Looking Beyond Ourselves

When all else is cast aside, faith remains.

While camping last week a girl asked me if I believed in absolute truth. I didn't give her a straight answer because it is one of those broad and foggy questions where you never quite know what exactly you are talking about (there is also usually a lack of defined terms and ideas). In the long run, I told her I did believe in an absolute truth.

Going about a search for truth is twisted path.
Before attempting to search for absolute truth, most people tend to see things in black and white; there is a defined line between good and bad. As one searches deeper, he or she may begin to find truths that seem contrary to one another. Many people are disillusioned by finding evidence for one truth and then encountering a completely contradictory truth with ample evidence. It can be defeating when a person does not instantly find one thing that speaks on a universal level.

As a species that prefers closure and sound logic, contrary ideas of truth are upsetting. At this point, some people become apathetic and others just give up and return to a complacent level of ignorance (ignorance is bliss), but those who continue are faced with a choice: to find bits of truth as relevant to each individual or make a commitment to a certain belief that encompasses one path of truth.
The former choice seems to be more attractive to our society. It is an idealized version of eclecticism: picking and choosing bits of truth as relevant to the self. In fact, it even banks on the attractiveness of our consumer culture; we love to collect things so why not collect chunks of truth and toss them in our bag of truth? But with this attractive collection of relativistic truth, we are essentially saying we know what is best for ourselves and ultimately denying that anything out there could be better for us than what we have decided to pick and choose. If not careful, we make ourselves our own god of truth.

However, when we set aside our urge to collect attractive ideas of self-relevant truth for the sake of committing to something beyond ourselves, we can find freedom. We no longer must worry of what truths are relevant to us because we are giving of ourselves and offering up to God, with humility, that we cannot always know what is best. We are acknowledging that there is something beyond us and that truth is something we can never fully understand.

I'm not saying we shouldn't try to understand things beyond us. God has gifted man with logic and reason in order to attempt to understand things. Humans call this science, and we need to strive to find out more. The problem lies when some people get caught up in their own comprehension of science that they forget faith lies at the foundation of Christianity. Its not about science and understanding; its about believing when science is inadequate.

I have been talking with a former pastor who is on our ACMNP support staff. He and his wife take care of a historic cabin just down the road. Lately, I have been able to bask in his wisdom as well as offer up some of my own ideas. We give each other a chance to think about what we talk about. This morning we went for a walk in a flat river bend where river meanders are scattered between patches of wetland. Typically, a diverse array of wildlife congregate in the area to share in the wealth of lush greenery. We saw a moose and every type of winged-creature as we talked. While we watched some birds, he mentioned that our faith is filtered through a lens of experience.

From my experience, I have been amidst a faith that is not centered around me. I do not get to choose bits and pieces of my savior. And yet, I often struggle because of this. Something in the human desire wants to push God away and side with science until science can prove that Jesus lives.

Agnosticism and Christianity have a lot in common: both hold a deep rooted trust in something. Agnosticism stops a step short in leaving it at saying that God and Jesus cannot be proven with our reasoning. In other words, agnosticism holds a trust solely in logic. Christianity takes a step further in choosing to set aside a complete trust in reasoning for a trust in faith.

I have a feeling that we are becoming more and more rutted in a scientific frame of mind. We are becoming so accustomed to having logic behind everything that faith often seems irrelevant. Christianity can use the precious gift of science to find new things out that compliment our faith, but because every answer in science asks another question, there will always be a need for faith.
Christians should take a look beyond themselves and see if they can set aside science when it ultimately comes down to their belief. If science is held foremost, the outcome is agnosticism, but if people are standing on faith then they are taking a step beyond themselves; they are selflessly acknowledging the existence of something beyond us that we can never fully understand. You can call it morality or you can call it absolute truth. Whatever you decide to call it, it requires a trust in something beyond logic, it requires faith.