"Some time ago, a bright young man came to the study with his girl to talk about being married. He’d been raised Roman Catholic. “I can’t believe in it any more,” he said. Neither did he have any other religion. He didn’t know how he could decide between religions. Each one claiming to have The Truth. Each one possessing fine specimens for members. He wanted me to convince him the “Protestant” religion, or even the “Methodist” religion is truest and best. He was ready and willing to be overwhelmed by my arguments, if possible. This, I confess, I was unable to do.
When our class entered Cornell College, we were treated to a tremendous English course with a huge, two-volume textbook. One of the chapters was “A World Without Authority.” The old illusion that the Bible had been written by God was gone. That it represented flawless truth, nobody could believe anymore. Its authority was shattered. As for the authority of the Church—well, the Roman Catholic Church had too often been wrong on such things as the Galileo case and the Inquisition; and there were so many Protestant Churches, all a little different, that one could give little credence to 250 separate claims to The Truth. And science, so wonderful in finding facts about things, had no tools for digging in the spiritual realm. But maybe Jesus remained an authority? As a matter of fact, Jesus’ authority never was overwhelming. When Jesus preached, the people marveled, says Matthew, because He spoke “as one having authority.” Yet not everyone who heard Him followed Him. Not nearly everyone. Some, far from being convinced by Him, sought to have Him killed. When the chief priests asked Him by whose authority He had driven the money-changers out of the temple, He implied that it was by God’s authority. But the priests responded with contempt. When Jesus stood before Pilate, He claimed to bear witness to The Truth, and that everyone on the side of Truth would heed His voice. But Pilate was not convinced, either. Pilate doubted that Jesus, or anybody, really knew what The Truth is. “What is Truth?” he shrugged.
The issue here for us is the matter of religious certainty. I don’t know how deeply concerned you are about it. Perhaps there are some here who never struggle at all with doubt. But there must be some here who are deeply concerned about the truth of our faith, about why the Church thinks it’s true, or about their own, or a loved one’s lack of certainty in it. To you and your problem I would speak this morning.
We had better begin by acknowledging that for many people, at least, the English textbook was right. There is no religious authority to which we can turn today for all the answers.
I So what kind of evidence is available in the religious arena which we can trust? We can trust the evidence of our senses. Seeing is believing. I don’t mean that one can know God by sight or hear His voice by ear. Yet, if someone says he’s been redeemed by Jesus Christ, and there is no visible evidence of change in his life, one would have every right to doubt it.
Science builds on evidence the senses garner, and science can be trusted. The immense accomplishment of science in the last 200 years is profound evidence of the trustworthiness of our senses to know what is. I suppose it will sound shocking in a Church; but to make the point crystal clear I’ll say it: if a statement in the Bible and a statement of science conflict in an area where science is clearly competent, I would believe science, because its method of knowing is the most objective and sure that we have.
For instance, Bible chronology puts the creation of the earth at 4004 B.C. But radioactive carbon tests of old bones indicate there has been life on this planet for millions of years. I go with science on such an issue. On the other hand, if someone tries to tell me that science supports atheism, I tell him he’s out of his skull. For science has no tools with which to investigate spiritual reality.
What I am saying is that in choosing a faith, or in working out what one may rightly believe in religion, we were wise to find one, or allow for one, that does not go against plain facts that can be observed.
The infallible holy book of the Mormon people teaches that the Indians of this continent are descendants of the lost tribes of Israel. It’s probably not an important point in the devotional life of the average citizen of Salt Lake City; but it’s a matter that is open to scientific investigation. And the conclusion of such studies is that the so-called “10 Lost Tribes of Israel” were simply scattered abroad in Western Asia over the vast empire of the conquering Assyrians and assimilated there, along with a dozen other conquered peoples. So if I were choosing a faith to live by, it would be difficult for me to accept it that the Book of Mormon is infallible truth. If the parts you can check out are not true, the parts you can’t become suspect, too.
Again, a part of the creed of Roman Catholics and Anglicans and some Lutherans is that their Churches are part of what they call the “Apostolic Succession.” Their theologians say that Christ laid His hands on the Apostle Peter, ordaining him head of the Church, the first Bishop of Rome, passing on to him divine powers that in turn were passed down through the hands of the chain of bishops that followed in an unbroken succession to their clergy today. This is why, in their view, their clergy can make real sacraments and why other clergy can’t. The only trouble is that this dandy little theory is open to investigation and runs into some observable facts to the contrary. One is that Peter was never in his lifetime recognized as Head of the Church. Another is that there is a missing link or two in the chain (or supposed succession of Popes) and, therefore, presumably those special divine powers would be lost. When any religion bids us believe something like that which goes against observable facts, investigable by our senses, we ought to question its truth. And if that is resisted by those who lead the religion, we’d best look for one that is more interested in The Truth!
IIAnother kind of evidence we can surely trust in the struggle to find a faith for life is plain logic. I don’t mean that the human mind can comprehend God. But it can catch contradictions and fallacies. H. L. Mencken used to plague believers with such jibes as: “Faith … is an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable.” Our faith had better not be illogical. If it is, we had best correct it or exchange it for another! The human mind may very well be prejudiced so as not to be a perfect judge of truth. But it can still ferret out fallacies and contradictions that ought not be believed on pain of disillusionment. Benjamin Franklin was a wise old man in the ways of the world, but he could hardly have been more foolish when he said, “The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason.” Somebody has suggested that “Faith is the quality that enables you to eat blackberry jam on a picnic without looking to see if the seeds move.” Faith ought not be mere credulity! The negative test of logic and reason cannot create for us a faith; but it can save us from embracing a faith that doesn’t “hold water”.
