This past week's biblestudy was quite interesting. We have been studying Genesis which gets at a lot of core issues -- Did God create the world? How? Did God know that man would fall? Was the fall part of his plan? Did Adam and Eve have a choice, or since it was part of God's plan it was inevitable that they would fall? Or do all of our choices lead to the same end?
These questions are hard, but I think useful in helping us confront the limits of our ability to understand God. At some level we all struggle with a little bit of agnosticism. Can we fathom a God that exists outside of time, before time? Can we believe in a God that we can not fathom? Some how I feel that faith is deeper than this. I keep searching for words to describe what faith might be if not belief -- trust maybe? love? connection?
Can we love God or have faith in God if we cannot know God? Do relationships begin with knowing each other? Or is it that God knows us and the relationship is one sided?
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Recently I’ve been giving some thought to the fact that I am actively training myself out of the habit of ‘belief’ in an academic setting. As a graduate student in the sciences, multiple working hypotheses are a godsend. In my studies I am working to keep my brain from sinking into one framework of understanding that I then argue from as an absolute truth. Rather, I want my perspectives to align with whatever the evidence points to – I need to be willing to give up some theory of how I see the world depending on what new information becomes available. This is what I am coming to see as a beautiful attribute of the scientific method.
Now, this is somewhat problematic if I want to pursue issues of faith. After all, how could I be anything other than duplicitous if I try to bring this concept of multiple working hypotheses to bear in my relationship with God? On the other hand, I certainly don’t want to follow that which is patently false. Where does this leave me? Most of the time, just quite confused and divided.
Relationships in general, whether with those around me or with God, are problematic in this regard. There really is never a true proof for friendship, love, or goodwill, but I believe that these are the most important things in life. Funny, isn’t it, that the things that are most important are also the things that I can’t prove are true?
I wonder if it might be useful to approach these issues with an engineer’s perspective. Now, engineers, please forgive me if I misrepresent your field here. I’ve had the difference between engineers and research scientists described to me as dealing with the questions that they ask.
A scientist will be mostly concerned with figuring out why something is as it is. If I had to define a scientist in one sentence, it would be one who always asks why. I think of the 6-year-old kid who is never satisfied with a simple answer – every answer brings a whole new suite of questions. Such is the beauty of the natural world we live in. I never need to fear figuring anything out, because beneath each layer of understanding, I uncover ever-increasing complexity and new ways of looking at the world that shake my previous framework. ‘Tis grand.
An engineer, on the other hand, takes a more pragmatic approach to things. While pursuing a given topic, at some point the questions asked cease to provide meaningful insight. Engineers would rather figure out how to solve a problem and achieve results from a given level understanding. This is fundamentally different from a scientist’s idea of exploration. There is a distinct goal that is being worked toward, and the engineer will explore every aspect of research that may relate to its best possible fulfillment. This goal provides a fixed frame of reference.
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In my personal life, I find that I want the relational attributes I mentioned earlier to be my fixed frame of reference. How can I most meaningfully pursue the most important things in my life? If I look at an issue like faith, at some point the issues that I am wrestling with will be insignificant to the greater issue. While the scientist in me takes great delight in seeking out new perspectives and layers of understanding, I do embrace the fact that I don’t need to completely understand God and love to meaningfully pursue my personal growth. I guess it might be akin to an engineer constructing a bridge; while it may be fascinating (and necessary) to study the material properties of the building materials, digging deeper and deeper into the underlying subatomic interactions and physics quickly becomes irrelevant to the objective.
In the same way, I think that trying to figure out everything related to faith can enter into the absurd, particularly if we make our faith contingent on a full understanding. After all, if I can’t even figure out the natural world, what would make me think that I can figure out God?
Though this may help me figure out which questions I should have in mind when I approach issues of faith – namely those that are useful for my growth and development – it doesn’t really help with my ideas of truth. Is there any way I can definitively identify truth? Well, in the same way an engineer keeps the results in mind when asking questions, I think that there can be a useful analogy drawn for issues of truth. If something like a bridge is supposed to work on paper but it doesn’t in real life, I’d expect us to say that our understanding is insufficient and that there are other factors at work. When approaching issues of faith, I must ask whether I see fruit in my life.
This is really hard. I do have hope, though. After all, God calls us to ‘taste and see’ that he is good. There isn’t any blindness to this faith. He is asking us to try the life that he has for us on for size and see if it is of a better construction than the shoddy substitute we’ve been trying to keep as our foundation. I know that there is endless potential for self-deception and wishful thinking in this process, but I believe that the way of life that is extended to us through Jesus Christ is truly exceptional.
Even if I don’t understand how it all works, I believe that I can evaluate the work that God is doing in my own life and the lives of those around me. I still love asking questions, probing, and keeping multiple working hypotheses in mind, but my faith isn’t contingent on this. I can keep digging for the joy of it all while being grounded in the framework of a life impacted by a truly liberating relationship with God. After all, isn’t the ultimate unknowablility of another and the daily revelations that accompany it part of the joy of relationship?
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