The Act of Faith: Your Choice Alone
This post is actually a dove-tailing of two separate and independent posts - but the more I thought about them, the more I realized they fit together quite well, and could be addressed at the same time.
The first is the story of a supernatural experience I had this last weekend; the second is a response to some comments posted below in response to yesterday's post ("Exaltation of the Holy Cross").
I was camping this weekend with my family and another family from our parish. Quite a good time, actually, except that we had some rather unfortunate (and obnoxious) neighbors in the camp site next to us.
We had rather an amusing time noticing how this family (what looked to be a mom, dad, two small kids, and two grandparents) came all the way out to the state park so that they could engage in all the same activities they would normally engage in at home: watching TV, staying inside the camper, playing video games, listening to the radio, etc.
They were awful to each other - lots of impatience and yelling. It made for stressful camping for us at times.
Anyway, Saturday night was our last night there. I stayed up late chatting with my friend from the parish, until finally our fire died out and was reduced to nothing but glowing coals. Time to go to bed.
Next door, the neighbors had been listening to their out-door stereo - some kind of football or baseball game, it sounded like. Just as I was drifting off to sleep, the game ended, and the indistinct monotone of the announcer's voice gave way to the radio station's regular programming: Classic Rock.
I was jarred from sleep. The driving bass, the screaming vocals, the pounding drums ... I was literally troubled in my spirit. I haven't really listened to that music in months, and I guess I've become really sensitive to it.
I looked out the tent - papa neighbor was just sitting out there on his patio, drinking his beer and mindlessly listening to the radio scream. No signs of going anywhere anytime soon.
So I started praying - nay, begging. I was begging my guardian angel to remedy the situation, in whatever way was necessary. You should have heard me, actually, I was quite pathetic ... "Please, Angel, please, please, pleeeeaase ... you know this music disturbs me, and I really need sleep if I'm going to be alert for Mass tomorrow ... please, please do something ... I know you have the actual ability, since God has given you angels power over nature's elements ... I don't care how you do it: interfere with the satellite reception, push the OFF button yourself, go tell that man's guardian angel to suggest to him that he go to bed, whatever - just please get that awful music shut off."
Nothing. No response.
"Alright ... if I must put up with this, then I unite this suffering to my Lord's Sacrifice, in reparation for my own sins, and for the salvation of sinners all over the world ... but please get that music shut off - it's really starting to unsettle my soul."
No response.
"Angel ... you know how weak my faith can be, and if I don't get any response from you at all here, that's really going to wreak havoc on my faith ... I know I shouldn't be so unstable, but I really am a child sometimes - I need reassurances ... please, please take care of this situation. Meanwhile, I continue to offer this suffering in union with Our Lord's Sacrifice."
This whole process went on for about 10-15 minutes - about 4 or 5 songs played through while I was busy begging my angel to have mercy.
Now, let me make one thing clear: I do not hear voices. Never have. Not audible ones, anyway. And yet, as anyone who has experienced this will tell you, somehow these angels do communicate their thoughts to you in a way that is rather clear. And I definitely received that communication from my angel right there, in my tent.
"Go pray the Rosary - ask the Queen of Angels - she gives me my orders."
So I did. I walked (stumbled - it was dark) to my car, got my Rosary, and headed back to the dark fire pit to start praying the Rosary.
It was quite amazing, actually - several things happened in succession:
1) When I sat down, the dead fire lit up - that is, a log that had been previously burning but had gone out 20 minutes beforehand suddenly caught fire again, providing both warmth and light
2) Before the end of the first decade, the neighbor not only got up and shut his radio off, he also went to bed and shut off his glaring porch light
3) When I finished saying the Rosary (now in thanksgiving more than for petition) - and not a moment before - the burning log went out again, leaving me in darkness as I was before
I walked back to my tent in a daze ... surprised, grateful, nearly giddy ...
Now, I've been meaning to tell you that story for several days. I'm a big believer in publishing God's works abroad (whether worked without mediation, or through the agency of His angels and saints), as a way of publicly giving honor both to Him and to His agents.
It just so happens that this story nicely coincides with some comments posted in response to my post from yesterday.
The jist of the comments is this: maybe St. Helena found the true cross of Christ, but probably not - what are the chances that someone found the True Cross some 300 years after the Crucifixion? How much less likely is it that they also found all three crosses, plus the instruments of torture, plus the crown of thorns, plus the nails, etc.?
