APRIL 25
Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of
reason to believe. It is not enough that a thing be possible
for it to be believed.
—VOLTAIREIn contrast to the suggestion that faith is “believing what
you know ain’t so,” perhaps faith is believing what there’s
no way of knowing whether it’s so or not.
It’s not a matter of faith to believe that if you mix red with
blue you’ll get purple, or that one and one makes two.
In our extremity of wanting to know for sure that our loved
one...understood us, forgave us, is happily in Heaven,
watches over us, __ (we can each fill in our own), there is
no way to know.
What is at issue is whether God, the universe, is to be
trusted. That, too, is a matter of faith, and from it come all
manner of subsidiary questions.
A man well schooled in theology and life says that his
answer to these questions of afterlife is that whatever won-
derful scenario we can imagine for life after death, God’s
gifts will be infinitely greater, and surprising. Not a bad
conjecture when one is mulling things over. And over. And
over.
Since I cannot know, I will gamble on trust.