This, I think, helps us see more clearly the difference between
knowledge and belief. The former is a function of what we see, the latter a
product of what we can’t see. We know that a baseball is hard and round,
because we have held it in our hands. We know that the earth is solid and
secure under our feet, for we have walked across its surface. This is why a
pitcher falls to the ground when a baseball is hit straight back at his head.
He is certain that the ball is hard and round and will hurt him and that the
earth under his feet is solid and secure and will support him, so he takes the
appropriate action to prevent injury. In this case, sight leads to knowledge,
knowledge to certainty, and certainty to action. But when we come to theology,
knowledge can take us only so far, never to the point of certainty. Our subject
is the Unseen God, and our knowledge of Him is incomplete. Yet we are forced to
act on the knowledge that we have. This educated leap in the dark is what
defines true belief. It is action taken in the midst of uncertainty. This is
why the Bible says, “We live by faith, not by sight.”1
When dealing with anything unknown or with something partially known,
and when there is little possibility that complete knowledge will come, the gap
of uncertainty must be bridged by faith. Defined this way, faith is essential
to our everyday lives. We may not use the term itself (because we tend to limit
it to things pertaining to God and religion), but we exercise faith more than
we realize. We meet cars approaching us on the highway or crossing us at
intersections, and we have no guarantee that the drivers inside them will act
toward our mutual safety. Yet, in faith, we forge ahead. We stop and ask for
directions to an unfamiliar restaurant and then, in faith, proceed to follow
them. Once there, we eat our meal in faith, trusting that the food is safe. If
we are a public figure and are approached as we eat by a newspaper reporter, we
may grant an interview in good faith, hoping for a fair and favorable article.
In each instance we have acted when the outcome is less than 100% certain,
guided by the knowledge we possess.
Faith, then, is traversing the gap between what is known and what is
not. With driving, eating, obtaining directions, and granting interviews, the
leap of faith required is rather short. Quite a bit is already known from past
experience and common sense. Not much is uncertain. When we are dealing with
God, however, the chasm before us is much wider. We know far less and have
quite a bit farther to jump. We must take a running start to land on the other
side.
British clergyman Leslie D. Weatherhead uses this same mental image to
beautifully describe the dynamics of faith:
I want the reader
to have a picture in his mind. At the top of an isolated, rocky islet, standing
alone in a tempest-tossed sea, is a most
beautiful garden. The cliffs, which form the jungly coastline of the mainland, are very near to it. But let
us imagine that the chasm between it
is such that it is impossible to scramble down the shore cliffs, across the space at the bottom and
climb the isolated crag. Let us imagine that no bridge is possible and that the
only way to get to that garden of desire is to take a run on the mainland and
make an adventurous leap... Then let us imagine that several roads lead toward
this chasm, but some are rough and stony and covered with boulders. They
haven’t been used for a long time. It would be difficult to make the requisite
run along them. They have fallen into disrepair... Yet there is one road, cleared
and repaired, every inch of it tested, along which one could run easily and
swiftly, and the end is firm and strong. This gives us the best chance of a
successful leap.
...The leap is the
leap of faith which lands us in the place where the soul is content, where the
mind can rest. The leap is necessary. That place where the soul rests...cannot
be reached without faith. There must be the leap, with risk and uncertainty.
Roads which are largely disused, and have fallen into disrepair, are credulity,
for instance, and superstition. By credulity I mean the mind’s ability to
accept ideas without adequate evidence. By superstition I mean irrational fear
of the unknown. The best road is the road of science. I do not, of course, mean
science in the narrow sense. When one uses the word “science” one finds that
some folk interpret the word to mean only the physical sciences—chemistry and
astronomy and physics, for instance. We must remember that theology and
psychology are sciences too.
...The leap of
faith, I hold, is best made by proceeding down that road that gives a good run
and a firm jumping-off ground, the road of tested, scientific knowledge...
Faith is said to have nothing to do with knowledge. Nothing could be more
misleading. For myself I think it is difficult to exaggerate the value of
making the mind, week after week, take time to study and understand the ways of
God to man. Few things can be more important than to know what the most
enlightened minds of our age are telling us about the nature of God and his
work in the world.
