Faith In Humanity?

During the Convocation the day after the VT Tech shootings, I think it was the Buddhist speaker who said that at this time, we need to have faith in humanity. Well obviously, if God is out of your system, then you’re going to have to go with the next best thing. I find this an odd statement though.

It is events like this that cause me to NOT have faith in humanity. Don’t get me wrong. Human nature is a good thing. Humanity is a good thing. We are fallen though. We cannot save ourselves. We cannot turn one hair on our head from white to black. We often find our greatest battles are not with others but with ourselves.

This does not mean that I do not have some degree of faith in certain humans which is understandable and I think good. You can’t live refusing to trust everyone. I have faith in my friends that they will be there to support me when I need them to and that I can hopefully do the same for them.

It also means though that I am realistic. Take the idea today of believing in yourself. My friends I think count on me in many cases that when an argument against the faith arises, they know I’ll be there to fight it. However, I do not think that it would be a lack of faith to say that I could not hit a home run pitched by Nolan Ryan in Yankee Stadium. My body just isn’t built for that.

And this is what confidence is. Confidence is being real with yourself and admitting what you can do. Pride is seeing yourself as more than you are. False humility is seeing yourself as less than you are. In fact, true humility and confidence should go hand in hand. We should be real with ourselves.

Thus, do I have faith in humanity? No. I do not believe humanity can save us from the evil we saw. I have faith in God though that he can make humanity what it was meant to be.