On the Question of the Importance of Faith

Reido,

Do you have any recomendations for the process?

For example, the first question is addressable via WC Smith who argues that faith is lost because of its mis-definition through recent history and because the West has chosen to resolve recurrent religious conflict by pretending that faith is peripheral and mere personal choice. But this route is, I believe, too shallow on its own. That's not to take away from Smith whose work will definitely play a big role, but out audience is broader than his. Additional proof requires some contrast and comparison of language usage between secular and religious groups and probably some examples from sociological studies showing the differences made in the lives of people given "new hope," that is new meaning, verses those who've lost meaning. And of course recent history is replete with terrible tragedies of suicidal and drug overdosing teenagers.

How would you recommend collecting notes and discussion so that others can follow along, and hopefully feel compelled to join in? Would it be overkill to keep a journal online with notes? The idea is that most sections will start small and grow over time, rather than wait for some grand completion in the far flung future after everyone has lost interest. Since I've never done anything larger than undergraduate lever stuff, and didn't really get it then, I need all the help I can get.

We can also create multiple revision for any kind of content created here. I can load a module that will shows the differences between revisions and roll back changes. Or, we could use different software. One example is Lawrence Lessig's Code v2 that he and others edited and updated online using wiki software.

 

bill

Bill

You have a whole lot more aptitude for the technical aspects of editable booking.  The current software seems adequate.

If there is a way (and I know this will be clumsy to word), can this Blook take on something of its own process in a way similar to all of life?  Infancy may look insignificant based on outward appearance, but I see it as potential and possibility.  So, if we toddle before we walk, that is part of the process.

From my own experience, the "redefining" of Faith as trust really began my own movement within the continuum of faith.  Most of that came from early readings via this website -- much of it your own studies shared and commented on here.  Prior to that, looking back I would say I was stuck in the mud of Deconstruction. 

Fowler's Stages of Faith were difficult to "See" in that I knew I was in a mode of refutation of error, but I was unable to comprehend a next step or even what he meant by it.  I would say he was helpful, but confounding until enough time passed to grow naturally.  Most of that growth has to be attributed to the redefinition and the experiment of "walking the walk." If I could encourage one thing to other Seekers at early stages, it would be to actually begin to live the kind of Faith that Smith describes, and see over time what probably won't appear right away.  There's a learning curve, and we are still in it. 

Often, we would share that we did not have the answers. However, there have been some epiphanies.  In retrospect, the days of squabbling and logical argumentation that we shared years back at another website, have practically vanished.  Nowadays, I'm more interested in what life has to come.

reido 

 

Reido,

You're right about toddling first. Mustn't get too organized or I'll forget where I put things. Besides that, I don't know how to think in straight lines—I'm ADD!

All seriousness aside, you're right about starting at the beginning. Maybe an understanding of where we've been is a good starting point. There's no need really for an overarching vision. Can't see far enough now for that anyway. Letting other folk know what we've been talking about these past two years might be good too, by summarizing or rewriting related material. The process might inform the outline.

Earlier this week I described this project to a friend who's studying some economics in college. Right away he had some ideas about the Commons relationship and volunteered to look for some related journals on jstore and asked if I had an outline. But I had no outline, only a fuzzy, kinda, intuitive thingy that emerges when multiple concepts cross in neuronal space and produce a potential aha! where once there was none. So I thought that the best, and perhaps only, way to let other people help out would be to describe this in some meaningful way. So I tried a more or less formal process of developing a research question(s).

Concerning Fowler, btw, I've looked back at his Stages recently and see perhaps the most important information that I got from him was a link to WC Smith. Smith was Fowler's professor and it was from Fowler that I learned about Smith. Looking back at Fowler again after reading about spiritual growth from other perspectives, it seems to me that the then young graduate student Fowler might have been informed by some more esoteric sources like C. G. Jung but used the “scientific” developmentalists like Erikson and Piaget to give credence to his work. Still some complain that his data doesn't stand up to stochastic standards. I like Fowler's notion of development, and have found some really interesting combinations such as people putting Fowler's stages with Tarot and other non-mainstream spiritual measurements.

Anyway, your also right that we are still in the learning curve and the approach should be one (or some) that makes that evident. Humility and epiphany sound good together.

bill

Bill

I hope others will chime in and agree/disagree or whatever as there will be more than one way to look at this question.

Jesus described several situations as being "of little faith"; he noted "great faith" on occasions as well.  IMO, it was not quantity that was in his meaning -- that is, great faith can be in small quantities and still be what he called mountain moving.  Often I hear of collective group efforts where the generosity and faith of a group was commended because a building program or some monumental effort was seen thru.  Although faith can and does act collectively, I do not think this was what Jesus was hinting at.

The "Mustard Seed" parable says a lot about Potentiality and Possibility, and I now see Faith the same way.  Faith can be hidden like a treasure in a field, or it can be misplaced like coins, but in Potential it is there.  What is lacking is authentication -- the process of finding and activating the energy of Faith. 

