I was amazed!

     Twice on my recent trip aboard I was left with my jaw on the floor by comments of members of our group.  It slowly became known that I was a Presbyterian minister, and I think it was true that most of the members of that group considered themselves believers.   So one of the members commented to me that he had read an article that reported that a well known theologian had admitted that at times he had doubts about the existence of God. The group member then told me that he believed that any theologian who had doubts about God had way too much time on his hands and needed to find something better to do.  I did manage to ask him if he never had doubts about the existence of God.  I even suggested that there was no faith without doubt, but he did not seem to be able to grasp that notion.  Is the chess board black with white squares or is it a white board with black squares on it?  You may be sure that it is one or the other, but surely every once in a while you think it might be the other way around. Well, when one looks at life there are beautiful things, glorious people, works of art, good deeds, grace abounds, and so you are sure of the goodness of God, and then you see the crime, hatred, the killing, the greed and you see senselessness of pain and suffering and don't you wonder, doubt maybe whether there is a good God or even a God?  My jaw hit the floor when he told me that he did not think a theologian should be doubting the existence of God.

     The second time it bounced off the floor was when a very highly educated and successful lawyer for a fortune five hundred company told me, when we were looking at the magnificent craters, the deep and beautiful glacier lakes and rivers of New Zealand, those rain forests of millions of years and the erosion of the granite rocks, that he had never thought about the Genesis story of six days of creation which he thought was the way it had happened.  The whole six twenty four hour creation story put up against the vast awe inspiring mountains and cliffs and he never thought of reconciling or attempting to integrate one with the other.  Granted it was not his life's work and he had family and lots of things to worry about, but if people who have his kind of education and experiences can go through life with these things compartmentalized, how can we ever make any kind of progress in finding a faith witness that matters. How can we find an educational curriculum that is scientific if we still want the six day creation poem taught as science?

    Once again there is evidence that education is not all that is needed for the achievement of a robust and dynamic faith in the midst of the reality of the world we live in.  There is no honest faith without doubt, and there is no vibrant and dynamic faith without the power to bring the poetry and truth of scripture into alliance with the research and data of history and science.