Regarding believing... (in God), the existence of God

REGARDING BELIEF (.. IN GOD), OR THE CHRISTIAN FAITH

Christianity is no fans club. An invitation to become a Christian is not an invitation to an organization or some status quo memberships, be it the Knights of Columbus, the Holy Name Society, or some parish council, nor to the name Catholic; hence not to some popularity “Christian” membership.

No; to reduce Christianity to the above is making it all so superficial an act. Rather the invitation to becoming a Christian is an invitation to a total change of life, to a conversion, or to living the meaning of being a Christian.

To become a Christian is to engage in real life initiation; you have to stay on it, and stay on it to death as you profess truly being a Christian.

But this does not signify the form of initiation, like the “hazing type” of initiation, being hazed for the sake of being hazed, ie. just going through it because you are supposed to go through it.

Christian Initiation consists in professing you will stand for Christ no matter what in so far as you believe Christ is most important to you.

Why is Christ important, as a matter of fact necessary to mankind? It is because he is the new man, and a very unique man; he is God made man. He is the goodness of God in flesh. Whereas man is a sin-infected human being; Christ is the sinless human being. God made it possible that true virtue and pure integrity characterize and define this new man, Jesus Christ. As a man, Jesus was made bound to time and space limitations, as well as by the earth’s men and women’s sinful ways and imperfections. The bottom-line, as Jesus initiated and implemented the new humanity he brought with him from the heavens to earth, he was prepared for man’s ways of personal blindness, personal biases, personal allegiances, and personal cultures and traditions. Jesus came down into a people of selfish passions, violent tendencies, and materialistic & ethnical/political orientations. Christ is God. But the people he has opted to live with and live for are God-less people. Christ, God, destined himself to deal and work with men and women as a man in their midst. And so aside from fundamentally coming as their Saviour from heaven, he was in the same token in human form God’s messenger, God’s prophet, God’s mediator, and God’s shepherd for the people of God.

To the sinful people, and therefore to the people in darkness ie. people blinded in darkness by sins Jesus became the Light in the world. Hence, Isaiah’s prediction,: ”’The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; upon those who dwell in the land of gloom a light has shone.” Is. 9:1

To the people that needed a total change of heart, Jesus preached repentance & baptism in the Spirit, and showed & acted out how to be broken up & shed blood to death as an expression of that total change to the core or the human metanoia by death to oneself.

And to the people bigoted by self interest, Jesus preached and lived the life of service for one another even and especially by becoming the least & the smallest in the name of absolute reaching out to everyone that is in need.

All the above missions translate into one fundamental mission Jesus established for himself and his disciples: the mission of implementing the heavenly Father’s message & precept of love. “By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

Ultimately through the message and power of love started by and sustained

in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, the people of God per Christ’s Church are on lease since Jesus’ time up to the End-Times to carry through this one universal and permanent mission of the Church of Christ: to get the people of God to express love, love for God & love for each other.

This is the new meaning of the new human life in Christ. And, theologically thus, this is the meaning par excellence by which every each man and woman can and shall find both fulfilment and truth in each individual destiny of life on earth to attain the rewarding union with God in the New Heaven & the New Earth during the culmination of time.

But the learning and utmost understanding of this new human living in Christ only comes from Jesus Christ, and is given to man by only Jesus Christ. This is the reality of faith and grace. Man must believe in Jesus Christ, and he/she must live Christ or the Christian lifestyle.

This heavenly and divine message per the power of Jesus’ Incarnation, becoming a man, are within the possibility of man to receive as a man. Man’s intellect and will can and shall be made in aptitude and be disposed by grace through the Holy Spirit to appreciate and embrace the Christ-like understanding and virtues. However, man has to grow, get trained, and sustained by God’s sacramental means. Baptismal personal change of mind and heart, and of the body needs getting nourished by the word of God, ie. knowledge of the catechism of the faith. Then eventual human spirit formation and virtues acquisition & development needs the sustenance from the other sacraments, especially Confession and the Eucharist, ie. constant turning back to God from sins and re-committed sins, and constant uniting with the very life of Christ per reception of Christ’s Body and Blood in the Eucharist.

