There are many among us who would resist embracing Christianity based on blind faith. We cling to the idea that we must personally experience or witness confirming events before we can believe.  Ironically, the very concept of faith requires that we accept that which we have not personally witnessed. We must accept the testimony of those who felt compelled to share their experience. That is, of course, the very foundation of all faith. It is also the biggest stumbling block, the greatest challenge.

In a world ruled by science and logic, how can we expect to embrace ideas and tales of events that seem so removed from our own experiences? How can we embrace blind faith in the concepts of God, the afterlife, and the path to get there?

The answer lies in the fact that we routinely have blind faith in the very things that support accepting the existence of God and all that implies.

Science, and the logic that supports science, are consistently accepted by most of humanity. This, despite the fact that most of the conclusions of science are beyond our comprehension. Even the most dedicated science practitioners would admit that they are, in fact, basing their beliefs on logical conclusions rather than direct observation.

Science tells us that travel to the nearest star outside our solar system is measured in “light years,” the time it would take to make the journey, traveling at the speed of light. Somehow, science has managed to calculate the speed of light, although no one has direct experience in such a concept. It’s all mathematics, and we accept those conclusions based on the testimony of those who have made those calculations. We take it on faith – blind faith.

Much of the science we rely upon is based on observation of the results of chemical reactions or physical interactions rather than the action itself. Many of these actions cannot be directly observed due to the limitations of our five senses. Yet, we accept these conclusions via blind faith.

The size of an atom, the pull of gravity, the wavelength of light that our eyes cannot detect, the radiation from radioactive material, the sounds that our dog can hear, but we cannot – these are all examples of concepts that most of us have no real experience with, yet we accept them with blind faith.

We have experience with blind faith in scientific principles. With that as a foundation, it isn’t too big a stretch to recognize that those same acceptances give credence to faith in an invisible God who has somehow engineered all that we experience and observe – and so much more that we have yet to discover.

One of the biggest stumbling blocks in our effort to believe in God is the scale of our experiences. In our lifetime, there is a consistent pattern of cause and effect, and we are direct witnesses to that principle. When it comes to the belief that there is one omnipotent being, responsible for all that exists, it is a stretch beyond human comprehension. So, we struggle and we doubt.

To believe in something that we cannot see, touch, hear, or feel is a challenge. It requires a personal deep dive into a state of mind where logic has no apparent value, where science is just another consideration.

But, it just may be that science and logic are the human tools that allow us to fully embrace our faltering faith. As it turns out, there is a tool that we routinely use that may be the key. It is a tool that is fundamental to both logic and science.

Mathematics.

Over the course of centuries, mankind has increasingly used mathematics to describe and understand concepts that cannot be observed using basic human senses. When we want to visualize the diameter of a blood cell or the size of a virus, we plunk down a decimal point and a bunch of zeros and we are satisfied with that description.

When it comes time to grasp the number of stars in the universe or the distance between them, we invent new categories of numeric stages or create new categories altogether, such as light-years.

Ultimately, we create new standards to understand concepts that are beyond the grasp of human comprehension.

When it comes to accepting the idea that there is such a thing as a God, who has created and oversees all the vast and infinite number of elements of our universe, from the smallest component of an atom to the number of stars and other heavenly bodies in the universe, we struggle.

We struggle because the math just doesn’t work for us. The math may work in one category or another, but when it comes to imagining an entity capable of managing the entirety of the universe, in all categories, we struggle. It just seems like too much.

Perhaps math and logic can actually come to our rescue.

There is a mathematical formula that is routinely used and yet has no certain value. It is called Pi –  the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. The miracle of pi is that humanity has never calculated the value of pi to a final number. It seems to go on and on, indefinitely.

The value of pi, like the existence of God, seems to have no end, yet we continue to accept and use the value of pi.

Perhaps we need to view God the same way. He exists beyond our ability to comprehend, just as we cannot find the end of pi. Perhaps the simplest view is to accept God’s self-definition “I am” – beyond our ability to comprehend, just as the value of pi is beyond our ability to solve.

Pi

One of the great mysteries of the Bible is the element of time.

From the very first descriptions of the story of creation, we are faced with contradictory time elements. While the sequence of events is compatible with today’s scientific understanding, the idea that those events occurred over the course of just a few days is difficult to justify when compared to a realistic evolutionary model.

When Adam and Eve appear on the scene, their first offspring become engaged in a lethal confrontation that results in one killed by the other and the survivor being banished to live with a remote group unaffiliated with the first family. What is unexplained is the existence of other, unaffiliated humans in the earliest days of mankind.

The book of Genisis very quickly expands into events that appear to be widely separated in time, yet appear to occur in rapid succession. Add to that mix the lifespan of those early characters and we quickly stumble into debatable territory.

When we look at some of those questionable lifespans we must wonder, was time measured by different standards in the earliest days of recorded history? Did the earth orbit the sun at a different speed? Was the earth’s rotation faster?

Or is there another, simpler explanation?

When we look at the first book of the Bible, we quickly recognize that it represents a considerable span of time, yet the events are presented in rapid succession. We might also recognize that the events described in the book of Genisis are a summary of events that occurred over a large span of time. It is a historical narrative compressed into a preamble.

