is no literal hell, but only annihilation awaits the dead without Christ.  This makes the urgency of the gospel message seem less important and the motivation is lessened.  The true motivation for evangelizing is "[knowing] the terror of the Lord" (2 Cor. 5:11).  We need to "sober" up the masses and make them realize that the majority is usually wrong and that "narrow is the way" that leads to life.   Soli Deo Gloria!