Paradoxes of Faith

These aren't my ideas, but I've noticed them in my faith for a long time and have made them my "own". I recently read a classic (G.K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy) that put into words what I had been thinking for so long, but hadn't been able to put into words myself. This is my attempt to put those ideas into my own words.

I've been thinking for a while about the paradoxes in Judaism and Christianity. Basically, things that are fundamental to a deep faith, yet seem to be contradictory. Things like "Grace" that says we can't earn our salvation (I find a lot of this in David's writings too, not just the New Testament) vs. the effort required of us in living out our faith. Or the importance of both fearing God and having a deep love for God. Here, too, David displayed both of those seemingly opposite emotions.

Somehow the tension between the two sides of the paradox is what gives power to it. The picture that came into my mind as I thought of these was, of all things, a water balloon launcher. You have to have two strong guys firmly holding their opposite positions in order for the water balloon launcher to work at all. If one guy or both are not strongly positioned opposite each other with a third pulling in the middle, then there is no power in the launcher because there is no tension.

Our two opposing ideas (or paradoxes) of faith are the two strong guys at the front holding the ends of the rubber tubing. The power comes when a human, in dependence on God, pulls back the "balloon pocket" and releases all that tension in a powerful way.

Let's try out these two paradoxical ideas:

1. We have infinite worth to God and
2. We are steeped in sin from birth.

These concepts seem to be entirely at war with each other. We have a really hard time holding both those ideas in our heads at the same time. We tend to either think too much of ourselves, or we tend to think we are worthless to the exclusion of the other. Most of us wouldn't admit to either extreme, but it's usually there in varying degrees on different days and even time of day. For me, I swing between the two. I often play messages in my head that say "I'm worthless" (partially due to my growing up with undiagnosed ADD) or I tend to compensate with completely unrealistic images of grandeur that are just as wrong. Each of these occur at times when I'm focused on myself instead of God and how he views me.

Here's David in Psalm 51:

Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me. ...You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

Yet in the same Psalm, he doesn't just wallow in self-pity, he boldly asks God to heal him and make him right:

Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.

It's obvious that David's relationship with God has transformed him enough to give him deep insight into the character of God. That even though David acknowledges in stark terms how badly he's messed up, he also knows that we are of infinite worth to God, and that God wants to restore us to a right relationship with God.

Here is David in Psalm 139:

For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

David's deep personal relationship with God and acceptance of these two paradoxical ideas allowed him to fall hard, yet get back up, admit his guilt and get back into a close relationship with God. That is real power that I don't think you'll find from any faith except the one designed and founded by the one that designed and founded our universe and its residents. That is, the one who watches intently as each of us is formed and then watches intently as we muddle through our lives as David often did.

Hmmm, there's another paradox. A God who is infinitely wise, great and strong, yet who cares so intimately about each of us that he watches our unformed bodies in our mother's womb... and elsewhere it says that He knows the number of hairs on our heads.

As Chesterton said, Judaism and Christianity are the only religions that have the gall to say that, essentially, "You can't think too much of yourself" and "You can't think too little of yourself". There's some real tension there, and I have a feeling I will spend the rest of my life working out what that really means. But the power in that tension I've already started to experience.