I have faith in electrons. So should I worship at the alter of engineering? Why do I go to church? I seldom feel spiritual there. I spend most of the ceremony in complete service to my children. In fact, I spend most of the mass actively engaged in damage control so that others around me might be able to have a spiritual experience.
I want my children to explore their faith and I speak of faith with them frequently. That gives me a chance to work out some of my own thoughts. Yet, I can’t help shake my own sense of the concrete and real. I am fully attached to this world and it is hard for me to see paradise beyond in the adjectives used to describe it.
The rules that explain the universe however complex portray elegance and beauty. Although these rules are not fully known, they are often absolute and without exception. The architect has left us clues and endowed us with intelligence. The puzzle pieces of the universe are scattered all around for us to discover. Although it may be an impossibly large jigsaw, we continue to identify and place pieces as we discover them.
Being a man of science I believe God would create a universe that is perfect, and by perfect I mean adheres perfectly to a set of physical laws. As we discover these laws we are led to Him. This has been a cornerstone of my faith so that I can attend to the dichotomy of spiritually and scientific curiosity.
I don’t look to religion to explain science, but I have stopped looking to science to explain religion or existence. Organized religion is too concerned with self preservation to incorporate new ideas within the fabric of its teaching. So I cannot expect the church to be compelled to study science. However stretching the laws of science to help explain the teachings of Christ also seems to demean both. For example consider books with titles like The Physics of Immortality, or The Physics of God, etc. These books attempt to explain specific parables of Christ. From these books, the bottomless bowl of fish and bread are an amalgamation of quantum mechanics and general relativity. This just seems to be condescending to God and to me.
If God is the architect, then the universe must have been constructed using the rules that govern His architecture. God set up the rules of the physical universe and since I believe those rules are perfect and absolute, they could only exist in the way that God created. A glancing look at any area of physics will tell you that if the rules were any other way, the universe would cease to operate.
Using this reasoning, God must also feel (editor note: I thought of what word I should use there. Feel is emotive and I am going to stick with it. If God can love then He can feel) that he must be bound by these rules. Why would he create rules that were perfect but not to be bound by them as well.
By rules, I am talking about the physical constructs of nature. Not governing rules. I don’t want to suggest that if God set up some arbitrary rules for man to follow that He must follow them as well. That is like saying the a father must obey the rules he sets for his children.
The rules of nature are not so easily disobeyed. God’s rules are complete and necessary; the universe unfolds in the only way it can based upon those rules. Would not God be bound by nature? Changes in these rules could have disastrous consequences for the universe.
I am sure that He could or would change those rules arbitrarily if He found it necessary; and unlike man, would understand the full effect of those changes. His perception of these rules must be extraordinary, but being made man, in Jesus, would also have given Him man’s perception of these rules as well.
So this brings me to my dilemma, and the root of my spiritual turmoil. Faith. As a Christian, I am to believe in Christ as the only way to enter the gates of Heaven. The scientist in me wants to see God as the architect of Nature. His gift of Son not only gave us a symbolic lamb, but also gave Him a way to communicate with us in a way our senses could understand.
But its the specifics of the story that is at odds with my desire to understand the concreteness of the details. I can’t easily believe topics of Christianity without evidence, especially Biblical topics that fully contradict the assessments of science. Creationism versus evolution is probably the most current and obvious example. I am not at all engaged in this argument. I simply see it as a part of the larger science versus religion debate.
Someone explained to me that Satan was responsible for all the clues left in science that contradict biblical accounts. This was his way of leading us off of the path of righteousness. I believe this argument imbues Satan with more credit than is deserved.
So I come back to faith. I often tell friends who ask, that I am bringing up my children to have faith. But faith isn’t something I can give them. I try to be an example and answer their questions truthfully and honestly, but when do I know I have faith. Is it when I tell everyone else I believe? Is when I adorn myself with Christian symbols? Is it when I proselytize on the street or to my neighbors? Is it when I give my tithe to the church? Is it when I listen to Christian rock and read my bible more frequently? Is it when I bring my family to the church and attend regularly myself? When do I know I have faith? I am spiritual, but being spiritual doesn’t require faith. I am moral and ethical. I am empathetic and compassionate. I am generous and selfless. Does this prove I believe?
I totally and completely believe in the presence of electrons. I can’t see them, but I can see what they do. Of course, I can’t see God, but I can see what He has done. I can see him in my children, in the sunrise, in the beating of the waves on the sand, in the power and fierceness of a hurricane, in the love I have for my wife, and in the gift that is my aptitude. However, I can measure electrons. Do I believe in the presence of God with the same faith that I believe in the presence of electrons? I want to. Belief, Faith. It was much easier to be a child and believe. It didn’t require self reflection and honesty with oneself. I want to believe. Will I recognize it when I actually do?
Back to my original question. Why do I attend church? I don’t have a great answer, except, I feel better when I do. What I have begun to find is that I feel a bit hollow inside when I don’t. Whatever fills me up when I am in church must be spilling out when I am away. Makes me think of the bucket parable.
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