David,
I think there is a great difference between one's faith in God and their
faith in their car.
Faith in God assumes a life changing commitment which orients all of life
around the substance of that faith, the relationship with God. At best, I
make a ten-year commitment to my car. It is an instrument, a tool and a
vehicle for accomplishing specific tasks and goals. I guess in the former
there could be a faith which treats God as strictly a utilitarian device
for personal achievement.
>The use of reasoning is the only thing we can count upon. If we are
>operating our businesses on anything other than faith that is born out of
>reasoning, we are gambling with our future and the futures of all those
>that count on us. I see a faith that uses gambling as completely
>different than the faith I have in God.
I have two thoughts about the above comment. First, if the "use of
reasoning is the only thing we can count upon" is true, then we have not
faith, but an absolute confidence in our own rational ability to manage
our lives. I don't think you are stating this. Michael Polyani's Tacit
Dimension has provided me a way of understanding the relation between the
rational basis of life and the underlying human assumptions we force upon
that rationality.
Second, your certainty about your faith and relationship with God, which I
commend, can be confused with being faith in God. We can rationalize
ourselves into believing virtually anything. In terms of faith in God,
there is a level of risk, shall we say "gambling," because faith is not
based on absolute rational proofs of God or my own interpretation of my
experience. Faith is believing that the testimony of the Scripture and
the church is true, and acting upon it. There is an element of not
knowing in the exercise of faith. If we never embraced the unknown,
whether with God, our ourselves or the world around us, we would become
pathetic little people who fear life. At the core of Learning
Organization principles is this quest into the unknown of our own
experience and knowledge. It's power as an interpretive tool is that
decision making which has a strong element of faith making in it, is not
based on either faith in my own rationality or acquired knowledge, but on
the ability to continuous learn. That ability is strengthen by joining
others in the learning process. It is this paradigm of the LO which has
much to say to people of faith. Faith is not essentially what I believe,
but the actions I take based on that belief. If we believe we have
arrived at complete and full knowledge, then we could well find ourselves
facing situations for which we are unprepared. Faith implies an openness
to the unknown, even the unknown about God. And this requires us to be
more circumspect in what we claim to know absolutely. Faith and
self-confidence are not the same. Faith and humility are more closely
aligned. If I may quote from Paul in 1.Cor.13 about this openness to the
future: "Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall
see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I
am fully known."
Let me also suggest that you read Blaise Pascal's Pensees, who was the
pre-eminent French mathematician of the 17th century, who addressed many
of these questions of the relation of faith and rationality in ways that
are still relevant. Tom Morris's Making Sense of It All: Pascal and the
Meaning of Life is a good introduction to Pascal's religious ideas.
Ed Brenegar
Leadership Resources
edb3@msn.com
828/693-0720
--"Ed Brenegar" <edb3@msn.com>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>