In religious circles, the notion of faith has often been abused and twisted. For many, faith is believing that everything in Scripture should be interpreted as being literal and definitive. In other words, for these folks, everything that one would ever need to know for a successful and productive life is to be found in the Bible.
The problem with this kind of thinking, of course, is that it is inconsistent with Scripture, nature, and the human experience! Indeed, all of those things teach us that humans are hardwired to cogitate, ask questions, and explore their surroundings.
The Adam and Eve narrative in Genesis reveals a fundamental truth about humans that many people miss. The story portrays the progenitors of the human race as rejecting the opportunity to have everything handed to them on a silver platter. Instead of eating the fruit from the Tree of Life, they decided to eat the fruit from the tree which represented the KNOWLEDGE of good and evil. In other words, they rejected revelation in favor of figuring it all out for themselves. And, while they were punished for disobeying God's instructions, we are told that God respected their choice! Indeed, in all of his subsequent dealings with humans, the God of the Bible involved humans and worked through them to reveal and accomplish his will.
In the Judeo-Christian Scriptures, humans are portrayed as thinking, seeking, experimenting, exploring, and wrestling with God and life. Sarah devised a plan to produce offspring for her husband. Abraham questioned God about his plans to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. Jacob devised a plan to receive God's blessing, and we are informed that he even wrestled with God one evening - refusing to let go until God blessed him! The Israelites explored the Promised Land, questioned God's plans to give it to them, and devised their own plan for taking it by force. Over and over again, in the Hebrew Scriptures, the Israelites were instructed to seek God, meditate on the meaning and application of his laws, and to LEARN to fear/respect/be in awe of him. Job questioned why God had allowed so many bad things to happen to him.
Christ told his followers, "Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled," and to "seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness." In that same Gospel (Matthew), we are also informed that he told them to "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened." Moreover, he told his followers to "consider the lilies" - think about them. In the book of Acts, we read that the people of Berea were "more noble" than the folks of Thessalonica because they "searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so." The Apostle Paul told the saints at Rome that "the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead." In their epistles, both Paul and Peter alluded to the fact that a Christian's knowledge and understanding was expected to continue to develop throughout his/her lifetime on this planet. In the epistle to the Hebrews, it is noted that Christians should consider themselves to be strangers and pilgrims on the earth, and that they should be seekers of a heavenly country - a new world order.
Now, we've already noted how Scripture itself tells us that nature has much to teach us about God, his will, ourselves, and the world around us. However, the entire history of human experience on this planet demonstrates that it is part of our very nature as a species to question, experiment, explore, and learn. Moreover, all of our experiences in this regard teach us that the more we learn, the more we realize that there is so much more that we still don't understand! In other words, the quest for understanding is very human, and it is endless! Hence, whether we believe that we evolved, were created, or exist as a consequence of some combination of the two, the notion that humans are hardwired to enquire, experiment, and explore is inescapable! This is a fundamental reality and truth of human existence.
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