The Faithful Search for Christ

As I hope I have demonstrated by now, Science and History are insufficient as sources of knowledge. Science can give us insights into much of what it objective. History can allow us to intelligently think about the past, much of which is not reachable by the scientific method. History also includes much of what is subjective, challenging us to make value judgments about the people and events of the past. There are many other ways that we can know things aside from Science and History, but I want to look at the primary way in which we can know God: Faith.

Faith can mean different things in different contexts. Its most basic sense is belief. In this sense, I have faith in the periodic table and kinematic equations. Taken a step deeper, faith also means trust. This implies a subject. I trust that a rock will remain a rock, but I do not trust in the good intentions of that rock. I may, however, have trust in a co-worker or or family member. Taken to perfection, faith means a continuing relationship. It is in this sense that God, whi is all-knowing, can be faithful.

So, the first step in knowing Christ may be belief. We can believe that Christ exists because of the historical evidence, personal revelation, or simply because we have been told so by people whom we trust. This may lead to or stem from trusting in Christ. That is, we may not be certain at first that Christ is real, but we can choose to make a leap of faith and trust in Christ with belief following. A full Christian faith means trusting both in the truth and goodness of Christ.

Finally, beyond belief and trust, we have realtionship. If we believe in God, and we trust in His goodness, then we are called to live that faith in relationship with God. This is, we are called to know God in the way that we know a friend: communicating and sharing our lives with our God.

Communicating with God, prayer can take the form of singing, asking for guidance, giving thanks and praise, and much more. Two of the most important forms are repentance and contemplative prayer. In repentance, we acknowledge, ask forgiveness for, and put away the things that separate us from God by preventing us from actively sharing in His Life. In contemplative prayer, we silently listen for God's voice rather than interjecting our own thoughts and desires. Both contemplative prayer and repentance are ways of uniting ourselves to God's Divine Will.

Prayer should spur us into action. This means living our lives so as to unite our wills to and share in the Life of God. Of course, we are imperfect, and will continue to fall short of God's perfection, but we should imitate Christ to the extent we are able. We must love, forgive, endure, teach and help others. We must live lives which do not give scandal to others. In doing so, we will get to know Jesus more deeply.

Notice that this process is subjective and intimate. It is a type of knowledge which is not available to us so long as we act as scientists or historians. It stands as a challenge to our society, which is materialistic and in danger of losing the skills needed to acquire spiritual gifts. Faith does not stand in opposition to Science and History. Put in their rightful places, each can add to our knowledge and complement the others.