We need to acknowledge that we view the messages of the Bible from our contemporary perspective. One day is the time it takes the earth to make one full rotation. A year is the time it takes for the earth to complete one revolution around the sun. We divide a year into 12 months, a week into 7 days.

Maybe we need to consider that the standards we use today are different than those used several thousand years ago. Could the definition of a year have been different? Could the interpretation of days or years have been distorted?

How did we come to divide a day into 24 hours, or an hour into 60 minutes? Why is a year divided into 12 months?

We might look at the stories of the prophets and their predictions and ask – why did God take so long to act? Why does it seem that God acts on a time scale of generations? Why are we still waiting for Jesus to return 2000 years later?

Could it be that time, on a linear scale, doesn’t exist the way we experience it? Could it be that time has no meaning for a spiritual being?

Like many other elements of the human experience, perhaps the perception of time is directly tied to the needs of the human form. The passage of time has so much meaning for the human that the concept that time doesn’t exist in the spiritual realm is incomprehensible.

Like so many other aspects of the existence that we experience, time is just one more example of elements that we cannot fully grasp while enjoying a human life. Perhaps the blindness to those elements that we sense or appreciate is part of God’s plan to give us the ability to focus on the that which defines us.

When tragedy strikes, such as the recent mass shootings, even the most devout Christians may find themselves questioning the existence of God. If God is the loving Creator of all that we observe, the loving Creator of humanity, why would He allow such a tragedy to occur?

It is clearly an unanswerable question. It is clearly the ultimate challenge to people of faith.

As we struggle to come to terms with that question, as we struggle to maintain our grasp on our faith, we can only cling to the concept that our Creator has a plan for each of us, and that plan may include experiences that we find to be most unpleasant.  Likewise, the lives of those who were lost may have served a purpose beyond our understanding.

The pain of the survivors may be the seeds of reform or the foundation of compassion for others. The anguish of the survivors may be the starting point for a cultural change that serves God’s plan, a plan that serves a greater purpose than we can imagine.

Of course, as an observer of these tragic events rather than a victim, it is easier to speculate on a purpose beyond our ability to understand. But, perhaps that too, is part of God’s purpose for those of us who are not directly impacted. Perhaps, for us, our purpose is to be the anchor to hold the ship of faith in those stormy seas.

As I struggle to compose this message of hope, I too struggle with that challenge to my faith. My hope lies in the fact that in my human state, I am unable to truly comprehend the mind of God. I am incapable of doing any more than speculate, based on some innate understanding of that reality. Once again, I fall back on other shreds of evidence, namely, the reports of those who have experienced that phenomenon known as a near-death experience (NDE). Most of those reports indicate that those who pass beyond death’s door experience joy and love beyond any earthly event. If that is the case, then we must accept that those who are the victims of these tragic events have essentially traded their earthly lives for an eternity of joy.

I believe that each of us has a purpose on this earth. I can only hope that my purpose is to provide hope for those in need, at the time they need it. I can only hope to be that anchor of faith in those stormy seas of tragedy.

In the ongoing debate between faith and evolution, there are those who firmly believe that evolution is solely responsible for the development of human beings. They might cling to the idea that all animal life on earth can be traced back to the simplest one cell life forms. They might further believe that somehow, life developed from a magical chemical mix that became capable of self-replication and increasingly more complex life forms.

They would believe that through millions of years of gradual modifications, these animal life forms evolved into the human species we know today.

Perhaps they are partially correct.

Perhaps evolution isn’t so much the magical random process as it is a tool used by a Creator who has an infinite amount of time to devote to the task of creation.

What is missing from our understanding of the evolutionary process is the surge of intellect that separates the simplest life forms from the advanced life forms, and key to that difference is the ability to communicate.

Certainly, other animal life forms communicate to a degree. Beavers slap their tails on the water to warn of danger. Birds may squawk and dogs bark for similar messages. But, human beings have, obviously,  immensely more complex communication abilities.

Chief among those abilities is the ability to convey abstract ideas. Even more remarkable is the ability to comprehend abstract ideas from the earliest days of childhood.

As parents, we make an effort to educate our children in spoken language. This is a bed. This is a cat or a dog. This is breakfast. In the process, we use abstract terms that, somehow, our children begin to understand even though there is no image connected to that term. In many cases, we make no conscious effort to explain or define those terms, but, somehow our children begin to grasp the meaning.

We might ask our child – “What do you want?” In that sentence, only the word “you” has a clearly identifiable image that the child can grasp. Every other word is abstract, yet somehow the child begins to comprehend the meaning of those words, and the combination of those words, without having those words explained. Even as adults, we would have difficulty explaining those words, yet we use and understand them every day. Many abstract words have different meanings depending on the context of their use, yet somehow we develop the ability to make that distinction.

If we look for evidence of an all-powerful, all-knowing creator, we might want to consider the likelihood of the intellectual capacity of humans being the result of a random collection of evolutionary events over millions of years.

It’s still a long way from the primordial soup that pure evolutionists consider to be the initial source of life on earth.

Perhaps our existence as a self-aware, reasoning, comprehending being is the strongest evidence yet of God’s existence and the case for intelligent design rather than random chance of an indifferent universe.