For some six years now (2010), I have made an effort to put my thoughts as succinctly as possible on this website. I have watched and read everything I possibly can that supports views opposing mine, to make sure I haven’t missed anything, including the plethora of programs promoting Darwinian evolution, neo-Darwinism, nature documentaries, science programs, genetic discoveries, religious web sites, as well as sermons and philosophical expositions. I am sure I have not even begun to touch so much as 1% of the information available, let alone fully grasped what their authors are trying to say. In the end, having witnessed human behaviour up close for six decades on this earth, like everyone else, I am forced into the position of drawing conclusions as to what is TRUTH from the severely limited data at my personal disposal.
"For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,"(Isaiah 55:8)
"For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known. " (1 Corinthians 13:12)
All of us, including scientists, philosophers and computer nerds are in the same position. None of us know it all. I believe in logic, the ability of my brain to process the data I do have at my disposal in a reasonable way, so as to reach conclusions I can defend in a debate with people who disagree with me. Yet all of us share the same handicap – having to form opinions and world views based on limited data and unique personal life experiences. Inevitably we start off making a series of assumptions to make sense of it all.
Nothing has brought that issue closer to the forefront of this battle than the recent death of my father at the age of 93. He accepted Jesus around the same time as I did, some forty years ago in the late 1960’s. Unlike me, he did little about it. Apart from getting baptised, he never told anyone how it had changed him or his world perspective. Shortly before he died, he repented for having been away from the Lord for a long time, but again, shared this experience with no one. And my heart was troubled as to the security of his salvation. After much soul-searching however, I have put my trust in the Lord’s thorough understanding of our fragile human make-up. His immeasurable grace and knowledge embraces the multitude of varied human journeys, cultural backgrounds and individual personalities. (Not all of us run a website to share our Christian convictions with the rest of the world.) On that basis, I am confident I will see him again, in a place bathed in God’s love and light.
The purpose of this essay is to determine to what extent I am justified in articulating with passion and self-assurance what I believe to be Truth. And I ask myself the question: where must I draw the line from which I will not be swayed, in the light of the degree of uncertainty imposed by my human fallibility?
ASSUMPTIONS
I’ll be totally honest about the assumptions I have made to reach my world view. I am not ashamed of them and there is no point in pretending they don’t exist. Many people deny they have been forced to make assumptions in developing their views, believing that would somehow diminish their validity. To me, it would simply undermine the objectivity of the exercise. I would be deluding myself even more than I possibly could by acknowledging them.
1. To start with, I assume that God exists. Without a Higher Being in the picture somewhere, life makes no sense and becomes a purposeless freak of nature, devoid of moral, meaning or destiny. The odds of the incredible complexity of life sprouting up by sheer accident are so staggeringly remote, it would be equivalent to me winning all the major prizes in a series of Lotto games run every single minute of my earthly existence, a figure with so many zeros tagged to the end there isn’t a calculator in the world today that could handle the numbers involved, a figure greater than there are atoms in the Universe. In essence, it’s impossible.
2. Second, I assume God has given me a sound mind, able to process available information efficiently and logically to arrive at certain convictions which make reasonable sense. If that were not a given, there would be no point even in writing this essay. If evolution were true, I figure, how could I possibly be certain that my brain has evolved in such a way as to make my beliefs in any way, shape or form reliable? My reasoning ability could be a self-delusion, ‘evolved’ to make the odds of my survival more likely, rather than a way to steer me towards genuine insight.
3. Thirdly I assume God is all-powerful. If that were not true, He would be no better than the mythological Greek, Roman and Scandinavian deities, who could be beaten at their own game and who toyed with humans as if they were no more than chess pieces on a giant board. I recognize within myself an optimism billions of others share - a deep-seated hope for life to continue beyond this earthly existence. A fallible god would be in no position to guarantee my eternal salvation.