A skeptic's doubt is always grounded in high probability and supported by the weight of scientific plausibility.
There is no event in history or in Scripture that cannot be legitimately approached from either of these two viewpoints: 1) there is a natural explanation for this; 2) God was behind this.
Put another way: we can either respond with supernatural faith, or we can respond with natural reason.
What are the chances that someone found the True Cross?
Terribly slim, I'd say. Practically impossible, in fact.
Skeptics aren't crazy, they're very rational. They have several good points. Their case is much easier to prove by empirical and verifiable evidence.
Really, the choice is yours to make - just as the choice was mine to make as to how I would view Saturday night's events.
How to interpret these events? Maybe it had nothing to do with my prayers or my Rosary at all - perhaps the more natural explanation is that I just stayed up long enough that eventually my neighbor shut his radio off on his own.
In other words, he shut it off at 12:30 a.m. - and he would have done that anyway, regardless of whether I'd stayed up praying or stayed up silently cursing him. Or would he have?
Maybe that log sat on those glowing coals for just long enough that it naturally caught fire again - and it was just coincidence that I happened to sit down right when it caught fire, and just coincidence that it went out again just as I was getting ready to leave.
Those are perfectly legitimate explanations. Nothing crazy about them. In fact, my explanations - that some supernatural being with wings was deeply involved - is more wacko than the natural explanation.
The only difference is in how I choose to view it. How I will respond to God's invitation.
Did St. Helena really find the True Cross? You'll never verify that on this side of heaven, I'm afraid. So how will you respond to this claim in the meantime?
For that matter, did Jesus really rise again from the dead?
Faith: We have the witness of the early Church that says He did.
Reason: If you accept that this witness is authentic.
Faith: We have it attested to in ancient documents.
Reason: Presuming those documents aren't forgery.
Faith: That witness is verified by the fact that it's been preserved for 2,000 years.
Reason: Which proves nothing - people can be hoodwinked, gullible, kept in the dark, lied to. People sometimes want to be fooled, and power-hungry institutions are more than happy to construct a comfortable system around that need - ever seen The Matrix? Ever read The DaVinci Code?
You see? You will apply the same criteria to the question of the Finding of the Holy Cross as you will to the Resurrection - the questions don't change, the difficulties are no different. The only thing that changes is your choice to either give the assent of faith or to withold that assent.
The old saying, "You only believe that because you want to believe it," isn't far from the truth. Perhaps more accurate would be the saying, "I believe this because I choose to believe it."
Obviously, you want to make your choices of faith based on the available evidence and reasonable fact - I don't believe God is really a 4,000-foot-tall pigeon, because there is no evidence to support such a view.
But make no mistake: evidence only brings you to the threshold of faith. It suggests plausibility and probability to you, as far as it can. But to cross that threshold, ultimately, you - pardon the obvious pun and cliche - make a "leap of faith." You cross that threshold only by a deliberate act of the will. You go from "I think this might be true" to "I choose to believe that this is, without question, true."
And you make that leap only after leaving the evidence behind - because, again, the evidence can only take you so far before it fails. I don't care how air-tight you think your defense of Christianity is, it can be cracked, broken down, and shown to be lacking complete factual evidence if it is subjected to purely human standards of plausibility. So you decide, at some point, that you have "enough" evidence, and you're going to cross that threshold leaving some questions unanswered.
So what do I think? I believe, in faith, that my guardian angel and Our Lady the Queen of Angels were fighting for me on Saturday night. I believe that the log in the firepit was lit by my angel - in fact, as the flame first jumped up, I immediately thought of this verse: "Of the angels he says, 'Who makes his angels winds, and his servants flames of fire.'" (Heb. 1:7) I believe that somehow my angel caused my neighbor to get up and go to bed, and I believe that God granted him that power for that task.
I believe, also in faith, that St. Helena found the True Cross, and that this really was a miracle of great proportions. It is precisely because such a "finding" is so improbable by human standards that the event is so miraculous and worthy of yearly veneration on the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross.
I am not at all surprised that this miracle was attended by the miraculous healing of a sick woman, in order to authenticate the finding of the True Cross. I believe in miracles, and I believe God sends such signs precisely to authenticate and seal our beliefs.
