Life by faith and by sight

"For we live by faith, not by sight."

- 2 Corinthians 5:7

It's a familiar phrase, one that a lot of us have heard much before, especially those of us more involved with church and Christianity. It's a familiar verse, but what does it mean? What is faith? What does it mean to live by it? What does it mean to live by sight? My short answer to that is this: read a commentary. I'm really not here to  go through and exegete this short verse. What I am here to consider is what it means now in the context of today. The apostle Paul wrote this in the context of a letter to the Corinthian church, in the context of awaiting the receipt of the new and redeemed body. I want to discuss what it is life by faith, because I would posit that we all do it, everybody. It's not a matter of whether or not we have faith but rather what we put our faith in.

Maybe this is somewhat cliched. I know I've heard before it's not the amount of faith that we have, but what we put our faith in. All the faith in the world cannot make paper thin ice sustain the weight of a human body, yet even the smallest amount of faith that enables us to walk across the most well-designed and constructed bridge ever made will not change the fact that we can cross over that chasm that the bridge spans. So long as we have the faith to take that step onto that bridge, trusting that it will have some catastrophic structural failure, then it is by that faith we decide whether we use that bridge to cross to the other side. Yet what I wish to discuss is different even from this concept of what we do have our faith in.

I'm not here to discuss how to live by faith means to make decisions based trusting in something rather than making decisions based on knowledge. Which leads me to hold that all decisions are made based on some sort of faith. In everything we do we make some presumptions, all our decisions are based on assumptions of how we think things work. Isn't it? I mean, I can't really think of anything I do without taking some inherent assumptions. I don't sit in a chair without assuming that it will bear my weight, at least to some small degree, I don't get behind the wheel of my car presuming that to a reasonable degree that the laws of traffic will be followed enabling me to get to where I want to get to safely. When I drive into an intersection, I make a reasonable assumption that the car that has the red light will be stopped at the red light, and stay stopped at the red light. Likewise, if I'm at the red light, I presume that the other driver going through the intersection is driving assuming that I will be stopped at the red light.

Some would posit that scientific study debunks the necessity of faith, that faith in fact is some kind of outdated means by which we attempt to explain the world around us. Yet as I consider how science discovers more and more how this world, in which we exist, operates, I realize that science in and of itself is based in faith. Any assumption drawn and used to make a decision is a demonstration of faith. Now scientific inquiry is no different than anything else in that regard. Those who have faith in the scientific method trust that everything that has been observed and understood thus far will continue to function as observed and understood. From the simplest to most complex of experiments every scientific fact is based on the premise that the research performed before it is valid. As we come to understand the human body more and start researching cures for disease and healthy living, we base our findings on our faith in the previous findings of how the human body works, and that the human body will continue to work the way it used to. I'm sure that there are some of the scientific community (to which I make no association) who would balk at my limited understanding of science. However, I personally cannot think of how we know for sure that something like the force of gravity will continue to work as it has for however long will continue to work as it has at any given moment until we are in that given moment. As some philosophers like to posit, "You cannot prove that the sun will rise tomorrow simply because it has risen every day since the dawn of time." Or something along those lines (I'm positive I've paraphrased that).

Then, if all decisions, big and small, are made on faith, the question comes down to this: what do I put my faith in? Or perhaps: what ought I put my faith in? Recently, doing some more thinking on the verse, "For we live by faith, not by sight." I've come to something of an epiphany for myself. I think this verse can be understood from this light: I ought not let what I see determine what I believe but rather let what I believe determine what I see. What I have faith in changes my perspective. When I have faith that God works, I look for how He is working and begin to see how He has worked around me. In the Gospel of John, some who heard God speak regarding Jesus said it thundered. It is because they did not believe that God speaks anymore. Does this mean that I think scientific inquiry is futile and that the universe is held together by some divine whim? Certainly not. Yet I see the laws of nature and of science as God's handiwork.

So I suppose what this is all boiling down to is a matter of self-evaluation. I often struggle with this and I believe that many of us do not sufficiently ask ourselves to honestly answer this question: what do I put my faith in? Perhaps it is because it is not a question we think to ask, or one that we've been asked so much that we know the "right answer" to it already. To some, this may just be a way to delude or justify your own personal worldview, maybe it is. Nonetheless, I feel it is an important question to ask, because it affects every fiber of our being. In everything we do, whether we crawl, walk, or leap, there's an aspect of faith in there. That's just how we were designed. So again, I consider for myself, when I make that proverbial jump, what force do I believe will do its work?