I was raised in a Christian home. To some, that statement may not mean much. But when you believe that you are following God's Word, and make the life of the Gospel your life, it means everything. It means that you will walk the straight and narrow, never looking back.
The Bible talks of two paths, one that is wide, well worn, but leads to "destruction"; and one that is narrow, hard to find, leading to life. We believed in that scenario. In fact, if the Bible said it, we believed it to be truth. Yes, truth, in the form of the written word came from the mind of God to the minds of humans.
We believed that the earth was created in six days, that Noah built an Ark, and that a man named Jesus came to earth, lived and died, and rose from the dead to offer salvation and forgiveness to the cursed, human race.
And we believed that acceptance of these truths granted life eternal to the human soul.
But there are problems with the "truths" of the Bible. This led me to reexamine all of the claims of the Bible and to ultimately reject it as God's truth. While I believe that we may learn some truth from books like the Bible, I do not believe that God could reveal himself through such a human tool.
And there is another tool- a tool which even the Bible claims will reveal to the seeker the truth of God. It is Nature. In Paul's letter to the Roman church, he says that all we need to know of God is revealed in his creation. But Paul is wont to launch into hyperbole (if he even wrote that letter) after making such a simple statement.
If Paul stops at verse 20 of chapter 1, we have a beautiful statement that sums up what we can observe of God by the only means we can be sure has not and cannot be adulterated by human hand.
This is the truth of which Thomas Paine so eloquently speaks in his monumental work "The Age of Reason". This is the spirit of Deism, which holds that there is no other truth than that which we can observe in Nature. Deism holds that man is not obligated to heed the words of men in books, for they cannot be traced back to any god.
It is in the simplicity of Deism that we find the truth of God, for it boasts of no special revelation or knowledge. In fact, there is no book of Deism. There is no doctrine that must be believed with no proof.
How could a book, that contradicts the simple statement regarding nature, and teaches of things which are against nature, entrust to us any confidence in its teachings of spiritual things? Is that not what the Bible claims? Paul goes to great lengths to show the dichotomy between the natural man and the spiritual, yet contradicts his own claims regarding this very theme!
Deism has no contradictions, since there are no "set-in-stone" precepts on which to build an edifice of fanciful machinations. Instead, Deism teaches that life is the interdependent cycle of hardship and triumph, a battle to make the most of life's energy and to bring out the best in the human spirit.
Nature teaches that there is great potential and peril through all of life, and that it is the struggle amidst these two dynamics that show us the "why" of the life God has given. It cannot be found in a book, a church, or a lifestyle. It is, quite simply, implanted in all of us, as a part of this universe.
I came to realize, just as each one of us should, that a book of stories cannot impart life; life is what you have when you take your first breath. Life comes not from an unseen force, but from our parents, who brought us into this world.
The truth? It is inside of you. The truth is what you are as grow and learn and use the mind of reason that God gave you. Reason is the only gift you need to find God, because he is already there with you. God is there in his awesome work of creation. God is there in the tragedy and in the triumph. We don't need redemption from a curse, we need to take hold of the incredible power that is our own lives.
Want more? Please visit my website: www.faithjourney.yolasite.com or deism.com
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