Wednesday, June 03, 2015

Why I am so stupid

There is no getting around the fact that we Christians believe all manner of stupid things.  Here is a sample of really dumb things that I believe to be absolutely true:  I believe that as I type this I may well be observed by invisible spiritual beings, some good and some evil; I believe that the world outside me exists purely for the sake of one Man; I believe that the death of one Person has completely changed the situation of every single person who has ever existed; I believe that a dead Man came back to life on the third day; I believe that the most glorious thing that can happen to a person is to die because of their faith.  And when I say 'believe', don't hear that as some sort of religious word.  I mean that I believe these things in much the same way that I believe that my laptop is in front of me as I type.

These things are stupid things to believe.

They are not stupid beliefs in and of themselves.  Only internally contradictory beliefs would be stupid in isolation.  They are dumb beliefs because they are impossible to fit within the frame of reference which we use to describe reality.  They are stupid because they are contradicted by the most fundamental axioms which we have adopted as arbiters of truth.  In particular, they are dumb because they are manifestly not derived from my experience or from any empirical judgement.  They are stupid, actually, because they could only work in our frame of reference as 'values', as myths which are in some sense true for me but certainly do not make any claim to actual, real-world truthfulness.

I believe all these stupid things.

I believe them because I have come to think that our frame of reference is all wrong.  I believe them because I think they reflect a higher frame of reference: the truth of the Creator.  These foolish beliefs are his folly, not mine. And his folly is wiser than my wisdom.

There is just one thing I am determined to do: to keep being stupid.  The danger is that I take these beliefs, see the profundity of them, glimpse something of God's wisdom - and adopt a position of superiority.  If I do this, I deny the very reality of the beliefs I profess; shape them into something strong and praise-worthy.

No, I will just carry on being dumb.  Nothing much ever depended on my cleverness anyway.

1 comment:

  1. "For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands." (2 Corinthians 5:1)

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