In this regard, I believe there is a lot of misplaced faith. What I mean is, faith has been disguised as something it is not, so when we encounter it, we may not recognize how or where it comes.  Take the conversation with Nicodemus, for instance, in Jn 3 about the new birth -- it was confounding, and I believe it still is.  The system of works and law is still around, and rules the minds and hearts of a lot of good people.  They are working so hard for something that is as natural and present as the air we breathe. Jesus told a story about how something as plain as the lilies of the field grow beautifully and by the hand of God -- birds of the air, same -- yet we labor and toil to abstain from every form of evil, when Jesus simplified the greatest law into universal Love.

 

reido

 

    

                                                  FAITH

 

                           Dear Mr Bill

 

 Faith is something that men have conviction in

 That need not be only related to religion and, he treads on the chosen path

 Yet, the word is very loosely used in the world

 While some show on others their hatred and wrath

 

 We use the word 'faith' for the religion very often

 While we struggle to give some some definition to it

 The usual way the world knows about the faith

 Is eclipsed in the shadowy deeds recorded in history bit by bit 

 

Dr K Prabhakar Rao    

 

                

                  

                

                                                                  

Dr. Rao,

I like you poem. Especially the opening line that defines faith as a something one has conviction in.

The difficult task will be to convince secularists and atheists that they too live by faith. For example: There are those who reach their life's goal early in life and then waste the rest of it with nothing to do. While others bounce around from place to task with no conviction. Still others work very hard, putting everything they have into something, only to find out that it wasn't what they expected, then lose "faith" and wander aimlessly thereafter. These are the plots of books and movies, as well as real life. We know it, yet we still link "faith" with religion. Sociologists write about "lack of hope," and "lost hope." I think that they mean "faith" but can't use that word because it too often denotes a religious hope when they want something broader and more generic.

Can we use your poem, maybe in the introduction somewhere?

 

bill

Dear Mr Bill.

Thanks for your comments. You can surely use the poems where you feel like using them. I have no objection and I shall be really happy. that I was of some use.

Dr K PRabhakar Rao

Bill

I had not really thought of it that way since I was thinking about whether Faith can really be lost, but you have brought out something that may help people find it.

Think about this...

"true faith is not learned from a teacher, nor achieved through intellectual knowledge, but is found.

This fits with my own experience, both personal and as a parent. A parent or teacher can tell the student something and have the student repeat it back ad nauseam but the student doesn't really "know" until they've experience a situation that requires them to pull out that information and use it. Then there is a trust as well as a personal experience with the knowledge, making it more than just information."

Is it just coincidental that I did not learn it either -- from childhood catechism to hours of bible study.  What I got was Descriptive -- as though Faith were knowledge.  There have been thinkers who described what was to be found, like Smith, Borg, and they were teaching with words, but the difference would be that they were not delineating the borders of belief.  Instead, I think it would be more like illuminating something that was already there in potential, waiting to be found. 

Maybe here would be a good place to say something about  the subtle and sublime nature of what is to be found.  I have read books like Tommy Tenney's God Chasers that described Seekers who found an extremely powerful manifestation of God -- like lightning from the sky experiences.  While I considered myself a Seeker, none of those things happened in my own journey.  For me, the sensing and connection to all things living became both observation and participation in this continuum of God in life.  It's not really the kind of thing that causes people to roll on the floor -- in fact, it can easily be missed and replaced by attractions that appear to be more sensational.

reido

What are the chances the prominence of scientific hypothetical reasoning has pushed faith off the stage to an extent that modern Christians may be  susceptible to adopting the methodolgy in all matters, substituting strong-commitment-to-an-hypothesis for faith?

Hello Arti. I think you are on to something there. I have been thinking there's a lot of red herring chasing going on - what with all the challenges to faith with their evidences and statistics and all. Then the defenders of faith often address the challengers with counter evidence in the same vein, while adding (sometimes) meanness and rudeness to boot.

Don't get me wrong - I believe some people are called to be apologists and they do a good job. (Ben Witherington is one.) But some just succeed in muddying the waters with their churnings. The "Jesus Family Tomb" issue, for instance. If we think we are going to convince anyone the God we have faith in loves them, by hitting them over the head with personal insults, we are terribly off the path.

BTW, I've been re-reading a book that changed my life - Faith Hope Love by Josef Pieper. I want to write a post here with some questions he raises about the faith question.

Arti

You asked , "What are the chances...adopting the methodolgy?

They are great, and I see this methodology as key to Western mindset.  Not to say that we have not made great strides in science and learning in the last two centuries.  The balance is, as you have pointed out, there are aspects to life that can be replaced by such a powerful influence as Modernism.  I believe this can be seen in other eras and other dominant thinking patterns.

Life has a way of bringing its own balance in time. 

Your post makes one think.

reido

Welcome to FaithCommons Arti,

You have a very good point there. Modernity has driven many Christian groups to seek a scientific justification for their faith. But what I think I hear you saying is that there is a danger that a way of life gets substituted by hypothesis or propositional faith. I agree.

