Okay, my month-long hiatus is up and then some, so it's time to get back to writing. The thing on my mind at the moment is that I seem to be slipping back into orthodoxy despite myself. I've written before about not being sure just who or what Jesus actually is/was other than being important and somehow closely connected to God. That's not really true. The truth is that I do in fact believe that Jesus was God, as much God as the Father yet somehow different, but one with the Father from eternity. That during His earthly life Jesus was God-with-us, fully human and yet somehow also fully God. That He accepted death willingly as a consequence of human reactions to His message about God's kingdom, that He was raised from death, and that His life, death, and resurrection have deep meaning for all our lives and our search for God.
It's somewhat strange to me that I believe this. It seems much more reasonable to believe that Jesus was closely connected with God but not in a way different from other people, or that the resurrection was something metaphorical, or even that Jesus became one with God but wasn't always so. The rational arguments for faith have always seemed nice to me when I've been in a more orthodox state of mind, but they've never been the reason for my belief. It might be an important argument that there needs to be an explanation for how the apostles went from a bunch of scared people in hiding to a collection of missionaries boldly proclaiming the Good News. But it's not really why I believe. Instead, I believe because, in unguarded moments, that's where my mind goes. If I don't take care to hem in my faith with words, then I slide right back to the traditional, crazy-sounding beliefs.
This is inconvenient. It's inconvenient because I'm a scientist. I don't like working with a sample size of One. It's uncomfortable drawing such large conclusions about reality from a single case study with no possibility of replication and no lab notes from the actual time of the event. It's also uncomfortable because I've learned so much about how fallible our minds are, and how easily we do fall into superstition and irrational beliefs – so settling on a belief because I have trouble not believing it could be kind of a silly thing to do.
It's inconvenient because it upsets my sense of pluralism. What do I do with the fact that people have so many different religious beliefs while believing that one reflects reality? I can accept that God chose to reveal Himself to different people in different ways, I can certainly believe that God accepts whatever path people take to come to know and love Him, but it's still really hard for me to say “this tradition, these beliefs, and not others” even just for myself.
It's inconvenient because there are so many questions I still can't answer. Why use such a harsh method as evolution to create the species of the world? Why are there diseases and natural disasters? Why are we set into the world with these brains barely out of beta and less free will than we think we have but apparently more than we handle? I believe that God is wise and benevolent – despite all evidence to the contrary, I can't seem to un-believe it for long – but there's so much I don't understand.
But that's the way it is for me. I'd be more worried if I saw more potential for harm in it, but that's not what I see. If anything, my beliefs challenge me to be a better person, more compassionate, more thoughtful, more concerned with justice, more inclined to listen before judging. (Which is not to say that it makes me good at any of these things, just somewhat better than I might otherwise be, or at least making more of an attempt). So at worst I'm a harmless delusional – I don't think I am, but some sense of the fallibility of human minds requires me to at least admit to the possibility.
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