Week 3

Does History Bolster or Limit Faith?

Faith, from what I understood of what I was taught growing up, was the trusting without proof, a full belief in something that could not be proven or disproven. As I began college, however, and started Theology classes, of which I found myself extremely fond, faith began to be watered down the more I knew of history and fact.
As an example, during my childhood I was told the stories of Noah and the Arc, or the Garden of Eden, but as I researched later on in college, I found that the Bible is not the only place "the Garden of Eden" has appeared. Not by that name, I'll admit, but in about where it was assumed to be, and following other myths and stories - the Garden of Eden sounds an awful lot like the mythical places of Atlantis or Avalon. Historically, these places were just as avidly believed in, yet today there is no proof any of them existed. In a similar way, Noah and the Arc was myth before it was biblical. The same story, by different names, was told thousands of years before "Noah". by the Greeks, when Zeus became angered with the lives of man, and warned Deucalion I and his wife to stock a chest full of provisions, board an arc, and when they were the last two alive, Zeus stopped the storms.
If I had, as I was taught, relied solely on faith as a foundation for my beliefs, my belief system would have crumbled when I realized that much of the "Christian" stories and traditions I had learned, originated as belonging to another religion and set of beliefs, and were, by definition, pagan.
Instead, I found myself on a journey, wondering which was a better result: Faith, or Knowledge. If you know something, there is no faith to it. If you do not yet know, you rely on faith. By this standard, I have been able to overcome much of the distress other people in my family feel when they hear that our Christian ways were adopted from other religions. Where some people's faith may be at risk when biblical stories are called myth, mine is strengthened. I believe, because I know it's right, not because I was told growing up that that was the way, or because I read it in a book.
The steps in Santa Scala are an excellent example of such faith. During the time of Emperor Constantine, St. Helena, Constantine's mother, had a set of marble steps brought over from Jeruselum. These steps were thought to be the very same that Jesus had walked on on His way to His trial. Today, Christians from all over the world come to Santa Scala, across the street from the Basilica of San Giovanni, to crawl up the stairs once believed to be walked on by Jesus Christ. While the other students in my group were informed before we entered the building that historians have reason to believe that these were not in fact the same stairs Jesus walked on, many of them still entered and crawled up the stairs, a painful but deeply spiritual journey of prayer and endurance. Faith, for me, is believing in something greater behind it all, and the students who crawled up the stairs despite fact, are the best examples of what I am trying to express. The fact that Noah was based off of Deucalion does not bother me, because it is the message behind the myth that is important. Whether history says Noah existed or not, whether or not Jesus walked up the Santa Scala steps before his trial and crucifixion, is not important. What is important is the story behind Noah and his Arc. The passionate spirituality and conviction behind each set of knees that press into the marble stairs, and the hands that clasp together as they recite prayers said for thousands of years. Faith, is what is important, and in my opinion, history could never hinder faith. History merely shows a person what kind of faith they had, and how strong it was before tested.