A Functional Faith?

As I study Psychology and Religion, an interesting question soon begins to present itself. What kind of truth do I want to believe? Do I want to treat Biblical truth as superseding psychological truth or vice versa? If I find something that contradicts some of the assumptions I've made about my faith over the years, such as abstaining from certain sins is good (i.e. sex before marriage creates relationship deficiencies), then how do I resolve that conflict. So if I find that people who have premarital sex have better marital satisfaction, would that mean that abstaining from sex was meant as a deterrent before the times of birth control and holds no ground in the present age.

The comforting thing is that, overall, I tend to be reassured by what I find. Forgiveness seems to be an effective way to gain emotional health. Those who view God as loving are better off than those who seem him as distant and uncaring. But I find myself asking, "Do I follow truth wherever it goes?" Or do I "in faith" believe the Bible as truth. In general I ascribe to a bit of both. I anticipate that I will be wrong on some of my beliefs but I don't expect to believe psychology at face value. I've already found articles on humility that show that the more religious people are, the less humble they are. The problem: humility was defined as claiming that 'others' follow Biblical commandments more than you. I'm absolutely amazed that such a premise could be held. Personally, I would expect that the more religious people are, the more they would follow God's commandments and so what was called "humility" might actually be self-deception.

So I recognize that there is much to be learned but that everything that claims to be true is not really truth. I just believe that to be healthy Christians, we must be willing to accept that what we believe may not be true.