Being a believer has advantages that some non-believers are jealous of. It gives purpose, it alleviates the morbid fear of death. But we should be ready to give up all the advantages of a religious outlook if that outlook is based on a pipe dream, a fundamental untruth or error. The reason it is necessary to believe in God, the only reason which embraces all others, is that this is truth. This is reality, the decisive, fundamental reality, and life-giving truth.
Sweeter than Honey
Christianity is not merely an inspirer of feeling or of art, a balm against the fear of death. We would be petty and utilitarian, we would be fools, in fact, to believe it for those reasons alone, or just because it feels good. If it’s not true, if it doesn’t bring us into communion with the basis of life itself, let’s all save ourselves the trouble and respectfully look elsewhere. Let’s be quick to smash our idols.
Sweeter than Honey
If the word “dogma” is to be used credibly, it needs rescuing. The ideas behind the word need to be revived and explored: the ideas that there is such a thing as absolute truth about God and the world, that this truth can be discerned, that it can be an object of faith and love, that it is the root of creativity and freedom. That you might long for its sweetness. That you might thirst for it with all of your being.
Sweeter than Honey
Truth, faith, love, and knowledge are inextricably linked, because truth is relational; truth is personal. Personal - in that it is identified with a person, Jesus Christ.
Sweeter than Honey
If there is a collective subconscious that points in the direction of a transcendent being, if there are teachings about avatars or incarnate divine beings, other “sons of God,” if there are other myths about creation and fall, other myths about cataclysmic floods, other stories about virgin births, all of these may be like strings that resonate, sometimes more, sometimes less, with one grounding note, whom we believe to be none other than Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, in whom all things hold together.
Sweeter than Honey
It doesn’t take long to find profound and joyous convergences in the thought, teaching, and mystical experiences of the world’s great religious traditions. Some people have attributed these convergences to a trait embedded in humanity—a collective subconscious that has evolved as a result of our basic “wiring.” But what if these convergences are all resonances of a single, actual truth? What if that truth is the person of Jesus Christ?
Sweeter than Honey
Christianity can readily “make sense” to the detached inquiring mind, but this isn’t the most important thing about it. Because the way that we seek and engage with truth isn’t primarily through detached inquiry but through a living relationship of faith and love with the object we seek. Credo ut intelligam: I believe in order to know. I love in order to know. The Scriptures speak of loving the truth (2 Thess 2.10; Zech 8.19), because love and engagement are bound together with knowledge. In the Bible, to “know” someone is to love them intimately, even physically.
Sweeter than Honey