 

I'd like to hear more of your thoughts on this matter. You probably have something to add that we haven't thought of yet.

 

bill

Certainly, scientific hypothetical reasoning has done great things in the world.  At its best, hypothetical reasoning is really a sign of humility, that is, I'll posit such and such, investigate, then accept the results objectively.  So it really is an honorable thing, most assuredly within the empirical realm.  Guess what I'm saying is if applied as one's epistemological methodology with regard to world view, hypothesis is a bit hollow and just seems to miss the mark. No doubt it is a delicate balance because yes we learn and evolve over our lifetime and to be dogmatic as a flawed finite being can certainly be foolish.  However, if my world view is  forever hypothetical, ugh, I've missed the best fellowship with God can offer and I always have a safe (tragic) "out". After all, the logic of hypothetical reasoning is that we state an hypothesis and then we seek to disprove the null set, i.e., the best we can come up with is that such and so is not not-true. This is very different than saying such and so is true.  Is this living?

 Anyway, speaking of evolution, that's another trap of modernism. Aren't we sometimes guilty of lazily agreeing with the "secular progressives" that the human race is improving just because our technology is improving? Ugh again. I think we can agree that biblically, mankind is emphatically NOT improving. Face it, the implication of evolutionary theory is that I am somehow more "evolved" and closer to some ultimate reality than that poor sap who lived 1000000 years ago.  And isn't that the sad part about a secular evolutionary stance? OK so we'revolving--evolving to WHAT? Best I can hope for as an individual is to be an  incredibly tiny means to.... no end. 

To shift gears again, I was reading an article by Scot McKnight yesterday in Christianity Today. I really do like so much espoused by the emerging movement but one "stream" of the movement he mentioned caught my eye as relevant to this discussion: Post-Systematic Theology.  He captured the sentiment thus:  "Here's what I think but I could be wrong. What do you think? "  Again I appreciate the sentiment and the humility on one hand and on the other, I know the idea is to be Jesus-like and conversationalist/narrativist ala the Bible.  At the same time, if my belief is a rolling present belief, a placeholder til I'm enlightened, then where is faith, where is traction, and where is  the witness? It's a toughy, that's for sure.  

Arthi

 

Faith (Religious) and Science always were at logger heads eversince science came on the scene.Science is emperical while faith is dogmatic as per learned and distinguished scholors. Science believes in evaluation, rational thinking and demands evidence while relious faith is authoritative, dogmatic and takes shelter in elders and demands uncompromising  acceptance of what is already there. Thus, they are in eternal conflict. Science  has given the world the secrets of the universe and its functioning if not the origin convincingly to all sections of people. Now no one suspects the solar system, planets, their existence, method of movements, stability and gravitational pulls and interplanetary stabilising forces and other planetary laws. The myth that prevailed for long time that earth was flat and moon had old lady spinning a spinning wheel  have been blown out. Even religious heads  have accepted the scientific theories. Yet science  has not denied the aspect of God and has not yet provided any answer to the aspect of soul, births and deaths and life after soul leaves the body and related topics.  It is quiet on the subject. Aethists however demand proof for existence of God  and  they believe that  God can not be seen, therefore there was no God. I like to give example of electricity.  In a dark room, the bulb glows when electricity is switched on. The whole room is filled up with light, But no where the electricity is seen . Only its effect is seen. Similarly a magnet attracts another body of iron or other magnet( Or repels it). The magnetic pull can not be seen with eyes . But the force can be experienced when the bodies pull or repel when brought close.  Similarly, God  can not be seen. But only can be experienced.  However science has not called it God and  are quiet and calm on the aspect of God. the most important aspect is that there are innumerable scientists who are more God fearing, loving  than  the other guys  who  talk of presence of God.  In the modern days under scientific impulse, people demand evidence for faith too and when they do not find in materialistc form, they tend to move away from it.  However at some point of time  the same people  return to the spiritual plane. this happens particularly when old age dawns,  death is  waiting at a long corner and the body is overtaken by wearingdown and diseases and  probably at this stage the veil of ignoratnce  slowly  is removed on the person and he longs for some thing divine that he can not find in materialistc pursuits. That is where he develops  inclination to God  and faith is restored again. Science  although is having its own place has limitations of space and time and Religion relating to God is above all these. The present religions  might disappear . But new will arive. But God would be there and faith would cotinue to be there with God as unknown force determining the universe and destiny of the souls.

Dr K Prabhakar Rao

Reido,

Are you saying that faith is found? That is, true faith is not learned from a teacher, nor achieved through intellectual knowledge, but is found.

This fits with my own experience, both personal and as a parent. A parent or teacher can tell the student something and have the student repeat it back ad nauseam but the student doesn't really "know" until they've experience a situation that requires them to pull out that information and use it. Then there is a trust as well as a personal experience with the knowledge, making it more than just information.

In the modern age we deal mostly in theory, with no time to spend on technique. We measure knowledge by ones' ability to regurgitate data on command, rather than by expertise. True faith to moderns would not move mountains, but merely identify them.

 

bill