These three major assumptions control my subsequent information processing, deductions, reasoning and drawing of conclusions. Anyone starting off with a different set of assumptions obviously will arrive at conclusions incompatible with mine. Good luck to them. If they are right, I will live a moral existence before it is snuffed out, (something I would want to do regardless, even if there were no God). On the other hand, if I am right, they will be in big trouble when the time comes!
POST-ASSUMPTION CONCLUSIONS
With my three assumptions in my hot little hand, I figure a real, all-powerful God would expect to be worshipped. By definition, a god is an object of worship. He would be upset if I worshipped anything or anyone else. So He wouldn’t leave me clueless as to who He is or how to approach Him. It then makes perfect sense He would leave written instructions as to how to go about this. (He wouldn’t leave it up to my fertile imagination to conjure up a deity that meets my expectations, and then pretend it is Him!). The only documented instructions I know of that meet that criteria are the Jewish scriptures, in particular the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible).
The God of the Pentateuch has a name. YAHWEH. He was not happy when people He had created worshipped other gods made of wood or stone or beaten metal, powerless gods who didn’t really exist. In fact He was so unhappy, He wrote out on stone tablets commandments, the first two of which made worshipping other gods the worst sin anyone could commit. To Him it was sheer unfaithfulness when His own creation chose to put their trust in worthless statues, instead of Him. We may struggle to fully comprehend why He would be so put off by idol worship that He was prepared to completely wipe out participants in this loathsome practice, until we compare it to a husband making love to his wife while pretending she is someone else, an attractive neighbor or a movie star. In spirit, this husband has been just as unfaithful as if he had actually done the dirty deed. It came down to an affair of the heart!
This concept of unfaithfulness is further reinforced by what I read in the rest of the Bible. When I read it, I detect a central theme, a courting ritual, where God is romancing His own creation, testing to find out which part of it actually has a heart for Him, and Him only. To Him, a perfect Bride is one that is totally in love with Him. He already loves us, miserably flawed as we are. He is looking for it to be reciprocated. The Hebrew word for adultery also means idol worship. He is asking, “Who, in this time-constricted universe, wants to spend time-free eternity in My presence, fully committed in a consummated, faithful and loving relationship?”
THE FORCES OF EVIL
To make such an eternal relationship meaningful and the testing of hearts beyond doubt, opposing forces are necessary to generate the opportunity for choice. Unless we actually choose Him over an alternative, the relationship would be no more meaningful than a programmed response from a computer. The potential for evil in this world is there to make sense of what is good.
Satan and his cohorts are here for that very reason. They provide a multitude of distractions aimed at taking our attention away from the real issues: the meaning of life itself, the reason we are here, ultimate Truth. These distractions tempt us to put our own interests before His. They niggle away at our subconscious tendency towards selfishness. They home in on our heart’s desires. They use subtly fallacious arguments to persuade us that putting self first is an OK thing to do. The more foot-hold they get, the more ground they try to capture. The ultimate aim of this deception is to turn us into a god before Him. Nowhere does the Bible declare more succinctly the meaning of the universe than in Colossians 1:16: “By Him and for Him were all things created.” The surrounding passage is clearly talking about Jesus and there is no doubt left that He is the meaning of life on earth (see also John 14:6).
So now the stunning revelation dawns that our choice is not a blatantly obvious one, between good and evil. Our choice involves a decision as to what we value most: Him, or Self.
THE DISTRACTIONS
It never ceases to amaze me how easily mankind is distracted, even to the point of being fooled into believing the most amazing and far-fetched man-made ideas. It serves to prove how fickle we are, and how justified God is in testing our hearts. And how little Truth matters to us when push comes to shove.
Adam and Eve had nothing to complain about, yet chose to go their own way. Their offspring went horribly astray and only eight were chosen to survive a world-wide flood. That little band populated the globe and some set up shrines to false gods. The Israelites dumped Him, after the most astounding and miraculous deliverance from slavery, as soon as the going got a little bit tough. And when God Himself came in human flesh, they crucified Him because He wouldn’t conform to their expectations.
