(Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so...) Have you ever stopped and thought about this statement? If you grew up going to Sunday School, chances are that you had this song drilled into your head week after week. We had to sing it at church, just because the teacher told us to. But did you ever sing it while you were by yourself? I know I did. I sang it when I played with my stuffed animals, when I would brush my doll's hair, and when I would get ready for bed. Even though I am older now, I still sing this song on occasion. This simple song has such a statement of faith that we don't catch when we are young. We claim to know that God loves us, just because we have read it or we heard someone read it to us. But we can't see God, so how did we know He was really there? And how did we know that He loved us? We couldn't prove He did, but we believed. Belief of things unseen is in all people, therefore faith is alive in every heart. Today we will discover how faith is a part of each person. There are three aspects that we will consider, these being religion, science, and personal presuppositions.
Before we move on we must first ask ourselves, what is faith? The word faith is derived from a Greek word that means, persuasion. In essence when you have faith you are fully persuaded of something. It means that if we believe in things that we can't prove are there, that we can't touch, and we can't see, we have faith in them.
Now that we know what faith is, we can move onto the first point, an examination of faith and religion. Today people generally associate faith only with religion. When asked about their faith many people will say, I am Jewish, Christian, Muslim, and the list goes on and on. I am sure you have heard someone say, "I believe in God, so my faith is in Him." There are many gods that people claim to put their trust in, such as Jesus Christ, Allah, or Zeus. To these people there is a higher power, some supreme ruler of over their lives, but this power can not be seen.
On the other hand there are people who claim to have no faith, because they claim to not associate themselves with religion or believe in any god whatsoever. While this may seem true, we must ask ourselves, are these people really without faith just because they don't believe in a specific God? When we stop and look deep into their hearts, we find that there is faith, it is just in a different form. These people believe that in themselves there is a power that allows them to make decisions. They make themselves god, claiming that they are not responsible to any higher power. They are persuaded that they are the highest authority, so they in fact have faith in themselves. Faith that they are capable of making decisions on their own. So whether you put your trust in a God that you can not see, or in yourself, faith is alive in your heart.
Every person studies science, whether they realize it or not. Each day when we make observations about the world around us we are studying science. This brings me to my second point, that science is a form of faith. Today scientists claim that science is an objective study, a study void of emotion, everything is based off of fact. Charles Darwin supported this belief best when he said, "A scientific man ought to have no wishes, no affections, a mere heart of stone." But is this really true? Can science truly ever be free of emotion? There are thousands of debates on many "scientific principles", because every person has a different interpretation of what they see around them.
One of the most popular and controversial debates in the scientific community is that of whether the world came about by a "Big Bang" or if it came about by "Intelligent Design." People claim that the world just happened in the big bang theory. There was an explosion, and our world was created. On the other hand the people who believe in intelligent design contend that a higher power, had a specific design in mind, and this power shaped our world out of nothing. In either case no one can prove that their theory is correct. No one alive today was there when the world was formed. Everyone simply believes their theory to be the right one.
Their view on how the world came into existence greatly influences how they look at everything around them. Those who believe in the Big Bang theory, generally believe in evolution. They feel that through the years humans have evolved from a lower life form. This leads them to believe that they are constantly getting better, that they are more superior than those who have gone before them. But those who believe in Intelligent Design feel that their purpose is to live their lives according to standards or goals that their creator has placed for them. But whichever view they hold, Big Bang or Intelligent Design, they put their trust in something that can not be proven, this is another example of how in every heart faith is alive.
What would you do if someone walked up to you, and said, "The sun will not rise tomorrow. You only have 24 hours to live."? I know that I would simply not believe what this person was saying. I have witnessed the sun rise many times, and I am persuaded that it will happen again. This leads me to my third and final point, how everyone has assumptions, called presuppostions, and these presuppositions are another form of faith.
The first time I heard the word presupposition is when I studied worldviews. The course I took on worldviews opened with a study on our assumptions, and how these assumptions dictate our lives. Now when we assume things to be fact, just because we have witnessed them happen before, we create a personal presupposition. If we stop and examine this, we can see that presuppositions are yet another form of faith. Returning to the example of the sun rise. Almost every person assumes that the sun will rise tomorrow, but is there a guarantee that this will happen? No, there is no guarantee. There are outside factors that could stop the world from its rotation, but we don't worry about this. We believe that tomorrow will come, and we don't spend our time fretting away.
These presuppositions affect our every day lives. British scientist Gregory Bateson said, "Science, like art, religion, commerce, warfare, and even sleep, is based on presuppositions." In this quote he was talking specifically on how science is based off of our beliefs,, but as you can see every aspect of our lives is based on our presuppositions. This is because our lives revolve around what we perceive to be true. Our personal personal presuppositions create our unique identity. Everyone has presuppositions, but most of the time we fail to recognize them. But just because we don't notice them, that doesn't mean they aren't there. These concepts are part of us, part of our daily lives, and yet they aren't visible. We still believe, we still trust, and everyone holds assumptions, these faiths in their hearts.
In conclusion I would like to go back over the points and examples that I have brought forth today. First, in the aspect of religion, there are those who claim that there is a god, and there are those who claim there is no god. But either way, every person puts their faith in something, whether it be in themselves or in a higher power. Second, every person studies science and science is based off of belief. Things that we claim are "fact" are simply based off of what you are persuaded is true, but ultimately can not prove. And third, every person has presuppositions. We believe in something that we can not prove and have no guarantee of, therefore we have faith.
No comments:
Post a Comment