Hebrews: 11:1

Faith is not the opposite of truth. Faith is a gateway to truth. Some people find truth through faith and some people find truth without faith. For religious people, faith leads us to truth in ways that improve human behavior. We find these moral truths in the New Testament:

“For this reason, make every effort to add to your faith, goodness; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love.” (2 Peter 1:5-7)

My favorite Christian writer, C.S Lewis, wrote, “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”

A wonderful contemporary rabbi, David Wolpe, put it this way: “We suffer the peculiar blindness of those who see only the visible.”

Faith is a story, a collective story. The story of faith is not about Santa Claus. It is about the story that our lives have deep spiritual meaning. As the author Madeline L’Eagle has written, “Why does anybody tell a story? It does indeed have something to do with faith, faith that the universe has meaning that our little human lives are not irrelevant, that what we choose or say or do matters, matters cosmically.”

The key to the truth of stories is found in the distinction between truth and trustworthiness.

Because we cannot know until after we die what is absolutely true about God’s providence, trust is enough. Trust can be a foundation of faith because trust is the foundation of our life. These are not absolute judgments. Read Psalm 131 (my favorite) again. It carries the deepest message about trust and humility in the face of life’s mystery:
“Lord, my heart is not haughty, nor my eyes lofty. Neither do I concern myself with great matters, nor with things too profound for me.
Surely I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with his mother; like a weaned child is my soul within me.
O Israel hope, hope in the Lord from this time forth and forever.”

Rabbi Marc Gellman, The God Squad

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