#it comes back to a false certainty that I got from a former pastor

[queenlucythevaliant]

So much of Christian faith is about sitting with tensions. Here's one:

God wants our minds and He created our ability to reason in His own image. He created through discoverable means. He inspires us towards science, philosophy, archeology, math. He wants our questions. He wants us to search Him out and to keep finding Him in creation, in logic, in study. If our faith is just based on dogma, it will be a rigid, fragile thing. We ought to be convinced of what we believe.

And yet you can't logic your way to God. You aren't going to be able to prove His existence scientifically, philosophically, archeologically, or mathematically. If you try, you'll either talk yourself out of faith or give yourself false certainty. If you try too fervently, there's a not-insignificant chance you'll basically end up overconfidently asserting an obviously bunk conspiracy theory, which is its own kind of dogma. In the end, faith is just faith. In the absence of proof, who do you say that Jesus is?

For me, at this stage of life, it all comes back to epistemology. God is the final Truth and the giver of all lesser truth. Study and reason can lead me closer to him, but at the end of the day I'm left with a binary choice. Is God who He says He is? Do I believe Him? Yes or no? And that choice is all just bold, unsubstantiated faith, baby.