The Logic Of Love

Chapter 10: Faith to Last a Lifetime

The last step depends on the first.
The first step depends on the last.

-Rene Daumall

Spiritual faith must not be taken lightly. It takes on the emotional attitudes associated with secular knowledge, but without providing the stability of a shared methodology for discovery. On the other hand, there is nothing wrong with being light-hearted. The decision to have faith in God need not drive us crazy. Though spiritual faith is a purely personal decision, it is a mountain that most people climb. Even if we must each blaze our own trail up this mountain, we all have what it takes to get there. All kinds of people have faith in God.

The question of whether or not to have faith in God is not one where we should defer to some supposed expert. No one else’s credentials are superior to our own on this issue. We cannot hope to find outside ourselves what can only be found within. But with this personal power comes personal responsibility. Taking responsibility for the method by which we approach the issue of faith is essential for making a decision that should last a lifetime.

The methodology being promoted here is the logic of love. The commitment to the value of love is essential. Holding love as the highest value provides stability for faith by securely anchoring our intentions in the depth of our hearts. The hope for experiencing the validation of faith is in the process of continually re-affirming whole-hearted faith.

Even though children may develop faith as a natural outgrowth of how they are raised, eventually such faith must come from a personal commitment rather than trust in one’s parents. Not surprisingly, most religious traditions provide rituals for this transition around the time children reach the onset of puberty. For some of these young adults, this age may be too young for them to fully appreciate such ceremonies, and they may perform the rituals without taking them seriously. Nonetheless, these age-long traditions of the world’s religions reflect the importance of taking personal responsibility for spiritual beliefs. Hopefully, by the time children have the ability to procreate, they have been taught to appreciate the value of taking responsibility for their spiritual life.

The willingness to consider having faith in God implies that one has had sufficient experience and has developed sufficient wisdom to make such a choice. The corollary to this is that no new experience or wisdom can reverse the decision to have faith. Whether such a position is closed-minded and arrogant or is the act of a mature adult depends on what side of the decision one is on. This is not to say that people with faith are never closed-minded and arrogant, nor does it mean that one cannot be a mature adult without faith in God. The point is simply that the decision to have faith is a very adult decision. If we decide to have faith, then later on stop reaffirming this choice, we have perpetrated the ultimate psychological fraud upon ourselves. Regardless of how faith starts, it must grow into an increasingly mature and self-aware decision if we are to have any hope that its fruits will ripen into an experiential knowledge of God.

Go to Chapter 11: Feeling Faithful versus Choosing Faith

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