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 The website of good reasons for why you can be a Christian

The following analogy illustrates how human knowledge of God and reality works ...

DEATH DRAWS NEAR

I am seventy feet up in the air hanging to a rock ledge by my finger tips. ..my fingers are sweating and loosing their grip...my muscles are fatigued and my legs uncontrollably shaking ... I frantically look for a new hold to move to but can find none ... this rock face cares not if I find a way up or fall to my death ...a bird chirps cheerfully nearby as if my agony is nothing, as if this was a normal day - as if this was not the moment to end all moments...as my  fragility of body, skill and will is pathetically displayed in my fall... But in that moment I choose not to fall but to leap ...

WHY ?

THE SYSTEM

Why ?   Around my waist was a harness made of wide nylon webbing which passes through a cinching buckle three times so as to assure no slip.  To it a rope was connected that has been tested to support a 2000 pound dynamic load and which is tied with a figure 8 knot.  The figure 8 is both an extremely secure knot and one with simple symmetry which gives visual feed back that the knot has been tied correctly.  At the top of the ledge the rope went through a system of carabineers and webbing attached to trees and rocks in duplicate so that if one system fails, a back up would be available.  The rope then looped down from the top past me to the man who was belaying me from the forest floor.  The rope passed through a belay device attached to his harness.  He was tied into a tree so that the dynamic load of me falling wouldn't cause him to leave the ground.   He was well trained in how to handle these situations.  We had checked and rechecked every part of the system several times.  And yet there, up at 70 feet, the rope suddenly looked a lot thinner than it had on the ground.  I felt a lot less sure of my knots and my skill.  What if I had done something wrong?  What had seemed like clear solid logic when it was theoretical began to unravel in the face of fear.  There was only one way to know and I was waging my life that I was right. 

DID I KNOW FOR ABSOLUTELY SURE THAT  IT WOULD WORK ?

Could I prove beyond any doubt, with 100% certainty that the system would hold me before I jumped ?

THE REALITY

No.  There could have been simultaneous micro fractures in a set of parallel carabineers that we could not see with the naked eye.  Someone could have secretly cut the rope between the time we examined it and used it.  My friend could have had a heart attack right when he was supposed to stop my fall.  We could have made a mistake.   The fact is, I was working with incomplete, approximate knowledge.  I did not know exactly how much weight my used rope could handle - just that it was a lot.  I did not know the full details of the manufacture of my gear but it appeared solid.  And the only way I would ever know for sure if the system would hold me was to make a leap and find out.  

Yes.  It was completely reasonable to believe that the system would save me.  In fact, any rational person familiar with the techniques involved would have concurred that it was reasonable for me to jump.  It only began to seem unreasonable when my person (and hence my safety) became part of the equation.               

SUMMARY

In an absolute sense, our knowledge will always be incomplete, but we can know enough in most areas of life that it is highly reasonable to decide to act.  The leap to action in itself provides a type knowledge not available to the disinterested contemplation of a third party observer.  These concepts are true in our relationships with others including our relationship with God.  In fact,  it is when we are faced with reasonable claims that God exists and suddenly realize the implications this has for how we live our life that we often begin to doubt our reason.   This analogy will apply to many areas of this website, most obviously the leap of faith described by Kierkegaard