I wrote, rewrote, started over, and revised this one until I could have no more...My skeptical side would present the arguments one day only to have my spiritual side feel compelled to answer them the next. Consequently, I think I'm going to kick this one off with a short post more in keeping with my original intention - as an expression of the world's view of Faith - and follow it up later with a more in-depth assessment of what I believe to be the real issue. I think allowing some time between the two will better serve our purposes anyway as you will all have time to consider your own response to the questions surrounding the biblical virtue of Faith.
Here are some examples of the kinds of things the world says about faith:
“Fundamentalists know they are right because they have read the truth in a holy book and they know, in advance, that nothing will budge them from their belief. The truth of the holy book is an axiom, not the end product of a process of reasoning. The book is true, and if the evidence seems to contradict it, it is the evidence that must be thrown out, not the book. By contrast, what I, as a scientist, believe (for example, evolution) I believe not because of reading a holy book but because I have studied the evidence. It really is a different matter. Books about evolution are believed not because they are holy. They are believed because they present overwhelming quantities of mutually buttressed evidence. In principle, any reader can go and check that evidence. When a science book is wrong, somebody eventually discovers the mistake and it is corrected in subsequent books. That conspicuously doesn’t happen with holy books…we believe in evolution because the evidence supports it, and we would abandon it overnight if new evidence arose to disprove it….As a scientist, I am hostile to fundamentalist religion because it actively debauches the scientific enterprise. It teaches us not to change our minds, and not to want to know exciting things that are available to be known. It subverts science and saps the intellect.” (The God Delusion, pg. 282-284)
“…religious faith is an especially potent silencer of rational calculation, which usually seems to trump all others. This is…partly because it discourages questioning, by its very nature. Christianity…teaches children that unquestioned faith is a virtue.” (The God Delusion, pg. 306)
“Irrefutability is a virtue for committed believers, but a scientific vice.” (Rupert Sheldrake, Ph.D.)
“More generally, what is really pernicious is the practice of teaching children that faith is a virtue. Faith is an evil precisely because it requires no justification and brooks no argument. Teaching children that unquestioned faith is a virtue primes them - given certain other ingredients that are not too hard to come by - to grow up into potentially lethal weapons for future jihads or crusades.” (The God Delusion, pg. 307-308)
Without picking apart these statements (and there is room for it), let me just restate what I understand to be the heart behind their criticisms:
1. The commending of faith as a virtue creates an environment for fundamentalist and extremist attitudes to develop among believers.
2. Faith, when nurtured in this way, undermines the scientific enterprise by encouraging believers to defend claims which evidence seems to contradict.
3. Faith, lacking a clear and objective definition, can be used as a trump-all sort of justification for almost any action (many of these, we can freely admit, could even be loosely supported by scripture).
My question is whether the nature of Christian faith is really as it is perceived by the secular community. Let’s consider the different definitions of faith we have heard from spiritual leaders in our own lives…how far are they from Dawkins’ and Sheldrake’s appraisals? Once we have taken time to consider those definitions we have at one point accepted, or at least tolerated in our spiritual mentors, we can then move on to consider the Bible’s definitions and see if we have missed something in our understanding of biblical faith. I think whatever we discover, it is important to realize how gray the lines must appear to the common Christian for such deviant definitions of faith to persist within the church. That realization may be an issue in and of itself, evidence which might reasonably suggest neglectful parenting on God’s part. But one thing at a time…
Hebrews 11:1-3 defines faith in this way…I am including three different translations to get every angle on what the terminology might actually infer (Justin, if you have any insight into the Greek, that’d be helpful too):
(In the NAS translation) “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the men of old gained approval. By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible.”
(In the NIV translation) “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for. By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.”
(In the KJV translation) “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For by it the elders obtained a good report. Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.”
Within these verses, I think it is significant that faith is being defined in terms of evidence, substance, and assurance. These terms don’t seem congruent with the criticisms of Dawkins or Sheldrake. It might be worthwhile, then, to consider which passages of scripture might be supplying Dawkins - and those like him - with the particular picture of faith they now hold. Regardless of how close (or how far) Dawkins or Sheldrake may have come to describing the real thing, one thing is certain: the form they were criticizing has all but replaced true faith within the church.
