Tuesday 17 June 2014

How can you find faith? How can this faith grow into certainty?

Transcribed and edited/expanded from the question time following a lecture by William Arkle given on March 16th 1992 to a group in Yeovil

From about 1:30 at:

https://www.wessexresearchgroup.org/audio-lecture-archive-page-4-wessex-research-group.html


The secret is to have faith in the quality, the feeling, the beauty of this Great Person up there. 

And once you have grasped that with your faith, then you will start to understand within yourself the sort of thing that person would be trying to give to you; which is the greatest thing that He can possibly give you. 

You have something in you which can give you exactly that essential faith. And that something is a little spark of God's own divine flame. 


It is there. 

To understand that God's own divine flame is there in you, is the most vital component of what you need to know about this process of mortal life; because once you can read that inner spark of God for yourself, then you can get all the necessary answers for yourself: and then your faith grows into certainty



**

Note added:

I believe this is a vital teaching for many modern Christians - that we have something divine (a spark) in each of us, something of God; that we can learn to 'read' that inner spark and to feel the validity of its guidance; and that this inner divinity and our responsiveness to its truth is the basis of anything we may hope for.

Mainstream Christians often neglect, or even deny, the divinity within Man; and downplay the Scriptural teachings on our destiny (should we accept it) to become Sons of God. These scriptural teachings are neglected, denied and downplayed because of fear that people will misunderstand this; that the idea of inner divinity will lead to pride and rejection of the need for the salvation of Christ, that it may prevent repentance of sin. 

These are, of course, real risks or possibilities - but there is no risk-free route through life. And it is just plain factually true that we have aspects of God in us, or else we could not be saved, we could not choose salvation, we could not become Sons of God. 

Modern people crave certainty, and this craving is stimulated and then used against them by prevalent secular Leftism - but misdirected to exclude Christianity and to lead people down into nihilism and hope-less-ness. 

But certainly is available (and, with it, hope) once it is understood that certainty is inner; certainty is subjective (my certainty is not your certainty - my certainty is not communicable to you, nor is it intended to be communicable - certainty is something each must find for himself); and when it is recognized that certainty is not to be found anywhere in the world but instead it dwells in the heart and therefore must be sought in the heart - and indeed will be found in the heart.


1 comment:

Imnobody said...

I struggled with this issue for decades, and I want to share how I solved it, just in case it is useful for somebody else.

For me, it was useless to approach this problem in an intellectual manner. Yes, there is a lot of evidence about the existence of God and the resurrection of Christ, but this evidence is not 100% conclusive.

When you have been brainwashed with materialist worldview for all your life and you have been taught doubt once and again, it is difficult to solve this issue. Doubt is like quicksand. It is difficult to get out of it.

I solved it by taking a gamble (Pascal's Wager). I said to myself: "I am going to behave as if God existed, for some months and see what happens".

So I prayed and I went to the religious activities of a Christian community (I was raised Catholic so this included Mass, Prayer Group, Assemblies).

I prayed a lot about having faith. I read the Bible and prayed. The book of Psalms is a good starting point from people like me that have trouble with prayer.

I also read a lot of apologetics. http://coldcasechristianity.com/ is a good place to start because it does not require philosophical training.

Answers and certainty ended up coming and I can't be happier.