Is having a simple faith all its cut out to be?

I used to be jealous of a friend who I would describe as having a simple faith. He just believed. Faith seemed natural and easy for him.

While life most certainly is easier for someone with 'simple faith', I have come to the conclusion that there is nothing virtuous about convincing yourself to believe. That is there is nothing extraordinarily lofty in sacrificing rationality.

A 'simple faith' often stems more from having faith in your own belief system than the truth it points to. This type of faith is little more than a trick of the mind to provide the comfort of certainty. While God chooses to use simple and often gullible people, there is no need to hold them on a pedestal.

Little about life suggests that the answers to its hardest questions should be simple.

Trying to convince ourselves that our beliefs are absolute truth can easily become idolatrous.

"When people feel they are love, have worth, and are secure before God because they embrace the right beliefs, they are getting their life from their confidence in their beliefs about God rather than from a relationship with God." - Greg Boyd "The Benefit of the Doubt"