Faith and
Facts
“I
define knowledge as being able to deal with things as they are on an
appropriate basis of thought and experience.”
Dallas
Willard (The Allure of Gentleness)
There is a great deal of
talk these days about “alternative facts,” and lies told as
truth. It seems that one can always find a “reliable source” for
whatever one wants to assert as fact. I don't know whether people
believe that if they simply say something is true, it becomes so, or
whether actual proven facts just don't matter any more. It's very
confusing. Sometimes these alternative facts are so preposterous as
to be not within the realm of possibility. But, who am I to say what
is so, and what is not?
We seem to have
gravitated toward our own definition of faith, too. Some people, who
claim to have faith in Jesus, a gentle spirit who rejected no one,
who, in fact, gathered one and all around him to teach them how to
treat one another with kindness and respect, are now demanding that
certain people be rejected and cast out. They're turning over grave
stones and torching houses of worship. Even killing innocent people.
Jesus would never have done that, nor would he condone it—he taught
love and not hate. What exactly do these hate-filled people have
faith in?
There is a place for
faith, and also a place for facts. They are not mutually exclusive,
and we should not confuse one for the other. We have gained a great
deal of knowledge from inquiry—scientific, scholarly, and
otherwise—but not everything can be proven, and new information
sometimes cancels old. Some things must be taken on faith, but even
then, we have guidance, both in our scriptures, and in the many wise
and committed voices of our spiritual teachers. There is wisdom, as
well as fact. Wisdom comes from disciplined study, from
self-questioning, and from life experience, and fact, from controlled
experimentation and measurement. Both are valuable.
Jesus did not teach about
life without a context in his own religious scriptures, and the
political conditions of his time. He memorized the great teachers
before him, and prayed for guidance; he listened to the voices of his
people, and searched his own heart. If we truly want to follow in his
footsteps, we must do the same.
In the Spirit,
Jane
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