In my day job I’m a computer programmer. I do it because I love it. This probably has a lot to do with the type of mind I have. Programmers are generally logical, scientific people who like to see the world in black and white. We like things to be clear and understandable, and when we don’t understand things we’re pretty good at breaking the problem down into smaller parts that we are able to understand. If we’re going to believe what someone’s telling us we’ll want them to give evidence or a logical argument for why it should be true.
Being a programmer is a large part of who I am, but it’s not all of it. I’m also a Christian.
A large part of being a Christian is believing in what we haven’t seen, and have little evidence for apart from our own experiences and the anecdotes of others. As I learn more about God through the Bible I see more and more areas of faith where we’re required to take two seemingly contradictory ideas and believe them both simultaneously. Even with this and all the personality traits I’ve listed above I am a Christian, and I know several other Christian programmers.
This raises the question of whether we leave all our logical thinking at the door of the church. In order for us to be Christians do we have to drop our logical thinking and desire for evidence?
I don’t think this is the case, I don’t think we do make a special exception for our faith. But perhaps more importantly I don’t want this to the case. I want a faith that stands up to scrutiny, I want a faith that I believe in with my whole heart and my whole mind. I’m going to try and get to it, and that’s partly what this blog is about.
It’s been done before by many people I’m sure. Much more intelligent and more learned people have written books and books on this topic. Something makes me think though that this is process I need to go through for myself, and that there’s great value in that.
Why do it in public in a blog? Because some of the things I’ll post about will be things that should be discussed and argued about. We get closer to the truth by being challenged and having others holding up a mirror to what we say.
There may be other things I post about, like software I’m working on, but the main focus of this blog will be in exploring my doubts, and I hope you’ll join me in that.