…This moves me on to my next question: If the church has misunderstood the biblical virtue of faith so as to adopt a deviant definition of it, is God to blame? John 14:26 and 16:13 say that we are guided into all truth through the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Furthermore, 1 Corinthians 12 tells us that it is by the Holy Spirit that we are granted the gift of discernment; and in Matthew 13:11-12, that we understand the secrets of the kingdom of heaven through tuning our spiritual ears to hear His voice. All these things seem to point to God as the source of spiritual understanding, in which case we might rightly call Him the “author and perfector of our faith” (Heb. 12:2). It seems a reasonable accusation, then, to suggest that God should be held accountable when His children err due to an imperfect understanding of His will. I remember a discussion with Justin in which we decided the Bible does not support this sort of scapegoating, but for the sake of argument, let’s consent the accusation for now. Also, if spiritual enlightenment is in fact a spiritual phenomenon, you would expect little or no correlation between sheer intellect and one’s ability to discern spiritual truths. However, there is considerable evidence that such a correlation does exist.
“A…study by Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi ‘found that among Nobel Prize laureates in the sciences, as well as those in literature, there was a remarkable degree of irreligiosity, as compared to the populations they came from.’ A study in the leading journal Nature by Larson and Witham in 1998 showed that of those American scientists considered eminent enough by their peers to have been elected to the National Academy of Science (equivalent to being a Fellow of the Royal Society in Britain) only about 7 per cent believe in a personal God. This overwhelming preponderance of atheists is almost the exact opposite of the American population at large, of whom more than 90 per cent are believers in some sort of supernatural being. …It is completely as I would expect that American scientists are less religious than the American public generally, and that the most distinguished scientists are the least religious of all. Michael Shermer, in How We Believe: The Search for God in and Age of Science, describes a large survey of randomly chosen Americans that he and his colleague, Frank Sulloway carried out. Among their many interesting results was the discovery that religiosity is indeed negatively correlated with education (more highly educated people are less likely to be religious). Religiosity is also negatively correlated with interest in science and (strongly) with political liberalism. None of this is surprising, nor is the fact that there is a positive correlation between religiosity and parent’s religiosity.” (The God Delusion, pg. 100-102)
When you think upon those individuals whom you consider to have the best or most accurate understanding of scripture, are they not also the most intelligent individuals - at least as you personally measure intelligence? It seems, at least in my experience, that those with whom I most closely relate on spiritual matters are those who, curiously enough, think like me. So, it would seem that spiritual discernment, in many instance, is no more than recognition of your preferred thoughts expressed through others. Hence the wide array of religious flavors available to believers. Denominations are a product of personal preferences (or, at its best, personal conviction), not of sound theology. This poses a problem for me personally, as I tend to hold spiritual revelation among believers as one of the most central and necessary characteristics of true faith. “Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds from the mouth of God (Deut. 8:3).” But then, is our experience as Christians resonant with John 10’s description that “the sheep recognize His voice”? Do we not vary in spirituality as much we vary in personality? It must be that Christianity is either a faith embracing of a certain degree of subjectivity, or Christians just aren’t hearing God’s voice properly. I’m not sure one conclusion is any less problematic than the other. What do all of you think?
Here are some examples of the kinds of things the world says about faith:
“Fundamentalists know they are right because they have read the truth in a holy book and they know, in advance, that nothing will budge them from their belief. The truth of the holy book is an axiom, not the end product of a process of reasoning. The book is true, and if the evidence seems to contradict it, it is the evidence that must be thrown out, not the book. By contrast, what I, as a scientist, believe (for example, evolution) I believe not because of reading a holy book but because I have studied the evidence. It really is a different matter. Books about evolution are believed not because they are holy. They are believed because they present overwhelming quantities of mutually buttressed evidence. In principle, any reader can go and check that evidence. When a science book is wrong, somebody eventually discovers the mistake and it is corrected in subsequent books. That conspicuously doesn’t happen with holy books…we believe in evolution because the evidence supports it, and we would abandon it overnight if new evidence arose to disprove it….As a scientist, I am hostile to fundamentalist religion because it actively debauches the scientific enterprise. It teaches us not to change our minds, and not to want to know exciting things that are available to be known. It subverts science and saps the intellect.” (The God Delusion, pg. 282-284)
“…religious faith is an especially potent silencer of rational calculation, which usually seems to trump all others. This is…partly because it discourages questioning, by its very nature. Christianity…teaches children that unquestioned faith is a virtue.” (The God Delusion, pg. 306)
“Irrefutability is a virtue for committed believers, but a scientific vice.” (Rupert Sheldrake, Ph.D.)