Like our Lord Jesus, who began early on as a child of 12 going and frequenting the Temple of God, and thus being about the business of God the Father, so also beginning when we are children we are supposed to right on be attuned to the divine ways, eg. prayerfulness and regular Church worship activities. This is the way to begin re-twisting back to form our un-straightened body, mind and soul.

Then from the moments or years of reason, we are supposedly ever watchful at going straight, and never to stray away from the ways of being attuned to God and his teachings. Whether during the time before Christ’s coming, and after his coming, individuals that were early on and straight forward leaning to the ways of God have learned to live lives of good behaviour and protected from worldly influence. Before the time of Christ’s Coming and, thus, before the propagation of his more developed teachings of faith righteousness, many Israelites had made it possible for them to live the referred to above lives of good behaviour and some fidelity to the commands of God. We are going to exemplify the best of them later down below; yet aside from them many Jews had pleased Yaweh for their simple fidelity to his laws as promulgated, explained, and implemented to them by Moses and his successors, particularly Joshua. Without literally subscribing to this number, it is said 144,000 Jews are predicted of their salvation, ie. salvation by the promised Messiah, salvation by Christ. But it is praiseworthy to mention Old Testament examples of fathers & sons: Noah & his children, Abraham & Isaac, Isaac & Jacob, Jacob or Israel & the 12 children, Samuel & Nathan, David & Solomon, etc... as well as New Testament figures like Zechariah & John, brothers Simon & Andrew, brothers James & John, etc. but most especially the family Joachim & Anne with Mary. Why? Because they demonstrated how when people together practiced divine ways of living, such united people or individuals together learned the right way of living.

It is essential and practicable that in life people get to be protected, guided, and shepherded towards the ways of God.

But it is perilous and unfortunate when not only are individuals left alone to their weak and sinful ways; but who are even thrown and led into outright lifestyle of vices and errors, including solitary & lonesome early dealing with the world.

Nonetheless, whether in this time of the New Testament or in the time of the Old Testament, individuals or people without Christ, or without the salvation of Christ remain as vulnerable and weak as everyone to go the wayward way. But specially if individuals or people choose to precisely to live their lives apart from either the preached Christian way or religious ways of God.

Hence we come to the predicament of individuals and people who by orientation, and maybe training are accustomed to the ways of the secular world, or the world avowed to be non-cognizant of the Divine Being.

These persons are individuals and people who have come to rely only upon their human mind and personal freedom. The more ascetic among them tend to acquire and develop natural and human virtue of discipline and intellectual/moral balance. Special examples were Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. And so somehow, individuals like these famous Ancient philosophers got to learn and got to govern their lives with some degree of temperance, which is characteristic of good character. Yet the great many who are without their level of personal asceticism and who merely follows the dictates of their mind, however noble, are liable to go the wanton ways or the ways devoid of discipline. Without minimal discipline the human mind can and will think every which way; thinking every philosophy is as good as its opposite philosophy. Ultimately, their philosophy or orientation in life is such where everything is relative, subjective; where everything goes in the name of “freedom”; and where, morally speaking, nothing is good or bad. Hence, nothing is morally true; every philosophy is a system and gets its validity according to its system interpretation.

And when secular thinkers like the above are in the prime years of their life, that is preeminently the time they are most susceptible to hang on to their favored school of thinking vis a vis, or in denial of the Supreme Being.

But life is a mystery. Plenty of mysteries will encompass or penetrate our ordinary lives. This is specially true for those of us that have lived through the longevity of our lives, and have not actually been tested enough of our faith in God. And so events will take place that are tantamount to life surprises. All of a sudden, free thinkers are confronted by their deteriorating human inadequacies and life mortality. People age, and find their previous and regular productivity cut down to the level short of none. People get weak, and get sick and sickly; including seemingly people around the family. Life would appear like truly a toil and a drag. The old bragging spirit, and natural enthusiasm get overtaken with more and more depressive moods and cynic attitudes. Thus, then more and more they get even more vulnerable to a million questioning of the Divine: why this, and why that.