Modern man likes to kid himself that he is different. Churches try to present a picture that hopefully makes the God-concept palatable, by pandering to our likes and dislikes, bending the Truth. But with so many different tastes and heart’s desires, it seems we worship as many different gods. We congregate in the building where the message is preached that appeals to us most. Unbelievers see how inconsistent the whole thing is and stay away in droves.
Undeniable evidence of God’s existence is in the obvious design in nature, yet deny it they do. Now that we know about DNA, the complexity of the design of life is literally broadcast to all the world. Nothing so complex and full of meaningful information can come about without intelligent input and oversight. Declaring it to be an accident of nature is akin to saying: ‘the mobile phone glued to your ear made itself’. Yet many are pressured into believing the ‘cosmic accident’ story. Life from primordial soup, my foot! Does anyone reading this believe you can put a casserole in the oven, already riddled with amino acids and water and proteins, all the building blocks of life, and watch it move after it’s done?
Yet, on the other side of the coin, en masse we readily believe the most outrageous propositions, totally lacking in evidence, if there is a just a small chance there could be something in it for us. It might be as little as a feeling of security. Only seventy odd years ago we believed it was OK to murder our neighbor because he was a Jew, or black, or an aboriginal. We believed it was OK to have a war in Vietnam, because the communists were out to get us. We believed planes would really fall from the sky on the turn of the century. We believed Saddam really had weapons of mass destruction and the war was not about oil. We believed (and still do) it’s a good thing to make money by gambling on the stock market. There are unlimited examples of mass delusion, but I’ll focus on just a few contemporaries:
Our carbon footprint
During a debate about global warming, I asked a number of friends whether they knew how much of the atmosphere comprises carbon. The opinions ranged from 5 to 10 percent. The actual figure is 0.035%! No wonder 85% of the voting public feel they need more information before supporting proposals to fork out trillions of tax dollars to reduce our carbon footprint.
Now we are expected to believe the carbon in the atmosphere will melt the ice caps if it increases to 0.05%. (According to Wikipedia, it doesn’t become harmful to animal life until it reaches 5%.) And that is while all of life on earth is carbon-based, needing carbon from the air to metabolise. There is proof that vegetation becomes hardier and more drought-resistant when the percentage goes up. And while the western side of Antarctica is melting, the eastern side is growing faster! Google it, if you don’t believe me. (I’m not saying we should continue to pollute our planet; we are destroying our environment. All I am saying is that local climate change is not synonymous with global warming). The global warming potential (GWP) of methane is 72 times that of carbon dioxide, but no one has dared propose introducing controls over the passing of wind! Because of their irregular distribution, scientists haven’t even attempted to calculate a GWP for clouds, or for water vapour generally, which is without doubt the greatest global warming factor in the atmosphere, making up about 1% of the atmosphere or 30 times the amount of carbon.
The ideas that appeal to us are governed by selfish interests. Truth often has little to do with it.
Origin of Life
A hundred and fifty years ago, a man called Darwin proposed a hypothesis that supposedly explained the development of life on earth without divine input, called the “Theory of Evolution”. At that time, all scientists thought a living cell was no more than a simple blob of jelly. The hypothesis still has no proof, yet is promoted as fact. There actually is far more evidence against it. And now that we know that that ‘simple’ blob of jelly is as complex as an entire city, full of designed functions and features, they still refuse to let the theory of evolution go. And it still gives no clue as to origin of life: the first living cell.
It’s not about science or truth. It’s about God and the refusal to be accountable to Him.
Investment
The Global Financial Crisis (GFC) is another case in point. The crisis has its origins in the flawed financial system adopted by western economies after World War II.
I had my first taste of it in the early seventies, when I was twenty-one and starting off in marriage. At that time, banks were still respected institutions. Bank managers were expected to make sure that money you borrowed could be reasonably repaid over your productive working life. You could only borrow 85% of the value of a property, with repayments not exceeding 33% of your gross income. I bought a unit for $13,000 and sold it a year and a half later for $16,000. I bought another for $16,000 and sold it two years later for $24,000. I bought a house for $30,000 and sold it ten years later for $85,000. I bought five acres for $75,000, put a house on it for $50,000 and sold it ten years later for $356,000.
