It has been several months now since I first started this quest for the truth. I am looking back now on how my world view, perspective on life and Christian faith have all changed. The reason I am writing this post is because I am genuinely surprised at how many questions I have, how willing I have been to uproot things that I have believed for many many years, put them on an examining table and ask myself if it really makes sense.
I realize that many people would be unwilling to do this because it can directly impinge upon one’s ability to live life if one is used to things being very black and white. I was raised in an environment that always encouraged me to examine both sides of the coin, which I think has allowed me to not only excel in the areas of science, but to live and excel in a world full of uncertainty. However, I would be lying if I did not admit that examination of my faith under the level of scrutiny I am used to within the realm of science has had at least some debilitating effects on me.
If you asked me questions about my faith today there would be things that I am more sure of than I have ever been before and have good reasons to think so. On the other hand, there are many things that at one point I may have had an answer to, but now I do not. I am amazed at just how different my faith is now than it was just 6 months ago.
Many Christians would say that my faith is weak, that I am too skeptical and that this search of mine is just a manifestation of that weakness and skepticism. I think they are dead wrong. It takes alot of guts to subject one’s faith to the level of scrutiny I am allowing it to receive and on top of that be open and willing to change. Many Christians cling to their faith and blindly believe it because that’s what they were told. I understand that is enough for many many people in the world. But I am a scientist and I have been educated to question, research and advance knowledge. If I am to be holistically honest with myself I cannot hold my Christian faith to a different standard. I must question. I must doubt. It is in my nature to do these things.
I have set out on this quest with the hypothesis that YHWH, the Judeo-Christian God, is the one true God and creator of the universe. I have set out on this quest to ask the tough questions and seek a level of understanding that is intellectually satisfactory to me. I have set out to understand if it is possible to have a conversation with another scientist and have a legitimate reason to believe in and trust God.
This search is about trusting that the Christian God is the one true God, and that if He is the Lord of the universe, then my faith is not at stake. I realize that I am putting myself in a vulnerable position, but this is something I must do. I doubt that anyone can say that my faith is weak or I have abandoned it because if faith means to trust, then this journey is a large leap of faith with no one to catch me other than God Himself.
Jonathan
Thank you for this insight into yourself on your path to understanding. Sometimes we can get so caught up in the intellectual part of these discussions that we fail to stop and take note of how it is impacting us on a personal and emotional level. It is refreshing to see you take this step back and look at your journey over the past few months and take stock of the changes to you.
I must also say that you are not weak because you are skeptic. Those who would suggest as much are the ones really struggling with a weakness. They are afraid, even if they do not know it, to open the box and look inside. Too many Christians hide behind the facade of being “full of faith” and confidence in God and we applaud such persons for their spiritual maturity. But many are simply not able to have these discussions with themselves. So they hide behind the mask of “spiritual maturity.” The facade is most evident in the most strident who are constantly on the attack and image themselves as Champions for God. Last i checked, if God is the God of the universe, he does not need Champions to defend him. He wants people to follow him and the truth. And I don’t believe God is afraid of us following the trail of truth even if it at times departs from traditional understandings and expectations.
I would make the same assessment of many who reject God out of hand because his existence cannot be proven. Any thoughtful person–believer or unbeliever–knows as much. But the real question is this: Given what we know about the nature of our universe, which answer makes the most sense to the question, “Why does the universe exist to begin with?” Clear away everything and it comes down to two possibilities. 1) it just does and the answer is unanswerable or 2) there is a divine mind of some kind and of such incredible magnitude behind it all. The first I don’t find terribly satisfying. The fact that I want an answer to it, suggests, at least to me, that it is a valid question. The second, though filled with some amount of mystery, at least holds the potential for an answer. I choose the latter because it is the best story. From that point, the quest for understanding God and his creation, how he relates to his creation and what he is calling me to proceeds.
Dad
Wow. I really liked your response. I think you’re right that God wants us to follow Him and the truth, even if it means stepping outside of the current traditional thought and understanding. We need to be open and willing to do such things. Many people will be unwilling to do this, but some must lead the way and venture into new territory. My personality naturally leads me in new directions, so I have no problem testing the waters.
At the end of the day, I don’t ever expect to come to any kind of eureka moment where I can say that I have proven God exists. Like you said, it does appear that it will all boil down to two options: (1) it all exists without meaning or direction or (2) there is a divine creator and plan that is in the process of completion. One allows hope and one does not.
Yes. The search for truth is hardly a weakness. While we may not find the same “truth,” I admire your courage and mind to question what you have been familiar with.