Just one “for instance” here: Calvinism among Protestants and Jansenism among Catholics hold that God predestines all people either to Heaven or Hell. They also hold that people are responsible for their sins. This is impossible! If you have to do what you do, if you are “pre-programmed,” whoever pre-programmed you is responsible for your actions, not you yourself. Our father, John Wesley, fought this nonsense all his mature life. You can’t have it both ways. Logic, reason alone, should deliver a person from such absurdity of belief.
IIIBesides squaring with observable fact and avoiding the illogical and contradictory, the faith one chooses or develops should surely help make sense of the mysteries of human existence. I remember how the lights came on for me when I learned that part of the Christian faith is believing that the purpose of human life is “to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” Before that, I had thought God created us to help one another. Now I saw that until He created humanity, there was no one to help. So that couldn’t be God’s purpose in creating us. But to glorify, to serve, to honor, to show forth the greatness of God—I could see that as a reason for God’s creating us. And anyone in any station of life could do it. You could do it sick or well, young or old, rich or poor, smart or slow. It was a purpose everyone could live out that hooks us up to the greatness of God and lends meaning to our little fleeting life. And in glorifying God, you yourself tended to become like the one you looked up to. Also you’d generally do God’s will in glorifying Him—like helping others—but without feeling self-righteous about it and spoiling it, as when do-gooders go to work.
I’ve been drawn to the Christian faith because in so many ways like this, it makes sense of the mysteries of human existence. Time fails to recount light the Incarnation, the Atonement, the Resurrection cast upon the hardest problems and deepest mysteries of our human lot.
IVThere is still another kind of evidence in religion, in some ways the most important and positive of all. Besides the evidence of observable fact, the test of logic, and the way a belief helps make sense of things, there is also the evidence that comes through unqualified commitment.
There is a kind of certainty in religion that comes only by getting involved personally. Like being in love, being “in Christ” gives a person some inside information that can never be known by an outside, dispassionate observer. When first I fell in love, it was at Church camp, and of course it had to be with a girl who lived 90 miles away. I clearly remember one of the effects was that I would come to the table, and instead of eating, I’d gaze off into the distance soulfully and silently, remembering the delicious hours we’d had together. I rather ignored the food before me. Now an outside observer might conclude from this that being in love is a kind of stomach trouble. Indeed, I remember my father shattering my reverie with, “Wilbur, are you sick?”
It’s just different on the inside from the way it looks outside. In the hymn, “Jesus, The Very Thought of Thee,” St. Bernard of Clairvaux claims an inward experience, a love affair, between the Christ and himself that he feels, he knows about, but there’s no way he can tell it:
Nor tongue nor pen can show:
The love of Jesus, what it is
None but His loved ones know!
While this evidence can’t be communicated to non-lovers, it is nevertheless real experience that is most effective in building up certainty in the faith, once you’ve jumped in and found the reality there.
Now at this point, someone may want to protest. You’d like to say, “Preacher, here I am trying to find out about religion before I jump in. You seem to be saying I have to jump in before I can really find out.” You will remember I did put in something about testing it out for facts and logic and for how well it helps make sense of life. But yes, to really know, beyond possibility and probability, you have to make the leap of faith beyond proof. You have to jump. It does all seem backwards. It doesn’t seem fair. But don’t blame me. I’m just reporting. I didn’t set it up this way.
On the other hand, is it so strange that in order to know what love is, you have to have been or be in love? Or that in order to know God you first have to believe God exists?
Once you make the leap, there are some authorities that return to your world. There are the ones that have “leaped and found” long before you did. Like Paul and John and Augustine and Luther and Wesley. Or coming up close, like your best Sunday School teacher, or your special uncle, or the preacher of your youth. Here lies the true authority of the Bible and of the Church—not an infallible authority that knows everything about everything, but simply that authority of long experience “on the inside” with Christ and God.
Does someone ask, “But what if I jump into Hinduism or Communism or Islam?” Frankly, I don’t know. I jumped another way. All I know is that along with the Roman and Mormon and Calvinist versions of Christianity, these other religions didn’t get by those first three hurdles with me: the tests of logic and observable fact, and how well do they make sense of things?
Now just a word about our doubts. Much of our so-called honest doubt may not be very honest at all. One of the great spiritual doctors of Christendom, Bishop Fenelon, once said something that strikes the heart: “Many exaggerate their doubts to excuse themselves from action.” In our time, Aldous Huxley, analyzing his own long period of unbelief, concluded that his desire to continue in sexual sins is what kept him from the Christian faith for many years. Of course there is such a thing as honest doubt; but often our convictions or lack of them are due to the unresisted bias of our interest. Too often our doubts are simply an obstinate refusal to see what we do not wish to see.
Our subject is too vast to cover this morning, but there is time to sum up with a little parable. Finding or fashioning a faith to live by is a lot like entering this Church building. You won’t want to come here if it somehow looks stupid to do so. And you might hold back because you want to continue in your sins. But finally, you decide to come. You climb the steps. You enter the narthex. You cross the threshold. Suddenly, things are different. Outside, the building looked cold. The windows were dull. Inside, it’s beautiful and warm. Inside, the windows light up. How different it is inside looking out, than outside looking in. And through the years, as we cross the threshold again and again, experiences pile up. Understanding deepens. This place becomes the home of the soul. And the time of doubting is past. Instead, only a hunger for more and more, and the spirit singing:
How lovely is Thy dwelling place,
O Lord of hosts!
My soul longeth, yea, fainteth
For the courts of the Lord;
My heart and my flesh cry out
For the living God! …
Blessed are they that dwell
In Thy House!
--Psalm 84The House of Faith!
- Rev. Wilbur Wilcox
January 14, 1962
Collegiate Methodist Church
Ames, Iowa