Over that period, everything worked great as long as inflation caused the value of property to rise. Slowly, lending rules eased and people started borrowing not just to buy a house, but a car, a fridge, a holiday, you name it. They financed their lifestyle by mortgaging their entire future income and earning potential, just so they could have what they wanted now. I guess the real problem started when we borrowed more than we could ever repay. We made so much money in investment equity through the rising value of our real estate, the temptation was to have as many investment properties as possible, all doubling in value every seven years. Banks joined in by relaxing credit rules. They were on a roll, as were all the investors. People started borrowing to ‘invest’ in the stockmarket. When the real estate market was a bit slow, you could make more money buying shares. Everyone jumped on the bandwagon. And Greed took over.
All the people entering at the beginning of a pyramid scheme make lots of money by roping in others. Bank managers and executives voted themselves huge pay increases and bonuses, as if the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow had beentheir invention. Investors no longer needed to ‘produce’ anything to make money. You could make far more by making the right gamble. The term ‘lifetime earning potential’ became meaningless. Bank managers discovered by sheer accident they could make more money by lending to people with no ability to repay than to those who could. To start off with, they could charge a higher interest rate to cover the higher risk, and when the poor suckers defaulted, they could hit them with huge penalties, all of which would be paid for out of the increased value of the investment when the house was sold. It is actually a criminal offence to rip off people through this type of con job, but they got away with it through legal loopholes and authorities turning a blind eye.
And then it all went topsy-turvy when too many defaulted at the same time, causing the value of the investments to crash.
The bank executives responsible should have been prosecuted. They had committed a serious crime. Fraud. But Banks are an essential element in the flawed financial system. Putting Bank executives in jail meant the entire system would collapse. So, instead, governments rewarded the criminals who had caused the crisis by bailing them out of their predicament, using money yet to be earned by their victims.
They tried to solve the flaws in the system by using the same strategies that had caused the problem in the first place. Easy credit. Those with the money to lend (we’re now talking entire nations), have the power to make or break governments. An alternative strategy is to simply print more dollars. There was a time when governments could only print as much money as there was gold held in reserve. Now they print money willy-nilly, as much as they need. If there is a trillion dollars in circulation and you print another trillion, obviously the purchasing power of every dollar halves. It’s legalised theft. It looks OK on paper, only because the numbers are still the same. The future repercussions are mind-blowing, yet we go along merrily as if there will be no price to pay.
We convince ourselves everything will be alright. Its only been a year since the GFC started, and already house prices are higher than before, the stock market has regained 40% of its value, inflation is rampant on energy prices, groceries, rents. The poor are buckling under the strain but the rich have to make their money somehow.
Prosperity Doctrine
The most popular Christian expression today is generally known as the Charismatic Movement, which derived its name from the belief in manifestations of the Holy Spirit such as miracles, prophecy, and speaking in tongues. These manifestations have been gradually replaced by a belief in financial prosperity. No longer do we need the power of the Holy Spirit to perform a miracle, if we can rely on our wallets to pay for medical treatment. Millions of well-meaning Christians have succumbed to the tempting promise of easy wealth, and the deception that its acquisition actually has God’s support.
The way the Prosperity Doctrine is promoted is by quoting select scriptures out of context, thereby appealing to that most degenerate of human shortcomings –Greed (1 Timothy 6:9-10). The idea is that by giving to God (i.e., His representative, the Pastor), in faith, money that you may not even possess, God will in return bless you financially up to a hundredfold. Anyone with even a modicum of intelligence ought to be able to work out where such a doctrine has its source, and its popularity in the Charismatic movement is indisputable proof that Greed is alive and well in the fallen human condition today.
