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, while perhaps remaining a source of comfort amid tragedy, ceases to be for the intellectually lazy individual 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 failing to make it relevant during the course of their normal lives. It remains there for them on the shelf to be taken down when needed; perhaps for comfort during grief unassuageable by other means, perhaps to build self-esteem in times of doubt or depression, perhaps for the sentimental recollection of the joys of childhood- then, when all is said and done, this superficial faith, having accomplished its intended purpose, is neatly tucked back on the shelf to collect dust until it is ‘needed’ again.

One might well wonder if the church of Laodicea was full of this type of religion, which is compartmentally 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. If this was the case, it is no surprise our Lord wished to spew Laodicea out of His mouth due to such tepidity (c.f. Rev 3:14:22).

A faith that is not seen as the meaningful and life-giving impetus of one’s existence will not manifest itself as objectively true nor necessary to an individual. If one’s faith is not often reignited by inquiry but is left to be ‘used’ merely when desired, its authenticity will never seem truly real. Naturally, apathy towards it as a shallow and unimportant human endeavor will set in. The is by far the worst thing to happen to it. As William F. Buckley Jr. put it: "Expressed disbelief is preferable to the lacerating disdain of utter disregard."[1] 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 real meaning and truth.

Either Christ is who He says He is or He is not. What one thinks about Him must influence how one lives his life at all times. The mere comfort derived from hearing the story of the Prodigal Son, or of looking upon an image of the Good Shepherd, or listening to a sermon on how loving God is to us sinners, 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.[2] 

When suffering comes (as it will), a faith that thrives on consolation- instead of on an encounter with the person of Christ crucified- will simply not survive. The demand imposed on individuals by their genuine Christian faith continuously challenges them to make the faith their own by testing it to see if what they believe is in fact really believed. It is for no other reason than this that the Church has us recite the same creed Sunday after Sunday. It is as if the Church is reminding us weekly of what it is the Church believes and, in turn, questions us with these words: Having once professed this at baptism, in this present moment 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 therefore, enabled to merrily 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.

But it must be emphasized that for the Christian every rung of this ladder is an element of truth which, in climbing, will necessarily transform his life in some way. 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 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 of the gospel needs to be digested in order for it to be of lasting benefit.

Yet, in hearing this, a Christian might still be apprehensive about accepting this invitation to wrestle with a given tenet of the faith for fear that, in beginning to doubt it, he might lose it altogether- thus foolishly endangering his chance at salvation. However, far from doing this, he will remain a fool if he does not do so! Any long-lasting, durable commitment to the faith can only remain intact by the periodic exercise of questioning it in a spirit of humility. The dogmatic constitution, Dei Filius, of the First Vatican Council 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."[3] Indeed, it is this inquiry, this questioning exploration of the faith that is necessary for the mature Christian to grow in faith because it demands from him a renewed acceptance or rejection of faith's veracity. In the end it must be the truth- and only the truth- that a man seeks to possess.

This is an essential step in keeping one’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 adult Christian has intellectually grappled with faith’s content prior to accepting it again, his surrender to God cannot be considered blindly given. Rather, the religious faith he now holds ought to be perceived more correctly as a faith which "does not demand irrational submission to some unquestionable authority, but [instead] involves rational commitment to well-motivated belief."[4] This is the faith God wants us to have as mature Christians for He did not create us to be automatons, accepting willy-nilly whatsoever we hear. Instead, He wants our faith to be possessed through a genuine examination of it accomplished prior to our acceptance of the same. Well-motivated belief is what will keep a mature 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 of the fathers in order to retain and improve its vigor. One will be much 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 naturally constructs.

If, according to Socrates the unexamined life is not worth living, then, according to the religious truth-seeker, the unexamined faith is not worth believing. Undoubtedly then, the sainted martyr must conclude from this that the unexamined relationship with Christ is not worth dying for. And that is the type of faith we must exercise to attain.

[1] William F. Buckley Jr., Nearer, My God: An Autobiography of Faith (New York, NY: Doubleday, 1997), 55.

[2] c.f. C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, in The Complete C.S. Lewis Signature Classics, 36.

[3] Dei Filius, in Denzinger, 3016.

[4] John Polkingshore, Science and Religion in Quest of Truth (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2011), 13.