The Training Aspect of Tests and Trials
The training aspects of Tests and Trials is illustrated in 1 Peter 1:3-7:
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, 5 Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations: 7 That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ:
We need to be clear on what is being stress-tested in verses 5, 6, and 7: it is not us, but our faith (v. 7) that is being put under trial. And not just any faith, but faith that invokes the power of God that actually preserves us "unto salvation". What I mean to say is that it is not faith that preserves us or saves us, but the power of God that preserves us and saves us, just as it is the work of Jesus Christ, not our own works, that justifies us. It is by God's grace that the medium of exchange is faith and not works of the Law, making that salvation more widely available to men. What makes the knowledge that one learns from the tests and trials "know how" is that the proof of knowing is evidenced by an actual deployment of one's faith to the point of being "kept by the power of God". While there are many purposes of every test and trile, most of the time the only purpose of every true test/trial is to learn a deployable faith.
Faith in who or what? Here is Philippians 4:10-13:
10 But I rejoiced in the Lord greatly, that now at the last your care of me hath flourished again; wherein ye were also careful, but ye lacked opportunity. 11 Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. 12 I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. 13 I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.
The highlighted portions of this passage emphasize that there is an interactive learning and instruction process that Paul underwent that the Spirit taught, where he learned, through the trials and tests, how to be both abased and blessed, both full and hungry, and both rich and poor. At the end of the process, he could truthfully boast, in verse 13, "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me." The key point to realize is not that he learned "how to do it", but "how to do it through Christ which strengthens". Simply put, we must replace the phrase "if you want something done right, you gotta do it yourself" with "If you want something done right, you gotta do it with the Holy Spirit".
It is here that the metaphor of being in "God's Family" fails when we appeal to the human manifestation of it. In human families, the adults teach the children how to survive on their own without them. Why? Because the adults become unable to help their children when they become poor or, due to old age, become infirm or ill. And death, of course, puts a final stop to any aid parents can give to their children. These considerations do not apply to God.
Let me repeat that: These considerations do not apply to God.
While it is safe for me to assume that all those reading this essay believe in a living God, and regard the phrase "God is dead" as blasphemous, exactly how many of my readers live as if God is dead, or believe that He is teaching them and disciplining them as if He was going to eventually die? While the job of an earthly parent is not done until they hear the words "I can do this on my own." coming from their kids without panicking, at what point in time do we say to God, "I can do this on my own"? I do not recall any time when God gave a nearly impossible task to an Old Testament saint and not say "I will be with you!" Indeed, the Hebrews in the wilderness didn't break camp until they saw the Cloud that shielded them during the day and warmed them during the night start moving.
Since faith is involved, a closer examination and analysis of it here is necessary.
Can Faith be Grown?
Those of my readers who have read these essays chronologically, as they were written, rather than in the order that they are laid out, are aware that I had promised, in "The Symbiotic Refinery", to discuss how to grow one's faith in the section that was formerly called Stage 4 and is now called Manipulation. At the time, I believed faith and doubt to be cell-based, and thus subject to stimulated growth (of faith cells) and Spirit initiated destruction (of doubt cells). This proved incorrect, for are we to believe that the Devil, in the form of a serpent, created doubt cells within the brains of Adam and Eve all by himself? Hardly! There is a need for healthy doubt of claims whose truth or falsehood need to be established. Without doubt cells, we would be very gullible indeed, subject to every wind and wave of false doctrine! While the faith that a child demonstrates is very powerful indeed, being unalloyed by doubt, it does tend to make the child trust people that they should not! Adam and Eve's mistake was to doubt God Himself, rather than to doubt the claim that the serpent was making regarding God.
Another shortcoming of that essay was that, although the subject matter was definitely revolutionary, the treatment suffered from the presupposition retained from Traditional Christianity that, because faith was classified by Jesus as "great" or "small", that there necessarily is a process of human-driven growth that takes place that turns small faith into great faith. While I believe that the concept of "isopistic miracles" was helpful in that discussion, it now appears to be as faithful to reality as the concept of using water in pipes to explain the behavior of electricity. That is, it was a good second order pedagogical model that was useful within the context of a partially understood concept that extracted the most good out of it, but was not something that would fully take the place of understanding the concept as it truly is in reality. This is because the concept it was explaining (faith) was not truly faith but what was partially known about faith. The Ptolemaic model of the solar system had a good run because it could answer the questions asked of it, but could not take the place of a model closer to reality when the questions became more demanding and the observations more sophisticated and precise.
The authoritative answer on the question of whether faith can be grown is revealed by Jesus' "answer" to the disciples request in Luke 17:5-10:
5 And the apostles said unto the Lord, Increase our faith. 6 And the Lord said, If ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye might say unto this sycamine tree, Be thou plucked up by the root, and be thou planted in the sea; and it should obey you. 7 But which of you, having a servant plowing or feeding cattle, will say unto him by and by, when he is come from the field, Go and sit down to meat ? 8 And will not rather say unto him, Make ready wherewith I may sup, and gird thyself , and serve me, till I have eaten and drunken; and afterward thou shalt eat and drink ? 9 Doth he thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded him? I trow not. 10 So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do.
We, of course, know that in Matthew 17:20, Jesus ups the capability of that mustard seed of faith to moving a mountain (about 17.5 gigatons), a level of power that Paul reaffirms as possible in 1 Corinthians 13:2. I don't know about you, but it seems to me he did not answer the question in a way that could be turned into a process, weekend seminar course, or technique. Rather, he merely states how little is required to get some impressive results, then goes into a discussion of the master/servant relationship when it comes to who eats first after a hard day of work in the fields. That's an answer?
Like the parables he used, we must assume Jesus actually answered the question in his answer. Considering the importance of faith, we must also assume he answered it sincerely, with no intent to deceive, mislead, or obscure anyone in light of its great importance. Given that the audience was his disciples, to whom it was given to know the mysteries of the Kingdom, we also have to believe that his answer was the very best and plainest one he could give, with the intent that they were to really know how their faith would be increased. Judging from his answer, it would be safe to say that Jesus' response indicates that faith doesn't grow. In a rather oblique way, my discussion of isopistic miracles in "The Symbiotic Refinery" was correct, but in a backwards sense: some miracles are indeed isopistic to each other, but only because all miracles are isopistic to each other due to the fact that there is only one size of faith (i.e. it is true that "If all A are B, then some A are B."). The intent of introducing the concept of isopistic faith was to lead people to believe that certain miracles were possible to be worked because other miracles logically requiring the same amount of faith were actually being worked, so the only "error" in the exposition arose from a failure of boldness.
Given this kind of misunderstanding, it is worthwhile to go back to the foundations and ask "What IS faith?" In doing so, we should keep in mind verses 7 to 10 of the above passage.
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