Faith-Principled Living

It’s not what you think…

I need to clarify what I mean when I used the word faith because as you may know there are unfortunately negative cultural connotations associated with the use of this term. I feel a need to rise above the cultural chaos surrounding the term in as clear and distinctively a voice as I can. And, while I’m at it, I invite you to respond to my thoughts about it.

Here we go…

Rather than discuss what faith is not, I think it’s more valuable to focus on what it is as I understand and live it. Faith and belief are two sides of the same coin, so to discuss one invariably leads right into discussion of the other. To believe is to actively aspire for a level of truth and happiness that is transcendent in nature.

Transcendence is essential to faith and believing. I believe it’s vital to living a high quality life. Without the ability to transcend we remain limited or even trapped by the unavoidable  mental restraints of the mind—as some, like Dinesh D’Souza says in his brilliant explanation of the reasonableness of faith in his book, What’s So Great About Christianity. Transcendence gives us a choice between believing or remaining naturally limited by the capacity of our mind.

In my desire to live the fullest life possible I choose to believe. I choose to engage life through the power of faith-which transcends the limitations of my senses, while at the same time enriching the capacity of my senses so that I experience the tangible and intangible realities of life–some of which are unveiled in the natural world in which I live.

I don’t know anyone who understands the transcendental nature of life better than Robert J. Spitzer, S.J., PhD, co-founder and Chairman of the Board of Healing the Culture, and President of Gonzaga University. Dr. Spitzer has spoken to thousands of audiences, and has done ethics consulting for over 300 organizations, including Boeing, Caterpillar, Toyota, Costco, the British Prime Minister’s Cabinet, the leadership of Costa Rica, Protestant and Catholic leadership in Northern Ireland, and the Orthodox Church in Russia.

This is a man worth listening to. And, here’s what he says about the loss of intangibles in the culture today:

We seem to think anything that is not visible, tangible, or perceivable through a microscope or telescope is less than real; sometimes we even think it’s unreal.

The danger in rejecting intangibles is that we begin to devalue such things as love, beauty, truth, being, and goodness—all of which are intangibles. The point I’m making here is that life is richer because of both tangible and intangible realities.

Faith, is one of those marvelous intangibles. It allows us to experience truth and happiness at a level not possible in created things, but rather in what is uncreated. There is only one that is truly uncreated and that one is none other than Creator. The one who simply and profoundly is. Faith allows me to personally adhere to God. It allows me to transcend the limitations of my mind in order to entrust myself to the Creator that I may know, love, and serve him.

In essence, a faith-principled life is one centered around this intimate and necessary bond with the Creator—striving to render to God what is rightfully his as my Creator. From this fundamental commitment flows the basis of my moral life, and the principles that I’m governed by.

In short, a faith-principled lifestyle is a life guided by a firm belief in the profound love and providential care of God which fully expresses and reveals itself in the tangible and intangible realities of life.