The Bones of Faith

(Part 1 of 2)

Granted, most of us aren’t regularly debating atheists or even other Christians. I’m from the hill country of Kentucky where the people we work to reach are not the type to have intellectual problems. Whether or not God is an organism who casts a shadow isn’t keeping anyone awake at night. And bound with the intellect as apologetics and theology are, they are of limited usefulness when it’s the heart that needs changing. People come to the well when the joy of Christianity is in the water.

God has, however, decided to entrust His gospel into the hands of humanity rather than descend bodily to earth to correct all error and act as sole Pastor. God even tasked broken people with sacred jobs like writing the Scriptures. This demands that we be His messengers and carry forth His message with as much attention to excellence as possible, fortifying a structure, a skeleton, that can support the rigor of Christian living. Somehow, we humans must use our broken faculties to seek out and relay Truth, and there is no doubt we often get it wrong.

We get it wrong, yes. Some of these failures have produced a fear of things such as philosophy, theology, and apologetics. “What will we believe, the Bible or man’s philosophy?” is a phrase I’ve heard and dislike. To pose the Bible and philosophy[i] as mutually exclusive is indicative of our attitudes toward education. The word “man’s”further confuses the issue. This kind of thinking primes us for conspiracy and other types of reactionary thought, which signal a kind of defeat.

Methods of good and clear thinking honor God, and the laws of vigorous thought are not constructed by men any more than the laws of mathematics or physics. We discovered them, but we did not invent them. Philosophy uses terms like syllogisms and deductive reasoning and logical fallacy, and these are extrabiblical terms, but they are about discovering Truth. I suggest it is not “man’s philosophy” that is the enemy, but bad philosophy.

To accomplish God’s will in our inherent brokenness, our intellects must be surrendered to the authority of God (which is a subject too large to deal with here), and as we search for truth within that submission, our explorations into philosophy and theology do not need to scare us. They can be invigorating and empowering; they can inspire more wonder and humility and courage.

Study: Strengthening the Frame

Study gives us confidence. Growing up, I was afraid of the dark much longer than I care to admit. The night woods were not scary enough to keep me away, but I still didn’t like it. The fear came from what I didn’t know and couldn’t see.

Ignorance is also a kind of darkness, and it lurks there impenetrable and scary. Words with suffixes like -ism and -ology go bump in the night but are not especially carnivorous. It is easier, upon encountering ignorance, to hurry to a safe place where there are electric lights and walls to keep out predators. But His Word is a lamp, and with some effort and by turning it outward, we might make some light in the darkness.

Study involves you. Sometimes entering a new church or growing up in the one you were born into can make you feel dispensable, unneeded. Maybe so, but there are ways to engage yourself, even if it feels no one needs you. Like choosing a song on Sunday morning or contributing your thoughts to Sunday school, the smallest things can engage you to be part of the work. If you have studied the goodness of God amid human suffering, suddenly you sit up when the preacher begins to talk about it. You have moved from learning a new concept to refining that concept, and that is a big difference.

Study puts our mind into positive thinking patterns. A friend once asked me what I do with all my money. (He meant it as a joke.) The mot juste came late, but it did come: “I spend it all and wish for more. What do you do with yours?”

Every day we spend our quota of brain activity and wish for more. We cannot cram in more thinking time than we have waking time, but we can manage what thoughts we do have. Stop worrying about tomorrow, start investing into your faith. It’s a positive cycle. The more you study, the more it gives you to think about. The Book of Revelation pronounces a blessing on the people who understand John’s vision. I’m in, folks. It’s a blessing, right there for the taking.

Study strengthens the cords of a timeless faith. Part of the legacy of Christianity is that it has stood up to the rigors of time, both intellectually and practically, and for Christianity to to retain a vitality into the future, it will need constant criticism and debate, students and converts and aged men talking about it, working always to refine our grasp of God. A timeless faith is not pickled or salted away as a relic, a code of ritual developed by Great-Great-Grandfather. A timeless faith is one that finds power in the ancient sources, grounds itself in tradition, and expresses itself to current needs. Without each generation’s connections to the primary sources—sources such as the Sermon on the Mount—we risk basing our religion instead on a built-up theology and sectarian interpretation. Each generation needs to chip off the lichens and moss and get a good look at the bone.

Study compounds itself by giving up common reference points. Take two random Anabaptists and plunk them down across the table from each other, and they will invariably find a common ancestor or acquaintance within ten minutes. It seems we live in a network in which we are separated by fewer than one or two points of separation.

Ideas are like that, too. All study is cumulative, and as we study and learn, we begin to pick up on patterns, connections, and related ideas, tracing one idea through another, seeing how one idea descended from another, being able to place one idea by understanding the other or by giving us a foothold for the next concept. Who knew a study of eschatology could change the way you farm? Who knew a science lesson on the three states of water (vapor, ice, and liquid) could help you grasp the concept of how the Trinity can be simultaneously the same thing but distinctly different?

Study can increase wonder and humility. Arrogance recognizes no knowledge outside its own borders, but humility recognizes wisdom immediately. Becoming aware of all that you do not know can make you close up in arrogance in a desperate attempt to be the last prophet, or it can humble you, and amaze you at the infinity of the God we serve.

Does the vastness of the unknown make study futile since we will never make a dent in it? Since it makes all of us so insignificant? Similar question: If there were so much gold in a stream that you could never mine all of it in your lifetime, what would be the point of sifting any at all?

Study is not about your intelligence or about arguing some heathen into church. The Apostle Peter wrote that we ought to know how to “answer every man,” and that has its place; however, converts so often make that clean break when they encounter a kindness that is lived, not argued.

Like practicing fasting or prayer or learning biblical Greek, studying is more about getting close to the words of Jesus and thinking correctly about them than about arguing sinners into church. Most of the benefits of study goes to the student.

Study: Toward Timelessness

You might recognize the name Michelangelo, a sculptor who lived early in the fifteenth century. Michelangelo is known for his fresco on the vault of the Sistine Chapel in Rome and his statue of David the Shepherd boy, among other things. His art is considered timeless because it has never lost its beauty and meaning.

Michelangelo was not only an artist, but also a scientist. He spent time dissecting human corpses to understand how bodies were formed and worked, doing this gruesome act in the name of Art. This was before formaldehyde, so you can imagine….

One legend has it that he identified and sketched as many body parts in his analysis of the human body as modern medicine identifies. Apocryphal or otherwise, the fact remains that Michelangelo had an accurate picture of the structure of the human body he would sculpt. Are we still curious about how he could make a chunk of granite imply such emotion and character? He understood the dynamics of bone and muscle, and this allowed him to apply creativity to scientific knowledge.

There is no doubt that Michelangelo was a genius, but was he such an outlier? Mostly, it was a matter of fleshing out the bones, allowing his exacting knowledge to form the base of beautiful art.

[i] The meaning of philosophy in this case can be defined as a questing or critical mode of thought, or a pursuit of wisdom. I am not referring to it as a “worldview”.