Knowledge and Faith ...

Tuesday, Sept 1, 2020. What do we know about ourselves? What is our life? How are you feeling this morning, and how are you approaching this day? These things are linked. When you think that life is meaningless, you will act differently than if you think life is full of meaning and purpose and joy!

Humans are fascinating beings. We have our goals, our environment, the people we love and those which cause trouble for our life. We are trying to earn our living. At the same time, humans look beyond the direct horizon of their life. We look to see beyond, in time, space, community and relationships!

Our World …

Humans explore their world. WE explore our world. Here, we need community. We need the search and insight of all others. When some archaeologist finds some artefacts, that can have meaning for many others. When he uses some method to date the artefact, it has been invented by others, based on insight by others. So it is true, our knowledge today, and the image we have of ourselves, is coming from many others, who put their tiny little step in!

At the same time, our view of this world is not fixed. It is evolving, developing, changing. We gain more insight into natural processes. We shape our idea of human community. Humans seem to be hundreds of thousands of years old - at least if we judge bones which resemble our modern human bones. At the same time, we know that recorded history started about 3500 BCE. The first larger human cultures between 3000 and 1500 BC started to develop writing, and in the second millenium BC the biblical books started to evolve, with king David living arount 1000 BC, until the Old Testament was put together in todays form about 500-300 BCE.

When we want to put our life into perspective, it is good to use all the tools, which humans have devleped, and which we call science. They are part of our quest, our search, what humanity might be. They are one layer of tools to answer the question, who we are, and where we are going!

and our Faith …

The universe is massive - nearly beyond our comprehension. The number of light years to reach remote galaxies seem to be so large that we cannot really understand the numbers we are using. What does billions or trillions of light-years mean? At the same time, the meaning of our life is placed onto the surface of a blue planet. Here, within a layer of 70 km of air, which allows us to breath and to live in a small part of it - until about 5-7 km height, our life takes place. Here, we have all the races, the states, the towns and houses. Here, we have humans acting, with their particular ethical ideas. We see dictatorships, wars and civilized actions alike. We see love and dedication and truth and hard work. We see music and dance, paintings and sculpture. We see humans exploring their emotions, their ideas, their concepts, their struggle.

The bible talks about God, the creator, the eternal father. It talks about Jesus, who is God coming to mankind, a human, as the others, but still God, the one who spans the universe! How could you comprehend such things. These are large ideas, nearly unbelievable ideas, but completely adequate when you look at the whole span of the universe - up to our need to have an eternal father. Humans need God. Without him we are completely lost in space, both physically as well as mentally and emotionally.

God is not dead. On the contrary. He is the living God, as he has always be. There is meaning and purpose, not only in our life, but in the whole of creation. And there is someone to talk to, to live with, to approach and to find. When we search him, we will realize that he wanted us to from the very beginning. What a story! (Roland Potthast)