But let me turn the question around now: the proofs for the veracity of the finding of the Cross are weak; they are speculative; they are not conclusive ... but how strong is the contrary case?
That is, what proof do we have that this is not the True Cross? There is no proof, other than the rather speculative notion on the part of the skeptic that "this seems unlikely." The skeptic, then, has based his conclusion on nothing more than an intellectual inclination. At least the Catholic proponent puts forward a few slivers of actual wood as his proof; that is to say, his proof is at least tangible. The skeptic has nothing for his side except an opinion, which cannot - since it is not tangible - be subjected to any sort of scientific test.
What am I saying, then, in the end? Follow me closely: I'm saying the skeptic has actually exercised a greater faith (if we define "faith" as a choice to believe something, in spite of lacking evidence) in doubting the existence of the True Cross than the Catholic believer who accepts the existence of the Cross based on his available evidence.
On the other hand, the Catholic believer has exercised a more religious faith, because he has chosen to believe something rather fundamental: that God would not allow something so holy as the True Cross to be lost in antiquity; that God would care enough about the actual wood that bore the precious Body of His dearly beloved Son to make sure someone discovered it - to make sure that generations of believers would be able to give this consecrated wood the attention it deserves.
God is neither an egalitarian, nor a dualist. Egalitarianism says all things are equal - this building as well as that, this person as well as that, this object as well as that. God, on the other hand, chooses some things to be set apart from the others: this parish building apart from that dentist's office; this person who will give birth to the Messiah apart from this person who will lead the Communist Revolution; this piece of wood which will bear the Son of God apart from every other piece of wood in the world.
A dualist says that nature is nothing, that matter is evil; spirit is all that matters. To a dualist, the important thing about the Crucifixion is the fact that Jesus died to give us life; the actual material details - the wood of the cross, the nails, the thorns, that particular plot of dirt on which Our Lord died - are excess and may be discarded without injury.
The trouble is, the dualist projects his worldview back onto God: if I don't see the wood of the Cross as that important, surely God doesn't either. The difficulty is this: what if God does care about such trivial details? Believe me, if God cares about what happens to the piece of wood, then He will make sure someone finds it and treats it properly.
Well, but does He care about a stupid piece of wood?
Not just "a" piece of wood - the piece of wood.
And yes, He does care. Just like He cares about all matter - never forget that He used matter to accomplish our Redemption. A baby, flesh and blood, attached to a mother's umbilical cord, growing through a natural 9-month gestation period; a grown man who used things like cloth and mud and water and spit to work miracles; a piece of wood, whips, blood, sweat, thorns, and nails to offer up a perfectly holy sacrifice.
Oh well. It all comes to the same thing in the end: some people will make the deliberate choice to assent in faith, to believe the unbelievable; others will make the same act of faith, but in the reverse direction. They will choose, volitionally, deliberately, based on the same lack of evidence, to not believe certain things.
For those predisposed to faith, lack of evidence is no problem: we believe impossible things every day (the existence of angels, the existence of God, the miracles recorded in Scripture, the power of praying to an invisible being, etc.); for those who are otherwise predisposed, no amount of evidence, no matter how strong, will ever be enough to bring them to faith.
Lazarus rose from the dead - the Pharisees conspired to kill him again.
Jesus rose from the dead - the Pharisees concocted a story about His disciples stealing His dead body.
Two resurrections - two acts of the will to not believe.
I leave you with this:
"They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them ... If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead." (Luke 16:31)
**************************
Disclaimer: I am in no way suggesting that "Pfitz," who left the comments below re: The Finding of the Cross - and who is actually a friend of mine - is a Philistine Clod who lacks any trace of faith. His points, as I conceded, are valid. And believing or not believing that St. Helena found the Cross is far from a matter of Divinely-revealed dogma, the rejection of which places you among the damned goats and not among the redeemed sheep. There is not a necessary link between doubting the story of St. Helena and doubting the Resurrection itself - I linked those two accounts together merely to illustrate a point - that we readily overcome the obstacles to believing the latter, but hesitate at those very same obstacles when asked to believe the former. The question I am raising here is one of how we choose to approach the situations we face, the history we learn - we believe miracles happened throughout the Apostolic Age, but we suddenly become Rationalist Skeptics when it comes to miracles that purportedly took place from the years 100 AD - 2004 AD. I'm asking why? On what basis? On what evidence? Are we being consistent? What benefit or loss do we experience as a result of our choice to believe or not believe?