Let me just clarify that I am not opposed to people having money or being wealthy. I think I myself am pretty well-off. But I would strongly advise those in that position to guard your hearts very carefully, lest this prosperity captures and enslaves you. I am strongly opposed to the very suggestion that God can bebribed into giving you the very thing that will draw you away from Him. (For more information, see my essay on the subject “Prosperity Doctrine” in Essays Series 1.)
As Christians, surely the most significant impact on our lives comes from the words spoken by Christ Himself, the person we claim to be following and who gives us that name. If we have reached a point of degeneracy where we can blind ourselves to that, we really ought to give the game away. What did Jesus have to say on the subject? (Mammon is an old word for ‘wealth’). Among many other declarations:
“No man can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to one, and despise the other. You cannot serve (both) God and mammon.” (Matthew 6:24)
“.. and the cares of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things entering in, choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful.” (Matthew 4:19)
“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures upon the earth, where moth and rust consume, and where thieves break through and steal: but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consume, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” (Matthew 6:19-21)
“..how hard is it for them that trust in riches to enter into the kingdom of God!” (Matthew 10:24)
And Paul sternly warned Timothy:
“But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after it, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.” (1Timothy 6:10)
If money is ‘deceitful’ and the love of it ‘the root of all evil’, surely Pastors promoting its acquisition to an audience of fallen creatures is like parents encouraging babies to play with fire.
SIN
Determining what is Truth, applies as much to human behaviour, as it does to philosophy and science. Whether we try to decide guilt, correctness of doctrine, or validity of scientific theory, judgment is called for. So let’s divert to human behaviour here, as behaviour is simply our human response to what we believe to be true.
If we behave badly, we’re either not convinced God thinks it’s bad, or we believe that we can get away with it. Neither is true. All sin makes you guilty (Romans 3:19). And all have sinned and come short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). The thief is just as guilty of transgressing God’s Laws as the adulterer. There is no place in eternity for any sin. However, there are degrees of guilt, apparently hinging more on the level of awareness of the sinner, than on the actual sin (Luke 12:47-48, John 15:22). And of course there is that one enigmatic unforgivable sin, blaspheming the Holy Spirit (Mark 3:29).
On this basis, Man has convinced himself that one sin is more forgivable than another. If we have come to believe that fornication is a level three sin and adultery a level two, then homosexuality ought to score a resounding ‘one’ on the Christian burn scale. Suddenly we are faced with the daunting prospect of allocating a number to incest. And surely we are expected to judge the pedophile. We must protect our children from those monsters at all cost. We will never overcome our human propensity to judge. The standards of behaviour acceptable to our way of thinking have been etched into our being by centuries of indoctrination and culture. Fortunately, God says He will put His laws into our mind, and write them in our hearts (Hebrews 8:10), which gives us some reassurance that, in the things we find abominable, we have His unflinching support. Also, as Christians, we often have that witness in our spirit, that we are on the right track (Romans 8:16). In addition, Jesus personifies Himself as The Truth (John 14:6), leading me to believe that the only way to learn is to get to know Him better!
So now we are faced with some serious decision making. The Old Testament reveals the reason for Creation, the standards of behaviour God expects from His Creation, and the future of mankind in the face of non-compliance. Then, in the New Testament, Jesus, the same God but in human form, enters the picture and levels the playing field. All the animal blood sacrifices made to try to appease God’s wrath are replaced by a single blood sacrifice made by God Himself. Sacrificing Himself.
JUDGMENT
If a blood sacrifice is called for, obviously a sin has been committed. And to decide if that is the case, a judgment must be made. Fortunately, it isn’t our job:
"Judge not, that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you." (Matthew 7:1-5)
Don’t judge others, because that could well get yourself found guilty and convicted. How many times has Jesus warned us? He’s not warning us not to judge, as much as warning us of the repercussions of doing it. If we do, we must be prepared to be judged by the same standard.
I don’t think I could ever not judge the pedophile. It is one place where I have to draw the line. And I am fully prepared to be judged by that standard, knowing in myself I would pass with flying colours. But I am guilty of adultery, having left a marriage and been with another. And having desired to commit that sin many times without acting on the impulse. But if we pick our battles and judge only where it really counts, suddenly two things happen spontaneously: we become aware how sinful we ourselves are and just how much we have been forgiven. And that, in turn, helps us find we can see others through His eyes and be less judgmental towards them.
