Some Limits Apply

The atheist or secularist who takes a poke at faith is merely shadow-boxing.

Since they can’t hit the real thing, they simply castigate the effects. Faith is unreasonable in the sense of being far above reason, operating in a different realm of existence. Among humans, the difference is between a living and dead spirit. Folks without a genuine spiritual birth will never get it; they cannot even want to get it.

True spiritual belief is not elitist. We don’t intend to eliminate anyone. However, we recognize our God has set limits that He does not explain. With quantum reasoning we recognize He would prefer to save all mankind, but that would be inconsistent with divine justice — or something like that. The real truth is beyond words and beyond intellect. The real truth is we could not possibly comprehend the basis on which God operates, touching and raising some dead spirits here, and not some over there. We see the effects, but could never comprehend it as justice on our level. That’s because divine justice is far above our level of consciousness.

I suppose it would make a great theme for a whole universe of Science Fiction novels, but I’m not burning with creativity right now. Go ahead and steal my idea and write it for me. It’s not so radically different from the “Force” in Star Wars, psy-powers in some earlier stuff, etc. Some folks have it and some don’t. It’s that egregiously evil demand that God bring Himself down to our logic that blocks us from receiving the full weight of His glory and power in our lives. We dare not entangle ourselves in offering logical proof of anything. Even embracing His truth on the level of the Law Covenants isn’t that easy without a divine touch of some sort.

Under the highly unlikely possibility of someone actually understanding ANE epistemology already, it’s just barely possible to explain faith in Christ as a valid option. Even then, we would have to defend it as the best option among other similar choices. At least an ANE thinker recognizes the claim of a divine power as feudal lord over a human life. There are a tiny handful of folks out there who already permit the existence of a higher realm that isn’t merely an extension of human logic, but something that predates human consciousness.

But this is why I don’t despair or lose patience with people who just don’t get it. Those who do get it would debate on an entirely different level, where I don’t have to fight through vast piles of false assumptions. It seems not a week goes by that I don’t have to deal with comments that qualify as trolling because I can’t get them to recognize the Spirit Realm on any terms. They insist I owe them some attempt to justify my faith on their terms. My faith does not stand on their terms, but far above, in a realm they cannot admit exists. They keep assuming I cannot hold my position because their mind can’t process it when their spirits are functionally dead. It may well be a fellow believer and it’s not for me to say whether their spirits have been raised up, only that they aren’t surrendering to that higher power. I can’t fix that for them.

What I can do is help my fellow believers find their way out of the prison of the soul if they feel drawn. You don’t owe non-believers any explanation on logical terms. Let them box at shadows while you lay hold of His glory offered in such abundance you can’t even find it’s limits. You can offer a parabolic explanation that it can’t be explained, but Jesus said truth itself is fairly exclusive. You’ll notice calling it “divine election” has already lost traction, leaving the argument standing in obscure classical theological debate. Let those who want that have their fill. We need to focus on making our faith alive and visible to those whom God opens their eyes to see. Our audience is invisible in the sense we never know who among those around us will catch a glimmer of glory, or when or why.

We don’t know the limits, but we know they do apply.