“More generally, what is really pernicious is the practice of teaching children that faith is a virtue. Faith is an evil precisely because it requires no justification and brooks no argument. Teaching children that unquestioned faith is a virtue primes them - given certain other ingredients that are not too hard to come by - to grow up into potentially lethal weapons for future jihads or crusades.” (The God Delusion, pg. 307-308)
Without picking apart these statements (and there is room for it), let me just restate what I understand to be the heart behind their criticisms:
1. The commending of faith as a virtue creates an environment for fundamentalist and extremist attitudes to develop among believers.
2. Faith, when nurtured in this way, undermines the scientific enterprise by encouraging believers to defend claims which evidence seems to contradict.
3. Faith, lacking a clear and objective definition, can be used as a trump-all sort of justification for almost any action (many of these, we can freely admit, could even be loosely supported by scripture).
My question is whether the nature of Christian faith is really as it is perceived by the secular community. Let’s consider the different definitions of faith we have heard from spiritual leaders in our own lives…how far are they from Dawkins’ and Sheldrake’s appraisals? Once we have taken time to consider those definitions we have at one point accepted, or at least tolerated in our spiritual mentors, we can then move on to consider the Bible’s definitions and see if we have missed something in our understanding of biblical faith. I think whatever we discover, it is important to realize how gray the lines must appear to the common Christian for such deviant definitions of faith to persist within the church. That realization may be an issue in and of itself, evidence which might reasonably suggest neglectful parenting on God’s part. But one thing at a time…
Hebrews 11:1-3 defines faith in this way…I am including three different translations to get every angle on what the terminology might actually infer (Justin, if you have any insight into the Greek, that’d be helpful too):
(In the NAS translation) “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the men of old gained approval. By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible.”
(In the NIV translation) “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for. By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.”
(In the KJV translation) “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For by it the elders obtained a good report. Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.”
Within these verses, I think it is significant that faith is being defined in terms of evidence, substance, and assurance. These terms don’t seem congruent with the criticisms of Dawkins or Sheldrake. It might be worthwhile, then, to consider which passages of scripture might be supplying Dawkins - and those like him - with the particular picture of faith they now hold. Regardless of how close (or how far) Dawkins or Sheldrake may have come to describing the real thing, one thing is certain: the form they were criticizing has all but replaced true faith within the church.
…This moves me on to my next question: If the church has misunderstood the biblical virtue of faith so as to adopt a deviant definition of it, is God to blame? John 14:26 and 16:13 say that we are guided into all truth through the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Furthermore, 1 Corinthians 12 tells us that it is by the Holy Spirit that we are granted the gift of discernment; and in Matthew 13:11-12, that we understand the secrets of the kingdom of heaven through tuning our spiritual ears to hear His voice. All these things seem to point to God as the source of spiritual understanding, in which case we might rightly call Him the “author and perfector of our faith” (Heb. 12:2). It seems a reasonable accusation, then, to suggest that God should be held accountable when His children err due to an imperfect understanding of His will. I remember a discussion with Justin in which we decided the Bible does not support this sort of scapegoating, but for the sake of argument, let’s consent the accusation for now. Also, if spiritual enlightenment is in fact a spiritual phenomenon, you would expect little or no correlation between sheer intellect and one’s ability to discern spiritual truths. However, there is considerable evidence that such a correlation does exist.
