Sunday, September 30, 2007
Faith, religion and human intellect
From the RoundTable blog
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Richard A. Carr Sr.
Carr is an ordained Baptist minister and teaches at Virginia Western Community College and Hollins University.
I was saddened as I read Jerome Schleifer's commentary "Free of faith's false promise" (Aug. 29). It is obvious that Schleifer is a much troubled individual. The search for faith and God has troubled many of us for years. We have only to read the accounts of Mother Teresa to understand that even the most devout Christians struggle with these concepts.
In Schleifer's case, it is apparent he suffers from two of the major problems facing people in the search for faith: our own intellect and religion. All too many of the educated of the world begin to question anything that is beyond our own power to deduce and prove. We look to science and philosophy for answers, and when they are unable to answer the basic questions of life we assume there must be no meaning to life. When we turn to religion for answers to spiritual questions, we are confronted with dogma and ritual instead of answers.
Schleifer's answer is to cast it all aside and try to face the mysteries of life alone. He even goes so far as to say that faith is only an assumption. I believe the answer to the problem lies with the word faith.
Paul in his letter to the Hebrews concludes: "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Faith requires that we make one assumption: that there is a creator who created all things.
That there is a creator is assumed in the Christian Bible. It begins with the very first verse. "In the beginning God created ... ." What proof is there of a God, argues Schleifer. The proof is all around us. Humanity has searched for a reasonable explanation for life throughout its existence. Science asks us to assume that this is all an accident. Yet even scientists will tell you there is no proof how the universe was created.
As a person of faith, I will answer that as I look at the beautiful mountains and wildlife I can see from my window, I see the proof of creation. The odds of this being an accident are 1 in 1 followed by enough zeros to go from here to the moon and back, and that is before we even get to the diversity of life that abounds just outside my window. If I must make an assumption, then why not make one that can be believed? That assumption is that there is an all-powerful creator who created life.
That was the hard part, because if we accept the assumption of a creator, then is it not easy to assume that the creator will love and protect his creation? If we then can accept a creator who cares for his creation, then all of the other steps of faith must follow.
Many people are troubled with religion today. The church in many cases has substituted ritual and dogma for the true worship of the creator. Christ himself struggled with dogma and ritual during his life and ministry. His answer is the same one we can use today: Turn away from dogma and ritual and turn to worship and faith.
When we have discovered the creator and his great love for us, then and only then can we face religion. Religion is humanity's attempt to define God and place him in a box so humanity can control him. Faith, on the other hand, is God reaching out to man to bring humanity to reconciliation with his creator.
I would say to all who would agree with Schleifer, in all of life we must make assumptions. It is not given to us to understand all of the mysteries of life. We should use our intellect to choose those assumptions that are closest to the reality we perceive around us.
Am I better off to assume that an all-powerful creator created all that I see and that he cares about his creation, or am I better off believing that this is all just a cosmic accident and that everything humanity has done is for nothing? I will believe, and I will have faith. I will fight what is wrong with religion, just as I will fight what is wrong with government and society, but I will believe.
