A Discussion About Faith

One morning during breakfast here at the inn, we had a 6-way discussion about God, the big bang, and science. You know that it was tense. The topic drifted to doing good things. This topic actually is about service which, when explained, is a confusing topic for those who do not believe.

They believe that simply by doing good works that it should be enough to get them into heaven.

Before I could finish my explanation, she added quite agitatedly that "you mean to tell me that I will go to hell if I do good things" and I said "yes". Fortunately for me that stunned her into a few seconds of silent outrage that I could explain that good works alone are not enough; that you must believe and have faith.

You cannot just earn your way to God without accepting Christ for whom your service is ultimately directed.

She rejected that argument yet she claimed to believe in God and the bible but she did not agree with many verses in it and she did not believe that Jesus is the Christ.

My response to her was that she was simply making her own rules into heaven and that she would never get there without faith in Christ. She continued to reject my statements.

Since that was going nowhere for her she jumped on the issue of why would a so called loving God send people to hell. Another couple in the discussion attempted to explain through analogy a parent helping and guiding a child as that child grows and develops.

At some time that child will become responsible for its actions and mommy and daddy will, over time, less and less, bail that child out of its missteps. If that child grows up to commit murder, then there is a penalty to be paid. Often that could be the death penalty.

I explained that you would not accept a person being set free; why would God set you free and rejecting Him all your life?

You cannot sin all your life, reject God then expect Him to allow you into heaven because you determine that is what a loving God should do. I said "again, you want things your own way."

You want to believe, but only what you want to accept, you want to go to heaven but only under your conditions. Understanding that God's way is the only way was totally incomprehensible at that time to her.

Of course there was more to this conversation. I will touch on this discussion with the husband.

He mentioned the big bang and I asked him "do you really believe that something in the big bang actually decided that in so many billions of years that it would place this planet where it is, supporting life and produce human beings?"

You would believe that before you would believe in an all-powerful God? It would have been easier throwing water on hot grease.

One last attempt was made when the husband raised another issue about the bible have so many authors over a long period of time.

He said that it could not be reliable, that no one was there to see it, on and on. So, before getting back to work I asked him if he believed in the Constitution.

He wanted to know what that's got to do with it so I said that he wasn't there to see it, all you have is one document and how do you know those who claim to write it did?

This brought a strange response. He said "well" the Constitution was just a list of laws and it's not the same.

Oh...

Faith is not about absolute proof, but enough proof to believe in what you have learned and faith in the unseen. Faith does not believe in "maybe", "might be", "could be", "possibly be "as scientists and theorists frequently state. If you require absolute proof then you will never have enough proof.