"Peter said to him, 'Aeneas, Jesus Christ
heals you; get up and make your bed!'(Acts 9.34, NRSV)." "He turned
to the body and said, 'Tabitha, get up.' Then she opened her eyes, and seeing
Peter, she sat up (Acts 9.40, NRSV)."
I know this might sound critical, but would these lines not go against the
Christian definition of faith?Webster defines faith as a "firm belief in something for which there is no proof."
Would proof not such as an actual god bestowing gifts upon people diminish the
faith that people have in the Christian belief system. Let me elaborate because
this can come across as a confusing train of thought. People believe in a god
so as to come to terms around the origin of the universe, but one important
fact behind this belief is that there is no concrete proof to his/her
existence. This is why we call it faith. It is the faith in a god that gives
religion its essence, and giving it credence to concrete ideals implodes the nonexistent
structure. I accept that if God came down from heaven and healed my aunt or
some random person on the street I would inherently have to believe that he was
a god and that it would be logical to worship him, but does this not implode the
values that religion holds dear? Is not faith the foundation of religion: to
believe blindly and follow religion into the abyss of death? And my final
question is: Does this quote make Christianity false? Not to be hyperbolic
but if today a man healed a dead person in the name of a god, would not
everyone follow this one god? Would we not all follow not blindly but with open
eyes this new god that has rightfully proven himself?
While the idea of believing after witnessing a miracle is somewhat contradictory to the modern idea of blind faith, I do not believe that the witnessing of a miracle as described in the holy text of the religion can constitute a lack of faith. In order for the religion to exist there has to be some reasoning to the belief system in place, and in the case of Christianity, that reasoning takes the form of Jesus Christ, who validated his own position through these miracles. Modern faith in Christianity still takes the form of belief in something for which there is no "real" proof, as the only thing the faith is based off of is the Bible and I do not believe the witnessing of a miracle takes anything away from the ideals of the faith.
ReplyDeleteI think this is a very interesting argument that you are making about how this passage might contradict the definition of "faith" as we know it. It might make you ask, if God has nothing to prove, then why does it seem that he is using miracles to validate His divine power? But what if God isn't doing it to prove that he is worthy of worship? When people witnessed miracles, they often immediately adopted a faith in this God as a result of fear and wonder of him. In other instances, these miracles served to strengthen the faith of those who already did believe. I agree with Andrew in saying that modern Christianity definitely fits into the definition of blind faith, which shows that although some things may seem contradictory, this religion has stood the test of time and remains intact today.
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