Faith (part 1)

I attended a Lutheran high school just north of Detroit. One day the theology teacher explained “faith” to our class. I do not remember exactly what he said, but I do remember that he pointed to his chair and told us that we all have “faith that the chair will hold us up.”

Faith, to a Christian, is “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1, KJV) And this is precisely the point our teacher was trying to make that day: that just because we do not understand how god works, just because we have no corporeal evidence for the accuracy of the bible, we should still have “faith”.

Faith in the alleged truth of an alleged god’s alleged word.

Allegedly.

But what are we actually buying into when we accept this scripture as truth?

1. the substance of things hoped for
   We all hope for things -- that plans will work out, that the weather will be decent, that there won't be a screw-up in the payroll department on the 15th. Christians hope that there is a god and a heaven and a Christ whose work will bring about salvation to those who follow him. But what exactly is hope? According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, hope is “to want something to happen or be true and think that it could happen or be true.” So therefore it would be fully logical to say that the “substance of things hoped for” is wishes.
2. the evidence of things not seen
   There are millions of things we do not see; quarks and black holes are good examples. Now, I realize that the scripture is dealing with the concept of spiritualism, but I have to ask: what, exactly, does this spiritualism encompass? Up until about 500 years ago it was the magical will of the gods that governed how our universe functioned. When the gods became angry, they caused storms or earthquakes or falling stars. People had “faith” that this was how the universe worked. For our predecessors, claiming faith to be (spiritually speaking) the “evidence of things not seen” was logically the same as claiming faith in magic.

In the end, all we have with Hebrews 11:1 is wishes and magic. That is your faith, dear Christian, if you’re really going to be honest and examine it for what it is.

Those twenty years ago, sitting in that classroom, I didn’t really consider fully what the teacher was saying. As a young, impressionable, fundamentalist Christian, I was eager to lap up anything theological about my religion.

Now I know better. I do not have faith that any chair will hold me up: I have reason and logic, and applied scientific principles which all together state that if the chair held me up yesterday, there is no reason -- barring decay or destruction -- why it should not hold me up today. I do not need faith or a god to understand and observe how basic physics work.

Let’s have a little parable, shall we?

Little Harold went to school one sunny Spring day. At first glance, his desk chair looked fine, but as he began to look closer -- to examine its legs, and seat, and back -- he noticed that it was not in very good shape after all. There was a good deal of rust, some of the screws had fallen out, and a leg was slightly bent. It was wobbly. Harold didn’t mind; the chair had always looked like this, but he had FAITH it would hold him up. And so he sat down and smiled. And as usual, nothing bad happened. His faith had been justified! But ten seconds later he was laying on his back, the ruins of the chair underneath him.

Is there a lesson to be learned here? Perhaps, if you think about it. Go on - I have faith that you can work it out…

In part 2 I will be discussing New Testament teaching on faith and how it miserably fails at moving mountains.

Until next Monday,

Frank