FORGIVENESS
The warning is even stronger in the matter of forgiveness:
"For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses." (Matthew 6:14-15)
At least with judgment, there is an outside chance we might ‘pass’ some stringent testing procedure on a particular human failing, and come out victorious. With forgiveness, transgression is already established, otherwise there would be no need for it. And the scope to which it applies is much wider, not just tied to trespasses that are alike in kind. On the plus side, it appears from the straightforward reading of the passage we can earn our own forgiveness, by being equally magnanimous towards our fellow sinners. This seems to clash with the strongly supported Christian tenet, to which I myself subscribe, that there isnothing we can add to Christ’s sacrifice in order to secure our salvation.
Again, the need for forgiveness implies fault, which, in turn, implies judgment. How can you feel wronged, unless you’ve passed judgment that the subject sinner should or shouldn’t have done something? So there are very strong links between judgment and forgiveness, bringing us closer to the Truth of the Gospel message.
DISCERNMENT
But there is another facet to consider. There are many instructions in the Bible to use wisdom (in other words, using our brain in light of experience, e.g. Colossians 3:16), as well as to test the spirits to see if they are coming from Him (1 John 4:1, 1Corinthians 12:10). I like to think of discernment as judgment without the condemnation. A secular judge can try a case, find the defendant guilty as charged, but then, at his discretion, exercise mercy in sentencing. Likewise, the old and trite saying still applies: we can hate the sin, but love the sinner.
“But go ye and learn what that means, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” (Matthew 9:13)
It seems to me that when Jesus warns us of the consequences of judgment, it is primarily the condemnation part that gets us into trouble. The question is: can discernment of spirits, in the absence of condemnation, be exercised simultaneously in the same heart? In other words, can we find the offender guilty, but not sentence him?
HOLISTIC BIBLE STUDY
There are lots of perspectives and themes in God’s Word. Our tendency is to home in on the ones that appeal to us personally. Those into the Prosperity Doctrine will apply to their lives the scriptures talking about prospering and being successful. They ignore the ones that say you cannot serve both God and Money. Those who like to worship something more substantial than Spirit alone, may feel justified in addressing statues of Saints in prayer. They ignore God’s clear abhorrence of the practice. Those who like the idea of walking by faith will apply the scriptures that promote childlike belief and ignore the ones that warn us to use our brain.
It is extremely important to our Christian walk to find that place where we’re not forced to overlook part of the Bible in order to reconcile our faith. All of it is His instruction. When the balance goes out the door, we open the way for sects and cults to form and for the Gospel message to be distorted. Black and white attitudes are usually the product of misplaced emphasis and tend to be divisive. On the other hand, of course Absolute Truth is not a negotiable item. But admitting that things appear gray is simply honest acknowledgement of our humanity. Our cache of relevant facts is incomplete and our understanding imperfect.
PASSION
Whilst I don’t agree with their doctrine, I admire the passion and commitment shown by SDA door knockers, Mormons, monks, even extremist Muslims. They put us to shame. For most Christians, by comparison, our level of devotion to Jesus and His eternal purpose often pales into insignificance. Faith without passion and commitment usually means we haven’t absorbed the full significance of what we believe in. God expects us to express our faith with passion:
“So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth.”
(Revelation 3:16 )
If we truly recognised the full significance of the Gospel, we wouldn’t waste time with earthly comforts; wouldn’t spend 95% of our waking hours looking after number one; wouldn’t worry about being in distress, getting sick or dying, or being persecuted. We would spend our time getting hot and hotter, building up heavenly treasures in the process (Matthew 6:20).
