Meditations in a Toolshed

1 Cor 13:11
"When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me."
NIV
As children, when we come into the world we tend to look along things. The entire world is a brand new place, we are experiencing it for the first time and we have no reason to suspect that their is any other way to observe our new surroundings. As a child we make sense of the world, the first way that we can, typically through our experiences and what our parents tell us. We look along the things, very much a part of every happening, not removed in anyway. Our childlike faith is an aspect of looking along. That prayer you might have said when you were six years old on your fathers lap, or by your parents bed, where you asked for Jesus to be your savior, that was looking along. It is a faith that is typically wholehearted, and genuine, but it is a faith that is only looking along and is not fully known. That does not mean however, that this type of faith should be discounted. In fact the scriptures say this type of faith is absolutely necessary. 1 Cor 13:11
When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.
Mark 10:15
"I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it."
NIV
Lewis points the necessity of looking along, of being on the inside saying, "The very subject for his inquiries from outside exists for him only because he has, at least once, been inside." In order to examine something and look at it, we first must have looked along it. That is to say looking along the item does provide truth about it. Not the entire truth, but truth that won't be found by simply looking at.

As Paul says however, "When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me." As we leave childhood and begin to examine the world around us again, and more importantly examine our beliefs about that world, we begin to look at everything, rather than simply looking along it. "Why?" is the the great question that drives us to look at everything. No longer are we content to simply accept the world and everything in it for what it is at face value, we desire a deeper understanding of what things are, how they work, and above all why they do. At some point we come to our beliefs and begin taking a step back, removing ourselves from it, in order to look at it. We begin to piece together things in our faith that don't make sense from this angle, where as before they were indubitable. Our faith grows, it shifts to a rational, grounded faith, one that is based upon a more complete knowledge of the nature of the world. At least the hope is that it grows. It is also possible that one might abandon it entirely, having not found enough reason to satisfy there belief and falling into the trap of discounting entirely the view from the inside. While I firmly believe that one can, looking from the outside, ascertain the possibility of the truth of Christianity, at the same time it is not difficult to discount it entirely as merely a psychological phenomenon created by the human brain. It is once this point is reached that one has taken up the idea that "looking at is , by its own nature, intrinsically better than looking along." (Lewis) This is the tragedy of much of the world. To often we fail to consider the view along, taking only the view of the issue as true. However, just as the view along gave only a partial picture, so too the view at gives only a partial picture.

Adult disbelief and childlike faith are thus shown to be essentially two sides of the coin. Each only accepts the one way of looking, discounting the other as a valid method in any and every situation. That is not to say that each method is entirely valid in every situation. Lewis points out that "the savage's dance to Nyonga does not really cause the crops to grow." He has been deceived by looking along, and has not taken the time to look at in order to realize that his dance is  futile. The man who always looks at however, is never able to experience anything, and indeed it is entirely impossible to never look along something, as Lewis says, "you can step outside one experience only by stepping into another." Thus the man who says he only looks at things is also deceived because he has simply chosen a different beam to look along. To find the truth of the idea, both sides are needed, looking at and along. One can look at in order to determine somethings possibility, feasibility, and  rational truth. By looking along one can immerse oneself in the experience and discover what it feels like, and how it shapes things around it. Our Christianity should not be simply one or the other. If our Christianity only looks along then, our faith will be sorely tested and probably fall when it is challenged, because we have no reason other than experience and feelings to hold it forth as true. If we only however, look at then we have reason to believe but we are missing the true belief, the experience of a loving and full relationship with God.