“A…study by Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi ‘found that among Nobel Prize laureates in the sciences, as well as those in literature, there was a remarkable degree of irreligiosity, as compared to the populations they came from.’ A study in the leading journal Nature by Larson and Witham in 1998 showed that of those American scientists considered eminent enough by their peers to have been elected to the National Academy of Science (equivalent to being a Fellow of the Royal Society in Britain) only about 7 per cent believe in a personal God. This overwhelming preponderance of atheists is almost the exact opposite of the American population at large, of whom more than 90 per cent are believers in some sort of supernatural being. …It is completely as I would expect that American scientists are less religious than the American public generally, and that the most distinguished scientists are the least religious of all. Michael Shermer, in How We Believe: The Search for God in and Age of Science, describes a large survey of randomly chosen Americans that he and his colleague, Frank Sulloway carried out. Among their many interesting results was the discovery that religiosity is indeed negatively correlated with education (more highly educated people are less likely to be religious). Religiosity is also negatively correlated with interest in science and (strongly) with political liberalism. None of this is surprising, nor is the fact that there is a positive correlation between religiosity and parent’s religiosity.” (The God Delusion, pg. 100-102)
When you think upon those individuals whom you consider to have the best or most accurate understanding of scripture, are they not also the most intelligent individuals - at least as you personally measure intelligence? It seems, at least in my experience, that those with whom I most closely relate on spiritual matters are those who, curiously enough, think like me. So, it would seem that spiritual discernment, in many instance, is no more than recognition of your preferred thoughts expressed through others. Hence the wide array of religious flavors available to believers. Denominations are a product of personal preferences (or, at its best, personal conviction), not of sound theology. This poses a problem for me personally, as I tend to hold spiritual revelation among believers as one of the most central and necessary characteristics of true faith. “Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds from the mouth of God (Deut. 8:3).” But then, is our experience as Christians resonant with John 10’s description that “the sheep recognize His voice”? Do we not vary in spirituality as much we vary in personality? It must be that Christianity is either a faith embracing of a certain degree of subjectivity, or Christians just aren’t hearing God’s voice properly. I’m not sure one conclusion is any less problematic than the other. What do all of you think?
(Response originally posted Aug 10, 2007)
ReplyDeleteAlso, here is an excerpt from Alister McGrath's, The Dawkins Delusion that may or may not offer some an interesting insight on faith. Sorry, I don't have the page number.
“Faith itself is not irrational or unscientific, but that which must be in order to gain other knowledge through science and logic. For instance, confidence in the law of non-contradiction could be said to be faith. There is no direct way to prove the law of contradiction except that it must be presupposed in order to learn anything or differentiate anything from anything else. Likewise, the principle of induction, which states that the future will be generally like the past, is what makes possible the formulation of scientific laws and theories. We cannot test the truth of this principle scientifically, for we would be assuming the truth of induction to try and prove it. We cannot test the truth of the principle logically, for logic has as its subject matter static propositions. Thus, induction and the law of contradiction, two of the bedrocks upon which all the rest of Richard Dawkins' knowledge is based, are both things he must accept on faith. Dawkins does not believe this, however, and directs this entire speech at demolishing the notion that science is a religion, or at least a faith-based discipline.” -AS
(Response originally posted Aug. 2007 - 1/3)
ReplyDeleteI recently attempted to write a formal response to this post and got frustrated half way through and gave up. There are some comments I'd like to make and I'd much prefer to make them casually here rather than in a well organized discourse...
“I am hostile to fundamentalist religion because it actively debauches the scientific enterprise. It teaches us not to change our minds, and not to want to know exciting things that are available to be known. It subverts science and saps the intellect.””- Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, 282-284.
MR, I know you and I have discussed and both, I would say, vented our frustration with many Christians being guilty of this accusation. While reading The Dawkins Delusion I have come to a greater understand the scope of this issue. I am impressed by Alister McGrath (he is the author of that book) and his willingness to recognize mainstream evangelicalism’s fault and denounce it. He supports a dialogue between the science and faith communities that would not hinder the progression of scientific discovery, but encourage and learn from its progress and so do I.
