Matthew 13

"But your eyes are blessed because they do see, and your ears are blessed because they do hear!" (Matthew 13:16)

It is by the grace of God that we hear anything from Him at all. It amazes me that I can hear the words of Scripture and believe them to be true. Many hear and reject it. They desire deductive arguments for something which can never be proved with those types of premises and inferences. Christianity, though, is not without its "proofs." However, they are inductive in nature, rather than straight forward and deductive... like a math problem.

Coming to Christ I was convinced by the weight of inferential evidence which accumulated by INDUCTIVE reasoning, not deductive rationale (though I could never have so articulated it at that moment in life!).

Inductive arguments are made all day, every day, by everyone. It is simply an argument from probability. I take a step because I believe the ground ahead will support me. I drive my car to work because I believe strongly enough that it is capable and safe enough. I buy my lunch in the cafeteria when I believe the cost-benefit analysis to be in my favor. If I did not believe the probabilities for these actions were sufficient, I would choose otherwise! (Lately, the car has been giving me pause to consider!)

So for me, think of it this way. One inductive reason for God may not have been enough, but as more and more probability was added by, let's say, archaeology, or historical attestation, or worldly observation, and others, the weight of Christianity became quite a force to be considered with legitimacy.

Yet, for so many nonbelievers, though they apply different standards to every other decision of every day, when it comes to Christianity, they place an undue burden of proof upon Christianity to prove God and Christ's claims; that listening, they never understand and looking, they never perceive. It is a result of the fall that man has become so skeptical and irrational when it comes to theism's claim of the existence of God and the truth of His Son's gospel.

And yet in the end, it takes faith, no matter how you slice it. It is a step of faith (one which may be deeply based upon personal inference)that we come to Christ. But this faith is NO different than those who make inferences about the validity of naturalism. No worldview can prove itself definitely. All take a measure of faith (though I would certainly argue that, all but Christianity, have logical or practical fallacies inherent within them... making them even more faith-needy).

Yet by God's grace, my eyes are open and my ears tuned. One question I must still aways ask of myself is, "How far open and how well attuned?"; a question worth probing, especially if we believe the Scriptures to be our sole authority for faith and practice! But for now, Christ calls me blessed. And boy, am I happy to be that!