Don't Base Your Faith on Models

I was about 8 years old when I got my first model airplane. I’d been out to a hobby store that had a large model train layout with my father and brother, and discovered that there were models young boys could build. What I got was a balsa-wood model of an F-86 fighter jet, at the time being used in Korea by the US forces.

Of course, a balsa-wood model for young hands wouldn’t have many details, but I didn’t realize this. I was happy, and ran around the house shooting down enemy planes with my jet.

Few years later, I got a newer model; this time it was plastic, and had far more details. And many more pieces. A couple of which I broke. Plus a few I didn’t know where to put. But I was happy, and thought I had the best model there was. So once again, I ran around the house shooting down enemy planes with my jet. Whenever someone noticed or mentioned that one of the pieces was damaged or missing, I got upset. They were criticizing my model, with which I’d shot down many enemies.

One of our neighbors was an Air Force test pilot assigned to the Boeing Airplane Company in Seattle. One day he took his son, my father, brother and me down to Boeing Field to tour several Air Force planes that were on display for a few days. There was a big tanker plane, which was used for mid-air refueling. We enjoyed it. Next to it was a B-47, the US’s first active jet bomber. Now that was cool. To exit the bomber, we had to climb down out of the bomb bay. When I got down, my father turned me around to see what was sitting next to the bomber.

It was a real F-86. By now I was old enough to recognize that my model could never really show every detail about a real jet airplane. But I still was amazed at how much more detailed the real thing was than my humble model.

Some time ago this series of events came back into my memory as I tried to grapple with something in the scriptures. I’ve found there are a number of events or concepts in the Bible that the Lord hasn’t fully explained. As a consequence, various individuals besides me have tried to come up with models to try to show how God accomplished what He’d done. And I noticed that sometimes these folks got so attached to their models that if someone else pointed out a problem, the model maker would get upset as if the other person had attacked his reality. Much like I got upset when someone noticed a missing piece on my model.

From this I learned that when God gives only partial information on how He did something, or how He will do something, it’s OK to conjecture up to a point. But I need to keep my model separate from reality. It says in the scriptures that the Lord has a thousand ways of doing things that I can't even imagine. So as a scientist or a Christian, I can make models all I want as to how Creation took place, or how the Flood came about, or how Christ walked on water, or how He changed the water into wine, or…

What is more important than my models is that I have faith in God’s reality, and leave the details to Him. I recognize that any model, any explanation I can come up with will fall far short of His reality. Criticize my model? Go ahead. I have my faith set on the real thing.

Now if I can just get this glue off my fingers…

Dr. G