Faith and Belief

[Jeff]

This week I hope to have time to write down some of my recent thoughts about faith. This issue, it has seemed, is the cornerstone of the difference between Adam and me. In the past I've tried to mark the distinction by calling my faith "non-propositional," while Adam's faith seems to come with lots of propositional content, e.g., soteriological truths concerning the death of Jesus. However, I don't think I've ever made the difference between these views entirely clear, and I'd like to try a little to do that.

I don't know why it has taken me two years to have this thought, but it finally occurred to me that someone else might have tried to develop my view. After a little research, I found the name Wilfred Cantwell Smith. He died in 2000, but he wrote numerous books and articles on the difference between faith and belief. I've been looking at some of his writings as well as critiques of them by Richard Swinburne (author of "Faith and Reason"), among others.

If anyone is still interested in this topic, please feel free to participate in the discussion. For now, here is an important quote:

"According to the etymological and historical study of Wilfred Cantwell Smith, "believe" once had the range of meaning of the Greek PISTEUO and the Latin CREDO, and meant basically to entrust or commit oneself to something, to pledge allegiance. As Smith says, this notion had changed significantly by the nineteenth century: "There was a time when 'I believe' as a ceremonial declaration of faith meant, and was heard as meaning: 'Given the reality of God, as a fact of the universe, I hereby proclaim that I align my life accordingly, pledging love and loyalty.' A statement about a person's believing has come to mean, rather, something of this sort: 'Given the uncertainty of God, as a fact of modern life, so-and-so reports that the idea of God is part of the furniture of his mind." - Peter Leithart

[Tyler]

Roget's New Millennium™ Thesaurus lists belief and faith as synonymns.
You're comparing apples to apples.

[jtmx1]

The common conception is wrong. That's the problem. "Faith" has changed it's meaning over the years so that now it means something like subjective certainty in the face of a lack of objective evidence. That's why people see such a huge contrast between faith and reason. However, if faith is not a propositional attitude, if it isn't a kind of belief at all, then that contrast may mean something else entirely. I'll argue that the original meaning of "faith" is closer to "devotion." The idea of articles of faith doesn't make much sense, which is nice since Jesus never talks about them.

[jtmx1]

Actually this is relevant:

www.slate.com/id/2149887/nav/tap1/
Is the Pope Infallible?: Only when he says he is.

The relevant bit is that the doctrine of infallibility only arises after the Enlightenment. It was during the Enlightenment that the equation of faith and belief takes place.

Of course, I think that's all silly business. I want to try to explain and defend a fallibilistic faith. It should share many qualities with fallibilistic reason.

[jtmx1]

I had to come to STC, but I did want to add that I think the words translated as faith in the bible have always had a certain ambiguity. I'll talk about that later.

Here are some internet articles on Wilfred Cantwell Smith:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilfred_Cantwell_Smith
www.lib.umich.edu/area/Near.East/sferah.htm

[Tyler]

...in the face of a lack of objective evidence.

does that mean that if you received a letter from God, you'd lose all faith?

[jtmx1]

I'd argue that no one has faith that God exists because faith does not have a propositional object. To think that God's existence is a matter of faith is to misconstrue faith along the lines of belief.

Think of faith like devotion. My devotion insofar as it has an object--and I'd argue the usage is pickwickian--has a person (you) as an object not the content of any proposition.

Jeff

[Jeff]

Okay here is a better--though quickly written--statement of the idea. If it is true then its consequences are far-reaching indeed. I also think it’s a nice way to collect most of the differences between my views and Adam’s.

So a proposition is just a statement that can be true or false. That’s a bit of a fudge, but not much. (Propositions are probably meanings while statements are sequences of words.) Every proposition has content; that’s the bit that is either true or false. The content of the proposition “The cat is on the mat” is the cat is on the mat…very straightforward stuff. Now, this content can be either true or false—on the assumption of bifurcation of truth values, which I don’t plan to challenge here. Human beings can have various responses to propositions. For example, we can affirm or deny or believe or doubt them. These responses are called propositional attitudes.

