Jude was a contender. He argued for defense of the Christian faith. He was willing to fight for what he believed. He was also rather sophisticated in the understanding of what people were like in what they do, and the attitude in which they functioned. One size does not fit all. Some persons were more cerebral, some more emotional, some more argumentative. Most were sincerely motivated in finding truth. The basic approach of Scripture is that the individual should be faithful to God, to self and society. His or her witness was to be communicated in the context of good will, but there would be occasions when the exchange might be abrasive and confrontational. It was in such contexts that some of the great works of Christendom have survived to our era. The exchanges of the Apostle Paul, of Augustine, of Luther, are instances in point. Most Christians are, and ought to be, gracious and humble witnesses, first through life character achieved in faith, and then in verbalizing faith specifics – as they are enabled.
Those specifics are rather straightforward, not designed to fit the preferences of formal argumentation rules, dominated largely by the Greco-Roman traditional methodology for the presentation of a case of logical construction. Methodology is strengthened in our era by advances of science and collections of credible evidence. The Christian message is primarily witness and experience, and only secondarily related to theory bound by natural evidence and logic. It belongs to human experience and cannot be adequately represented or contained within a mind system for earth-bound persons. Wise persons know that whether God exists or does not exist he can neither be proved nor disproved in nature’s terms, as existing or not existing. Such excuse would be true of anything that is not confined to substance creation as we know it. The boundaries of nature limit us. That does not leave a person destitute of forensic assistance, but the circumstances have changed, especially as relates to premises. We already know some things cannot be encapsulated within logic. How could I ever prove that I loved my wife and family?
Scripture represents that doubt is real, is forceful, is tenacious, and wins for a great many persons. Scripture deals sensitively with the issues. There is a minimum of what is necessary for honest belief in the provision of God for one’s acceptance in the hereafter. The call of faith is seen as a challenge so great that faith itself is partly carried by God for persons seeking him. Persons of biblical faith must be at work in discovering how faith may be born in them, how it may be strengthened and ultimately how it becomes a vital dimension with other senses in our lives. That means adjusting for contradictions that destroy faith as in materialism, pride of power, intellectual prowess, nature’s limited factors, and unacceptable conduct identified as sin. At the end the greatest loss in a person’s life would be that of Christian faith that wins immortality. Faith seems for many persons to be unsatisfactory for the purpose. The Christian response is: What else is proposed? Faith embraces God, and ultimate Hope (immortality). The existence of faith begs for an object of human/divine truth. Scripture asserts that persons can doubt in response to human uncertainties, but we can also believe with an effective God faith. Christians learn to doubt doubts. They believe. Believing in genuine faith does not remove doubt, but uses it as something of a factor for further investigation of faith, so to avoid the nonsense that may grow up in it. The follies of some naïve persons of faith may keep others from the faith because they have excuse for not probing further. We can make a servant of doubt. That takes some sophistication and education to manage, but the context is not too difficult for seekers. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020