But what I find even more interesting is that He prefers us COLD to lukewarm! He is partial to extremes. He would rather we never go to church at all, than to go to church halfheartedly. In His opinion, it is better to erroneously believe in evolution, than to sit on the fence. He prefers we preach false doctrine in ignorance, to us preaching what we don’t believe in. He abhors hypocrisy. He’d rather we honestly admit we don’t know the answer, to us pretending to have insight. He wants to spend eternity only with those of us who really want to be there! They say there’s a fine line between love and hate. Both are emotional outcomes of very deep-seated dynamics. And the opposite of both love and hate really is indifference. God wants us to experience the love we have for Him with passion.
SUMMARY
Not a person on this earth knows all there is to know. In addition, the great bulk of us readily swallow the most outrageous falsehoods when the right salesman comes along, one who recognizes what drives us and who manages to exploit it to the full. Within that context of gullibility, we need to come to terms with the fact that what we believe to be the Truth, could well be wrong. Additional information could totally screw up our framework of reference.
On the other side of the coin, God wants us to believe with all our heart that what He tells us in His written Word is TRUTH, cover to cover, page by page, word for word. (But it has to be the whole Truth, constructed from the full conglomerate of principles and perspectives presented in the Bible. Not a modified version of the ‘truth’, derived from a selection of preferential verses taken out of context.) We must find that place where we can apply the whole of the Bible to our lives, and still not feel we are compromising our faith. And once we truly believe we are right, that the TRUTH resides in our heart and mind, we cannot help but share that with others. And it ought to be not just a reserved and unemotional communication of ideas, but rather a passionate broadcast, not caring who hears, hoping our effort bears fruit in many lives.
Are the two perspectives mutually exclusive? Is it possible to express our faith with passion, while at the same time keeping an open mind? That is really what this essay is all about. Is an open mind synonymous with doubt? Does doubt imply lack of faith? Does lack of faith imply hypocrisy? For me, this is where faith actually comes in. My three assumptions in life lead me straight to the Bible, in which my Creator and Saviour has instructed me to apply both principles to my way of thinking and attitude. Therefore it is possible!
Judgment embraces both finding guilty as well as sentencing. We really shouldn’t judge, but God understands there are times when we can’t restrain ourselves. The overall dynamics of what we believe in and the intelligent assessment of what goes on before our eyes sometimes makes the passing of judgment unavoidable, even imperative, for the protection of the powerless and innocent. Slavery, child-abuse, drug trade, abortion, there are numerous issues that would never be addressed but for passionate people crying out, “This is wrong!!” As a general rule, when considering our attitude towards others behaving badly, there is a place for discernment but not for condemnation. Who knows what horrible history the offender has gone through to make them behave this way? We are not called upon to stick our heads in the sand and pretend everything’s OK, but we are to have a merciful attitude.
And in our search for Truth, our every effort must remain tempered by the inner knowledge that it is possible we could be wrong: the whole picture may not yet have emerged. It is this attitude that keeps us from closing our minds and hearts to the plights others. In the end, it is more important to the Lord that our hearts are in the right place, than that we believe our minds have conceived a closer understanding of the Truth than someone else.
CONCLUSION
TRUTH is black on white. And falsehood is many shades of grey. Truth is not a negotiable value that can be adjusted to suit the circumstances. However, seeing grays is a candid and humble admission that ultimate Truth is beyond the grasp of us poor, fallible human beings, and remains the exclusive domain of our Creator.
It is a great and wonderful thing to believe passionately you are right. In fact there should be more of it. It should be a reflection of the overwhelming love you feel for Him. But not to the point of exclusivity. And not to the point where new information cannot even be considered.
We are on this earth to become a perfect Bride for Jesus. A bunch of dysfunctional and damaged creatures, who couldn’t aspire to perfection if our lives depended on it. (And they do!) Our only possible token contribution to perfection is to accept one another, with all our imperfections and idiosyncrasies thrown in, and love them regardless. That means not to judge them. And where discernment is called for, to forgive them. Only by all of us appropriating these principles into our being can a perfectly functioning Bride arise, via a myriad of imperfect component parts being merged as One.
If Jesus has accepted you, who am I to reject you?