I have come to believe that it is crucial for each person to closely examine each of their beliefs, and to understand what they are and why they hold to them. This is why I often stress the importance of theology. One cannot hope to interact well with a God about whom they know nothing, and one certainly cannot present an apologetic for a system of belief which they do not understand and have not fully explored. Furthermore, I would say that to hold a belief without knowing why you believe it, or to accept something simply because it is what you have always been told is sheer folly. One simply cannot accept anything and everything they are told simply on the basis of the source, or because it seems to make sense in the context of their already established belief system. No, our beliefs must find their source in the ultimate pursuit of truth. Christ says, “you shall know the truth and the truth will set you free.” We cannot settle for anything less than the truth.
Many of the students at Johnson University where I study are at a point in our lives where we must make our faith our own. It would be easier simply to believe what we have always believed, and it would certainly be more comfortable. But we cannot afford to be comfortable, we are not called to be comfortable. We are called to challenge ourselves, to step out of our comfort zone, to be willing to be outside of our tradition, rejecting what he have always assumed to be correct if it leads us to the truth. Why is truth so important? Because ultimately truth is not some abstract idea, It is a person. God is the embodiment of all truth, and the only way for us to know him who is infinitely higher than we could ever imagine is to pursue truth.
I greatly admire the way in which Descarte boiled down his belief system to one foundational belief that he knew was absolute, and built his system from there. “I think, therefore I am.” As I boiled down my own system of belief I decided to add to that statement. “I think therefore I am, I am therefore god is.” I say little 'g' god because all I can be sure of based only on the surety of my own existence is that there is something that caused me to be here. Something that made the place that I am in and gave me the capacity to think. Now, through rational deduction and research one can come to the conclusion that 'god' little 'g' is God big 'G,' and that 'God' big 'G' is Yahweh, the Sovereign Lord of the Judeo-Christian tradition. To do this one merely has to follow the train of historical evidence and determine the authority of the Scriptures. That is easily begun through something as simple as watching the prophecy of Scripture fulfilled in history. Once the authority of the Scriptures have been established, the rest is smooth sailing. As Christ says, “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.” The Scriptures tell us of a perfect Creator God who is synonymous with truth. Therefore, we can build our lives and belief on the Scriptures which we have established as true and reliable through rational deduction established from the simple thought, “I think therefore I am, I am therefore God is.” Obviously this is a greatly simplified argument, but I truly believe that should one approach this proposed line of thought with an open mind, one would come to a similar conclusion.
The way in which we examine such beliefs, it would seem, is hotly contested. A variety of systems of justification were described in Wood's text. I do not think that the three systems he presents are mutually exclusive. On the contrary, I have come to believe that if we are to be truly intellectually virtuous, we must examine our beliefs in light of each of these systems of justification.
First we must examine our beliefs to see if there is enough solid evidence based in things we know to be true for us to accept them as verifiable beliefs. When we have gathered the evidence we must ask ourselves, did it come from reliable sources? What was our condition when we gathered it? Were we tired or in an altered state of mind that would affect our clarity of thought? In short, is the source of the evidence (and thus the evidence itself) a reliable basis for justified belief? Finally we must evaluate it in light of our already justified beliefs. Does it fit in with what we have already determined to be truth? And since we are pursuing truth, should we find that ourselves convinced that our new belief is more true than previously held ones, we must revaluate both. This is not a process that can be rushed. Nor is it something that we will ever complete, but that is the beauty of it. Our theological and philosophical systems are always developing. When they cease to do so, we must quickly repent, for we have become unteachable.
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