There once was a religion called Esotericism of the Big G which claimed that God was loving and merciful (on account of the fact that we exist, which is pretty awesome) and wants us all to reach eternal salvation. Knowing that humans are a stiff necked bunch of idiots, G People claimed that God wanted to make salvation attainable by all, and so all a person needs to do to get salvation is to know and "believe in" the 50th decimal place of Big G, the gravitational constant. After all, Big G is accessible to all and pervades the whole known universe. Unfortunately, as you know, measuring the gravitational constant to 50 decimal places is currently impossible - the best we can do is about 6 or maybe 7. Esoterics of the Big G said, though, that once we had the ability to measure G to this accuracy but the technology was taken from us by God because a few rogue loop quantum gravity theorists suggested that Big G was not equal at all size scales, and this angered God so much that as punishment we were struck ignorant. Why there would be any such rogue theorists in a time when The Truth about the universe was probably known was called a mystery and generally chalked up to the cantankerous trouble making spirit of Mankind.
This did not, however, solve the problem of what to believe the 50th Decimal of Big G was. Luckily, hundreds of Schools of the Big G arose with mechanisms and arguments and doctrine speaking to this value. Some schools thought that God must definitely use SI units (because they are standard and "elegant") and attempted to find G by long meditation and fasting, which was also the technique of other groups who were sure that God measured Big G in parsecs and solar masses on account of the fact that He is a cosmic being. Some groups agreed with both of these groups, but felt it should be in base 3, rather than base 10, because God, being a triune being who probably doesn't have hands, would count that way. Some groups pointed out that since there were only 10 (or 3 or 8 or 16) possible values of the Holy Digit and one must be right, this proved the Mercy of God and the Truth of The Esotericism of Big G. Others claimed to have read the digit out of their hearts in a process of deep introspection, but they usually didn't agree on what it was. Everyone took all the argument, noise and commotion as evidence that they were on the right track, however - only idiots would argue over something that wasn't true.
And some people thought that if God's Plan was to save everyone out of Love, then asking them about the value of the 50th Decimal of G is a pretty stupid way to do it because He constructed people without the apparatus to know it, and since the God of Big G cannot be stupid, the Esotericism seemed quite unlikely. These people were also heartened by the fact that modern physical theories indicated that G did not have a 50th decimal point in any meaningful way, that gravitation was an emergent phenomenon of particle physics and so its standard deviation made the idea of a 50th decimal value non-meaningful.
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Note that we will one day probably know the 50th decimal of Big G, but the nature of Christ is impossible to determine in any meaningful way.
... And then the God of big G sent a son who became human like us. His scientific technique was perfect... So perfect that no one can even get close to it. Through his lifetime of perfection he did everything God required and knew even up to the 100th decimal place of big G and beyond. He claimed to know it perfectly. (knowing, of course, to use base 10 since it is a decimal). God then said... " It is no longer important for you to know the 50th decimal of big G; my son has done it! When I first made your fathers, they did indeed have the tools to do it. They rejected Me and the tools were cursed along with the rest of creation. I provided a new way for your salvation through my son. Its true that you can no longer get the right answer yourself. Even if you guessed it, I would know and condemn your attempt. But I have made you aware of your situation. You know that you can't do this impossible task. In fact you should know that its worse that you think... Its not exactly the 50th decimal place, but all decimal places out to infinity. Your attempts to do it are motivated by the desire to be able to do it; your discontentment at being unable is unfounded because I did if for you.
Its not about knowing the answer. Its about trusting that the work of God's son covers you.
A person cannot trust what he cannot even begin to know. The 50th decimal of Big G here is not being good, loving God, getting into heaven, or whatever personal act/accomplishment. It is meant to be equivalent to accepting or rejecting the proposition that "The Historical Figure Jesus was one and the same with the Divine Being". The idea that a person can actually, seriously come to a reasonable conclusion that Christ was God is, frankly, ridonculous. It is so ridiculous it needs another word. All we have is the 2000 year old testimony of what easily could have been crazy people of a guy who did incredible things. Probably the testimony is simply wrong and exaggerated, but that is in many ways besides the point. A demon could have done all the things that Christ did to confuse us - they are not proof of divinity. They are proof only of the fact that some entity in the universe did something which was subsequently described as supernatural. In a universe where a giant old man creates everything and demons have run around causing trouble since The Snake in the Garden of Eden, a few apparent magic tricks reported by pre-modern Jews and Gentiles amounts to nothing.