“religious faith is an especially potent silencer of rational calculation, which usually seems to trump all others. This is…partly because it discourages questioning, by its very nature. Christianity…teaches children that unquestioned faith is a virtue” – ibid., 306
“what is really pernicious is the practice of teaching children that faith is a virtue. Faith is an evil precisely because it requires no justification and brooks no argument” – ibid., 307-308
I heartily disagree. Here I am upset with the tendency, my own as well, of many Christians to use the “God said it. I believe it. That settles it.” card as a sort of be-all-end-all of resolving the Bible’s contradictions with reality. I don’t think that is what “child-like faith” is referring to. When Jesus says, “whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it” (Mark 10:15), I think it’d be wise to ask the grounds for a child’s faith. Dawkins would have us say there are none, but in reality I think that a child’s willingness to believe anything that someone tells him is rooted in trust. That trust, I would argue, is based on the child’s acknowledgment of his source’s reliability. For example, a child believes in Santa because he, whether it is consciously or a result of psychological wirings, trusts that his parents know what is best for him to believe. So, in the case of Jesus requiring “childlike faith” for spiritual rebirth and admission into the Kingdom there are rational, I would almost go so far as to say empirical for the people who witnessed Jesus’ life, evidences on which the childlike faith is founded (e.g. Jesus’ life on earth and the miracles he performed, etc.). I would like to address the issue of faith not being didactically (that is for you MR) defined later in this response, but already I have to posit that faith MUST at some point be rooted in evidence. It is not belief in spite of evidence, rather, belief as a result of evidence... -AS (to be continued)
(continued from above, part 2/3)
ReplyDelete“Faith, lacking a clear and objective definition, can be used as a trump-all sort of justification for almost any action (many of these, we can freely admit, could even be loosely supported by scripture).” – MR
Crap. Here we go. So what is faith? It would seem that if faith is what God requires of us He would clearly spell out exactly what it is in detail, very explicitly. I don’t think He does. Even in Hebrews 13:1-3, I don’t see it as a clear-cut definition so much as being (as A.W. Tozer points out on page 81 of The Pursuit of God) “defined functionally, not philosophically; that is, it is a statement of what faith is in operation, not what it is in essence. It assumes the presence of faith and shows what it results in, rather than what it is.” I think he’s right and that provides me with a problem that I can’t at this time resolve other than to say that the only reason I have faith and the atheist doesn’t is because God has revealed himself to me personally (I don’t mean generally as he has to everyone through creation and C.S. Lewis would say morality, but in the salvific sense). I recognize that to be highly Calvinistic (a can of worms I am not intending to provoke opened) and somewhat of a cop out, but it’s all I got. God help me.
Moving on to your next question, is God to blame for the church’s misunderstanding of faith or for that matter the church’s misunderstanding of anything. At this point I risk being rather contentious with you MR and your interpretations of many of the passages you provided as evidence for God’s revelation of Truth to Christians through the Holy Spirit. I’ll provide the texts with a little bit of context to try to clarify my take on them (as erroneous as it may be).
John 14:25-26 “These things [referring, I believe, to the discourse recorded in the earlier portion of chapter 14 and latter part of 13 and probably if you wanted to you could stretch it to include anything Jesus had said prior to this point] I have spoken to you while I am still with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you”
I may be in above my head here (Justin, you’re the Bible guy and can let me know), but I believe what Jesus is saying here is aimed to the disciples and he is promising them that the Father will send the Holy Spirit to help them recall his teachings so that they can teach them after Jesus’ death and record them for God’s people, like John did in this very text.
John 16:12-13 “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.”
Again, I think this is a disciple-limited promise that the Holy Spirit will guide the apostles “into all the truth” in the early church age so that they may speak the very words of God and communicate the “whole counsel of God” to believers as was achieved via the New Testament.
In regards to the gift of discernment spoken of in 1 Corinthians 12, I would say that in that passage Paul is referring to a gift granted to certain individual believers and it is talking about “the ability to distinguish between spirits” which would probably be something more like the whole deal in Acts when Paul discerns Elymas is demon possessed or when Jesus recognized the suicidal boy had a demon, not so much discernment between true and false teaching. Hebrews 5:14 says the mature “have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish between good from evil.” I think that is distinct from the gift of discernment in 1 Cor. 12...(to be continued) -AS
(continued from above, part 3/3)
ReplyDeleteMatthew 13:10-13 “Then the disciples came and said to him, ‘Why do you speak to them in parables?’ And he answered them, ‘To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. For to the one who has, more will be given, and he will have an abundance, but form the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.’”
You said, “We understand the secrets of the kingdom of heaven through tuning our spiritual ears to hear His voice.” I like that. But if the primary means through which God speaks is the Bible, and I think it is, it might would be an apt illustration to say that that voice is in a language that needs to be interpreted. Interpretation, of course, involving the intellect.
