Believe it or not, my previous crisis of faith was actually very short-lived. A week I think. Everything went back to normal, growing in my relationship with Christ... or God? Now, if you're a to-the-core Trinitarian Christian, you won't understand why the previous sentence. But this actually snuck up on me out of nowhere, it seems. I had actually just posted the following on my Facebook page regarding why I believe in the Trinity:
Why I believe in the Christian God:
if God is beyond all human understanding,
if God is not merely "made in the image of man" (as many nonbelievers would claim),
if we cannot "see God and live" (see Exodus 33:20),
then it's too simplistic to think God is a mere being like us, only omnipotent and omnicient.
No, the mystery of the holy Trinity is mind boggling enough to tell me it's closer to the reality than any other interpretation of God.
My inability to understand is no measure of an idea's truth.
There's plenty I don't understand about the natural world, why should it be any different about the supernatural spiritual realm?
And what DO I understand about the Trinity?
That God transcends individuality and is Father AND Son AND Holy Spirit.
That for God to "be love" as so many unaffiliated people like to say, He must be a relationship, not an individual, for love is self-sacrificing and never focused on the self.
And just as Jesus said in John 15:13, "there is no greater love than to give up one's life for a friend", which He did.
The immortal God couldn't have given up His life for us had He not first been incarnated as one of us, voluntarily and temporarily limiting Himself for our sake.
THIS is why I am a Christian. Not based on blind faith or habit but based on sheer reasoning.
And yet, not more than a week later, I suddenly have an almost overwhelming sense of guilt over calling Jesus God. I think, "am I an idolater?" I wonder, "am I keeping to the First Commandment?" And interestingly, for the first time in my spiritual journey, I want to know the truth. This is huge, because it means that I assume the truth can be known. In the past, I've only looked for a good fit between my personal values and beliefs and those of various religions.
I find myself praying before reading Scriptures for the Lord to open the eyes of my heart and to allow me to get to know Him better. In my personal prayer time, I've talked to God directly, unencumbered by thoughts of what "the powers that be" would have me believe about how I ought to address my Maker.
I know that I most likely will not leave the Catholic church because I do not expect to find a church community that is any better of a match for me than the one I'm already comfortable and familiar with. Yet I still feel an urgency to figure out my beliefs for the sake of integrity when it comes to teaching "the faith" to my children.
Not too long ago, during a Bible lesson with my 5 year old, we were reviewing the meaning of the Sabbath and when I said that God created everything, my daughter said, "I thought Jesus created everything?" Now I was stumped. I know that we say that God the Father created everything "through" Jesus the Logos or Word, before His incarnation, but we also talk about Jesus being our salvation, and the first point in our family mission statement (yes, we have one!) is that "we aspire to be a Christ-centered family". To be honest, I'm actually quite confused by the whole thing.
I had the same issues with Catholic devotion to Mary. Once I left Paganism and had a layover in quasi-evangelical Protestantism, I no longer felt the same desire to honor Mary as I did when I actually ascribed a lot more meaning to her than was appropriate from a Catholic Christian standpoint. My spiritual director tried to help me past this. I went through the motions of a Marian consecration and everything. But sorry, no relationship with Mary has developed. I'm too busy trying to focus on following Jesus. And now, I'm at the same standstill.
The single most important commandment, arguably, is to love God. I need to know somewhat Who this God is in order to love Him. What if ascribing divinity or even Godhood itself to Jesus, even if He is the Messiah, is actually contrary to loving God by placing my entire spiritual focus on - at best, an incarnation, and at worst, a mere mortal? If Jesus is not God, I can love Jesus to the moon and back and I still won't be fulfilling the first commandment to love God. Of course, if Jesus is God, then indeed I am loving God by loving Jesus. But how to know which is true?
It would appear to me that something as fundamental as knowing Who God is shouldn't be shrouded in so much mystery. It should be blatantly obvious, at least if God expects everyone to actually come to know and love Him. If a person needs to read Scriptures, turn to a priest, keep track of various devotions and ordinances, in order to please God, then this automatically eliminates the majority of people on the planet, first of all, and second of all, creates havoc and chaos among those who know to do this but disagree on how! Yet we know God is not a God of confusion but of peace! At least that is my fundamental understanding.
I thought I found what I was looking for the other day when I started reading (again) about Christian Deism. It really resonated with me - the God of nature, available for everyone to experience directly just by observing nature and being still enough to feel Him resonate inside our hearts and minds. Christian Deists, as opposed to traditional deists, do believe God continues to be interested in our lives, and they do pray. They don't, however, expect miracles. One miracle in particular they don't believe in is the Resurrection of Jesus.
And this is where I had to stop. I realized that I do think I believe in His Resurrection. I also believe in His Real Presence in the Eucharist. Please note neither of these beliefs necessitates that I believe Jesus is God. God can do anything, including resurrect Jesus, and including allow Him to stay present to us in the form of Holy Communion. It would seem then that the easiest thing for me to do would be to just sit tight and keep quiet about my Arian heresy.
At the moment, I don't see another viable solution. I enjoy and understand and benefit from Catholic worship and community. I agree with the majority of Catholic social teaching. And I don't see any reasonable alternatives as far as church homes. Perhaps I just ease away from talking about the Trinity and focus on what I DO believe that IS in line with Catholic teaching, both for my own sake and that of my kids. We can still be a Christ-centered family, since His ethics and example are superb. We can still "want the atmosphere of our home to be built on the fruits of the holy spirit" (the third point of our family mission statement), although I think I may stop capitalizing both words, rather thinking of it (not "him") as the holy spirit of God.
Really, this is scupulosity in one direction, as opposed to in the typical direction... well, not really. Scupulosity is the extreme desire for virtuous decisions, and that's my motivation as well, so I guess this is an example of my scrupulously trying to adhere to the first commandment... This is quite an insightful eureka, actually, if I say so myself... let me go think on that some more!
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