Faith as a decision

My faith did not rise out of studious examination of the evidence then making up my mind about its veracity. I respect people who do this sort of thing or write books called “Evidence that demands a verdict” but that never impressed me much. For every evidence they offer I could always think of a reason why that evidence fell short of absolutely convincing me. When I settled my faith it was as a decision not a conclusion. I decided to believe. I decided to be a Christian. I decided to accept the Christian story and submit to the Christian church. I am not saying that truth is not important, it is. But any truth may be misbelieved and when faced with the reasons for unbelief (mostly when in seminary) I decided to believe anyway.

I suspect my way of confirming faith won’t satisfy some people but it is how I have faith. I decided to believe. At the same time (perhaps more importantly) I decided to not be an disbeliever. For those of us raised in the church the more important “decision” we make may not be deciding to believe but deciding to not unbelieve. I made that decision (actually a series of decisions) years ago but still I make it almost every month—every time I am faced with the temptation to disbelieve. Thus my faith is the effect of a thousand decisions to believe just like some other’s unbelief is the sume of a series of decisions the opposite way. I chose to settle down in the “faith of my fathers.” This is what I believe because I have chosen to believe it.

But I’m not saying this very well. A former student (Jarod Osborne) probably says it better—and he writes in a sort of artsy story format. You can see it here.

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Other writings on faith matters:

~ Story of my own “Faith Meltdown” (Responses)

~ So you want to be “A New Kind of Christian???”(Responses)

~ Letter to former students in “Faith Meltdown” (Responses)

~ Ken Schenck’s blog on same issue

~ Chris Bounds’ on “The Christian Essential”