I suggest that Christianity is not a signal from God, or at least that a rational person cannot distinguish it from the noise of a million semi-insane minds. This is not a terrible hypothesis since no person alive has ever been able to demonstrably, repeatedly illustrate the existence of God or the Divinity of the historical figure of Jesus Christ and no one has for at least 2000 years. Every single piece of evidence that can be directly related to the truth or falsehood of the Christian narrative comes from people. I can't have faith in what they claim until I have faith in people as accurate conveyors of information and this is a faith which I would suggest only a fool has.
I take this parable to to be how you see Christianity to be. I don't see Christianity the way that you do, and in that sense, I reject the same thing that you reject: a false Christianity. My reinterpretation, of your parable was meant to express how I see christianity in the parable terms. Thus salvation is attained through perfection. Jesus knows big G. It may sound shocking to say that salvation isn't attained by believing that Jesus is God; but since Jesus' brother James said something along those lines first, I feel ok about it (You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.-James 2:19) What I tried to make clear in my addendum to the parable is that salvation is attained by Jesus and offered to those on whom he has mercy.
Trusting in anything or anyone can ONLY happen when a person does not know. If I know, then I know. I don't have to trust that 2+2=4 or that my dad had a dad or that big G has a 50th decimal place. I know those things. I choose to trust that Jamie won't cheat on me, but if I somehow knew the future and could see for certain that there is no universe in which Jamie cheats on me, I wouldn't have to trust her -- I don't think that I would be able to trust her in that sense anymore-- not that she is untrustworthy, but that by knowing there is no room for doubt. We wouldn't be in a credit crisis if the banks knew that they were going to get their loans back... They trusted that they'd get enough back, and they trusted wrongly.
My sin creates a debt for which the payment is death, judgment, and separation from God. Christ asks me to trust that his death paid my debt. God's track record of trustworthiness gives me confidence in trusting Him.
But to accept an offer a person at least has to know the offer exists. It is a very strange kind of offer indeed which cannot even be demonstrated to exist at all. You talk about putting my faith in God, but in order to do that I have to put my faith first in myself, since I must believe I am capable of at least finding the direction to look in for the truth, and then putting my faith in others, since everything we know about Christianity comes through human testimony. Only after I have put my faith into myself and other humans can I then even address the question of faith in God. It is this very certainty gap which I find most problematic for Christianity as far as consistency is concerned because nothing I have ever read or heard accounts for why it would exist at all.
This gets to the point about rejection vs putting aside. I asked you earlier in person about the following situation: I claim I have a friend who is invisible and does not like to be tested for existence - he consciously avoids tests of whether he is or not. I say, however, that if you leave 1000 of your dollars under a certain tree, this friend will give you totally sweet prizes after you die and go to heaven, but if you do not, then he will visit you in your golden mansion and overstay his welcome and basically be irritating. You would not put your money under the tree because you don't believe in the existence of my imaginary friend because the only evidence of him is hearsay - it comes from me. You would not say "I rejected Vincent's friend's offer" because you don't believe in the friend, and therefore you also do not believe in the offer. Not believing in something is not the same as rejecting a proposition in the case that the thing is true.
It is extremely challenging for me to observe the universe I live in and accept the hypothesis that Christianity is true - in no small part because this "doubt gap", not about whether I am saved, but about whether the stories are real at all, seems inconsistent with a divine plan for my salvation. Why die on the cross and then leave the communication of the event and its spiritual and philosophical to agents (people) who are unreliable and often insane? Why fill the universe with uncountable false claims which are similar in structure and content, but different in their exact nature? Why leave, in other words, the book-keeping of the religion, which as far as I can tell ought to me morally neutral, in the hands of fools and madmen when God, in all His power and Love, could have made the existence of the offer, at the very least, clear as the fact that I exist? I know many Christian's have similar questions and doubts, and satisfy themselves to a certain degree with the answer that God is mysterious and that we cannot really understand why his plan is the way it is, but I cannot do so and feel I am being honest with myself.
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