George MacDonald, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Elena the Modernist

I've always considered myself a modernist. It's the reason-loving mind in me, the part that loves apologetical proofs and rational conclusions. C.S. Lewis, Peter Kreeft, and other great theologians of the 20th century have fed that passion with simple (but memorable) logical concepts like "liar, lunatic, or Lord" and such.

Interestingly, my favorite atheistic philosopher, Jean-Paul Sartre, was rather opposed to the concepts of the modernists. Though most would agree that he was quite consistently rational in his conclusion that a world without God/meaning is pure misery, Sartre insisted that Reason is not the characteristic that sets mankind apart. Instead, he insisted that the Will is the primary quality of human beings (not that he affirmed any human nature).

This aspect of existentialism (Sartre's philosophy) was not unique to atheists. Soren Kierkegaard (of whom I've written before) believed that it is the Will that motivates faith. In fact, according to Kierkegaard faith is directly contrary to reason (as in the case of Abraham's near-sacrifice of Isaac). It is only the Will, the actual choice to live and act for God rather than for the praise of men, that distinguishes the Christian from all others.

Fascinating as this all is, it didn't come to life in my mind until I was reading Lilith and a few of George MacDonald's Unspoken Sermons.

Troubled soul, thou art not bound to feel, but thou art bound to arise. God loves thee whether thou feelest or not. Thou canst not love when thou wilt, but though art bound to fight the hatred in thee to the last...Will thou his will...Heed not thy feelings: do thy work. As God lives by his own will, and we live in him, so has he given to us power to will in ourselves. How much better should we fare if, finding that we are standing with our heads bowed away from the good, finding that we have too feeble inclination to seek the source of our life, we should yet will upwards toward God, rousing that essence of life in us, which he has given us from his own heart, to call again upon him who is our Life, who can fill the emptiest heart, rouse the deadest conscience, quicken the dullest feeling, and strengthen the feeblest will! (The Eloi)

Not to say (as Kierkegaard did) that there is no place for reason, or even for feeling, in the life of the Christian. Indeed, does not God call us to love Him with all our heart (feeling), mind (thinking), and strength (will)? But when reason or feeling fail, what can motivate us to do the good that God requires of us?

It is a choice to love God in the hard times, in the darkness, in the confusion, in the moments of uncertainty. Reason tells you it's absurd. Feelings aren't up to the task. But God promises to conform our Will to His own and in Him we live and move and have our being. "Existence was mine in virtue of a Will that dwelt in mine." (Lilith)

Faithfulness

I think I've explored some different ways of looking at what "faithfulness" means (see post about Kierkegaard from June). This little scribble looks at fides in a couple of other ways.

First: K talked about giving a hope or love or passion back to God with the expectation that we will receive it back. His perspective pertains to the faith required of finite Man to interact with an all-powerful God, having more than just a generic confidence in the Provider. I've experienced this in a small way this year; I don't suppose K would have included it as something wonderful and marvelous in Fear and Trembling, but it has been a fulfilling experience for me.

I gave up something close to my heart, like my child or my great lover or my security blanket...I gave up my PLAN. Plans are good things, of course. K wouldn't have approved of my incident as an act of faith if my sacrifice wasn't a good thing in the first place. Plans are good things because they demonstrate our desire to act, a focus on life beyond the present moment, and a conscientiousness of my purpose and usefulness on this earth. I've learned a lot about plans in the past few years -- 4-year plans, summer plans, travel plans, house plans, work plans, etc. The major thing I've grappled with is how plans change, whether we like it or not (and usually, we -- okay, I -- don't.) But when a plan is swapped out for something I don't understand, when I give up my presumptions and commit myself to taking big risks, embracing my finitude and the sometimes uncomfortable nature that God gave me as a human being...when I personally commit myself to a morality that relinquishes expectations and requirements that I've copied down from "The World's Book of Success Stories"... When I did this, I became something totally different and unexpected: I became a philosophy major.

