To whom would we go?

[yrieithydd]

Here I stand; I can do no other.

Not I believe that God exists but I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth and in his son our Lord, Jesus Christ who was ... and in the Holy Ghost....

Christianity is not based on the abstract proposition that God exists, but is our response to God's revelation of himself in our incarnate Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, born of the Virgin Mary, who lived, preached, was crucified, dead and buried, but who rose again from the dead and then ascended to the Father and whose return to earth we await and who continues to reveal himself in the Spirit in the Church and in the World.

Whilst I believe that God created and sustains the world, I acknowledge that this is unproveable. Others look at the world around us and what we have learnt about it through exploring it with our (God-given, IMO) reason and do not see God and think that there are other explanations that fit the fact. Maybe they are right and we are wrong; maybe they are wrong and we are right. Neither can prove to other the axioms of their system. Both sides think that the burden of proof lies with the other, but logical arguments do not cross the gulf between the world views.

Whilst we could sit on the fence, or say it does not matter, I believe that the story of the Incarnation, Life, Passion, Death, Resurrection and Ascension of Our Lord Jesus Christ demands a response. I cannot remain neutral. If Christ has not been raised, then we are of all men/people most to be pitied but if he did? What then?

My fealty to the God who came in Christ Jesus was pledged for me at my baptism by my parents and godparents. Maybe that is unfashionable in this individualistic culture where we think we ought to be allowed to make our own decisions but I do not believe that we can make wholly independent choices and there are a number of matters, less important than this which our parents decide on our behalf when we were too young to decide for ourselves. For example, what language we speak. Now, for many of us who are monoglot maybe that does not sound like a decision, and for children of monoglot parents it is a default decision (although I know my parents regret not speaking another language well enough to bring us up bilingual), but where the parents speak more than one language then there is a decision to be made. A friend of my mother's from university is a Welsh speaker, but she's lived in England since leaving Aberystwyth and when she had children she decided against speaking Welsh to them lest it confuse them. I do not know how those children feel about it, but I would feel deprived in their place and I know of children of bilingual parents who do regret the fact that they do not have the other language.

Whilst language shapes our perceptions and interactions with the world (and being monolingual/bilingual has its own effects on that), I believe faith goes deeper. I am glad that I was baptised at 2 months and 6 days and brought up within the family of the Church. It is easier to pledge oneself to one who is known and from whom one has received grace. Yet I could have repudiated that baptism and gone my own way. But I chose (and signalled this in chosing to be confirmed at 13, though it should be remembered that the confirmation is not us confirming our baptismal vows (although that is a part of the ceremony for those of us who had been baptised prior to that evening) but us being confirmed by the Holy Spirit) and continue to choose in my daily life.

Though not logically proveable or scientifically falsifiable, I believe there is a good case for God as revealed in the ILPDRaAoOLJC. Could you prove entirely logically or on the basis of the empirical method whether you parents love you, or that your friends are in fact your friends? Would not such tests break the trust of those bonds?

I love the speech Puddleglum makes when the Green Lady is trying to enchant him, Jill, Eustace and Prince Tirian into admitting that there ideas about Aslan, about Narnia even are just pretty stories they've made up. This is not, whatever some people argue, about continuing to believe even after you know that what you believe is false because it is helpful in living a `good life', but about faith and loyalty in the temptation to despair. Yes, doubts assail us, but having pledged ourselves to the cause, we should not be tossed about by them, but trust in God even when we cannot see him.

Comments

[naath.livejournal.com]

But you could say the same thing abou the millions of people who believe that Mohamed received The Word Of God and wrote it down - you would have to be pretty dim to go arround getting yourself hated all because 'some guy' said you should.

All faiths have some 'illogical' premise, all faiths are full of people who believe in it, they all started somewhere - presumably with people rebelling against the current set of beliefs where they were and getting hated for it.

I'm not convinced that 'some people were convinced enough to die for this idea' means 'this idea is correct'. It would lead to my accepting many contradictory ideas for a start.