19 Feb '14 08:17>
"The act of questioning is the point..."
".... And so on and so forth. Augustine is merciless with the text, probing it, comparing it against what we know of the world, searching for the deeper meaning, drawing on the science of the day to understand what it could all possibly mean. Sometimes he arrives at a settled answer, sometimes not. However, the act of faith, the act of the Christian, is taking place in the mere encounter with the scripture as he tries better understand the word of God.
This is what atheists always fail to understand, and they will never understand it as long as they remain mired in a materialistic mindset: in matters of faith, the questions are the point. The book of Job, for example, is a giant howl of outrage that, in the final analysis, is little more than a litany of questions from Job, his friends, and God. Job’s question–”Seriously, God, why me?”–is never answered directly (it’s answered with … more questions!), but he goes away satisfied. It is a riddle with no answer, but the answer becomes unimportant, because in the process of trying to understand with our limited human capacity, we find enlightenment. The term Atheist only answers what someone doesn’t believe in not what the person does believe in.
Perhaps because I was a Platonist before I returned to the Church, this never bothered me at all. I understand that the role of the question is central because it is active: it is the way people encounter each other and form a true relationship that can lead to deeper understanding. The act of questioning is the point. That’s because it’s not an act of raw data mining, stripping the shell from the world in order to get to the nut of truth. It’s because we’re humans, and exist only in relation to one another and to our world and our God. Relation is key. Relationships are questions we ask with every action we take and every decision me make. So is faith."
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/godandthemachine/2012/08/st-augustine-asking-the-hard-questions-atheists-dont-ask/
".... And so on and so forth. Augustine is merciless with the text, probing it, comparing it against what we know of the world, searching for the deeper meaning, drawing on the science of the day to understand what it could all possibly mean. Sometimes he arrives at a settled answer, sometimes not. However, the act of faith, the act of the Christian, is taking place in the mere encounter with the scripture as he tries better understand the word of God.
This is what atheists always fail to understand, and they will never understand it as long as they remain mired in a materialistic mindset: in matters of faith, the questions are the point. The book of Job, for example, is a giant howl of outrage that, in the final analysis, is little more than a litany of questions from Job, his friends, and God. Job’s question–”Seriously, God, why me?”–is never answered directly (it’s answered with … more questions!), but he goes away satisfied. It is a riddle with no answer, but the answer becomes unimportant, because in the process of trying to understand with our limited human capacity, we find enlightenment. The term Atheist only answers what someone doesn’t believe in not what the person does believe in.
Perhaps because I was a Platonist before I returned to the Church, this never bothered me at all. I understand that the role of the question is central because it is active: it is the way people encounter each other and form a true relationship that can lead to deeper understanding. The act of questioning is the point. That’s because it’s not an act of raw data mining, stripping the shell from the world in order to get to the nut of truth. It’s because we’re humans, and exist only in relation to one another and to our world and our God. Relation is key. Relationships are questions we ask with every action we take and every decision me make. So is faith."
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/godandthemachine/2012/08/st-augustine-asking-the-hard-questions-atheists-dont-ask/