On the X-Files Mulder has a poster in his office that exclaims, "I want to believe." Throughout the show he lives that life philosophy out. I think a lot of people like that about Mulder. I am much more like the skeptic Scully than the Mulder who wants to believe the unbelievable, though. If there is something that annoyed me about the show it was that the idealistic Mulder was always right and Scully, while always logical and intelligent, was never right until she started believing Mulder.
In most areas of life I am very happy being the skeptic. It's actually fun, probably wrongly so, to pick apart how a lot of the, "I want to believe," folk act. The constant superstition and conspiracy theories are quite entertaining. Of course, it's all fun and games until someone loses and eye or until I start looking at my own beliefs. When I look at my beliefs about God I reach a point where I cannot rely on logic alone.
Before I go further I need to point out that I undeniably believe in a personal God, and that He is the God described in the Christian Bible. I have attempted to go down the path of "What if there is no God?" in my mind many times, but at my core I always know better. While I can follow a lot of the logic of the atheist, I don't think I will ever be able to comprehend true unbelief in any higher power.
Here is my confession. Probably the hardest issue that I have dealt with in my Christianity is grasping what logic must be sacrificed for faith. I know that it would be just as much of a crime to fall into superstition as to worship rationality, but where is the happy medium? I have to accept that while there are issues that don't make sense to me about what I understand about what I believe to be a loving God, that this is not a reason to deny Him.
The question that I am dealing with is this. At what point is true hard hitting questioning about God a good thing, and at what point is it simply sowing doubt? At what point are my internal questions me trying to make sure what I believe about God is truth, and at what point am I making excuses for the things I don't want to have to accept? Is it wrong that I don't always want to believe? How bad is it to be the Scully or the Thomas?
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9 comments:
What is it that you doubt? What are your questions?
I have never known someone so intense on knowing/finding truth. Truth is extremely important to you--I think it is part of your OCD.
I had a discussion with a very learned, brit, philosophical, theologian here. He said people should follow their doubts out completely otherwise they will always follow them and they can never have confidence in their faith and their choice of following God.
I've been doing a lot of following though I do not understand the last few years. I can follow both sides of a specific theological argument so far that I can see the points of both sides (ambivalent). Some days there is a point on one side I can't give on, but there's also something appealing on the other side. Each time I hear a certain church phrase, the thought flashes through my mind, "I'm not sure if I beleive that."
It's an interesting juxtaposition to both believe and have doubts at the same time.
I watched a bit of X-Files back in the day, but probably not the exent of Dust or Double B. I know Mulder and Scully, but I am not sure I remember the character you refered to as "the Thomas." Who was he and what was his role in the series?
There was no "the Thomas." I was referring to the disciple.
I know. ;)
-just being silly.
Tell me about this Thomas - did he have some doubts too?
I figured you knew, but I wasn't 100% sure. The problem with responding to sarcasm that you aren't sure is sarcasm without the benefit of voice inflection is that it is easy to look like a jerk.
It's better to just look a little unknowledgeable.
Poor Thomas. In a moment of weakness the guy wanted to see the nailholes. He might have been a pretty postive, upbeat guy who pays close attention to detail, but in this one moment he is forever known and "Doubting Thomas."
Well, I guess that is better than being know for his love of beans and rice which would make him gassy. The others often called him "Farting Thomas."
Maybe he knew if he asked about the nailholes, everyone would forget about that farting problem.
I listened to an audio recording of BigFoot enthusiasts hooting across the Cascade mountains hoping to get a BigFoot reply. They did... But it could have been the rival BigFoot club trying the same thing.
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