Virtue and Blind Faith

Devotional Classics, Blaise Pascal, Excerpts from Pensees

"I [Jesus] do not mean you to believe me submissively and without reason; I do not claim to subdue you by tyranny. Nor do I claim to account to you for everything. To reconcile these contradictions I mean to show you clearly, by convincing proofs, marks of divinity within me which will convince you of what I am, and establish my authority by miracles and proofs you cannot reject so that you will then believe the things I teach, finding no reason to reject them but your own inability to tell whether they are true or not." (p.174-175)

I have faced the tyranny of blind faith. I have been eaten alive with doubts and fears because I longed to hear God, to be near God. I was told faith did not need such things. Faith, I was told, is accepting what God has given and not demanding any more from God. We have the Bible. We have the promise of heaven. That is enough.

I found that such faith amounted to not much more than fatalism. Maybe I could make a few waves in my own little pool, but mostly I should just swim in the tank and not look beyond the glass. I found myself seeking to connect with other people since I obviously could not connect with God. He was out of the fish bowl.

Such tyranny has only been broken by the works of God. I could not have hoped in him unless the good news he preached worked. God needed to do something or say something to be real. A mere description of God is not enough; I need contact. So God came and changed things in my life I could not change myself. I saw him in the work he did in me. The good news made sense because it came to me: I could be like him and he could be with me.

God is not real like something I see and touch, but I do see him like I see the wind: by his works inside me and around me. What I am surprised about is that this is a surprise to me. But it is. Somehow I was taught to trust in God but not count on him. Since "his ways and higher than my ways," I could never be sure about him. What that translated into was this: only use God as a last resort. He probably won't come through. Go ahead and pray, but don't count on anything.

Yet, this same God, who probably wouldn't do much, demanded that I check in with him, or something bad might happen. Thus prayer and worship found their place. They were the cosmic time punch cards, to prove that I "believed" in God. This definitely looked like tyranny. No wonder I shook my fist at God when something bad happened and said, "Why me? I've been good!"

When God pulled me out of my muck and vice and put new and virtuous desires in my heart and mind, I found that he was not like that at all. He wants to be with me. (I hope that all the accusations I made against him will be overlooked because I really thought he was someone else.) He wants me to be like him. He wants to work with me as well. I certainly will not understand everything he is doing, but I will not be acting without reason or desire either.

Pascal's description of tyranny as the demand to believe submissively without reason really describes much of what I hear about faith. I am grateful to say it has little to do with God. His goodness is not just in a showcase or "mystery," it is meant to be practiced and used in life. Godliness and contentment that come from blind faith seem to look a lot like fatalism, but instead real contentment is the joy of knowing that the smaller things I am working with will yield bigger things I could not have dreamed when God's hands are at work over mine. Blind faith will not bring me virtue anymore than watching a football game will make me an athlete.

Lord, save me from the tyranny of this bland, blind faith! I want to see that you are real and work with you in real ways, not just in platitudes and empty sentiment. Let your kingdom come! Open the heavens and descend on me, on all who long for your coming and your work. Let the words without power dissipate and no longer distract anyone from following you with their whole life. Amen.