We would think we did not trigger the misfortune, or that inwardly while not necessarily publicly boasting we have been on the level with God such that our lifestyle are indeed in optimal obedience to the laws of God; yet sadly misfortunes come our way. Remember the “Job Experience”. Job was the epitome of the man found pleasing by God who supposedly was rewarded for good behaviour. And so while he gets the respect and recognition from and by folks around him, near and far, both for personal integrity and professed allegiance to his bountiful God, he, on top of these, received all the good stuff of life: plenty of beautiful children, a satisfying loving wife, and lots and lots of wealth. The famous prosperity gospel Then all of a sudden things got not only bad, but very bad. Progressively, not only did he lose successively his children, but also these and those properties, and consequently his wealth renown & well-being. But, worse, he was given a sickness of the body that not only weakened him day by day but pestered him day and night, namely an incurable skin disease all over his body. And all these taking place when he had continually worshiped and honored his God. When this happened to Job, (and to probably most human beings, at one time or another), we would ask: “Why?” We do not really know. However, as I stated in Chapter of the Mission Series, we could gather the answer from the Lord. “In a negative manner, Jesus told us how, on the contrary, we can only ascertain choosing him, or not renouncing him. He said, the way to become his follower is to deny ourselves, take up our cross daily, and to do actually follow him. At Mass, which is the same Calvary Sacrifice of Jesus, which is the essential Cross he has asked us to take up, carry, and embrace; the Lord ever reminds us with the words: Do this in commemoration of me Do what? Do exactly what he did as formulated in the Consecration Words: to say with Christ with reference to our own body and blood, ‘This is my body which I am prepared like Christ to get broken up for my neighbor; and this is my blood, which I am prepared like Christ to shed also for my neighbor in the name of love.’ “

We are back to Christ’s paschal mystery of himself and for us, which he pronounced in defining what it takes to be baptised in faith, namely: unless we are born again in water and in the Spirit we can not have life. We have to remember his many analogies pertaining to this reality of baptism, as when he said, unless the seed is buried it will not bring forth life; or if the seed does not die it will not multiply its fruits. To reiterate what we state above, this is that universal but particular moment of individual human despairing and helplessness. Why someone’s young spouse died, particularly if the only provider of the family? Why a most promising student, especially who is entrusted to rescue the family from their long suffered generations of poverty, would also pass away so prematurely? We could cite those numerous accounts of problems of human living, or human suffering discussed in Chapter 11. Add to these the more tragic and reprehensible acts of violence and injustice to helpless children or victims, like those lately current news events: children thrown mercilessly or casually over the bridge or on the freeway. Then let us face up to the very common incidents of our day: the daily victims of rampant terrorism in many corners of the world. At the very least, the Spirit prompts us with inspirational thoughts by which to relate to the events by which somehow to make some sense out of some tragedies and calamities. Essentially, however, this is a big part of the nature of our life on this world. On the one hand, we are to wise up to the tentativeness of life circumstances, including the pains and anguish they consequently engender, and to the finality of human frailty & imperfections. In theological terms, the receiving of this kind of wisdom about or into life is per the conversion of our fleshly/materialistic/physical/earthly perceptions and understanding into ones controlled and governed by the spirit. In other words, the type of knowing and understanding that can only be given to us by Christ through faith in him. In other words, this consists in the use of reason as enlightened by faith. Persistence, thus, in the mere application of reason is bound to be both a futilely unending quest and erroneous intellectual pursuit.

(As regards arguments pertaining to science and scientific achievements & progress, or even of arts, we are already granted its implied validity when we referred to empirical and analytic/mathematical statements or descriptions. And definitely science has come of age in its stride and accomplishments, particularly in the field of technology. And for as long as their contributions are relegated and appreciated within the confines of their limited sphere they only manifest the great wonders attributable to the One Maker of the human minds/souls. Science is a great tool of man, but is only a tool; only a means not the end as the old platitude states. But once science dictates its use as the reason/purpose for its application; then it is being falsely used beyond its utility nature. Eg. clone people because people could be cloned, medically abort babies because it’s the simpler option than to let live a syndromed child, or even prevent conceptions with contraceptives in so far as it makes it, for example, career convenient for the young woman, etc...

