On My Christian Faith without Apology

John 14:6
New International Version (NIV)
  Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."

If you are a Christian, then this is the paramount truth in your belief. When I attend church, I always see the words and people in the Bible as very real. Not literal--real. I also play Devil's Advocate. Of course, as a person of words, that term must be defined:

Advocatus Diaboli (Advocate of the Devil), a popular title given to one of the most important officers of the Sacred Congregation of Rites, established in 1587, by Sixtus V, to deal juridically with processes of beatification and canonization. His official title is Promoter of the Faith (Promotor Fidei). His duty requires him to prepare in writing all possible arguments, even at times seemingly slight, against the raising of any one to the honors of the altar. (The Original Catholic Encyclopedia)

In essence, that officer is to search for truth within the church itself. In playing Devil's Advocate while at church, I do not believe that I am committing a sin. I believe that God gave me a gift and talent for seeing the world through a different set of Lenscrafters. I am old enough now to see that value and use it to further my own faith. (Of course, this relates to yesterday's post.). I tread lightly here because I treat my Christian faith and the Jewish faith with great respect. I will not be addressing the obvious other religions and faiths of Eastern and Western cultures. That can be considered a flaw in my argument which negates anything further I write. But guess what? This is a monologue not a dialogue. The detractors or critics will have to craft their own arguments. Thank God and our founding fathers that they have that right in this country. I welcome those with an established faith. I do not, however, have great esteem for the faithless; I find them pitiable. With all the exclusions, forewarnings, caveats--here goes...here's what your mother believes.

I think of Jesus as both man and divinity...but, and there's always a big but...

Others did not and do not.

Imagine the outrage if you are a faithful Jew to those words. Imagine the anger and rage at Christ for them. He is calling himself the Messiah. The Son of God. His words are inflammatory and heretical. His very words would justifiably have incensed his fellow Jews. He furthers the injustice later on by saying that man would receive comfort from the Holy Spirit or Holy Ghost. And with that, he commits another sin. For now, he has spoken of a Holy Trinity: God, the Father; God, the Son; and God, the Holy Spirit. Rabbi Stuart Federow addresses this issue in 2003: "Jews are taught that God is One, God is Indivisible, and this is found throughout the Hebrew Scriptures. Isaiah 44:6 tell us that, "I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God."

Houston, we have a problem.

If God is Indivisible in the Jewish faith and a Trinity in the Christian faith, then Christ's words are fighting words for one and hope for the other. Which brings us back to finding the truth.

And finding the truth is not always easy to get to. Let's pin it down, then:

What is truth?

In Christianity and my faith, God is truth. But, for me, that means I ascribe to a Holy Trinity. And this I take on total faith. The same kind of faith that I have when I believe that my husband will come home after each day of work. For make no mistake, that is faith. I am believing based on past history that he will return. Pure faith--nothing more.

So, in my spiritual life--Christianity is truth. I will also put forth that I have a greater puzzlement of those who hold no faith--atheists and agnostics. Their truths are far different than mine. In my estimation, to be faithless is to be hopeless. Can you imagine having faith in nothing? That means no faith in people, causes, anything good, true, and beyond oneself.

Atheists would argue that they can be good people, but they have already turned me off because they have arrogantly decided on a truth that they cannot prove. If we are creatures even capable of pondering our own existence and afterlife, then it is impractical to me that we are able to think existentially without existing beyond the here and now. I mean this seriously--they HAVEN'T EVEN DIED yet. To accurately determine there is no God means you have to be dead. The act of being undead disqualifies you from any empirical data to support your case.

Agnostics, I don't think of as arrogant. I think they are clueless. Giver-uppers. Mamby-Pambies. Willy Nilliers. In the words of Rush (Not Limbaugh): "If you decide not to decide/ You still have made a choice." Their truth, then, is a simple ,"I don't know what to think; I don't have enough evidence one way or another to make a determination." Are you kidding me? You don't know what to think? Really? Not knowing what to think is frightening to me because it means you have given up on the search. You are too lazy, too slothful, too apathetic to even bother to continue the search for truth. I'm just thinking...that's pathetic. And that's what I am doing...thinking. You know Descartes, "I think, therefore, I am" and all that jazz.

So that's my Truth. My belief. My faith. You, in your life, will determine your own spiritual Truth. And you will have to live and die with that Truth. And for Heaven's sake, have enough chutzpah to have a belief, a truth, a faith. Search it out. Dig for it. Spend every day until your mortal body ceases to breathe looking for Truth. Because to do otherwise means your very existence is unimportant, and for me, that is not Truth. That is the absence of Truth. And the absence of Truth is a lie, a falsehood. Your existence is important. The existence of others is important. Believing in existence beyond earth and death--that belief, that faith is Truth!