Reflection for August 15

Belief in God

I haven't yet found the decisive new argument that will prove once and for all that there really is a God; but we do need to remember that the number of people who come into a living personal faith as a result of arguments is actually rather small. Many centuries ago, a great theologian and pastor, St. Ambrose, said that 'it did not suit God to save his people by arguments'....

[For a lot of folk belief in God] starts from a sense that we ‘believe in’, we trust some kinds of people. We have confidence in the way they live; the way they live is a way I want to live.... The world they inhabit is one I’d like to live in. Faith has a lot to do with the simple fact that there are trustworthy lives to be seen.

It puts quite a responsibility on believing people, of course (Rowan Williams, Tokens of Trust).