The first is the story of a supernatural experience I had this last weekend; the second is a response to some comments posted below in response to yesterday's post ("Exaltation of the Holy Cross").
I was camping this weekend with my family and another family from our parish. Quite a good time, actually, except that we had some rather unfortunate (and obnoxious) neighbors in the camp site next to us.
We had rather an amusing time noticing how this family (what looked to be a mom, dad, two small kids, and two grandparents) came all the way out to the state park so that they could engage in all the same activities they would normally engage in at home: watching TV, staying inside the camper, playing video games, listening to the radio, etc.
They were awful to each other - lots of impatience and yelling. It made for stressful camping for us at times.
Anyway, Saturday night was our last night there. I stayed up late chatting with my friend from the parish, until finally our fire died out and was reduced to nothing but glowing coals. Time to go to bed.
Next door, the neighbors had been listening to their out-door stereo - some kind of football or baseball game, it sounded like. Just as I was drifting off to sleep, the game ended, and the indistinct monotone of the announcer's voice gave way to the radio station's regular programming: Classic Rock.
I was jarred from sleep. The driving bass, the screaming vocals, the pounding drums ... I was literally troubled in my spirit. I haven't really listened to that music in months, and I guess I've become really sensitive to it.
I looked out the tent - papa neighbor was just sitting out there on his patio, drinking his beer and mindlessly listening to the radio scream. No signs of going anywhere anytime soon.
So I started praying - nay, begging. I was begging my guardian angel to remedy the situation, in whatever way was necessary. You should have heard me, actually, I was quite pathetic ... "Please, Angel, please, please, pleeeeaase ... you know this music disturbs me, and I really need sleep if I'm going to be alert for Mass tomorrow ... please, please do something ... I know you have the actual ability, since God has given you angels power over nature's elements ... I don't care how you do it: interfere with the satellite reception, push the OFF button yourself, go tell that man's guardian angel to suggest to him that he go to bed, whatever - just please get that awful music shut off."
Nothing. No response.
"Alright ... if I must put up with this, then I unite this suffering to my Lord's Sacrifice, in reparation for my own sins, and for the salvation of sinners all over the world ... but please get that music shut off - it's really starting to unsettle my soul."
No response.
"Angel ... you know how weak my faith can be, and if I don't get any response from you at all here, that's really going to wreak havoc on my faith ... I know I shouldn't be so unstable, but I really am a child sometimes - I need reassurances ... please, please take care of this situation. Meanwhile, I continue to offer this suffering in union with Our Lord's Sacrifice."
This whole process went on for about 10-15 minutes - about 4 or 5 songs played through while I was busy begging my angel to have mercy.
Now, let me make one thing clear: I do not hear voices. Never have. Not audible ones, anyway. And yet, as anyone who has experienced this will tell you, somehow these angels do communicate their thoughts to you in a way that is rather clear. And I definitely received that communication from my angel right there, in my tent.
"Go pray the Rosary - ask the Queen of Angels - she gives me my orders."
So I did. I walked (stumbled - it was dark) to my car, got my Rosary, and headed back to the dark fire pit to start praying the Rosary.
It was quite amazing, actually - several things happened in succession:
1) When I sat down, the dead fire lit up - that is, a log that had been previously burning but had gone out 20 minutes beforehand suddenly caught fire again, providing both warmth and light
2) Before the end of the first decade, the neighbor not only got up and shut his radio off, he also went to bed and shut off his glaring porch light
3) When I finished saying the Rosary (now in thanksgiving more than for petition) - and not a moment before - the burning log went out again, leaving me in darkness as I was before
I walked back to my tent in a daze ... surprised, grateful, nearly giddy ...
Now, I've been meaning to tell you that story for several days. I'm a big believer in publishing God's works abroad (whether worked without mediation, or through the agency of His angels and saints), as a way of publicly giving honor both to Him and to His agents.
It just so happens that this story nicely coincides with some comments posted in response to my post from yesterday.
The jist of the comments is this: maybe St. Helena found the true cross of Christ, but probably not - what are the chances that someone found the True Cross some 300 years after the Crucifixion? How much less likely is it that they also found all three crosses, plus the instruments of torture, plus the crown of thorns, plus the nails, etc.?