Brian
I curious comment…”not find the same ‘truth’.” Are there different kinds of truth…? Seems to me that by definition, truth is that which corresponds to reality. If it corresponds, it is true. If it does not, it is not true. Now it is possible for us to assume something is true when it in fact is not. And there is a long history of people insisting that their view of something is true, even though it is not. But that does not change the essential notion that something is either true or not true–that is false.
Let me give a concrete example. We assume every time we climb into an airplane that the scientists and engineers who insist they know why an airplane develops lift and rises into the air in fact know the truth or at least enough of the truth that their designs are successful in creating machines that in take of and land safely. It would do no good to insist that there is another “truth” about why airplane wings develop lift. In fact, none of us would get into one if there were “truths” out there about how an airplane should fly.
Now i realize there is a point of view that disregards this notion of truth and in fact insists that the truth about truth is that all truths people subscribe to are helpful fictions we tell ourselves to get through the day. But the problem with this viewpoint is that to insist on it is to insist that there is no truth which is itself a contradiction. How can you insist there are ‘truths’ (i.e. no truth), not ‘truth’ if there are ‘truths’, no ‘truth’? Were any of us to actually live like this, we would not be able to live with each other or communicate or trust anything. So even those who like to play this game cant really live that way.
I realize this discussion is sort of a mental game, but at its core is something fundamental about what we believe about the nature of the universe we live in. If there is no truth, then all of our seeking after it is just so much wasted effort. But if there is truth, even if we can only ever know it somewhat partially, then the quest is a worthy one.
something to think about…
jonathan’s dad
Hey Jonathan,
There is an interesting biography that was written about Mother Theresa a few years ago. I normally wouldn’t have read such a book, but something about it intrigued me…it turned out that in her later life she transcended simple faith and reached a point of uncertainty: one where she questioned her faith and her relationship with God. I am not certain she ever really resolved it, but the book made clear that she continued to pursue understanding.
I am not religious, but would consider myself spiritual. I think we each need to refine and come to grips with our beliefs. I sort of disagree with your dad on this. There is no absolute truth in the sense that everyone perceives it the same. Perhaps there is one absolute reality, but as I am sure your studies have revealed, it is all relative in the eyes of the observer.
Seek your truth! If for no other reason than the journey is worth the price of admission.
It is funny that this entire discussion is based upon a word that I used very hesitantly in the first place: “truth”. Based upon the discussion here I should qualify my statement about my search for the “truth.” In my search, I am trying to use my investigative tools to determine what is more likely to be true and what is not. The distinction here is that some explanations poorly reflect reality while others, although cannot be proven to be true, for the most part our experience shows them to be reliable descriptions of the universe’s behavior.
As I reflect back on my education it is quite clear that science’s investigation is based upon the presupposition that the laws describing the universe are unchanging. It is for this very reason that science has actually been successful in the first place. Science is clearly searching for one single truth, but it is clear that whatever knowledge we gain through this search is always incomplete and approximate. There is always a level of uncertainty in our understanding and although we have some basic physical laws to describe the world, it is understood that those laws are open for enhancement. Although science seems to believe there is a universal truth, it also seems to be at peace knowing that we may never find it. So back to your comment, I would not say that my studies have revealed everything to be relative in the eyes of the observer. Rather, they are different ways of looking at the same thing. This may essentially be what you intended to say in the first place, but I thought I would clarify.
The only subject I have found to always be true is mathematics. The other disciplines that use mathematics to describe the world always make assumptions about the world in order to develop a model. These models are always partial and incomplete and do not account for all the physics involved. There is no way to say one model is true and one model is false, but based upon the data and evidence, there is usually one model that tends to be better than the others. As for my search for the truth, I do not anticipate that I will arrive at one single truth. Rather, I expect to find a range of possible truths that all seem to correspond to reality as we can know and understand it. Within that range of possible “truths” or models, I anticipate to find one that seems to be the simplest and most elegant explanation for the universe, at least until something better comes along, which is always possible.