But the more precarious regard issue about this use of human reason is in the overextended philosophical interpretation of value signification that are not warranted to be realistically descriptive of issues pertaining to the totality of human existence and human living, like the issues that we have touched upon on this discussion, including the matter of the Supreme Being. Descartes’ “I think, therefore I am”, has given rise to philosophical interpretations very far fetched from the probably Rene Descartes’ mere epistemological value signification. By and large, Descartes was just describing the so-called “phenomelogical” datum of mental awareness. Like I am aware I perceive a ‘table’, a ‘tiger’, or maybe an ‘ens rationis’/being of reason like the product ‘xyz’. But the overreaching application of philosophical implication as to connote the independence of man from God in so far as man only ‘thinks’ himself, not God, is one unwarranted inference from Descartes’ alleged premise of “I think, therefore, only I am”. And from this would follow, hence, supposed atheistic inferences of different sorts.... TO BE CONTINUED)

It is for this reason that we are to heed the Lord’s warning and command to actually do believe more than to quest and delight in greater acquisitions of human wisdom and understanding. Jesus said, “More blessed are those who have not seen; but have believed”. To insist on our seeing, ie. wanting all kinds of miracles and spectacles, and to refuse to believe in God’s absolute care & providence for and over us endanger us to making God ‘mad’, ultimately bringing about what Isaiah said, “The Lord has blinded the eyes of the people, and he has made the people stubborn. He did this so that they could not see or understand, and so that they would not turn to the Lord and be healed.” John 12:40 When this takes place in a certain generations, we get to witness the appearances and the free-reined crowd of self professed atheists and God cursers. And sadly, in such a generation, thrives the God is dead philosophy. The greatest abomination to human thinking.

Yet Jesus stated his most positive words which are ever true for all that believe his words: “Come to me all you who labor and are burdened. And I shall give you rest. For my yoke is easy and my burden light.” This is the Christian Gospel: Christ is the answer, the antidote to human problem and misery. But we have to take him on, hands down; we have to lay our problem and misery to him absolutely. And we have to trust and believe he will help us, and relieve us the best way they can ever be fixed. When we do, and the saints have done so, (have surrendered their lives to Christ in full freedom), like the saints’ experiences and testimonies our’s shall begin to be a life of profound peace and security, even while still living this earthly life amidst exactly our problems and helplessness. In the face of imminent danger and failure it is surely not easy to think of a ‘salvation’ experience. All that engulf us, then, are great fear, sadness, or anger, and despair. Remember the legend of the single footsteps? The person complained the Lord has deserted him through the loneliest & scariest path of his life meandering. But as the person pulled through his ordeal, he was confirmed by the Lord whereas there were only single footsteps that went by that path, those only footsteps were His as He carried him/her through those moments of ultimate exhaustion & inability. And literally this is the scenario that will absolutely take place for every soul/person who reaches out to God during his/her most desperate moment of living. When we finally have surrendered ourselves & realized we on our own are untrustworthy; but yet with God are most reliable in anything. The true sense of being born again For with God nothing is impossible. Take Him on it. Besides, if this is your last straw, what is there yet for you to lose, if not to gain the Lord’s ultimate and ever watchful ‘salvation’ event for you.

The ultimate human means God has let Adam and Eve to keep and to use by sheer nature is the faculty of human freedom. And so for all of us Adam and Eve’s children, it is through our human act of will that we can and have to exercise for the sake of our dear survival and living. When at the end of our rope, let us waken up to using this ultimate faculty to will to turn to God for help. In the process that we are face to face with the ultimate question especially during imminent death, our will will be aided by Christ’s grace to want to turn to God. Simultaneously, however, we have to cooperate in exercising our will to be ‘saved’/helped out by God. Despite the presence of Christ’s grace if we choose not to will a final assistance of God; then woe to us, it shall spell our damnation, whether while here yet in this world, and in the hereafter.

To repeat, seeming successful exploiting through or worldly explaining of/ “giving” meaning to the complexities and confusions of life realities and sur-realities often lead us only to arrogance by ourselves and pretense in human sufficiency, whether when throwing words of knowledge and wisdom, or when performing any similar feat of well applauded human accomplishing.

