That Truth Thing

So, I was talking to a friend about the two creation stories in Genesis, (See Genesis 1-3) and how both of them are true, in spite of being contradictory. But then the conversation moved elsewhere. The basic answer to that is: each of them is telling a story about the way God is, or the way the world is, or the way people are. It's not a scientific or historical account.

This beginning of a conversation got me thinking, though, about what it's like to try to live into what Jesus called the kingdom or the reign of God. In his teaching, this is like another dimension directly mapped onto our own. It's a different way of life, a strange and peaceful revolution, and there are signs of it around us. The thing is, though, we have to look for them. Which raises the question of confirmation bias, as in, I see the things I am looking for. On the other hand, if you are NOT looking for something, you are also biased in favor of not seeing it.

I know in my head that faith, in terms of belief about intellectual propositions, etc., is a gift from God, and not something I can manufacture in myself. Still, I think it's easy to fall back into the modern project for Christians: believing things that are hard to believe through effort of will, and then counting that as the work that saves us. In some ways, that kind of trust is easier to manufacture than living in trust of God. The second kind of trust requires taking more risks, for one thing.