Attribute of God ..1

"Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the more often and steadily we reflect upon them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me. I do not seek or conjecture either of them as if they were veiled obscurities or extravagances beyond the horizon of my vision; I see them before me and connect them immediately with the consciousness of my existence." 
" 
— Immanuel Kant

  

As I reflect on why I came to believe in Jesus Christ as a teenager, I had to struggle not to superimpose with the sophistication of my present thinking as an adult. This will not capture the truthfulness of that crucial moment by giving reasons and justifications for my decision when they were not there at the point of belief. Although these I later found it to affirms that the experience was valid and resonates with the study of the Bible. In that crucial moment, what I needed to know to believe was there, and all that I knew at that moment need not be corrected.

Two significant strands (attribute of God) of thought impacted me.

The Holiness (as regards to moral purity) of God.  Rather than rejecting this to stamp a wanting to be fully autonomous, not having to contend with a moral requirement (that I failed), I find this truth to be a solace in an uncertain cruel world. This cruel world I find even within myself, and how I hurt others externally. I may not be the worst moral failure, but to me I am. As the Bible put it ‘all have sinned and fall short of the Glory of God”, I am that.

The second strand is “God is love”, and in His plan He provides a way for reconciliation, of forgiveness through the suffering, death and resurrection of the historical incarnation of God in Jesus Christ. It was not the theology of the event, but an act that define the extent of God’s love and charity to even me who am undeserving.  

I responded to this love in thankfulness.

Ps

Can I suggest you also consider this presentation by a Nobel Prize winner

Francis Collins
California Institute of Technology
5 February 2009

Why do we have a moral law within us? Francis Collins, renowned scientist, director of the National Institute of Health, and former director of the Human Genome Project, explains how this puzzle impacted his journey to faith. From The Veritas Forum at Caltech, 2009.

By going to www.veritas.org and create an account(free) for yourself.