Experiments in Search of the Truth

These writings are experiments of thought in search of the Truth, but only the truth as I myself as an individual can understand it, that is, through faith. Faith is a belief beyond absolute proof (but this is just one of the many definitions of faith that we'll encounter in the future). Whether it is a belief or unbelief in God it is still a matter of faith, because uncertainty is at the base of the belief. Faith plays a significant role in ordering our own private realities--our perceptions, expectations, and our attitudes towards life. Thus, these writings are experiments in faith, examining the consquences in beliving specifically in the Christian God, the God of Love--the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Although we will be dealing with theology, these are existential experiements. I'll be asking questions like, What happens to the man, the man of flesh and bone who must work, sleep and wake up every morning and live constantly in the everyday, what happens to this man when he tries to fulfill Jesus' most important commadment?:

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength." (Mark 12:30)

But more important and mysterious to me is not only what happens to this man, or what this man believes in, but how does this man fulfill this commadment. How can you love God the way Jesus commands us to do? But let me not jump ahead of my readers, because for the unbelievers and for those of little faith, the first question is not how do I love God, but why.

I once asked an atheist, when I was practically one myself, why he did not believe in God. "Because," he said, "I have no reason to believe in God." And at the time it struck me as a very profound reason not to believe in God. In times of doubt this statement still weighs on me. Not only is there disbelief in this person because he has not found some neat syllogism to convince him to believe, but he finds nothing of practical benefit in believing in a God. He has this feeling of being self-sufficient, self-reliant and independent from any need of divine guidance. He can, he thinks, take on the world alone with his own values and his own morality. What can God do to make his life better? So pragmatic, so economically-consiouss and oh so rational.

What are some of the reasons to believe in God? Let us see some reasons:

1. Your soul will have eternal life, you will never die and you will not suffer in Hell.

2. You will strive for self-excellence under the authority of your faith and work towards the perfection of the world.

3. You will care for your soul to recognize the proper beauty of others and the world as bestowed upon by the love of God.

The next thoughts will sow much doubts but they must be spoken of. The first reason, the most important and the one most emphasized by Jesus in the Gospels, affects us the most because it is simply a matter of life and death. "The fear of the lord is the beginning of wisdom" (Prov. 1:7). This statement is true in that it wakes us up from the pull of the everyday and makes us realize that death is inevitable and that we must prepare for its arrival. But I find believing in God solely for the sake of living forever an idea that is morally and spiritually weak. The project of faith is reduced to an economic trade-off: I give my life for God for the better reward of recieving eternal life and avoiding Hell. Any notion of sacrifice is gone. Sacrifice is when one gives something to an idea or person higher than themselves without expecting something significantly better to come out of it. Anything else would be the equivalent to buying something at the market. The atheist makes fun of this belief as a "pie-in-the-sky" belief, a faith that uses our sense of fear and want of reward to act in a certain way. The hard-boiled atheist will not be seduced by this reason.

The next two reasons are rejected by unbelievers because they want to live their own self-excellence, have their own opinions of beauty and live under the liberty of their own morality. The idea of succumbing their own private faiths to a faith in a divine authority is revolting to them, as if it was slavery. This, for those thinking under the Christian faith, is the sin of pride, consider by many christians to be the worst of sins. Although one should later make the distinction between proper pride and improper pride, this kind of pride completely annihilates the individual's dependence on God. It is an individualism that is human, all too human. It is radical humanism at its very essence. For thinkers like Albert Camus, there is a heroism to this radical humanism. It can be a form of rebellion against the absurd, an assertive defiance against death and nihilism. John Milton's Satan of Paradise Lost and Lord Byron's Byronic Hero are just some of the literary manifestations of this pride. But when these characters once appeared in the imaginations of geniuses, you probably will see feebler versions of these characters more than once tomorrow morning.

But what about the answer to the question, "Why should I believe in God?" I cannot answer this with absolute reasoned certainty. I can only witness what happens after faith works its visionary transformation. My only "because" will be the fruits of my labor. But something tells me that even this will remain a secret from you, that only the your own individual acts of faith can reveal it's consequences.

I therefore ask God this: "I do not expect the Lord to give me anything in this life. I only ask Him to help me see differently."

Believing is Seeing