Ours is NOT a blind faith.
"The fundamental fact of existence is that this trust in God, this faith is the firm foundation under everything which makes life worth living.
It's our handle on what we can't see."
Or according to the Amplified, faith is "the assurance (the confirmation, the title deed) of the things we hope for, being the proof of things we do not see, and the conviction of their reality."
So faith is not the absence of intellectual engagement. Rather it is a stake in the invisible. The soul's confirmation of an unfulfilled promise.
Christ didn't require that people shut off their minds, only that they quiet them and be open-minded enough to think in new ways. To consider "re-birth." To try "casting their nets" on the opposite side of the boat.
In literature, there is a profound phenomena called "the suspension of disbelief." A homo sapien, a being defined by rationality & creativity, can choose to abandon what they know of reality to enter and enjoy a story with fantastical components. In this way, children fly to Neverland on fairy dust and a happy thought. In this way, superheroes fight off aliens, toys come to life, and halflings save a distant world. We are able to enjoy and even engage rationally with these narratives when we hush the voice that says, "That could never happen."
Faith acts in the same way. But rather than reading, listening, or watching a story unfold, rather than merely "identifying" with a character, Christ invites us, dares us to enter the narrative for ourselves. To suspend our disbelief and walk with a conviction of the reality that we hope for. Like the best novelists, He has crafted a narrative we can trust - but not one devoid of questions. There may come a day when we think "I wish the ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened." There are, like in so many of our favorite stories, times when we wonder or question or even doubt.
And yet this is faith to.
We choose to believe "It isn't what it is" - that there is a deeper magic. But we also choose to engage with the narrative and the Narrator deeply enough to ask the haunting questions. For in seeking the answer, in wrestling with the Angel, in crying out with anguish, like David before us - in these moments faith is made real. We draw nearer to Father. We discover our real name. We exchange the "title deed" for the Promised Land.
