Yeah, Well Prove It

“The virgin birth [of Christ] is such a beautiful thing, it just has to be true, whether it happened or not.”*

Curious to know how that statement strikes you.

I revel in its paradox. It is certain in its uncertainty. Willing to embrace mystery and contradiction without flinching.

It is the non-answer type of solution to a conflict between those who believe and those who don’t.

Personally, I believe wholeheartedly in the virgin birth. But laying that actual issue aside, what I love about this statement is how it ceases to argue logical facts in order to prove truth. Instead, it finds the very same Truth in an aesthetic way. It both scares and amazes me.

Modern Christianity has built its foundation solely on argumentative, logical, apologetic proofs and must shudder at a statement like the one we opened with. But there is another way to that same Truth.

It’s the Truth I hear in masterfully crafted music, art, narrative, and nature. Truth that is more felt than known. Experienced, not espoused. Ethereal and subjective, it calls deeply to some while making others scoff.

Maybe you’re a scoffer. But I say there is a mystery to Truth that logic can never touch, test, argue, or prove.

I like it that way. Sure, there’s a place for logic, but that’s only half of it. I don’t want a God that I can completely understand, a future that I can entirely predict, a Truth that I can prove without faith.

Give me not just a truth I can know with my head, but also with my heart.

*Paraphrased from a story told by Phyllis Tickle on the Emergent Podcast, July 15, 2007.