“You would expect little or no correlation between sheer intellect and one’s ability to discern spiritual truths.” - MR
My point in reviewing all those texts you provided that speak of spiritual enlightenment coming via the Holy Spirit was to emphasize I don’t think that the Holy Spirit is necessarily the means by which every spiritual truth is understood. That probably sounded blasphemous, but hear me out. I know that “the natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit and they are foolishness to him and he can’t understand them because they are spiritually discerned.” (1 Cor. 2:14) I really don’t want to underplay the role of the Spirit in illuminating our hearts to Truth. However, I think there is a fine line between understanding spiritual truths as intellectual constructs and understanding them as spiritual insights. The professor who teaches the Bible as Literature class can understand that the Bible teaches that salvation is offered to man on the basis of Christ’s substitution atonement on the cross as a mental construct. I really don’t think he has to have the Holy Spirit to get that. Those who are perishing “are perishing, because they refused to LOVE the truth and so be saved” not because they refused to know it. So what bearing does that have on your statement that one would expect no correlation between sheer intellect and one’s ability to understand spiritual things? I don’t know. I kind of just went off on a tangent. What I do know though is that we have the Bible. Why? Why didn’t God just give us a systematic theology book that we could just turn to a page and get the answer to whatever question we had under the appropriate heading? I can’t be sure, because I’m not God, but I could guess that one of the reasons is because he wants us to work. “Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, as a WORKman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the Word of Truth” II Timothy 2:15. He wants us to love Him with our mind. Now, not everyone does that. No one does. For some people, loving Him with all their mind won’t look like they love Him very much at all (that is me). For other, after their life on earth is complete people will look at their work and say they had no need to be ashamed because they were diligent workmen who loved God will all their mind (that’s C.S. Lewis)...(to be continued) -AS
(continued from above, part 4/3 - sorry, miscalculated the number of cuts and pastes I'd need to fit it all)
ReplyDeleteWhy do differences in doctrine exist? Sin. Laziness- an unwillingness to do the hard work of interpreting the Scripture rightly, which may include things like learning the original languages and reading books by gifted teachers, etc. etc. Spiritual immaturity or perhaps better stated as a lack of spiritual maturity in certain areas- we may just plain be unable to handle certain truths at particular points in our lives. Bad English translations of the Bible. Who knows what else?
“Christianity is either a faith embracing of a certain degree of subjectivity, or Christians just aren’t hearing God’s voice properly. I’m not sure one conclusion is any less problematic than the other. What do all of you think?” –MR
I think we’ve grown to put too much emphasis on God’s responsibility to reveal Himself and too little on our responsibility to pursue Him. We would do that, wouldn’t we? Sinful creatures. Philippians 2:12-13 tells us to “work out our salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in us.” There is mystery there. I work, but only because He works in me. It’s an imperative. “Work!” The responsibility is mine. The credit is His. May I heed the call and He get the glory.
I'll close with some help from John Piper: "And perhaps most helpful of all is the word to Timothy about the relationship of reason and divine illumination. In 2 Timothy 2:7, he says, “Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything.” So many people swerve off the road to one side of this verse or the other. Some stress “think over what I say.” They emphasize the indispensable role of reason and thinking. And they often minimize the supernatural role of God in making the mind able to see and embrace the truth. Others stress the second half of the verse: “And the Lord will give you understanding in everything.” They emphasize the futility of reason without God’s illumining work. “The Lord will give you understanding.”
But Paul will not be divided this way. He says: not either-or, but both-and. “Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything.” The willingness of God to give us understanding is the ground of our thinking, not the substitute for our thinking. “Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding.” There is no reason to think that a person who thinks without prayerful trust in God’s gift of understanding will get it. And there is no reason to think that a person who waits for God’s gift of understanding without thinking about his word will get it either."
I didn’t proof read this. sorry if it has errors, but I was too tired to read it over. -AS
(Response originally posted Aug. 12, 2007)
ReplyDeleteGood stuff AS. I'll reply soon with my counter-argument to the role of the Holy Spirit in discerning spiritual truth. Good scripture reference though, I had never paid attention to those particular passages in this context before...Funny also you should mention loving God with "all your heart and with all your soul and with all your MIND and with all your strength." That verse was a theme of this past week's youth retreat and God had been showing me that loving Him with my whole mind is about all I do to love Him. That's an unusual trait among Christians, I think, but imbalance in favor of any one discipline in place of another - or as a substitute for another - which comes less natural to us results in an unhealthy love relationship with God. Just as dependence on sex to sustain a husband-wife relationship weakens the intimacy that is possible there, so over-attention to one form of discipline over another diminishes the potential for intimacy between us and God. One day, maybe we can discuss how to better love God with our other faculties as well...I think my imbalance in these things might partially be responsible for the dryness I'm experiencing in my relationship with God, but it's about the only way to love Him that I can understand and actually measure my growth in. Anyway, I'll write my response sometime before I leave for Chicago (Thursday). I appreciate your thoughts. -MR
For the second half of this discussion, please reference "Faith: Part 2" from our September 2009 archives.
ReplyDeleteOriginal post date for this series of discussions was August 2007. -MR