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<\/a><\/p>\nThe show\u2019s dramatic theme song prepped the audience for a thrill; the deep voice announced the following: \u201cThe story you are about to see is true; the names have been changed to protect the innocent.\u201d Sgt. Joe Friday, confronted with auto theft, kidnapping, and murder, pursues the villain through clues and terse interviews \u2013 \u201cjust the facts, Ma\u2019am.\u201d (And why is it always \u201cma\u2019am\u201d as though it\u2019s always the women who muddle up the account with emotion and embellish it with opinion? Harrumph. Just like the apostles, who were sure the first witnesses to the Resurrection \u2013 women \u2013 were all speaking nonsense.)<\/p>\n
The show was all about the evidence. Every crime could be solved through hardboiled, empirical reason. The clues. The timing. The motives. The witnesses. Friday would announce the date, the time, and the location of every scene. It all came together. No one got away with anything. Joe Friday \u2013 mild-mannered but driven, courteous but determined, unprepossessing but clever \u2013 made it look easy. Frank Smith, Joe\u2019s sidekick, provided some chatty, homey relief to the action, but it was Joe, and only Joe, who solved the mystery. Joe was smart, insightful, and wise \u2013 he was a hero every week.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, we often approach faith the same way. We know something happened. But what? When? Where? Who saw it? Rationalist, Enlightenment-drive thinking tells us that if we put together all the evidence, we should be able to reach a hard conclusion about the factuality of the matter. It\u2019s a little trickier now that the Event is 2,000 years old. But still, \u201cjust the facts\u201d is all we need.<\/p>\n
Many years ago I heard a speaker relate a situation that has, for me, provoked considerable reflection over the years about the nature of faith. He told of posing this question to an audience: \u201cIf you could exchange the four Gospels \u2014 with their testimonies of Jesus\u2019 teaching and actions, passion and crucifixion, resurrection and ascension \u2014 for an actual video of Jesus\u2019 life, would you do so? A video that showed the angel Gabriel hovering in a golden mist over Mary; that showed Jesus multiplying the loaves and fish; that showed water being poured into the pitchers and wine coming out; that showed Lazarus staggering out of a darkened hole in the ground; that showed Jesus taking a little dead girl by the hand and lifting her up; that showed Jesus breaking bread, sweating blood, lurching under the cross, nailed, gasping, dying; that showed the early sunlight streaming into an empty tomb; that showed a very alive Jesus munching on a piece of fish; that showed Jesus seeming to vanish into the Galilean sky\u2026 Would you like that?\u201d<\/p>\n
Of course we\u2019d like that. To really see it all for ourselves. That would solve our dilemmas, answer our questions, quiet our doubts.<\/p>\n
But of course it didn\u2019t for those who were there. Many saw, and did not believe. They tasted the water-turned-to-wine; they ate the bread that never ran out; they watched a dead man stumble into the light; they saw the blood dripping down the wood of the cross. It wasn\u2019t enough. The evidence certainly demanded a verdict, but that verdict wasn\u2019t unanimous.<\/p>\n
So, while we can say that yes, there is evidence that supports faith, we cannot say that faith is an inevitable conclusion of the evidence.<\/p>\n
There is a missing ingredient.<\/p>\n
Some atheists might suggest it\u2019s a meme, or a bit of DNA that triggers credibility. Perhaps. But maybe it\u2019s revelation, a disclosure to the soul that kindles the spiritual \u201caha!\u201d of conviction.<\/p>\n
When I was a teenager, I had a youth pastor who, in one of our Bible studies, claimed that he had moved past the point of believing into certain knowledge. \u201cI don\u2019t believe<\/em> that Jesus is the Son of God\u2026 I know<\/em> that Jesus is the Son of God!\u201d Weird. I thought that then, and I still think that now. If we pit faith against knowledge like that, then we have rejected the vulnerability that comes with the willingness to risk.<\/p>\nFaith is risky. Pascal called God the Deus absconditus<\/em>, the hidden God, who gives enough light for those who wish to believe, and enough obscurity for those who do not wish to believe. That requires of those who choose faith a posture of humility rather than power.<\/p>\nNext posting \u201cCould Be Wrong \u2026 but I Don\u2019t Think So.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The show\u2019s dramatic theme song prepped the audience for a thrill; the deep voice announced the following: \u201cThe story you are about to see is true; the names have been changed to protect the innocent.\u201d Sgt. Joe Friday, confronted with auto theft, kidnapping, and murder, pursues the villain through clues and terse interviews \u2013 \u201cjust […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":206,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[16,27,44,54],"class_list":["post-57","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-doubt","tag-faith","tag-knowledge","tag-pascal"],"yoast_head":"\n
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