The Evidence of Things Unseen

I have spent most of the last three months in spiritual solitude, contemplating God.

Ok, that's a little misleading. The more honest way to say it is that I've spent the last three months doing the following:

1) Not going to church.
2) Praying very little.
3) Reflecting a LOT on the meaning of faith, the nature of mystery, and the purpose of religion.

Yeah, that sounds a lot less like a spiritual activity, and a lot more like a season of doubt. Yup, that about sums it up. The last time I had doubts like this, I was asking whose version of Christianity I should believe. This time, I was asking why I should believe any at all. Why should I have faith in anything? Why should I believe in Christianity, rather than Islam? Supposedly a Muslim has faith too. Isn't it arrogant for me to assume my faith is somehow better than his?

It was really tempting just to call B.S. on the whole thing - it was ridiculous to tout something as true when I couldn't really know for sure. But I could never shake the feeling that there was something to it. I just couldn't bring myself to deny faith entirely. And every now and then there would be some prayer, or some passage of Scripture, or some hymn or sacred choral text, and I would have this calm, quiet assurance of God's presence.

I came to the conclusion that whatever was behind all this faith stuff must have something to do with that undeniable, first person experience. I couldn't put my foot down on any explicit theological proposition or system, but I knew that somehow I met God in the prayers, the songs, and the sacraments. Then I realized that if God was not something I could wrap my mind around intellectually, but that I had to experience Him in the flesh, then it was kind of silly to just sit around and think about Him. I finally decided to go to church again. Not because I felt obligated or guilty, but because I just missed visiting with God in His house.

I went to an Eastern Orthodox church; I'd been meaning to visit one for about a year now, and St. Joseph's was just down the street. The service I went to happened to be mostly in Russian (oops), but I could sort of follow along in the English liturgy booklet, and liturgy has a structure and tangibility to it, so that once you've experienced it a few times you can enter into it anywhere, anytime, even if you don't know the language. After the service, I had the privilege of a long talk with the priest (Father John) and the deacon (Deacon John). At one point, Father John quoted this gem from Hebrews:

“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for,

The evidence of things unseen.”

He then moved on, but hearing this verse again got me thinking. I've used this verse so many times to make the point that even though faith means placing your trust in something unseen, it's actually about concrete things (the substance of things hoped for) and it's actually based on evidence (we judge that the evidence is in favor of the belief, even if we don't actually see it).

I couldn't have been more wrong.

The grammar of that passage always looked a little weird to me, but I've only just now realized that it actually means what it actually says – faith is not about substantial hopes, it actually is the substance of hopes. It's not based on evidence, it is itself the evidence. I don't place my faith in God because of some evidence that I find sufficient. My faith is not something I do. It's not something I can help. I have it; I can't help but have it; and if I'm going to be honest with myself, I'm going to have to acknowledge that fact. If I ask God for evidence of His existence, he says “Look, I've put faith in your heart. You cannot deny it. What more do you need?”

So it really is an immaterial question whether I ought to have faith. The fact is I do, and there's nothing I can really do about it. So I can't really call B.S., as much easier as that would be. I'm gonna have to keep seeking after God. And I guess that means going where He is, which I guess is wherever I can find Him. At least at the end of the day, I can have that calm assurance. Well, it's a start.