It remains a forever quest of man, again whether doing last word philosophizing, or accomplishing record braggadocios performances, to chase after human self glorification or self aggrandizing. But theologically, the human mind after the fall of Adam and Eve had become flawed. In particular it had become too dependent upon our sensual faculties, which human faculties are the least trustworthy. Man is inescapably confronted, baffled, and in non-denial by the fact and reality of his imperfect capacities or nature. Notwithstanding human victories now and then, it is still his permanent nemesis to always find himself wanting and short in all his enterprisings and endeavours. How invariably and universally applicable to all human conditions and situations, the verse, “They weigh you, and found you wanting...” The truth of the matter is that to God alone belongs perfection. And only in God rests truthfulness and worthiness in deeds and words. This is revealed to us precisely only by God. His and He alone is the truth. He alone can be, and is on top of things. But in particular God alone can make any single thing ultimately meaningful, sensible, and realizable for any human condition, situation.

To recap the above, real deep faith is believing that God is good even in the midst of very bad situations or circumstances. Guilty or not, as you turn to God with real sorrow for sins and real humble acceptance of the helplessness in the situation or circumstance, you believe God can always make something good, and dominantly good out of bad or helpless personal predicament & fate. And accompanying such a great faith is an equally great trusting on the mercy and kindness of God.

The following may not appear exemplifying Christian belief. Yet I am speaking of faith in God; and so I would use the following examples anyway. (On another occasion, I shall explain precisely how Old Testament believers are actually believers of the promised Messiah, Christ; hence of Christianity.) This is by way of exemplifying the ‘culture’/practice and personal option in the believing in God.

Abraham. He believes in God. And when God asked him to “sacrifice” his only son, Isaac, to Him, Abraham was resolved to comply with his God’s command, which was just a test-command. For his faith he was rewarded with being called the father of all generations.

Noah. He believes in God’s words, that a great flood will drown all living creatures. As commanded he built and set up a boat God told him to build for Noah and his family and their choice animals; even as people ridiculed his complying so amidst some seemingly very fair climate and weather of the time, and despite the commands’ outright unpopular endeavour. For his faith he was rewarded with proving the people wrong to their own total destruction.

Joseph. He believes in being forgiving and righteous despite his very own brothers attempt to kill him, and their hideous act of selling him away to outcast status, and despite the forcible seduction by a royal wife. For his faith he was made a Prince in a foreign land, and a powerful prince who ultimately spelled out the survival fate of his brothers and their families.

Moses. He believes in a God who is definitely far better than the Egyptian gods and goddesses to the point of forfeiting the very comfortable lifestyle he had in the Egyptian’s monarchial status quo, and in a God who stands for liberation of slaves, his enslaved brothers & sisters Israelites. For his faith he was rewarded with the delivering of his own people out of the slavery of the Egyptians, and of being handed the very 10 Commandments of God.

Daniel. He believes in “his” God whom he trusted will protect him from being devoured and eaten by the Babylonian King’s lions. He believes in the God who will stand by him in his every challenge to the Babylonians belief in their gods: ie. his God proving true to him better than the Babylonian god ever proving to the Babylonian King and people. For his faith, God actually intervened and proved to the Babylonians His coming through on Daniel’s bet against his enemies and to the reproofs of the unbelievers to Daniel’s God, the one and only Almighty God.

Elisha. Very much like Daniel, he believes in really betting his God versus the god of the non-Israelite “believers”; eg. he dared them to call upon their god to kindle fire on the non-Israelite firewood, which did not take place; then dared them to douse and wet his firewood as he invoked God to set it into fire, which materialized or was acted upon by God. For his faith he received, like Daniel, actual real life personal intervention by God on his public profession of faith in God.

And so just as these men of God professed to speak about God, and for God I end this write up here with the following exhortation.

If we can not lay claim to God's offered Way, Truth, and Life in Christ into our daily life via the outpouring of graces by the Holy Spirit, then Christ's redemption is fruitless and meaningless for us.

And being endowed with wisdom is not equivalent to being smart, ingenious, or educated. Such qualities could indeed be acquired and nurtured by man's pre-salvific human nature. But the new human nature transformed by Christ consists in the believers' living out not our finite and sin-infected human selves but the Christian life of grace within us received by faith.

Therefore, only if we acknowledge human humbleness and the fact of historical human befallen concupiscence in Genesis, by the grace of God, and thus by the power of the Spirit ,believers can assuredly and confidently proclaim truth; for this is the essence of Christ's call to evangelization for all.

False sense of modesty and humility should not make us timid about proclaiming the truth of the Gospel in the process of our engaging in human thinking or enterprising.