"It is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search things out."I was reminded of it when I read this passage from Richard Rohr's book, Adam's Return:
"In general, what you see in the true sage is a balancing act between knowing and not knowing, between intelligence and not needing to be intelligent, between darkness and light...The wise man also knows that he does not know. This humble window of openness, this willingness to know that we do not know, has a much used and misused word to describe it: faith. And Jesus praises it even more than love." (pg. 128)True Christian faith is active, right? Then isn't part of that activity one's imagination and intellect? "Love the Lord your God with all of your heart, and with all of your soul, and with all of your mind, and with all of your strength."
Wisdom is not waving the magic wand of "belief" over all of the things you wish to be true and then calling it "faith." The Bible is not true because you "believe in it," God is not living and active because you believe in Him, and Jesus did not raise from the dead because you "believe in it." Either the Bible is true or not, either God is real or not, and either Jesus was who he said he was and did what he said he did or not. Belief statements are not always truth statements. The wise man finds the sacred ground between concrete truth and the wild, mysterious beauty of God.
Wisdom and faith are linked in that they are the mark of the sage: He seeks that which he does not know, understanding that what he seeks may be eternally concealed.
"Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." (Hebrews 11:1)
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