The standard model for belief is that it is a propositional attitude, i.e., a human response to the content of some proposition or other. Now, there are certainly mysteries about such attitudes. For example, the principle of the substitution of equivalents seems to break down in such contexts. Lois Lane believes she loves Superman. Clark Kent is Superman. But it doesn’t follow that Lane believes she loves Kent. This problem is called referential opacity.

My claim is that faith is not a response to propositional content. Rather it is a response to a person or perhaps an experience. This is a distinction with teeth. Think about devotion to a person. Take a personal example from your own life. Now, answer this question: What conditions are there that guarantee that you are devoted to this person? Or to put it another way, is there any propositional content that you must believe about the person you are devoted to? Clearly the answer is negative. Humans are devoted to all kinds of people, good, bad, and in between. Furthermore, devotion does not entail any set of propositions that you have to believe about the person in order to prove that you are really devoted. You can think of all kinds of cases from film and literature where a devoted person believed that the person they were devoted to was despicable, yet they remained devoted. Also there are lots of examples of betrayals of morally decent folks…there’s a nice example in the NT of this, obviously.

So while we might use the content of propositions to hone in on what faith is like, faith will elude such analysis. Try explaining to someone who has never been in love what love is like. Words are inadequate; no set of propositions could capture the relationship.

That’s the basic idea, though I wrote this much too quickly.

[Jeff]

Maybe just a bit more...the very idea of orthodoxy as an indicator of faith is misguided. But you can see easily enough how it arises. We want to know God, we want to know what is required of us, who is included in our community and who isn't. The trouble is that faith doesn't give you any of these distinctions. In fact, it says that the religious life--so called--doesn't really lie down that road.

[Guest Justin]

Tyler,

Go to your Family Bible, and read the book of Jonah. Yeah, the one with the big fish. It's only a page long, and I think you'll find it exceedingly funny. Think about it in terms of the differences between belief and faith. I think Jonah has absolute and inherent belief in the existence, power, and purpose of his diety, but no faith whatsoever. I'd like to hear your thoughts on it; remember, it's just a page long.

[Tyler]

God tells Jonah to go to a town and preach. Jonah is scared by God, so he runs to the coast to catch a boat to sail away. God fucks that boat up and Jonah jumps from the boat trying to save the rest of the crew. A whale eats him. He prays that God will save him and the fish vomits him out. Jonah goes to the town and tells them God is coming, so they all put on bad clothes and repented. God decided not to destroy the city, and this really pissed Jonah off, so he built a shack outside of town to see if God destroys the city. Jonah becomes suicidal and God compares him to a gourd.

So, you're saying that Jonah knows that God exists, but has no trust in him.

[Jeff]

Written hastily and before I saw Ty's last post, please forgive!

Justin’s test case is as good as any. Suppose that you think that Jonah showed a lack of faith in his actions. I think this assumption is easy for both sides to accept, i.e., both those who equate faith and belief and those who distinguish them. If you are in the former camp, then you should be able to specify the set of beliefs such that if Jonah had them he would have been faithful. But no one can do this.

First, if faith is demonstrated only through action (“ye shall know them by their fruits”) then it is logically impossible to meet this challenge. For no belief ever entails an action. At the very least one must specify both a belief and a desire in order to get an action. (And even this is insufficient, I believe.) Here is an example: Suppose you know that Jonah hasn’t eaten for 3 days. He’s been in the belly of a big fish and nothing very appetizing has floated by. Then lo: On a wave of gastric acid floats a hamburger with all the fixins, just the way Jonah likes it. And it’s in pristine condition. Jonah believes the hamburger will nourish him and he knows he wants it. Can we conclude that Jonah will eat it? No. He may still want to foil God’s plan, so he refrains. Or he doesn’t. The point is that we can’t draw any conclusion about his actions at all just from his beliefs.

