To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible.” — Thomas Aquinas
Choosing one’s Faith
I started last week’s post with the statement, “A Faith that is not growing will wither and die.” That is a true statement, but it presupposes that one has a Faith to start with. So, before we begin to consider what can be done to keep one’s faith growing, let’s visit why having a Faith is important.
Everyone needs something to believe in. The essence of belief is hope. To believe in (or have faith in) something is to have hope for or about that something. The belief gives us hope and the hope helps to ground our faith. Psychologists have shown that persons without hope are frequently despondent, withdrawn, depressed, and frequently in bad health. Whereas people who have hope are more likely to remain optimistic, outgoing, happier and in better health. And they’re able to remain so even when their personal circumstances may be poor and their future uncertain. So, the first reason for us to seek faith is to put hope in our lives.
The second reason to seek faith is to provide the believer with something to adhere to or believe in other than just our day-to-day existence. Most of us want to feel that we are part of something ‘larger’ than ourselves. We want to feel that our lives will have had meaning when they are over. For many people, having a faith helps to satisfy this basic human need. Faith leads us to become more than we might be without it. It helps give our lives meaning beyond just ourselves.
Many of us have a sense that there is “more” to the universe than we can see, taste, and touch. Virtually every culture that’s ever existed contained within it some recognition that “this” is not necessarily “all there is.” The idea that “someone” or “something” was responsible for Creation, and that that personality is accessible to human contact has existed nearly for as long as there have been people. The belief in and yearning for spiritual contact with a creator or a superhuman presence is nearly universal. This is another reason to seek faith.
This yearning within us which calls and responds to an entity (or entities) which is (are) ‘beyond’ ourselves and our current existence is a call for faith. It is not just a wanting for more, but rather an atavistic human recognition that there IS more, and an innate human need to seek it out. In other words, our intellect may not recognize this need, but our psyche does. And, it frequently will not allow us rest until we’ve satisfied its urges and questions.
Many people attempt to fulfill this basic human need for belief and faith with ideas of a “Great Spirit” or an “Other” who is responsible for and responds to these needs. We may not all call the entity to which we respond “God.” And we may not adhere to a particular religion or organized faith. But when pushed, the vast majority of us will admit that “something” larger, deeper, and more enduring is there. We may not know what that “something” is, or be able to explain it, but we feel some spiritual calling to which we can respond.
The place for Religion
So, if we’re going to accept the need for faith in some belief system, defining that faith or belief system as religion is a logical next step. Many of us turn efforts of mankind into a religion: Art, Music, Architecture, Business even Politics can be, have been, and are today some peoples’ “religions.” We put all our effort, thought and psychological investment into purely human activities to the exclusion of many of the other things life has to offer. And for some of us, this seems to be “enough.”
But for most people just focusing on our daily activities does not ultimately fulfill our innate need to relate, respond to, or become involved with that “something” that is “other.” Our human activities do not fulfill our need to reach and touch that which is “beyond.” Our spirits are unsatisfied. As a result, unless we find a belief and faith to satisfy these needs, many of us pass out of this life unhappy or spiritually empty.
This is where religion comes in. Religion is the singular human activity that attempts to connect the human with the “other.” Religion is a system of beliefs, behaviors, and activities which allows the practitioner to attempt to connect with, associate with, and commune with the “other.” Only through religion is man able to fulfill his innermost spiritual need to connect and commune with that which is “above” or “beyond” him.
Religions come in thousands of different flavors. The four most popular today are: Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism. Of these, Christianity is the most popular, followed closely by Islam. A person’s “picking” their religion is a matter of several factors: family history and expectation, cultural environment, political encouragement, educational training, and personal revelation are but a few.
Of all these, the most important is personal revelation. Regardless of what we may have been taught by family, friends and the educational system, regardless of what our cultural environment or political system may be trying to tell us, it is the basic choice of each person that ultimately decides which faith or belief system we adopt. And that choice is usually arrived at as a result of some sort of personal experience (revelation) that validates (or invalidates) the faith that we are considering.
The need to Choose
No one, no system, or no environment can compel an individual to adopt or accept any of the faiths or belief systems that are offered. We may choose to adopt a belief or faith because of convenience, ignorance, or outright laziness. But the decision to adopt a faith or belief system is ours to make. For some it is a logical conscious decision. For others, it may be an entirely emotional decision. And for some, it may be an event or occurrence that illuminates for us the path we are to take. In all cases, the choice is ours to make. It is up to us to decide.
It is an unimpeachable fact that each person has a choice to make. Acceptance of someone else’s beliefs is a choice, but it may be a poor one. Refusing to do the hard work to understand, examine and then decide which faith (or none) to follow may lead to our having a small, shallow, easily overturned faith. And, life has a way of testing each person’s faith, sooner or later. Those of us whose faiths are not well-constructed may lose them when confronted with life’s vicissitudes. We can begin to oscillate from one faith to the next, never to find the one that for us is the correct one. We’ll explore this point further in a future post or two.
This website is dedicated to the Christian Faith. That is because through my own spiritual journey I came (long ago) to the conclusion that Christianity was, for me, the best, most wholesome, and most logical choice. It is not my purpose in this post to convince you of the merits of my choice. We may discuss those at another time. But for me, the issue was decided by two things: the fact of God’s revelation in Jesus, and Jesus’ teaching that we are our neighbor’s keeper. [Mark 12:31]
No other religion or belief system stresses God’s all-consuming desire to be in communion with man or explains the lengths to which He was willing to go to make that communion possible. And no other religion or belief system so stresses the responsibility we have for one another. Elements of Christianity can be found in all the other ‘major’ religions. But, none of them combine the reality of God’s love for us with the need for us to love one another.
These posts are dedicated to helping those of us who are in the process of either making our faith decision, have made our decision for Christianity but need further instruction in that faith, or are already believers in the Christian faith but want to deepen, strengthen and continue to grow our faith. This website is offered to help each of these groups attain their goals. Hopefully, by learning and understanding more about Christianity, we can all get to where we want to be in our faiths.
Conclusion (for now)
Next week, we’ll begin to examine how to build our faith.
Until then, please remember that these thoughts and ideas are my own. They are intended to inform the reader and stimulate thought about the reader’s own faith or faith journey. If they make sense to you, fine. If they don’t then hopefully you’ll at least have been exposed to ideas from which you can derive your own. In either case, the journey is the thing. None of us will complete it in our lifetimes. But taking the road to a fuller, more vibrant and sustainable faith is what I pray for each of you, and for me.
God’s Blessings on You All.
Richard
October 19, 2018