But God is known
also in other ways—the inner light, the devotional experience, the touch of
beauty, the warm glow of truth perceived as well as reached through logical
argument; the manifestation of his nature through the goodness of men and women
and the love of a little child; the biblical revelation and the stern message
of history; the observation of God’s ways in the laboratory and in the majestic
march of planets through the sky.
In countless ways
God can be known, and the more he is known the more is a strong faith possible.2
The theologian, pastor, or lay teacher—whose seemingly impossible
mission is to relate the existence and nature of the Unseen God—is thus not
without ample material. He or she has at hand the wonder of the universe, the
discoveries of science, the logic of philosophy, the arguments of theology, the
proclamation of the Bible, and the testimony of believers. All these can be
used to encourage others to make a running leap of faith to the other side, where
communion with God awaits the believer.
Faith, you see, always has an object. It is faith in something. That something may be an oncoming driver, restaurant owner, local
(direction-yielding) resident, or newspaper reporter. We may place our faith in
a doctor, financial planner, coach, or plumber. But when it comes to the soul,
the object of its faith is God and its final destination, on the other side of
the leap, is a “coming-to-one” with Him. Fellowship with God is what awaits
across the chasm, and theologians, pastors, and lay teachers must never forget
that it is to such a leap and to such a place that they are to direct all men
and women under their tutelage.
Clearing for you a good runway has in large part been my objective in
these first two volumes. The leap to the other side I must leave to you.
Despite all the doubts and questions before you, it is a leap worth taking.
That “beautiful garden,” not the mainland, is where you were created to be.
Augustine was right years ago. Our souls will never be at peace until we, by
faith, rest in God. “We pine,” says one writer, “...to bridge some chasm that
yawns between us and reality.” Our “lifelong nostalgia (is) to be reunited with
something in the universe from which we now feel cut off, to be on the inside
of some door which we have always seen from the outside.” Stepping inside that
door, leaping to that other side, “would be glory and honour beyond all our
merits and also the healing of that old ache.”3
Thus each of us stands with both feet firmly planted on one side of a
chasm. Those of you who have yet to make the leap—especially those of you who
now stand overlooking the precipice contemplating whether or not to make a run
for it—must realize that a choice is inescapable. You must choose whether to
stay where you are or move to the other side. To say “no” or remain undecided
is a decision against faith; to say “yes” and make the leap is faith itself. If
the former you choose, you will continue to live and move only in the world of
knowledge. You will miss the richness and the wonder that accompany faith. You
will forever find yourself on the wrong side of the door, unsure whether or not
to enter. If and when you choose to knock on that door, it will open before
you. That, Jesus says, is certain.4 Whether or not you will walk
through it when it does is an entirely different matter.
On the other side of that door is the God whose nature we have just explored. The universe is His; the choice is yours. One step through that door and you will see God in a different light. You will see yourself differently, too, for you will begin to see yourself as He sees you. This, according to Lewis (in a 1941 sermon at Oxford University), is the most glorious wonder on the other side:
I read in a periodical the other day that the fundamental thing is how we think of God. By God Himself, it is not! How God thinks of us is not only more important, but infinitely more important. Indeed, how we think of Him is of no importance except insofar as it is related to how He thinks of us. It is written that we shall “stand before” Him, shall appear, shall be inspected. The promise of glory is the promise...that some of us, that any of us who really chooses, shall actually survive that examination, shall find approval with God, shall please God. To please God...to be a real ingredient in the divine happiness...to be loved by God, not merely pitied, but delighted in as an artist delights in his work or a father in a son—it seems impossible, a weight or burden of glory which our thoughts can hardly sustain. But so it is.5
So can it be it for those of you who now stand on the threshold of that door, at the edge of that cliff. On the other side—just a small step into the dark for some, a running leap into the unknown for others—awaits the Creator’s delight and the creature’s peace. That step, that leap is yours to take or refuse. One step of faith through that closed door and you will discover God’s open arms. One leap of faith into that chasm of darkness and you will be surrounded by the Light of the world.
Never could the choice be so obvious. Never could the moment be more appropriate. Never could the stakes be any higher. Take the step. Make the leap. Rest in God.
3C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory, 40, 42.
4Matthew 6:8
5C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory, 39-40.
5C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory, 39-40.
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