A word about faith - faith is reasonable but not reasoned. The content of faith is not amenable to reason. We have the capacity to conceive an infinite being like God. Some philosophers think that that capacity cannot be there unless the object of that capacity (God) exists. Again who knows? God who loves and knows us and understands our sincerity has a way, because God is God, of saving us. That is why it is good to believe what we believe in while we let others believe what they believe in. We can certainly try to enlighten others as they too can try to enlighten us. That is what loving, thoughtful, civil, and healthy discourse is. That is what tolerance is all about. I am totally convinced that any enlightening that may take place comes from the way we live, act, and treat others. The more enlightened we are the better we treat others, the more God-like we become.
Since I left the Jesuits in 1982, and plunged into the unprotected world of reality and untrammelled freedom, many close friends, relatives, acquaintances, and clients asked me about my beliefs and views on various important matters. While I try not to shake people up without providing better props than those they already have, I have clearly expressed my views on various denominations or religions, religious leaders, or God-persons. I resisted many alluring temptations of being with many persons and doing many things, and took the opportunity of intense solitude during this month in the ashram near the confluence of the mighty Mississippi-Missouri rivers to meditate, pray, read, reflect and put down my current definitive thoughts in writing.
I hope these thoughts may be of some help to those like me who are always open to new inspirations coming from humanity in general and the great Holy Spirit of all in particular. Having said all that I have said, where am I now? I believe in the Kingdom of God: a kingdom of truth and justice, a kingdom of peace and reconciliation. The characteristics of this kingdom are contained on the Sermon on the Mount given by Christ. The hallmark of this kingdom is the unity of humanity and the fellowship of all humans modeled on the Parable of the Good Samaritan. I believe in a God who is pure Compassionate Truth. This God is especially exemplified by the father of the Prodigal Son. In this belief I find my bliss.
After all genuine and unconditional search, nothing could bring me to this belief except through humble and surrendering faith. No human knowledge, no human authority. In this connection, it is also good to recall what the great sage, St. Paul, said: "Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe...Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many powerful, not many were of noble worth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God."
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