Koan #39: Ending Every Prayer

For a man’s own soul, what can be more important than prayer? Indeed, the Lord instructs the Faithful to pray and even to ask for those things that they desire from Him. And yet, it is with a certain modicum of disappointment that it must be noted that most Believers possess a unique ability to forget the most important part of any prayer: ...but Lord, Thy Will be Done. Truly, no prayer can be seen as faithful if such an ending—whether uttered in voice or attitude—is not wholly and fully and completely embraced, for from it, all of a Believer’s true desires show forth. And thus it cannot be disputed: a Believer’s prayer is no true prayer without this.

Koan #30: God will Ask How

Let the personally and professionally down-trodden, discouraged and disappointed always remember: when one must account for one’s self before God, He will, without doubt, ask how one did the things he did in his life before he asks what one did in his life. Therefore stand firm to the understanding that how one does what one does is most certainly of greatest importance than the what itself, for God is happier with a compassionate kitchen-hand than a conceited king. Truly, it is no accident that the Lord chose to be born into a family of labourers! Thus again, remember this the next time despair and disappointment are felt about one’s position and place in this life, for even if one cannot change what he does, he can change how he does it.

Koan #29: Desiring is the Key

The question of what is the most important ingredient in one’s faith is too often misunderstood by the unfaithful. For what the key to faith is, is hope (Hebrews 11:1). And what is hope but a desire for a thing? And this is indeed the key to faith, for it is the desiring aspect of one’s faith which is what God’s deeply wishes to receive from his creatures, not mere belief in Him nor simple knowledge of Him--for even the demons know and believe in the Lord (James 2:19). For it is only with a desire for God that one can wish to reach out in obedience to Him, for obedience is both the path to Him (John 15:10) and the requirement for God to make Himself known to the one desiring Him (John 14:21-23). Thus let any Unbeliever, or any wavering Believer who desires God but fears the loss of his psychological grasp of the faith, obey that which God desires and the truth shall remain with him.

Koan #26: The Argument from Atheist Converts

It is often said by the most fervent of Unbelievers that there exist no good arguments for why they should believe and follow the Faith, with all that the Faith entails and espouses. In the spirit of discourse and charity, it is, therefore, desirable to present such arguments, as has been done for millennia, to these most fervently unbelieving of Unbelievers in the hopes of achieving at least some reflection on both sides. And this is just such an attempt, although please note that it is an argument that is both audience specific and done with one’s tongue firmly in his cheek. Yet one must not digress. Thus, this particular argument for the Faith is known as the “Argument from Atheist Converts.” It carries forth as follows: 1. In recent years, and in western culture particularly, a rash of particularly vehement, ardent and evangelically vocal atheists have arisen. 2. These specific Unbelievers often claim that those that hold religious beliefs, and in particular Christianity, are the embodiment of a being that is irrational, emotive, unintelligent, non-“bright”, biased, unscientific, unreasonable, ridiculous, illogical and so forth (a further number of terms could be added, but the point is made). By contrast, the true Unbelievers of this age and culture are the embodiment of a being that is rational, un-emotive, intelligent, “bright”, objective, scientific, reasonable, serious, logical and so forth (again, a further number of terms could be added, but the point is made). 3. With this in mind, it follows that if anyone converts from unbelief to the Faith, then this conversion has great weight, value and assistive/authoritative proof for the strength, validity and worth of arguments made for the Faith, for how could an epitome of rationality, un-emotiveness, intelligence, “brightness”, objectivity, scientific literacy, reasonableness, seriousness and logicalness by converted by anything but the most powerful of arguments and evidence. By contrast, the conversion of a Believer to unbelief is nothing special, powerful or significant, for how could the conversion of an epitome of irrationality, emotiveness, unintelligence, non-“brightness”, bias, scientific illiteracy, unreasonableness, ridiculousness and illogicalness be significant or weight in favour of that particular view. It may, in fact, weaken it as it has been adopted by one with such weak mental facilities. 4. This means, therefore, that either the vehemently arrogant Unbeliever must concede the exponentially greater importance of the conversion of an Unbeliever to belief in contrast to the opposite, and thus the strength of the arguments, facts and evidence that converted such a Unbeliever, or the vehemently arrogant Unbeliever must concede that Unbelievers are not the hyper-rational, totally objective, extremely logical, etc. individuals that the latter so often claimed they are, but are rather subject to the same mental and psychological biases and issues that affect all persons. 5. This then naturally leads to the concession that the Unbelievers claimed objectivity and bias-free-truth-seeking focus in assessing the arguments for the Faith and its entailments are fallacious and unwarranted; they therefore hold no more weight than the Believer’s assessment of the same arguments. 6. Nor can this argument simply be dismissed by the Unbeliever through the claim that the converted Unbeliever simply became irrational and illogical instantly upon conversion, for how can one change so suddenly and momentarily from being the epitome of rationality and reason to its exact and extreme opposite. Such a claim is absurd and just demonstrates the emotional and mental protective barriers that such Unbelievers create for themselves to protect their psyches from the possibility that they are in error. Nor can the Unbeliever claim that the converting Unbeliever was never a “real” Unbeliever—entailing all the traits mentioned above—to begin with, for doing so commits the so-called “No True Scotsman” fallacy, a fallacy with Unbeliever so often use against those of the Faith. Let it therefore be realized, even though it must be granted that many already do, that the Unbeliever in no more rational or objective or logical than the Believer, nor do his assessments of the arguments for the Faith hold any more weight than the Believer’s.

Koan #23: Love Above Knowing

Remember that to our Loving Lord and Just Judge, there exists a chasm of difference between the man who states “I do not know if God exists, but I would not love Him if He does” and thus disobeys the dictates of his God-given conscience, and the man who states “I do not know if God exists, but I would love Him if He does” and thus obeys the dictates of that very same God-given conscience. For truly, the key is in the love, not in the knowing. Let both Unbelievers and Believers be aware of this fact and make their decision about its truth wisely.

Koan #21: Too Little Suffering

It is always interesting to note that, in countless cases, those that use the so-called “Problem of Evil and Suffering” as their prime reason for unbelief in the Lord, are, by and large, the very same that live in regions of the greatest comfort, leisure and ease on earth, where their tangible suffering and pain is vastly minimized, sanitized and removed from the public eye. By contrast, those that are actually suffering in ways unfelt and likely even unimagined by the latter group have no uncertainties about the Divine Creator’s existence. Perhaps then, those that have such a problem with the Problem of Evil should, in fact, experience some truly hard evil to see just what their exact and full view on the question of God might be after such a practical and honest trial.

Koan #15: Too "Wise" to See God

All too often, it is only the “wise” intellectual who can confuse himself enough, and then rationalize this confusion, not to see the hand of God in this world.

Koan #5: The Ease of Accepting Deism

The fact that certain weak (in terms of the strength of their unbelief) Unbelievers are often willing to admit an ease at accepting a deistic god or divine force as opposed to an active-theistic one—as evidenced by so many that willingly self-identify as believing in the divine but being non-religious—tells one much concerning such Unbelievers’ real reasons for rejecting God as he is traditionally seen in the Faith...and it has little to do with philosophical considerations.

Koan #2: Necessity of God

If God is not, then what is, for is Man’s thoughts are but simply the product of a random collision of atoms, particles and other matters and energies, then how can any man ever trust such a collision of simple chance to know what truly and actually is. And thus, even this thought would be an uncertainty, thus leading to sheer mental absurdity. Perhaps then, God is not only existent, but necessary for existence to even be known with truth and reliability, lest it be left in perpetual uncertainty.