The short explanation of why this is a leap of faith for me is that I never saw myself as the graduate school type...and now I hear from everyone that I'm headed towards a PhD. WHAT? Where do I get money for that? Am I even smart enough for that? Could I really go places as a philosophy professor? They don't make money--how do I support myself?

Those are the remaining questions. Now to part II: my Faithful God.

I heard a really great song this summer by a group out of Knoxville, TN called United Pursuit Band. They write wonderful worship songs, one of which goes like this: "You provide the fire, I'll provide the sacrifice. You provide the spirit, I will open up inside. Fill me up, God." And that's what I feel like, and that's what He did. Except that, like Elijah, I had to provide the sacrifice before He ever threw down even a tiny spark or ember from heaven. And I had to rip open my chest and hold my delicate, vulnerable heart in my hands as an offering before I could see the Spirit that He would send to me. It goes both ways, faith does. In my short-sightedness, I must give; and as I do, He gives back. And for every little sacrifice that I blindly relinquished, He faithfully gave more abundantly than I could have dreamed.

Now He keeps on giving. It's usually not what I expect from Him, but as I said about this summer, it's usually better than what I plan for myself. I don't think K could have possibly gotten the whole concept of faith right (that God gives back a specific thing that we give up to Him first) because Paul said something a bit to the contrary in Romans 8: "Now, hope that is seen is not hope. Who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it patiently." The blind do not know what good things lie in store for them, nor can they begin to imagine it. The limits about which I only complain prove to be the ways God shows his power--because He is faithful.

Fear and Trembling

Kierkegaard is pretty great. Just throwin' that out there.

I've been all into Fear and Trembling these days and it's surprisingly consistent with my own experience. One thing that's particularly striking is how Kierkegaard writes that faith is not something we can easily communicate. We cannot express it in mere words. I've definitely faced this in the last few months. Words fail. Expression is impossible. Any noise I might let loose falls short of conveying the truth and conviction of what I know in my head and my heart. I've been driven into spells of silence. Not going mute, but succumbing to the feeling? passion? thoughts? (even now words are insufficient for me to say what I mean) that are overwhelming. I can hardly describe them to myself, much less another human being.

Kierkegaard also describes faith as something beyond mere resignation of what we cannot sustain on our own. Abraham did not merely sacrifice Isaac with no expectation that God would do something great through it all. He didn't just "let go" or "give up." The difference is that he expected--he had faith--that God would follow through with His promises even though the obvious means were gone. Perhaps true faith was even the very specific expectation that, though God was taking Isaac away, He would surely give him back somehow.

The question comes, though, regarding specificity and subjectivity. When we seek God in faith, can we come to Him with great expectations that very specific desires of our heart will be fulfilled (though, perhaps in His time)? Or do we give Him a ton of slack, acknowledging that He will in some way fulfill our happiness, whether in this life or the next.

The former option requires a lot of wisdom. In fact, it seems irrational to others (perhaps why we fail to communicate it well.) These are things we desire that couldn't easily be explained away. What we ask for--expect, even--are almost miracles. And yet, we can't go wishing things completely subjectively, arbitrarily even, and say that God will bring it about because we "have faith." Perhaps we go on with this "faith" through the rest of our lives, living in perfect "confidence" that God will give us our hopes and desires. But then we die and discover that, though good things have come and more good awaits, in this specific instance we have been deluding ourselves. We lived in illusion and to God's disgrace, we dubbed it "faith."

The latter option seems to be entirely irrelevant in its vagueness. If we hope in generalities, thinking "whatever comes, God will work it out," it will no doubt become true. But there is no test in that, no determination, nothing to try a person and test their trust and dependence on the Father. As the Cheshire Cat said to Alice, it doesn't matter what road you take if you don't know where you want to go. We almost make our God too little by giving Him little expectations. Ask for big things and see what He gives you.

So I suppose it comes down to discernment. We can't be arbitrary, but neither can we be limited. Pure reason falls short, but mere feeling or intuition is absurd. Faith is the grey area where we seek Him, give all for Him, and acknowledge that when it all works out, it's because He acted on our behalf. "Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express... He who did not spare His own Son but gave him up for us all, how will He not also with him graciously give us all things?"