Mike
I would not be my position that everyone perceives reality the same. In fact i do not think that is the case. All experience with the real world is mediated by our human limitations that include the sensory capabilities we have to engage it and the worldview we bring to the observing event. What I do believe is the case, though I cannot prove it is that there is an absolute reality and we can know something true about it. The evidence of this is in part the fruitfulness of scientific endeavors and the technologies that emerge out of it. So my position would be that while we can never know reality with absolute certainty, we can have confidence that we know something and that knowing can be fruitful. We can then take this line of reasoning and apply it to the pursuit after the truth about God and God’s relationship to creation. It seems unlikely to me that it is a free for all…that if there is a god that is there, there will be things that are true about this god and things that are not true. Can we know this with certainty? No but that does not mean it is irrational to orient oneself in a certain direction based upon the testimony of some traditions. It is in this sense that i find my bearings in the Christian faith because it alone has a tradition of testimony of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead. If that is true, then it stands to reason that other things he said need to be given a weight greater than others–until of course i suppose someone else rises from the dead!
This is a short and inadequate response to your comments, but at least I hope they give you something more to chew on…
Brian,
“Truth” is not relative to the person, it must, by definition, correspond to reality as Jonathan’s dad pointed out. Whether someone believes in cars or trucks or not, is not going to stop them from being hit by one. Someone’s belief that they can fly will not save them if they jump out of an airplane unless that is a truth in reality. Someone who doesn’t believe in sickness or disease is not prevented from getting sick or diseased. Truth is that which is real and actual whether we believe it, or know it, or not.
Mike,
is it absolutely true that there is no absolute truth? Do you not see that that claim is self defeating? You are claiming an absolute truth about there not being any absolute truths. Truth is not relative to each person, but our preconceived assumptions (presuppositions) may lead us to different conclusions about the truth. While people can come to different conclusions about the truth by looking at different pieces of evidence, there is still only 1 truth and anyone who concludes something other than the truth has come to a false conclusion. There is only 1 truth and everything else is a lie or false. Being able to prove that truth is a completely different story. There are some truths that are beyond proving due to a lack of evidence. Perhaps that lack of evidence is due to our lack of knowledge about where to look for that evidence. Simply because someone can conceive of a way for a fact or evidence to be wrong doesn’t make it wrong. Occam’s Razor suggests that the simplest explanation or strategy tends to be the best one. The more complicated an explanation gets the less likely of that being the right one.
Jonathan,
I think it is great that you are seeking the truth. I started a similar journey about 10 years ago and it took me from Atheistic evolutionary thinking to a YHWH believing, Jesus following, young earth believer. Do you have any idea how many of my beliefs I had to take into question to make that kind of transition? Pretty much all of them and I didn’t go quietly. I was not about to believe in any God blindly although I had no idea how many bad assumptions I had to assume were true for my atheistic evolutionary beliefs to be true.
I believed that all religion was based on mans own ideas until I saw the evidence for myself. One of the things that really struck me about the bible is that it tells us to put things to the test. “Test everything. Hold on to the good.” Or “Prove all things; hold fast that which is good” depending on the translation you use. (1 Thessalonians 5:21 NIV, KJV)
I think it is very good to put beliefs to the test. Much of what people teach and believe today are based on good truths but were taken beyond the scope of truth. Some have neglected the truth, and some have assumed false assumptions. God’s word can be pressed extremely hard and it will still hold up. Sir William Ramses, a skeptical Archeologist, set out to prove the book of Luke wrong because Luke is very detailed in his descriptions of even seemingly small and unimportant details. After his journey and years of archeological searching he found that Luke was 100% accurate on even the minor details and he could find no reason to assume he wasn’t just as accurate on the major details like the death and resurrection of Jesus. He ended up becoming a Christian believer.
I think there is a lot of evidence for the existence of God. The fact that we think logically and with reason suggests we came from an intelligent being. Mindless random chance can not account for logic, reason, or morality. It’s random and mindless that means illogical, unreasonable, and morality has nothing to do with it. I think of God kind of like a black hole. Just as we can’t see a black hole, we can’t see or touch God. The way we can detect a black hole is by observing the orbits of starts around seemingly nothing with a lot of gravity in order to keep those stars orbiting. The only way we can know God is there is by observing the things He has an effect on (ie. All of His creation, the bible, and the people who have a relationship with Him). I could get into all sorts of evidence for God but that might steer us off the current topic of discussion.
I’d love to hear about some of the things you have been questioning or looking into and what you might have found.
God bless,
Jason
I like that you chose the title of your entry as “Leap of Faith.” It is courageous of you to ask the questions you ask. In many ways, it takes more faith to ask these questions, not a lack of faith. Only the religious people will accuse you of a weak faith. You are showing God that you are not afraid of what the answers will be. I truly belive that God has all the answers, and He will not withhold them from you. God created your intellect and your need for scientific analysis. What a gift! He’s putting your gifts to good use, and the journey you experience together will only add to your relationship.