Teaching Philosophy of Religion to the third year students is a real challenge given the fact that most of them (us?) have such a narrow and shallow construct of God and Religion that they end up equating both and worse, that too to lowering the whole meaning of it to something so mean and idiotic that they'd die 'protecting' it - thinking that is something heroic! I said this bluntly in class today and could vividly see that some were not too convinced of it.
In class today I challenged the Brothers to examine and see if their faith is so shallow and small that it runs the danger of being lost or washed off! If so, I said, it better be uprooted - for then, you'd have the opportunity of sowing the seed of a genuine and sincere faith, that too if sincerely interested. If not, one might as well carry on with one's broken and tattered belief, with no intention of strengthening it and thus turn fundamentalistic even without being aware of it or worse still, acknowledging it.
I believe my Faith is not something so feeble that I need to sustain it, rather it is the other way round, my faith is that which sustains me!
In class today I challenged the Brothers to examine and see if their faith is so shallow and small that it runs the danger of being lost or washed off! If so, I said, it better be uprooted - for then, you'd have the opportunity of sowing the seed of a genuine and sincere faith, that too if sincerely interested. If not, one might as well carry on with one's broken and tattered belief, with no intention of strengthening it and thus turn fundamentalistic even without being aware of it or worse still, acknowledging it.
I believe my Faith is not something so feeble that I need to sustain it, rather it is the other way round, my faith is that which sustains me!
For me faith is not of my own but a gratuitous gift of God. So, if it is of Gift of God, then it cannot be shaken. Because it is He who has taken initiative to save me. So, He is a covenental God. He is not God just because I believe in Him. He is God God because He is what He is. This is what Levinas speaks about the 'asymmetrical, covenental God. But not of agreement and mutual.
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