Remembering it’s OK to embrace mystery in our faith
To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible.1Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica.
Being a Christian is a philosophical tightrope. Most apologists know this. It’s knowing and perceiving the world from a certain point, but also being able to take the natural world as it is. While some Christians refuse to take the standard human understanding of nature, others are comfortable working with it while still holding on to their faith. I know friends and have read scholars who can put it more eloquently than this… but being a Christian is a paradox. This isn’t surprising as our entire religion is based on paradox, but what I mean is in an intellectual sense, we have two worlds in our head smashed together. This sounds like cognitive dissonance, but I believe it’s a lot more nuanced than that.
The two worlds I’m speaking of would be the metaphysical, unseen world and the natural world. Now, when I speak of the metaphysical realm, we mean the foundational order behind which we have no way of measuring. As Christians, we believe there is an “uncaused cause,” a foundational principle, which we call God. God is not just a force, like when the wind knocks a plastic cup off the table—God is the sustainer of everything. He is in everything, but separate. We’re not pantheists. We’re panentheists (Eph. 1:23). As C.S. Lewis beautifully put it in his book, Miracles:
References
| 1. | ↑ | Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica. |