Loss of Faith or Loss of Hubris?
“Absolute faith and its consequence, the courage that takes the radical doubt, doubt about God into itself, transcends the theistic idea of God.” a quote from the Protestant theologian, Paul Tillich. He describes this as when we realize that God is the “ground of our being.”
This resonates with me because by my age, I’ve walked through not only my own valley of doubt, but that of beautiful life-long Christians who in the last stage of life come to grips with the challenge of recognizing their own limits of understanding.
This isn’t loss of faith, but instead the loss of the delusion that we can grasp what God is by cutting God down to our size. It is facing our own limits and becoming comfortable with our “unknowing,” because we have simply finally become grounded in God. God, whatever God may or may not be, has become our home.
I studied Tillich many years ago and didn’t have a clue what he meant! Recently, this spoke so clearly that I was dumbfounded. It was a bell ringing, a moment of clarity, a light bulb going on in my mind! But even more, it was a sense of finally being home.
Wow! I am filled with wonder, but also humbled. It has taken me until the age of seventy-eight to experience this. I am a very, very slow learner.
Posted on December 30, 2015, in doubt, evolving, faith, Paradox, spiritual growth and tagged doubt, Faith, God of wonder and mystery, ground of our being, hubris, human limits, humility, stages of faith, Tillich, unknowing. Bookmark the permalink. 2 Comments.
Sometimes we are slow to learn…
I heard someone say, “Get comfortable not knowing.” Trust requires that we can’t know it all, doesn’t it?
When you think about it, if we were smart enough to truly understand God, we’d be equal to God. I’ve experienced too many things past human understanding to doubt that there’s something more powerful than anything we know or understand. That’s why I focus on Jesus, because he really does seem to have been open to whatever that power is and shown the way for us to be also.