Scribbler's Cafe: Jesus got top honors in my biochem class

Monday, June 14, 2004

Jesus got top honors in my biochem class

My friend was expressing some religious angst on his blog, and now I feel like I want to talk about spirituality here on my own page. I am very hesitant to share my faith in public settings as I always think I need to do a lot of explaining and back-peddling when I say that I am a Christian. Yes, I am a Christian. (Here comes the explaining.) I am just not a very good “system of religion” Christian. I’m all about faith and one true God. I’m crazy about Jesus and his gospel of love. I am absolutely terrified of organized religion and have been deeply scarred by those that call themselves “good Christians.” So, I stand proudly and say, “Yes, I am a Christian, but I am not a good one.”

Two things that are at the core of my faith I just shared on my other friend’s blog. The first bit of wisdom I found just this year in a paper from a student I was tutoring. She quotes St. Thomas Aquinas to say:

“Because the Faith was the one truth, nothing discovered in nature could ultimately contradict the Faith. Because the Faith was the one truth, nothing deducted from Faith could ultimately contradict the facts.”

This reconciles all my personal conflict between science and God. St. Thomas makes perfect sense to me. If we look at our natural world and find evolution, it is because God created it as such. Science is a celebration of God’s creation. We need not fear that our God may ever be weakened by worldly truths unless we doubt the existence of God himself. I do not fear questions and science because I have faith in the true love of my God. I am free to question anything I’d like because I know that, in the end, if I am seeking truth, I will eventually end up at God’s feet.

-also-

The big question: how could God let so many people go to Hell? Is Jesus really the only way? What about those that never even get the chance to hear about Jesus? How fair and loving is that?

I remember only two passages from the bible, and those are mainly in gist only. But, after a quick search on the internet, I found the correct wording of one of the passages I hold most dear (The other is the ever popular first Corinthians). The answer to my most anxious questions I find in Deuteronomy 4.29:

“if you seek the LORD your God, you will find him if you look for him with all your heart and with all your soul.”

From this, I gather that those who make a genuine good faith effort to find God, will find him. This is regardless of whether or not they ever hear the name Jesus, or say the specific words of redemption. God is bigger than our language. Yes, I think there is one true God, but that we may all call him different names, only each of us knows in our hearts and souls if we really believe or if we’ve just found a superficial outlet for “creative spirituality.”