I Have Nothing To Prove

This post is . . . interesting. In it, Threnody claims she has nothing to prove, and then immediately dives into why she thinks that basing things on faith is silly. I'm not about to say that Threnody was subconsciously trying to prove something - but I must admit, it is interesting.

Mostly, I want to talk about the ideas that are put forth about faith. The idea that faith is illogical, that faith is blinding, that faith stubbornly holds to something in the face of "irrefutable truth."

Faith is about as logical as things get. This is proved on one hand because everyone believes something that they themselves have never proved. For instance, I'm terrible at chemistry. But if my father-in-law chemist told me that mixing two cleaning chemicals would be dangerous, I would have faith that mixing the two chemicals would be dangerous. I can't prove it myself with math or logic. I will probably never see it proven. I believe him. I put faith in what he said. This is a very minute example, but that is faith. Trust. Everyone trusts someone - even if it's themselves that they trust. Everyone has faith in something or someone.

People have faith in construction workers that they built sturdy houses or workplaces; people have faith in their vehicles that they will get them to where they need to go; in the grocery store, in the restaurant, in the internet, in the news, in the rain clouds, in their coat, in their umbrella. Why else would people get so upset when those things fail them? If you were expecting your umbrella not to work, why would you ever use it? Why would you get upset when your car doesn't start if you didn't believe that it would? Why would you be unhappy when your foot slips on the stairs and you fall if you didn't trust yourself?

Trust is logical - without it, people wouldn't function. It's just as logical to believe in a Creator; that God, once He'd formed everything, wasn't about to leave it all alone; and that He has a definite standard for us to live by. There's absolutely nothing illogical about any of that. The artistry of the world demonstrates a personal touch; the fact that we enjoy it demonstrates that it was made with us in mind; the fact that we are marring so much of it, demonstrates that we have fallen from where we once were.

Faith is not blinding. Faith doesn't hide from the facts, it just interprets them. It rained today - that is a fact. Faith interprets why. It rained today because God wanted it to. Your faith interprets the original reason.

Something that I've gleaned from talking to Lalaith and reading Threnody's other blog is that they both believe in some deity that created. So ultimately, the reason it rained today still goes back to a god, if not the God. As far as nature is concerned, eventually, either everything is happenstance (evolution), or everything was put in motion by a Person (some type of creation). So the reason for the rain? Someone instituted the water cycle.