But this raises the question of how we ever know someone else has faith. The most practical advice is Matt. 7-20, which includes the phrase I just quoted a moment ago, i.e., ye shall know them by their fruits. But look carefully at that passage. Jesus is telling us how to distinguish false prophets from real ones. He is not giving a mark to tell us who is really in, but one to tell us who is definitely out. In other words, the default position is that everyone is with us. I think the Christian message then is that trying to pare down the in-group isn’t very Christian at all. Rather, there are certain obvious cases that we should exclude, and apart from those, everyone else is invited to the party. Now, Jesus definitely says in this chapter that he will eventually make distinctions among those who think they are in, “Not everyone who cries Lord, Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven,” but this are his distinctions to make and not ours.

And this raises the final question, and really, the most important one: How do we know that we as individuals have faith. Given the harshness of biblical treatment of the faithless, you might expect this condition to be specified in great detail. You’d be wrong.

But I am out of time for now…got to go teach!

[Jeff]

How do you know if you have faith? Here are the relevant passages from the NT. Post away if you find another one.

"If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin" (I John 1:6-7).

"Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. He who says, "I know Him," and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him" (I John 2:3-5).

"He who says he is in the light, and hates his brother, is in darkness until now. He who loves his brother abides in the light, and there is no cause for stumbling in him. But he who hates his brother is in darkness and walks in darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes" (I John 2:9-11).

"My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth. And by this we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before Him" (I John 3:18-19).

"By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep His commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome" (I John 5:2-3).

"What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him? If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit? Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works. Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble. But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead? Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar? Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect? And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God. Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only. Likewise also was not Rahab the harlot justified by works, when she had received the messengers, and had sent them out another way? For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also." (James 2:14-26).

"He who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does" (James 1:25).

[Jeff]

Interesting commentary on the 1st John passages: www.btinternet.com/~MisPar/GNotes/noteindx.htm

[Jeff]

There is only a superficial problem with my view and the 1st John passages. One might wonder what exactly are the commandments that those with faith are required to keep. If they refer to everything in the NT, then it looks like Adam’s view—which I take to be broadly Lutheran (Faith=Trust + Right Belief) looks better than mine. Worse, isn’t the very idea of keeping a commandment a strike against the non-propositional view?

Well, it depends on what the commandment is. As it turns out 1st John discloses the commandment in the second chapter (1 John 2:7-11). (We’ve discussed these passages before, so I won’t linger on them.) The key verse is 2:10-11, “Whoever loves a brother or a sister lives in the light, and in such a person there is no cause for stumbling. But whoever hates another believer is in the darkness, walks in the darkness, and does not know the way to go, because the darkness has brought on blindness.” What is so very interesting is that right belief is not a component of the commandment 1st John has in mind. Now, he seems to think that to love rightly will entail following the old laws (“I bring no new commandment”), but notice that following the old law is not a test for faith. In fact, if we were to apply 1st John’s test, it would be those who insisted on casting out others by applying stringent tests of orthodoxy that run the risk of breaking the commandment to love.

Jeff

PS I realize that my interpretation of 1 John is non-traditional. I am looking for analogues in online commentaries, but with no success thus far.

[Jeff]

I’ve been doing lots of research on 1st John, but I haven’t been able to find anyone (on the web) who interprets it as I do. Very quickly, I interpret the epistle’s very strong obedience claim (2:3-6) to be cashed out at 2:10, i.e., love is the whole of the law, love of God and love of others. So many want to interpret this passage broadly to mean all the things that are commanded in the NT. This would mean that the proof of faith is propositional belief. I think I could go down that road—since I could still distinguish faith and proof—but I don’t find it to be a natural reading of 1st John. The writer cannot be referring to the whole of the bible since it was not yet assembled. I think he must be talking about the words of Jesus who also said that he came not to destroy the law and prophets but to fulfill them.

Anyway, in my searching I found this, and it is very interesting. Here a person argues that Paul is one of the objects of ire in 1st John.

Did John’s Epistles identify Paul as a false prophet?
www.jesuswordsonly.com/Free/ch13.pdf