The Reason for Faith

     When I was a kid, I liked to ride my bike a lot.  In fact, I still like to ride my bike, but back then it was different.  My bike represented something to me that was unfathomable and beautiful: freedom.  I would ride down the massive hill upon which my neighborhood was built—reflecting only briefly on the fact that I would have to scale that hill to return—and I would make my escape from the tyranny of domesticated life.  I was free. 

     My favorite thing to do on my bike, by far, was to use the little ramps that driveways create in a sidewalk as a chance to get a little air.  Now, I’ve never been a small fella, but when you get enough speed and the right angle, you can feel light.  And that is exactly how I felt as I would surge toward my miniature stunt ramps, jacking my handlebars upwards toward the sky.  I was light; I was free. 

     As I got older, I forsook my bike for a sturdier form of transport, as most adults do.  The internal combustion engine on my bright red Plymouth Voyager was far superior to the 18-speed, 2-pedal propulsion on my Costco special.  These were happy times because my freedom was now nearly limitless.  And yet, I can’t help but feel as though I lost something when I exchanged the lightness of my earlier freedom for the heaviness of the Detroit method of transportation.  What I made up for in comfort and capacity, I lost in the thrill of hang time. 

     Something else that I liked about my childhood was that it was so easy to believe in God.  Secondary and higher education hadn’t yet activated my left-brain to the point where reason was my dominant facility.  I had no reason to be discontented with the bits that I had been taught about the way the universe worked when I was younger.  Then, I met René Descartes. 

     Without boring you with philosophical pedantry, I will express to you that my meeting with this man was quite bittersweet.  Perhaps his most famous contribution to philosophy is his Method of Doubt.  I was ready to tackle it head on.  Doubt was no match for me.  I was an Evangelical deacon’s kid who did Bible Quiz in elementary school; bring it on, Frenchie! 

     Well, he brought it, and it turned out I had underestimated the Frenchman’s talents.  His logic was indefatigable and his reasoning as sound as any could be.  His famous statement, “Cogito ergo sum,” (“I think, therefore, I am”) had been tossed around by my teachers for decades.  But, I didn’t know what it meant, so I didn’t think much of it.   

     To sum it up, Descartes proved through the use of logic that the only thing that can be proved is your existence.  If you’re thinking, then you exist.  Everything else is inaccessible to pure logical reasoning.  Everything else is assumption. 

     What I didn’t correlate at the time was the relationship between assumption and faith.  In a logical brain, assumptions are detestable when they’re spotted out, and they are to immediately be discounted for the pursuit of more empirical data.  But as Descartes so eloquently proved to me, even empirical data could be a great 

lie (reference the first few scenes of The Matrix for details).  What was a poor little evangelical boy to do in light of this information? 

     This lead to a solid year-and-a-half of soul-scathing, mind-bending, and psychologically depressing labor.  I scoured over books by Tim LaHaye and the good C.S. Lewis, but none addressed this void.  I talked to pastors, but none had any answers except, of course, to scold me for my lack of faith.  And I dove into the deepest wells of my soul to see if the experiences of my childhood spirituality were nothing but bunk, to be discarded with the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus. 

     One day while I was studying for my undergraduate degree, I got a call from my sister who was taking a course at the same college where I studied philosophy for the first time.  She told me that the instructor who had introduced me to Descartes and Nietzsche had lapsed into a manic episode in front of the class, cussing everyone out and getting physical with a student.  He was forcibly removed from the classroom by security and summarily fired.   

     It was only then that I remembered why it was so important to believe. 

     Belief is food to the human soul; without it, even the brain—with all of its logical proficiency—is doomed to death and starvation.  Faith is the precursor to any sturdy happiness.  One cannot plan without faith; one cannot act without faith.  One cannot hope without faith, and one cannot love without faith.   

     If the human life is to produce any enjoyment, it must be through faith.  Even atheist evolutionists have faith, although their faith is in the ability of human intelligence and nature to solve all the ills of the universe given enough time.  A person without faith is merely an aspiring mental patient…not a contributing member of society. 

     It wasn’t explained to me until years later that reason is not evil and faith is not stupid.  Reason and logic are the ramp off of which one leaps into faith, and it is within the nature of every human being to make this leap.  Our souls require it of us.  Staying put is not an option.   

     It is in faith that I reclaimed the lightness which I’d left leaning against the wall in my garage as I pulled the car out for the first time by myself.  In faith, my soul barrels down the sidewalk at blazing speeds, jerking the handlebars upward to experience that moment of lightness—to experience freedom. 

“To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, ‘If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples.  Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.’" 

-John 8:31-32 (TNIV)