A skeptic's doubt is always grounded in high probability and supported by the weight of scientific plausibility.
There is no event in history or in Scripture that cannot be legitimately approached from either of these two viewpoints: 1) there is a natural explanation for this; 2) God was behind this.
Put another way: we can either respond with supernatural faith, or we can respond with natural reason.
What are the chances that someone found the True Cross?
Terribly slim, I'd say. Practically impossible, in fact.
Skeptics aren't crazy, they're very rational. They have several good points. Their case is much easier to prove by empirical and verifiable evidence.
Really, the choice is yours to make - just as the choice was mine to make as to how I would view Saturday night's events.
How to interpret these events? Maybe it had nothing to do with my prayers or my Rosary at all - perhaps the more natural explanation is that I just stayed up long enough that eventually my neighbor shut his radio off on his own.
In other words, he shut it off at 12:30 a.m. - and he would have done that anyway, regardless of whether I'd stayed up praying or stayed up silently cursing him. Or would he have?
Maybe that log sat on those glowing coals for just long enough that it naturally caught fire again - and it was just coincidence that I happened to sit down right when it caught fire, and just coincidence that it went out again just as I was getting ready to leave.
Those are perfectly legitimate explanations. Nothing crazy about them. In fact, my explanations - that some supernatural being with wings was deeply involved - is more wacko than the natural explanation.
The only difference is in how I choose to view it. How I will respond to God's invitation.
Did St. Helena really find the True Cross? You'll never verify that on this side of heaven, I'm afraid. So how will you respond to this claim in the meantime?
For that matter, did Jesus really rise again from the dead?
Faith: We have the witness of the early Church that says He did.
Reason: If you accept that this witness is authentic.
Faith: We have it attested to in ancient documents.
Reason: Presuming those documents aren't forgery.
Faith: That witness is verified by the fact that it's been preserved for 2,000 years.
Reason: Which proves nothing - people can be hoodwinked, gullible, kept in the dark, lied to. People sometimes want to be fooled, and power-hungry institutions are more than happy to construct a comfortable system around that need - ever seen The Matrix? Ever read The DaVinci Code?
You see? You will apply the same criteria to the question of the Finding of the Holy Cross as you will to the Resurrection - the questions don't change, the difficulties are no different. The only thing that changes is your choice to either give the assent of faith or to withold that assent.
The old saying, "You only believe that because you want to believe it," isn't far from the truth. Perhaps more accurate would be the saying, "I believe this because I choose to believe it."
Obviously, you want to make your choices of faith based on the available evidence and reasonable fact - I don't believe God is really a 4,000-foot-tall pigeon, because there is no evidence to support such a view.
But make no mistake: evidence only brings you to the threshold of faith. It suggests plausibility and probability to you, as far as it can. But to cross that threshold, ultimately, you - pardon the obvious pun and cliche - make a "leap of faith." You cross that threshold only by a deliberate act of the will. You go from "I think this might be true" to "I choose to believe that this is, without question, true."
And you make that leap only after leaving the evidence behind - because, again, the evidence can only take you so far before it fails. I don't care how air-tight you think your defense of Christianity is, it can be cracked, broken down, and shown to be lacking complete factual evidence if it is subjected to purely human standards of plausibility. So you decide, at some point, that you have "enough" evidence, and you're going to cross that threshold leaving some questions unanswered.
So what do I think? I believe, in faith, that my guardian angel and Our Lady the Queen of Angels were fighting for me on Saturday night. I believe that the log in the firepit was lit by my angel - in fact, as the flame first jumped up, I immediately thought of this verse: "Of the angels he says, 'Who makes his angels winds, and his servants flames of fire.'" (Heb. 1:7) I believe that somehow my angel caused my neighbor to get up and go to bed, and I believe that God granted him that power for that task.
I believe, also in faith, that St. Helena found the True Cross, and that this really was a miracle of great proportions. It is precisely because such a "finding" is so improbable by human standards that the event is so miraculous and worthy of yearly veneration on the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross.
I am not at all surprised that this miracle was attended by the miraculous healing of a sick woman, in order to authenticate the finding of the True Cross. I believe in miracles, and I believe God sends such signs precisely to authenticate and seal our beliefs.
But let me turn the question around now: the proofs for the veracity of the finding of the Cross are weak; they are speculative; they are not conclusive ... but how strong is the contrary case?
