An exposition of faith.

I need to pray and I need to read my bible. I need to listen to the Lord and find what he has to place on my heart. When I was a child, my idea of God was twofold. There was a historical God who was basically found in the Bible and seemed to end with Paul and Peter in the New Testament. Then there was the living God who was beyond the world I lived in, but was imperceptively within it and around it.

But I have had these moments when the presence of God or at least the existence of God was so palpable and personal. I remember a time when I was in my bedroom at Mom and Dad's house in Dunwoody. I was thinking about the concept of the world being good, as in God created the world and it was good. But so much of the world didn't seem very good. As a matter of fact there was a lot about the world that didn't seem to be very good at all.

As I was mulling over this in my mind, the thought occurred to me that the world was neither good nor bad, but possible. What I meant by that is not that the world that God made was not good. What I meant was that the world contained possibility which could be good or bad depending on how it was used or who it affected or who perceived it. I remember as I thought those words, there was a flash outside my window as if God were punctuating my thought with an affirmation. Now I don't know if that was a flash from Heaven or if that was just someone downstairs flashing the outside lights, but I remember thinking at the time that it was an affirmation from God.

From that thought, or recognition, if you prefer, I have travelled down the path to this: it doesn't really matter if God caused a lightning bolt to light up the night sky outside my window or if God caused someone to flash the outside lights at the time that I came to that thought. Either way it happened, the occurrence can be viewed in the same two ways. First of all, you can say that the light outside my window, no matter from whence came its source, was a coincidence. It just happened to happen at the same time I thought. Secondly, you can posit that the light was a sign given to me by God, whether it came from a flash of electrical charge caused by a weather anamoly or simply from the hand of someone in the house. The practical source was immaterial. The event, happening when it did at the place that it did when I was thinking about this rather theological series of thoughts, can be seen as caused by God.

I remember when I was in college and one of my English professors defined a miracle as the imposition of the supernatural on the natural world. I think this is a rather good definition of a miracle. However, there are also two ways to look at this definition. I'll call these two ways the "Scientific" way to look at a miracle and the "Calvinistic" way to look at a miracle. I call this way "Calvinistic" even though I am not really sure that Calvin would view it in this way, or for that matter, any Reformed theologian or pastor. I call it "Calvinistic" because it proceeds from my perception of how a Calvinistic understanding of the world and the way it works defines or explains the world.

The Scientific way to look at this is to start by acknowledging that there is the natural world in which we live. The natural world developed and operates under certain scientific laws which "Science", over the years, has discovered or demonstrated. Upon this natural world governed by scientific laws, God might choose to interrupt the way things work with a supernatural event, which goes against the natural way of things. In other words, God chooses to suspend or interrupt or causes an event which is against the natural law. This is defined as a miracle because it goes against the natural world from a supernatural source.

But I would posit that the correct way to look at a miracle is to use what I will call the Calvanistic method. To Calvin, everything that occurs in the world occurs at the behest and command of God. This includes the very breath of a sparrow or the beating of the wing of a hummingbird to the grand movement of the oceans and the holding of the mountains in their place. And everything in between. Even all of the natural laws discovered by the Scientist are also the command of God. The occurrence of something that we ignore as normal like the rising of the sun in the east or even the fastness of the mountains or the movement of the earth occur at the command of God. Even the operation of Darwin's laws, if fundamentally or even conceptually true, are seen as the command of God.

When something occurs which we see, in our imperfect perception, as "against" natural law, such as many of the acts of God we find in the Bible, they are not truly against natural law, because they arise from the same source: the command of God. The common tapestry of the world we see, whether it is something we accept as "natural law" or scientific fact or as something we acknowledge as a "miracle", is that each event and each individual part of being is the act of God.

Seeing every act in History, no matter how minute or grand, as the act of God, allows us to look at my situation when I was a young teenager in a very different way. Specifically, we don't have to worry about whether or not the light outside my window was a supernatural bolt of lightening or a flashing of the exterior light by one of the occupants of the house. The Calvinistic way of looking at the situation would be to acknowledge that the light was placed there by God.

There is a deeper way to look at this event which goes beyond even this simplistic way of looking at the event. Even stating that God is the source of the light is a simple statement. It doesn't explain whether or not God meant this light to be an affirmation to me as I pondered the world. It simply says that the light is there because of God. It neither explains anything about the cause of the light or the significance of the light, whether that significance is measured as it pertains to me or to the rest of humanity.

This is the problem which occurred for a lot of scientists when the "big bang" theory was first posited. A lot of scientists thought that this idea of the universe occurring in a large explosion of creation smacked very closely to the description in Genesis. For a lot of scientists this seemed to be an end run for those religious people who wanted to show the theological basis for the beginning of the world. For these scientists, this concept was scientific heresy.

But what has happened since is the general acceptance of the "big bang" theory as the original source of the creation of the universe and the scientific peeling away of the idea that God was the source of that "big bang".

Now the true difference in this is the same true difference in the way that I look at the incident of the light in my bedroom. I have always accepted that God was the source of this light and that he created the light, no matter the source of the light, to provide affirmation to my thought. Another person looking at the situation would say that the light was a coincidental occurrence probably caused by one of the occupants of the house flipping the switch inside the house. There was no affirmation, just a coincidence of occurrence.

But what causes one person to see this collection of events as coincidence and the other person to see it as the affirmation of an interested God. The difference is faith. If one accepts by faith that all events are the working of God, then the light in my window was the act of God, just as the working of my eyes and the electrical synapses in my brain at that moment. But faith takes us further in that moment. For this is not only the simple act of God to create a light as a factual accompaniment to my thought, but this is seen by my mind and my heart as the affirmation of God. Only faith can acknowledge this as the lesson of God.

That significance can not be proven by science. Further, the view of all acts as the acts of God can mean nothing to a scientist per se, because it really doesn't provide anything which the scientist can use in his calling.

Another interesting facet of this faith-based perception, is that it leads to the idea that God is interested in me and what I think. This may be the hardest part of this equation for the non-faithful to understand. Too much bad is present in the world for many people to agree that God is a personal God who is interested in our lives in great detail. But faith tells me otherwise. The event in my bedroom is an example which my faith shows me is the product of God's desires for me.

Fortunately, I have seen other instances of this faith-proven significance in my life. Each event builds on that idea that God values me and leads me to continue the thought that God wants a relationship with me. This is a very different vision of God from the one I had as a small boy. God is seen no longer as a historical God found in the bible or an imperceptible entity. However, in every occurrence, the event can be viewed as coincidence or significant miracle (an act of God). The difference can only be posited by faith or the absence of faith.

This presents a very important facet of this faith-born significance as the relational and personal way in which faith seems to work in one's life. If one has faith that God is working behind and through the events of the world, no matter how deeply or completely, this faithful acknowledgement can affect everything that the faithful sees, hears, feels, and thinks. One's faith informs his understanding and perception in a simple or universal way and in a personal way, as well. The more faithful, the more complete understanding and more complete the relationship between the faithful and the object of the faithful. One's faith causes the faithful to grow to a point where he sees the object of faith and the presence of God all around him.

This is the object and goal of faith. This is how we acknowledge that God works in our lives to perfect our faith and draw us closer to Himself. This is the true end of our being: to know God and enjoy Him forever. Faith is the final tool we have to effectuate this movement toward God.

Where our imperfect understanding takes us in our understanding of God and the world in which we live, faith perfects that understanding and draws us to closer to Him.