The long way back

I have a feeling I may be starting the long road back to faith again.  I have had so many things going round my head over the last few months. I have tried to work out how I can see if there is a God or not. I have tried to use reason, as well as other things. The more I thought about things over the last few days, going on from my last post about Scripture, Reason, tradition and experience, the more I realised something.  You can't prove God to yourself, or disprove him to yourself, using just reason if you want to remain open to the possibility that he is there. When I disregard all but reason is trying to work out if God is there, I am already deciding that he is not there, so I don't need to use those things to base my decision on.  To remain truly open I want to consider all things, from all angels.

I think I am coming round to the fact that if there is a God, then faith must be involved in how we approach him and how we come to believe he is there. If there is a God, then I have to use faith in every aspect of my relationship with him. If there is a God, I believe that he is different to us. Yes, we are made in his image, but that means we reflect him in aspects of who we are.  It does not mean he is the same as us. For me it means I accept that he is eternal. He has always been. He doesn't have a beginning or an end. The 'Who created the Creator?' question simply is redundant in my opinion. If there is a God, then he is beyond our human understanding because he is not human.

I have come across some very kind people on the ex-christian website I have been looking at. They have encouraged me, and helped me to see I don't have to rush my thoughts. I can take my time. Many of them seem to use only reason to decide about God. At first it seemed sensible, but now I am really questioning if that is the right way for me. I know there is more to me than my ability to reason and think. I am what I feel, I am what I have experienced. I am how I have been brought up.  There is more than flesh and bone to me. To a certain extent I use faith every day. When I get in my car I have faith that other drivers will stop when there is a red light. Sometimes they do not, but mostly they do. Drivers sometimes not stopping doesn't mean I stop trusting the lights as a way to drive on our roads. It means I use caution and have my wits about me. Even in our courts a jury is expected to find someone guilty 'beyond all reasonable doubt'. There is an element of accepting that I can not always be 100% certain of what happened in any situation. We use reason but accept that there is a limit to our reason.


There is a limit to my reason when dealing with God. My reason tells me something but then other things I do not yet know. When I began to accept that I couldn't work it all out with reason, the burden became lighter. I realised a mixture of  faith and reason is acceptable. I feel that I am a little like St Thomas. I have been doubting and refusing to believe but Jesus has just held out his hands and shown me his side as he did Thomas.  Thomas uses  his reason to get to a point of faith. I hope I can do the same.