That is, what proof do we have that this is not the True Cross? There is no proof, other than the rather speculative notion on the part of the skeptic that "this seems unlikely." The skeptic, then, has based his conclusion on nothing more than an intellectual inclination. At least the Catholic proponent puts forward a few slivers of actual wood as his proof; that is to say, his proof is at least tangible. The skeptic has nothing for his side except an opinion, which cannot - since it is not tangible - be subjected to any sort of scientific test.
What am I saying, then, in the end? Follow me closely: I'm saying the skeptic has actually exercised a greater faith (if we define "faith" as a choice to believe something, in spite of lacking evidence) in doubting the existence of the True Cross than the Catholic believer who accepts the existence of the Cross based on his available evidence.
On the other hand, the Catholic believer has exercised a more religious faith, because he has chosen to believe something rather fundamental: that God would not allow something so holy as the True Cross to be lost in antiquity; that God would care enough about the actual wood that bore the precious Body of His dearly beloved Son to make sure someone discovered it - to make sure that generations of believers would be able to give this consecrated wood the attention it deserves.
God is neither an egalitarian, nor a dualist. Egalitarianism says all things are equal - this building as well as that, this person as well as that, this object as well as that. God, on the other hand, chooses some things to be set apart from the others: this parish building apart from that dentist's office; this person who will give birth to the Messiah apart from this person who will lead the Communist Revolution; this piece of wood which will bear the Son of God apart from every other piece of wood in the world.
A dualist says that nature is nothing, that matter is evil; spirit is all that matters. To a dualist, the important thing about the Crucifixion is the fact that Jesus died to give us life; the actual material details - the wood of the cross, the nails, the thorns, that particular plot of dirt on which Our Lord died - are excess and may be discarded without injury.
The trouble is, the dualist projects his worldview back onto God: if I don't see the wood of the Cross as that important, surely God doesn't either. The difficulty is this: what if God does care about such trivial details? Believe me, if God cares about what happens to the piece of wood, then He will make sure someone finds it and treats it properly.
Well, but does He care about a stupid piece of wood?
Not just "a" piece of wood - the piece of wood.
And yes, He does care. Just like He cares about all matter - never forget that He used matter to accomplish our Redemption. A baby, flesh and blood, attached to a mother's umbilical cord, growing through a natural 9-month gestation period; a grown man who used things like cloth and mud and water and spit to work miracles; a piece of wood, whips, blood, sweat, thorns, and nails to offer up a perfectly holy sacrifice.
Oh well. It all comes to the same thing in the end: some people will make the deliberate choice to assent in faith, to believe the unbelievable; others will make the same act of faith, but in the reverse direction. They will choose, volitionally, deliberately, based on the same lack of evidence, to not believe certain things.
For those predisposed to faith, lack of evidence is no problem: we believe impossible things every day (the existence of angels, the existence of God, the miracles recorded in Scripture, the power of praying to an invisible being, etc.); for those who are otherwise predisposed, no amount of evidence, no matter how strong, will ever be enough to bring them to faith.
Lazarus rose from the dead - the Pharisees conspired to kill him again.
Jesus rose from the dead - the Pharisees concocted a story about His disciples stealing His dead body.
Two resurrections - two acts of the will to not believe.
I leave you with this:
"They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them ... If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead." (Luke 16:31)
**************************
Disclaimer: I am in no way suggesting that "Pfitz," who left the comments below re: The Finding of the Cross - and who is actually a friend of mine - is a Philistine Clod who lacks any trace of faith. His points, as I conceded, are valid. And believing or not believing that St. Helena found the Cross is far from a matter of Divinely-revealed dogma, the rejection of which places you among the damned goats and not among the redeemed sheep. There is not a necessary link between doubting the story of St. Helena and doubting the Resurrection itself - I linked those two accounts together merely to illustrate a point - that we readily overcome the obstacles to believing the latter, but hesitate at those very same obstacles when asked to believe the former. The question I am raising here is one of how we choose to approach the situations we face, the history we learn - we believe miracles happened throughout the Apostolic Age, but we suddenly become Rationalist Skeptics when it comes to miracles that purportedly took place from the years 100 AD - 2004 AD. I'm asking why? On what basis? On what evidence? Are we being consistent? What benefit or loss do we experience as a result of our choice to believe or not believe?
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