1/12/24 (7 minutes reading time) 

“All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson  

To me, there is a slight distinction between belief and faith. The Oxford Dictionary says that belief is “an acceptance that a statement is true or that something exists. Additionally, the Oxford tells us that faith is “complete trust or confidence in someone or something.”

When it comes to religion it seems that the line between acceptance that a belief system is plausible and complete trust in the tenets of a belief system is a topic that could use more scrutiny.

Clearly, belief in something is a necessary first step to having faith in that thing, but for most of us there is a fair amount of work necessary to traverse the span between belief and faith. This work constitutes the process that we become involved in as we move from the point where we first believe to the maturity of true faith.

No matter whether we profess a specific religion or claim to be a totally materialistic atheist, or any point between, we still rely on a set of beliefs to inform our world view. While no one has empirically proven that God exists, no one has proven that He doesn’t. So, when it comes to the big questions, where did I come from, how did the universe begin, is there life after death, what is my purpose, no matter what you think the answers are you are relying on belief in an unproven idea upon which to base your convictions.

When I speak of belief systems I am referring to what the Oxford dictionary defines as “a set of principles or tenets which together form the basis of a religion, philosophy, or moral code”. It doesn’t matter if a belief system is an adopted religion with thousands of years of structure and development, a hodgepodge of reactions and impressions that we formulated on our own, or ideas proposed by philosophers, we all have a belief system that informs our perspectives.

It is important to note that the way we perceive the world around us, our impression of current events, our relationships, how we respond to information, our political views, what we think of our neighbors, how we raise our kids, and just about every other bit of information we take in and every thought we think day to day and minute to minute is filtered through and influenced by our world view, which is largely formed by our belief system.

It seems that reaching a point of faith, complete trust in our beliefs, is the goal for all of us, regardless of our chosen belief system. Not that I anticipate it will happen for most of us. C.S. Lewis said “It is easy to say you believe a rope to be strong and sound as long as you are merely using it to cord a box. But suppose you had to hang by that rope over a precipice.”

Doubt is always pecking away at our belief systems. What if there really isn’t a God? What if there really is a God? What if there really is life after death? What if there really isn’t life after death? In the absence of complete trust we seek the best contingency. What does the best job of answering the unanswerable questions?

Once we conclude that there may be life after death, and that we might be aware enough to feel pleasure and pain in that existence, then we begin examining the options for assuring that we will be experiencing the most pleasure and avoiding pain to the greatest extent possible. As soon as we begin thinking that there is something more to us than just the molecules that keep our clothes from being an empty pile on the floor we begin down the road of metaphysics, consideration of spiritual realities.

Of course, the easy way out of this is to be an atheist. This belief system says that we are no more than the sum of our molecules and when they expire there is nothing else. There is a whole litany of issues that I see with this perspective. The origins of the universe theory that goes along with materialistic and naturalistic atheism is way harder to believe than the Intelligent Design theory that supports the Deistic or Theistic belief system. Additionally, there is the Darwinian theory of evolution and Natural Selection theory that are concomitant with the materialistic viewpoint. Recent scientific research is shooting more and more holes in those theories as well as adding more and more credence to Intelligent Design. Then there are the philosophical problems with atheism such as questions about how and why morality and justice developed in a species that is based on the survival of the fittest. Plus, for me there is experiential evidence of a spiritual realm. In my estimation atheism is an excuse to close your mind to a new spectrum of possibilities.

On the other hand Friedrich Nietzsche said, “A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything.” But I would argue that faith is not about proving anything. Faith is a personal decision about how a person chooses to deal with what, if anything, comes after death. Faith is also a decision about how a person chooses to live their life in the here and now, about their choices of right and wrong, about their value system, what they teach their children, where they place their trust and where they find their answers.

Many people believe many diverse things and trust in many diverse truths. There are many different belief systems which will profess to provide the path to salvation, nirvana, right living, happiness, enlightenment and so on. Some will tell you that there are many paths to the top of the mountain but once there, the view is the same. I say there are many paths that may look like they are going to the top of the mountain, but as the world gets darker it becomes harder to tell where the paths actually go.

In the words of Stuart Chase; “For those who believe, no proof is necessary. For those who don’t believe, no proof is possible.” Proof is where you find it. Proof has been a large part of how I have come to choose Christianity as my belief system. My experience tells me that those who have not found proof for God have not been looking in the right places or using the right set of eyes.

In the Christian belief system God created the universe and all that is in it. That means that all things in nature are creations of God. One only has to take a close look at nature to be amazed at the beauty, complexity and efficiency of the natural world.

The first scientists were people who believed in God as the creator of the universe and were examining the things in nature to get a better understanding of God. Hildegard of Bingen is a Benedictine abbess who is credited with being the founder of scientific natural history in Germany as far back as the early 12^th century. Francis Bacon, Galileo, Kepler, Pascal, Boyle, the list of Christian scientists is extensive and chock full of men and women who made the most astonishing and impactful scientific discoveries of their times. And it continues on today with people like Dr. Francis Collins who directed the National Genome Research Institute and lead the project that mapped human DNA, Dr. James Tour of Rice University, named “Scientist of the Year” by R&D Magazine and was the recipient of the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Centenary Prize for his work in nanotechnology and is considered among the 50 most influential scientists in the world today, Dr. Dean Daniel Hastings, head of the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT, Dr. Kissmekia Corbet who led the team that developed the mRNA vaccine against Covid-19. Again, the list of modern day scientists who attribute creation to God is very long and growing as scientists who were formerly atheists find their way to the Christian belief system. One such convert is Dr. Jing Kong, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Professor at MIT who said” The research is only a platform for me to do God’s work. His creation, the way He made this world, is very interesting. It’s amazing really.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen.” Although science is bringing us closer to understanding the truth about the existential questions that we use to formulate our belief systems we still have no direct empirical proof of the existence or absence of God. Until the day we discover that God is real or not we must rely on what we believe to be true and place our potentially huge bets on that belief.

I encourage all of you to read about your belief systems and think about how they answer the tough questions of life and how well they prepare you for eternal life after death. For me, the answers I found in the Bible and the doctrine of Christianity were overwhelmingly more believable than the other systems I have encountered, especially when coupled with current scientific findings regarding the origin of the universe and man as well as the archaeological findings that support the veracity of the Bible.