The faith journey
Faith has always come naturally to me. I don't know whether this is because of the way I was raised, or some predisposition to belief in my psyche. All i know is that my whole life I've found belief a whole lot easier than those around me. And even as my faith has undergone dozens of significant revisions during my adult life as i've come to understand science and politics and history (and theology!) in greater scope and detail, I've found the core tenets of my faith to be a fairly robust base upon which everything else has hung. But my choice to study elements of my own religion from a scientific point of view has really shaken my foundations this past year.
It's tempting to paint a current crisis as one's most significant crisis, so I'm trying to temper the way I narrate myself. I've doubted before, I've struggled with many aspect's of the idea of God before. I don't remember my doubts having such sustained logic to them in the past, however.
Contemporary Ritology explains quite succinctly why people feel such awe around the Lord's supper, and how Hillsong songs optimise one's feeling of closeness to God. Anthropology suggests plausible explanations for the evolution of religious thought. Actually reading religious texts from other cultures presents one with the uncomfortable realisation that there are other religious concepts that explain human relationships quite well too. The Mahabharata and Prometheus Bound underscore decent ethical frameworks that are different, but not, to my mind, inferior to those lain out in Biblical narratives. Perhaps I'm a little entranced by the exotic Otherness of these cultures, and am not yet equipped to critically engage with them.. But it's nonetheless caused in me a quiet sense of alarm when I've been at Church lately.
A few years ago I was introduced to an idea of how faith develops in a person. It goes something like this..
Faith usually begins with utmost simplicity and elegance. Like a first love, it is pure and black and white and uncluttered with the fetters of reality and logic. it just works, and it is beautiful to experience. This meets a crisis when complexity is encountered. The simplistic rendering of the world into binary concepts like good and evil, sin and holiness etc are found inadequate as tools for categorising the very grey realities of life. This resolves in the development of Complex faith - Faith within Complexity. This faith acknowledges the complexities of the world, but finds ways to resolve what initially appeared to be barriers to the synthesis of faith and reason.
This model has, until recently, fairly accurately described my faith journey. As new knowledge has been received, the faith-framework works to accept the knowledge within itself. My politics and faith have found themselves in complex, but complimentary synthesis.
Looking over the model today, I notice two significant issues, however. Firstly, it neglects to mention what happens if the believer is unable to incorporate the complexity into their faith model.
Ouch. It hurts just looking at it. All those exhortations to keep the faith that resound throughout the scriptures seem to be counseling against letting this happen. The complexity of it all can overwhelm, but holding on to a simplistic faith - one that can be utterly confounded by reason - isn't a good move either. It takes a sustained course of mental gymnastics to keep your faith afloat in a world of complexity (This ought not to be bad news in itself. It must be remembered that to remain constant in any belief or conviction over the years requires the same mammoth amount of creative headwork).
The second issue, and really the big one affecting me right now, is that complexities just increase the more you learn. I don't think you can put faith and complexity in the same neat box and suggest that they represent the end of the journey. As complexity continues to increase, the process of incorporating it into a faith model becomes an increasingly difficult task. Certain critiques might come along that reveal large sections of the faith-frameworks to be a neat, but flimsy constructs, which will be discouraging and costly news to the believer. But perhaps worst of all, the process of continually tweaking their faith-model might so fatigue or disillusion the believer that their faith eventually withers away beneath the stress of it all. I'm in danger of doing this.
But then there's this:
Last night at church I couldn't help but be carried away by the simple joy of song, friendship, and the remarkable narrative of grace that Christ embodies. Despite having the tools to analyse and explain it all away, I was confronted with the reality that faith is good. On the whole, my religion is a construct of immense beauty which motivates people to celebrate and do the good things in life. It helps me to do the same. That's just wonderful, and funnily enough, it's a realisation that's not tunlike to the original one that sparks faith to begin with. There's a joyful elegance, a wonderful simplicity to faith that just is and does. The complexity can't be sidelined, but nor can this basic, elemental reality of goodness that pervades the whole thing.
So I guess that's where I am. Today I'm approaching the green box, but I acknowledge my propensity to hang out in the pink one a fair bit too.
I read a person describing their faith as a 'qualified theism' recently. I'm not sure I'm wiling to place conditions upon how God may or may not operate just yet. I haven't yet abandoned awe. But perhaps I'm moving in this direction. I also wonder whether i'll become a different kind of fundamentalist, whose unshakable belief that "God is Love" comprises in entirety, my religion. But then perhaps the faith of my childhood offers more than i've given it credit for. Who knows? I'm open.
for now there is Faith, Hope and Love.
Amen