Wrestling with God

A danger that every life-long Christian experiences at one time or another is having a complacent spirit that no longer investigates what it believes. Spiritual fervor is lacking to the one who feels so comfortable with the faith the Church professes so as to not give the content of her creed a second thought. When this happens, one's faith can quickly become a mere source of comfort while ceasing to be an adherence to truth that the soul holds onto as a lifeline.

Some Christians are rightly criticized for using their religion as a crutch that gives them consolation in moments of trouble, but does not demand their attention the rest of the time. It remains there for them on the shelf to be taken down when needed; perhaps for comfort during grief not assuaged by other means, perhaps to build self-esteem in times of doubt or depression, perhaps for sentimental recollection of the joys of one's childhood. Then, when it has accomplished its intended purpose, it is neatly tucked back on the shelf to collect dust until it is "needed" again.

One may wonder if the church of Laodicea was full of this type of religion, a religion that is compartmentalized and classified as just one of many aspects of life that, in the end, shape a society. Religion, a category no more nor less important than the economy, art, war, public health, entertainment, or education. It is no wonder our Lord wished to spew Laodicea out of His mouth due to its tepidity (c.f. Rv 3:14:22).

A faith that is not seen as an essential relationship with God will not manifest itself as objectively true nor necessary to an individual. If faith is not often reignited but instead left to be used merely when wanted, its reality will never seem real and, consequently, apathy towards it will set in. As William F. Buckley Jr. put it: "Expressed disbelief is to be preferred than the lacerating disdain of utter disregard"(Nearer, My God: An Autobiography of Faith). To combat this utter disregard in religion, one must continuously give thought to what one believes for this is essential to living a life rooted in purpose.

Either Christ is who He says He is or He is not. What one thinks about Him must determine how one lives his life. The mere comfort derived from hearing the story of the Prodigal Son or of looking upon an image of the Good Shepherd cannot be the reason for our religion. To paraphrase C.S. Lewis, if truth is what we seek in religion than we will find truth and perhaps comfort in the end. However, if comfort is what we seek in religion we will find neither comfort nor truth (c.f. Mere Christianity).

When suffering comes (as inevitably it will), a faith that thrives on consolation instead of on an encounter with the person of Christ will not survive. The demands of faith continually challenge us to genuinely make it our own by testing it to see if we really do believe it to be true. It is for no other reason the Church has us recite the same creed Sunday after Sunday. It is as if the Church is reminding us of what it is the Church believes and, in turn, questions us once again: having once professed this at baptism, do you still believe it?

Sometimes it is helpful to place ourselves within earshot of Peter and Paul's preaching and ask ourselves: is this whole story of Christ true? Do I believe it and allow the ramifications of that belief to unfold by the way I think, speak, and act? Or do I passively accept it as one other thing I am told and go along with the rest of my day?

True faith can only come as a gift received when we actively struggle with it from time to time. Like Jacob grappling with the angel so as to receive a blessing from him (c.f. Gn 32:22-32), we too must seriously grapple with the creed we profess if we ever hope to climb the ladder of faith.

For the Christian, every rung of this ladder is an element of truth that, in climbing, will transform his life. Whether a given rung brings him comfort, consolation, and joy in believing it or brings him anguish, agony, and doubt, it must be climbed regardless, for the rungs are spaced too far apart for one rung to simply be ignored and skipped over. The life of the spirit is not nourished by a buffet of taking this and leaving that. The whole message needs to be digested in order for it to be of lasting benefit.

Yet, even in hearing this, a Christian may still be apprehensive about wrestling with a given tenet of the faith for fear of beginning to doubt it and thus endanger his salvation. On the contrary, far from endangering his salvation, any long lasting, durable commitment to the faith can only remain intact by the periodic exercise of questioning in a spirit of humility. The dogmatic constitution Dei Filius teaches: "If reason illumined by faith inquires in an earnest, pious, and sober manner, it attains by God's grace a certain understanding of the mysteries, which is most fruitful." It is this inquiry- this questioning exploration- that demands from us a renewed acceptance or rejection of the faith's veracity. In the end it must be the truth and only the truth that man seeks. This is what makes a man's faith a living faith, for once this commitment is renewed, the revived, healthy, and vigorous spirit can then surrender itself again to the God who reveals Himself. And precisely because the Christian has spiritually and intellectually grappled with the faith prior to accepting it again, his surrender to God is not blindly given. The religious faith he now holds "does not demand irrational submission to some unquestionable authority, but...involves rational commitment to well-motivated belief" that he has discovered by his prior exploration of it (c.f. John Polkingshore, Science and Religion in Quest of Truth). Well-motivated belief is what will keep a Christian faithful to Christ. Blind faith will never do.

Like the physical body that needs periodic exercise to retain and improve its muscle, so too must the spirit be exercised by frequent head-on encounter with the apostolic faith in order to retain and improve its vigor. One will be better off found by our Lord in this gymnasium of grappling than to be spit out by Him for feasting on the buffet of pleasantries an immature faith constructs.

The unexamined life is not worth living says Socrates. The unexamined faith is not worth believing says the religious truth-seeker. The unexamined relationship with Christ is not worth dying for says the sainted martyr.