Friday, February 12, 2010

#127 Knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt



That pesky shadow of doubt thwarts people at every turn. If only it didn't exist. Christian culture in particular would like to evolve past it and, as such, they bring it up a lot.

Evangelicals like to invoke the shadow of doubt whilst discussing God's existence and his will. Being certain feels awesome. But Christian culture's very favorite thing to know beyond a shadow of a doubt is where one will spend eternity. Where will you spend eternity? That person happens to know beyond a shadow of a doubt. Sound good? You can know too!

Can you? And should you? If God revealed himself completely and removed all space for faith, would it destroy a sacred part of us and turn us into chess pieces?



Is it faith to understand nothing, and merely submit your convictions implicitly to the Church? —John Calvin

I have heard it said that belief in Christian dogma is a hindrance to the writer but I myself have found nothing further from the truth. Actually, it fuses the storyteller to observe. It is not a set of rules which fixes what he sees in the world. It affects his writing primarily by guaranteeing his respect for mystery. —Flannery O'Connor


  This post originally appeared on Beliefnet. The original post and its comment thread can be seen here.

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