The Strength Of The Argument.

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The Strength Of The Argument.

My truth, even before coming to faith, has always been rooted in the “strength of the argument.” I can remember reading Carl Sagan’s “Cosmos,” at a very young age and finding his propositions concerning “fourteen billion years of cosmic evolution that have transformed matter into consciousness,” to be powerful and convincing. In that book, he said, “If we long for our planet to be important, there is something we can do about it. We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers.” My quest was not to “make our world more significant,” no, it was much more selfish than that. I wanted to make myself significant.

It was the age-old double-edged question, “Who am I?” and “Why am I here?”

Burned into my memory was the day I awoke to my dog scratching fiercely on the wall of my bedroom. He was my faithful companion. He was very agitated and would not stop, even after several harshly spoken commands. Something was wrong… I got out of bed to reprimand him and just then a flame whipped around the doorway to the kitchen and brushed the side of my face. I gasped. The air that I took into my lungs was so hot that it knocked me down to the ground. Dazed, I turned to see that the entire kitchen was in flames. In a moment of panic, I remembered that my sister was still home as it was not yet time for school. I crawled into a nearby hallway and heard the sound of the television coming from our upstairs den. I screamed up to her “GET OUT OF THE HOUSE! IT’S ON FIRE!”

After she fled through an unfinished part of the house, and I knew she was safe, I turned back towards the flames to see if I could rescue some of the others pets we had, but there was no going back. I grabbed a blanket, threw it over my head and body, and made my way out. By the time I got to safety, I turned and saw that the whole house was engulfed in flames. I remember speaking out loud in that moment and asking “Why am I still here?”

I didn’t know it then, but my quest for truth increased exponentially on that day. I hated school, but I loved the pursuit of knowledge. My teachers always told my parents that I could do so much better in school if “I just applied myself.” Well, fast forward a few years, and I’m serving in the military. I had not yet had that “crisis of faith,” and thought I that I’d had it all pretty much figured out. I saw, heard, and read all the arguments, chosen the most reasonable, settled into “who I was,” and committed to continue searching for the answer to the question “Why I was here?”

The idea of God wasn’t unfamiliar to me, but the arguments for His existence never seemed strong enough. I wanted to be argued into faith. I wanted to be convinced that God existed. I wanted proof. Then I met a man who was a Christian. His life echoed his words. While I dismissed his propositions, I was convicted by his actions. I wanted to challenge his faith, I wanted to debate the merits of his claims, but he would have none of that. Instead, we talked, we became friends, and I started to read his life. I also started reading the Bible.

It was while reading the parable of the wheat and the tares (Matthew 13:24-30), that something changed in me. It was the day I was born again. For the next six months, I read everything I could to dissuade me from being Christian. I read the Muslim Koran, the Buddhist Tripitakas, and the

Hindu Bhagavad Gita. I read the works of the “cults” like Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, and even the Baha’i Faith. I also ventured into the occult. No proposition or argument from any of those works could convince me that Jesus wasn’t God, and that He was the author and finisher of my newly found faith. (Hebrews 12:2)

After leaving the military and being firmly convinced of my faith, as to the truth of it, I returned to school. I went to Bible College and then Seminary. Dissecting faith arguments became a passion. Argumentation was a skill, an art, and I wanted to master it. I had the truth, and I wanted everyone else to be convinced of it. This, finally, I thought, was the answer to the question of “why I was here.” Well, as they say, “knowing the truth and living the truth are two very different things.” Throughout my Christian teeth cutting years I made a lot of mistakes and hurt people. The strength of my life argument didn’t match my verbal propositions or arguments.

Solomon said, “with much knowledge comes much pain.” (Ecclesiastes 1:18) He was right. Today, I still don’t have it all figured out, but I suppose that most would say that I’m a kinder and gentler soul. But, and the point of all this, is to say that I still believe in the strength of the argument. I still believe Christianity needs to be a conversation. No longer can priests bind and gag people and sacrifice them on the altar dogmatism. Christianity is a conversation. Christianity is an argument. Error always binds, but it is the truth that sets one free (John 8:32)

“Christianity is a Conversation.

Christianity is an Argument.”

My Christian faith has gone through many evolutionary phases. Some of the positions I now take are directly opposed to those I once held. Much to my wife’s dismay, I still operate on the basic principle that “everything is open to debate.” I still find that most people are very uncomfortable with my questions regarding their faith, and “theological” positions, but especially my never-ending stream of the question, “but, what about this?”

When it comes to matters of faith, I still struggle with discrediting and dismantling a person’s argument while not disassociating, dismissing, or diminishing the person themselves. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good debate, but I’ve found that, like the man who led me to faith, they are of little transformational value. So, now, I just ask a lot of questions. I hope that my questions can guide others into truth, but realize that everyone has an inner trajectory which is set by their own internal propositions and arguments. I’m sorry that I can’t take any matters of faith at “face value,” and must crunch any and all data through my mesh, but It’s how I operate. It’s how God made me. I don’t like stirring up the pot or causing trouble, but I do find contentment in provoking others in matters of faith. It is, why I think, I’m still here.

I’ll maintain a theological position ardently until someone can present a better argument. The funny thing is, someone’s always presenting a better argument. Sometimes I’ll even argue myself out of positions I’ve held tenaciously before. When I see groups of Christians dismissing and diminishing other people within Christendom it makes me ashamed. It’s even worse when the Church strings sectarian barbed wire throughout what’s supposed to be Christ’s Kingdom. It reminds me of the insignificant self I didn’t like very much.

I do have to wonder though, where is the holy argumentation? Where are those whose lives are a biblical cross-reference or commentary? Where is the fruitful coalescing and conversing within Christ’s body? Where are those who can demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God? (2 Corinthians 10:5) Where are those who can do it in a Christlike manner? Why has the multiplication of disciples that leads to unification been replaced by the division which convinces each sub-group that they are “the remnant” protecting the truth?

I’m still looking to be convinced in certain matters of faith. I need to be convinced by those who claim to follow Christ, not by force, or manipulation, or emotion, or self inflating statements at the cost of others, but by the strength of their arguments.

After an article like this one, I usually ask a few questions. But today, I have only one.

What are some practical ways that Christians can “agree to disagree” without the varying degrees of disassociation (disfellowship) often associated with argumentation?

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