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| Plaza Across from The Capitol Theatre - Salt Lake City Utah |
Where Faith is Required
Why does faith play such an important role in God’s plan for us? I’ve often speculated how differently I might conduct myself had I the memories of my previous probation still intact. It certainly would be easier to operate in a state of knowing but that’s not God’s end goal.
He isn’t looking for well trained creations; beings properly schooled in the correct assumptions and behaviors. We are the inheritors of a multiverse more fantastic and wonderful than our hopes, dreams, and aspirations could ever dare aspire to. As such heirs, God needs to provide us an environment where we can exercise the profound and lasting changes that true learning and understanding bring... free from the complications of expectation and desire such knowledge would impart.
In such a faith based existence, how do spiritual manifestations play a part? The moment we see God, an angel, a loved one since departed, wouldn’t that negate faith? How about feeling or sensing their presence? Might that be ok? Well, if faith is a required part of God’s plan, I would have to say, “no.” That would be knowledge. Knowing something to be true is not the same as believing. It’s either faith or knowledge but never both.
In addition to faith, I truly believe in a cyclical process of life and learning. Just as my presence hasn’t been requested or required in the pre-existence while I’ve been alive, I struggle to comprehend a need for those who have died to return here either to provide comfort or bare witness. Such things would deny me my free agency by robing me of faith and replacing it with knowledge. In this context, angels, demons and all manner of spiritual specters, ghosts or what have you, have no place in my paradigm.
The universe is a pretty complicated place. The more we learn about it, the more ridiculously complex it becomes. We passed the point where our limited senses could experience all we know a very long time ago. Additional dimensions, particles of matter, periods of time all outside our perceivable universe are now known to exist. Our intellect has evolved beyond a “seeing is believing” universe.
I believe some of those who claim to have been witness to the supernatural. That is to say, I believe they believe it to be true. However, due to the faith requirement and semblance of cyclical order evident in our existence, I do not believe such things actual happen... at least not the way those experiencing them think.
We live and operate in a physical world where much of what happens transpires beyond our threshold of perception. The dimensions of time and space, everything we can experience, are just the mountaintops of what’s really going on. Every so often the mists clear just enough that we almost become aware of the plains and valleys far below. In attempting to make sense of the inconceivable, our minds develop constructs influenced by our passions and experience that are more understandable to us by creatively filling in the perception gaps. As strange as this might seem, we’re all very adept at doing it. In fact, the brain does it all the time.
My maternal grandmother suffered from macular degeneration. Over time she developed blind spots in her vision. Instead of seeing black blotches everywhere, she reported that she would often see the background of a scene just fine. It was only when something was moving across it in the foreground did she notice something odd... as an object moved into her blind spot, it would wink out as if invisible and then suddenly appear again when it exited.
And it’s not only vision. We are capable of this with all our other senses. Touch, smell, and hearing are equally manipulated. Even logic is aided in this manner. Instead of crunching through mountains of data each and every time we are presented with a particular situation, we use past personal experience, our current emotional state, and our immediate desires and expectations to devise short cuts in assessing a circumstance. It’s a natural and beneficial result of intellectual evolution.
It is my firm belief spiritual manifestations are a result of what I might call assumptive sensory stereotyping where our emotional state and the uneasy near realization of things just beyond our comprehension collide. In a life where faith is required, angels and demons cannot be allowed access and there is strict separations between realms.
This is not to say there is no value or meaning in such experiences because they are fueled by deep seated needs and desires. As personal scripture, revelation, dreams, or visions, they are of allegorical importance whose meaning must be explored and understood.
“The ability to qualify for, receive, and act on personal revelation
is the single most important skill that can be acquired in this life.”
~Julie B. Beck
