Thor's Day: Faith's one big fear

By Morris Dean

A few people have quoted Mark 9:24 to me in an attempt to bolster their faith, or maybe just convince me that they are right to be concerned about losing their faith. I'm not sure which. Anyway, Mark 9:24 says [in the King James Version]:

And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, "Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief."

    The context for that is that the father has brought his afflicted son to Jesus in the hope that Jesus can and will heal him of a "dumb spirit," which at times seems to bring on something akin to an epileptic fit. In fact, in the passage cited, when the son is brought into Jesus's immediate presence, the "spirit" acts as on cue and "tears at the son, who falls to the ground and wallows foaming" [my own phrasing]. The father is distraught and begs Jesus for compassion and help. Never one to miss a teaching opportunity, Jesus says to the man, "If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth."
    That's when the father "straightway" cries out that he believes but would like some help with it. He seems to mean that if believing would do any good, then he would like to believe, but unfortunately, he can't can't quite manage it.
    This is sort of the faith of positive thinking. And of course positive thinking has many virtues. It can help keep you cheerful. It can keep you trying, trying, and trying again. And sometimes you have to keep trying in order to eventually succeed. Or not, as things work out, depending on the circumstances, which you may have neglected to inquire deeply enough into.

Another Bible verse that gets quoted is Hebrews 11:1:

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

The evidence? Well, that's the thing...faith is not evidence, but precisely the lack thereof.

So, why do people fear they will "lose their faith"?
    It's rather simple, obvious even: they have no objective evidence for believing whatever they want to believe.
    If they had evidence, they wouldn't need faith. If they don't have evidence but want to believe something anyway, they must believe it "on faith."
    So, if they lose their faith, they're left holding an empty bag. And that's scary.
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Copyright © 2014 by Morris Dean

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