Belief

It’s been a very busy week – including two evenings at the annual GLO (Gospel Literature Outreach) Mini Bible School, run in conjunction with the associated Tilsley College, and a prayer meeting at the Scottish Christian Party office this evening. I was also in the GLO Bookshop today and was struck by a poster that proclaimed that “Darwin Day will come and go – but Christ will live for ever.”

Those who know me well will be aware that the whole, wide, subject of the Creation/Evolution debate is one in which I have some considerable interest. After many years of reading and study, I have no doubt that all that we experience in the time-space continuum that is our sphere of existence – the three spatial dimensions of length breadth and height/depth together with time – was, and is, created by an intelligent Being Who is outwith those dimensions, and to Whom I would normally give the name “God”. He is eternal and infinite – concepts that are actually beyond our human comprehension; He is all-knowing and all-powerful; He is righteousness, and He is love.

A posting on a blog is not the place to write a long, carefully-argued thesis on the evidence for a created universe (and beyond!). However, I would want to make a fairly simple point. At the end of the day, these things will always come down to what we want to believe – they can never be proved in scientific terms. This is because scientific proof requires both observation and repetition. By its very nature, the beginning of all that is cannot possible meet these criteria! However, belief is something for which I may not be able to provide “concrete” evidence, but on which I am prepared to build my life – and, indeed, in the case of many in the persecuted church, lay down my life!

So, while I liked the poster, I would want to change it. “Darwin Day”, as a date on the calendar, will certainly come and go. However, while I believe, firmly, that Jesus the Christ is alive today, and will indeed live forever, it is not something that I can prove to the satisfaction of a sceptical unbeliever.

In school, in S1, I ask my pupils to state whether certain statements are belief statements or factual (provable) statements. Some get a little confused with the two statements; “God exists” and “God does not exist”. Both, of course are belief statements. However, what one believes in this matter effects (I believe!) not only how one lives in this life, but also where one will live in the next! I trust that you are certain of what you believe.