When you stop to think about it, Faith is all about embracing paradoxes. Faith asks us to believe in things we can't see, and can't prove (by traditional means). And often, Faith and Science don't exactly agree. But the thing is that both Faith and Science can hold paradoxes within them, and sometimes it's okay if you have conflicting thoughts and beliefs.
One of the areas I see a lot of discussion about is in deciding what is 'real'. Especially when it comes to things like magic or spirits, people can get very caught up in wanting to prove that things are 'real', the same way that we experience the mundane world around us. And I think there is great value in looking for mundane explanations first, ruling out the expected before we turn to the unexpected. But I also think that many spiritual concepts just can't be quantified and proven...and that's okay.
I often think about this when I think about divinity. I believe that the divine (God, Gods, higher self, Nature...however you conceive of divinity) exists in a way that is beyond our human understanding. We ask questions, because that is how we come to understand things, but we don't always get answers (or we might not get the concrete answers we want), and sometimes that makes people uneasy. For me, I embrace the paradox of believing in something that can't be proven but can only be felt. It's like trying to prove to someone else that you are feeling something. You can explain it with a million words, but they just have to take your words as truth, because we have no way of actually sharing our experiences directly with someone else.
I do tend to think of myself as a very science minded person. I love logic, and I like things to make sense, which can sometimes be very frustrating when it comes to spiritual matters. There are a lot of things that I have had to learn to take on faith, to understand that they work because they work, and I may not ever know why they work or how they work, but that has to be enough.
For me, one thing that I always come back to is the idea that even if I'm wrong, even if the gods I pray to don't exist....my spiritual practice brings me peace and joy, and that has value. The rituals that I observe give me a way to deal with things in my life that I don't have a lot of other options for dealing with, and that has observable benefits in my life. So even if I'm completely deluding myself, the things I do are beneficial to my life, and so in one sense it doesn't matter if I'm right or wrong, my path is still good for me.
And this is another place that paradox fits into my path. I am constantly questioning my own practices and results. I am looking for the ways in which I may be playing into my own desires. Divination is a perfect example of this. I read mostly for myself, and a lot of people (rightly) question whether your own internal bias will effect how you interpret cards for yourself. I lean into this idea, and when I draw cards for myself, and I get a strong feeling about a meaning, I also ask myself if I am just seeing what I want to see in the cards (instead of seeing what is there). I find that this helps me go deeper, because I question my own results, and through that process I uncover a lot about how I am thinking and feeling about a situation.
It is my personal opinion that questioning the things you believe in doesn't weaken your faith, but rather it makes it stronger. I don't want to blindly follow, I want to question and poke at things and then make an informed choice. And sometimes that means ignoring all the evidence to the contrary and taking that leap of faith, and sometimes it means adjusting my beliefs because the experiences I have don't line up with what I've been taught to believe.
At the end of the day, my faith should serve my life. I will always question, and I will always look for both the mundane and the fantastical explanations for things. I will embrace the paradoxes of my faith, because I feel that strengthens my beliefs and gives me a stronger base on which to grow. I will acknowledge the ways in which my path sometimes doesn't make logical sense...but still works for me. And that is what is most important...that what you do works for you.
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