Don't Let Your Understanding Get in the Way of Your Understanding

Christianity is for stupid people!

By that of course I mean that Christianity is for everyone, regardless of intellectual capacity.

As a moderately intellectual person myself though, I like to ask lots of questions and try very hard to reason things through. I have a high degree of confidence in my own reasoning skills which can cause me significant difficulties when I'm confronted by something I can't understand. This can make being a Christian quite difficult - because when it comes down to it I don't really understand my own faith! I like to pretend that I do and I can usually talk fairly intelligently about it in a way that sounds quite convincing to other people (or at least to some other people anyway!), but I always have a lot of questions in my own mind - sometimes nearer the surface than others - which I am not able to answer.

I have often noticed that happiness and/or goodness do not seem to correlate - at least not positively - with intellectual capacity. In fact, if a correlation was discovered, I wouldn't be at all surprised to find that it runs the other way! The cleverest people I meet and the wisest people I meet are completely different groups. Just occasionally there is some overlap between the two!

I think there are (at least) two different kinds of "understanding". There is a logical/analytical kind of understanding which can be extremely useful, but can also come to some very wrong conclusions, particularly if it strays outside of the narrow range of problems to which it is particularly suited. Then there is wisdom. Wisdom comes from experience, from making good decisions (and sometimes bad ones), and from an instinctive or intuitive grasp of what is good, right and meaningful - from a deep inner sense of what really matters in life.

But how do you get wisdom? The book of Job (in the Old Testament part of the Bible) has this to say:

There is a mine for silver
and a place where gold is refined.
Iron is taken from the earth,
and copper is smelted from ore.
...
But where can wisdom be found?
Where does understanding dwell?
No mortal comprehends its worth;
it cannot be found in the land of the living.
The deep says, “It is not in me”;
the sea says, “It is not with me”.
...
                        - Job chapter 28

And what is wisdom anyway? The book of Proverbs says this:

The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom¹!

                        - Proverbs chapter 4 verse 5

A recursive definition if ever there was one!

Proverbs also says this though:

Does not wisdom call out?
Does not understanding raise her voice?
At the highest point along the way,
where the paths meet, she takes her stand;
beside the gate leading into the city,
at the entrance, she cries aloud:
...
                        - Proverbs chapter 8

So wisdom is both elusive and hard to find (according to Job) and shouting out in public to anyone who will listen (according to Proverbs). Both of these things are true - wisdom is sometimes best expressed through paradox! The logical mind doesn't like paradox and tries to resolve it. The wise heart knows how and when to accept it and hold both parts in tension.

I can't tell you where to find wisdom, but I can tell you that it is accessed primarily, not through the logical/analytical mind, but through the heart. Pascal spoke well when he said:

The heart has its reasons, that reason knows nothing of

Pascal also said:

It is the heart which experiences God, and not the reason.

And the quote from Job earlier goes on to say:

The fear² of the Lord — that is wisdom,
and to shun evil is understanding.

Understanding in the sense of "reason" is a good thing and should be encouraged, developed, listened to and taken seriously, but reason will only get you so far. Understanding in the sense of "wisdom" will take you to a deeper level - a level that will show you what reason is for and teach you what to do with it.

Wisdom should be informed by, but not clouded by reason - don't let your "understanding" get in the way of your "understanding"!

Thinking 'til it Hurts!

I like to think quite a bit!

I have a fairly academic brain. I always did well at school. I enjoy maths and problem solving. I am a computer programmer, so logic is a big part of my job. I also enjoy the "softer" side of logic - philosophy, discussion and debate, weighing up arguments and counter-arguments, recognising the connections between things and considering the implications of an opinion or system of beliefs.

As a Christian, one of the things I think a lot about is my faith, which at times comes under significant attack from other thinkers and intellectuals. I think it's important to think about things, to ask honest questions and try to be honest with yourself about what you discover. I think there are some good, honest, rational reasons for believing in God, but although in my opinion there is a lot of evidence, there is no universally accessible and logically indisputable proof.

Sometimes though, I get tired of thinking! I can try to work everything out until I'm black and blue in the face (or feel that way anyway), but I don't have access to all knowledge, all wisdom, all intellect. My own logic is necessarily flawed in many places because I am only a finite, limited human being, and am influenced by all sorts of external and internal forces that I don't understand and cannot fully control.

Sometimes logic is just not enough and I need something else to fall back on. In the end, just thinking about God doesn't satisfy. At its core, the Christian faith is not about logic, its about an encounter, and this is where faith comes in - or at least where it starts. Faith - at least to begin with - is about reaching out into the unknown and daring to believe that something (or someone) might at least be there. There's plenty of information in the Bible, recorded by people who have had encounters in the past, that can inspire us to reach out and help us to make sense of what we might find. The church community exists - at least in part - so these experiences can be shared, interpreted and applied.

In the end though, the only way to know God is to reach out to Him for yourself. All the logic and reason in the world will never get you there! Those who can do this genuinely, in humility of heart, not expecting to understand everything they find, are usually those who discover that God has actually been reaching out to them the whole time.