Faith, not Belief

I am going to offend many people today.

I am a Christian. Jesus is my guy. He is not exactly my link to God, as I don’t see as anyone can be unlinked. But he is my personification of God.

Despite this I don’t think much one way or the other about the story of Jesus.

Did he die on the cross and was then resurrected? Was he born to a faultless woman, a virgin even? Was he Agnus Dei, the sacrificial lamb of God?

I don’t know. I don’t care. To me, those aren’t important. For many, these beliefs might be almost a distraction from what I think is most important. And, that is Faith.

Let us look at two words that have much the same meaning. My distinction is somewhat arbitrary. But…

Belief I am using in the sense of believing facts and a narrative. And these facts might be, and often is, central to one’s Faith.

Faith though is simple. Faith says ‘I am looked after’. That’s it.

I am not special. We all are looked after. Pedophiles, terrorists, adulterers, drug addicts, Saints, the pious, fornicators, the chaste. All of us. The kind and unkind. God rains on and brings warmth and sun to us all.

We are allowed some free will. Some. We did not create ourselves and we cannot re-create ourselves. Within the confines of our personhood, within the context we find ourselves, we have enough free will to choose hell or Grace Yet, still we will be looked after. Even should we choose hell.

Everything we do or say is used by what I call, Organizing Intelligence, to lead us and others back to Grace. Back to Faith. That is, the knowing one is always looked after. If we choose Hell our choices still are used by Organizing Intelligence to lead someone somewhere back to Grace. We are allowed to choose poorly and those choices and their consequences will be used to bring you and others to Faith.

All this of course is my opinion. I don’t expect anyone else to believe this.

(Organizing Intelligence to me is not God It is God’s active principle in the world.)