Front PageThe Changing Meaning of Belief
Submitted by bill on Sat, 04/15/2006 - 23:18. faith
In previous posts we've discussed the change in the meaning of the terms faith, belief and believe as studied by Wilfred Cantwell Smith. This change in meaning over the past several centuries, affects our theology as well as the way we think of about theology. It is not yet complete because we still use these terms both in their original meanings as well as in the new meaning that belief and believe are currently morphing into. Furthermore, our thinking about belief and belief-systems is changing and expanding as our global society becomes increasingly pluralistic. Since faith (and belief) is the cornerstone of who we are and for what we live, it's very important that we understand what faith is. It is a longing to better understand faith that brings me back to it again and again.
Related post: Faith, Belief and Meaning in the Twenty First Century
To review: the term faith once had the same meaning as belief and has maintained its meaning for the most part, although that meaning is often misunderstood. Belief, and its verb form believe, has changed over recent centuries to match changes in thinking that come from of the Age of Enlightenment. Faith, belief and believe have been relegated to those parts of the human experience not yet accessible to science.
Smith explains how the meaning of belief changed over time from one of trust and loyalty to a person, to a mere proposition of truth.
Even after what one believed had tended to become a proposition about something rather than that something itself (savoir rather than connaître) it was still truth in the sense of a true proposition, and that alone, that was for at time spoken of as being believed. Somewhat later the word came to be applied to propositions regardless of whether they were known to be true of not; then more especially to propositions explicitly uncertain as to whether they were true or not; and presently to propositions that were, by preference, improbable, or even false. . . .In other words, the primary connotation of the term [belief] in modern usage has come to be with ideas that are false.
This is a serious indictment, in my view. Philosophically speaking, it explains why the wind is gone from the sails of the great ship Christianity. There are all sorts of evangelism tools that, much like assembly instructions for a simple toy, take the evangelist and evangelee down a step-by-step logic flow chart to the moment of decision. The decision is all about logic, for most people. Logic is good for getting us through the map and to the right destination. This propositional truth approach seems more like a shortcut than a life's journey. There is no shortcut to faith (previously belief). It is not about shortcuts but journey.
. . .Let us re-iterate the three trends thus far. The object of believing has come to be an idea, a theory. Secondly, the act of faith used to be a decision, the taking of a step of cosmic self-commitment; the state (sic) of believing has come to be a descriptive, if not a passive, condition. Thirdly, the mood of faith used to involve one's relation to absolutes, to realities of surpassing grandeur and surety; the mood of believing involves one's relation to uncertainties, to matters of explicitly questionable validity.
A fourth development may be noted, somewhat more recent than the others. Indeed, it is still very much in process; we are only groping our way towards being able to handle it conceptually. The growing awareness, in modern times, of other ages and other cultures, and the growing pluralism of our own, have led to a new sophistication about what are increasingly but innovatingly called "belief-systems": sets of presuppositions, of conceptual frameworks through which the world is viewed and in terms of which it is understood. This introduces a new dimension altogether: not only into the faith/believe relation, crucial though that be, but indeed into the development of human intellectuality in general. . . .The notion of "belief" will never be the same again*.
Beyond the revelation that faith in modern times has dwindled to mostly a theory, or to propositional truths with little to nothing to contribute to my life's commitment to finding truth, the more interesting point is Smith's fourth development. In it he makes the point that, in our world of global, multi-cultural experience, some of us have learned a more sophisticated, more layered, understanding of "belief-systems." This perspective is rather forward thinking considering that Smith published this book, Faith and Belief: The Difference Between Them, in 1979. In that year, the Cold War was going strong (yours truly was on an aircraft carrier bound for the Arabian Sea during the Iran hostage crisis), and the Internet was still mostly a military project with increasing use by universities that happened to have military research projects. The personal computer had been around for several years but IBM had no stake in it and neither did Microsoft. Globalization leapt forward in the late 1980s and early 1990s after the fall of the Iron Curtain, the rise of Asian economies and most recently, the rise of the Internet. The point here is that the smartest and best prepared do not always make it to the top.
While I lack the time to pursue it, and many of you probably lack the interest to go into this history further, let us suffice it to say that the world has changed significantly during the last 30 years, and drastically in the past 15. And I'm thinking that faith has also changed, or at least it has suffered severe strain, in this same period. We know the reasons. I expect that some of the readers here have in mind some solutions. However, the big question is whether we will ultimately scrap it and start over, or whether we will we prune and replant, fertilize and nurture.
What do you think about all this? Am I nuts or is W.C. Smith nuts? If either of us is correct and the Christian church has sold herself into indentured servant hood, to be a slave or indentured servant to logical positivism in payment for preaching a doctrine that fits the modernist infatuation with logic, then much of the current Christian theological and ecclesiastical currency, is of little value. Somewhat like Confederate bank notes after the Civil War that dropped to such a low valued that some people papered their walls with the paper money.
Faith, belief and believe have weathered significant attempts to change their meanings over the past 500 years. Although the original meaning is still perceptible today, the version that is infatuated with philosophy, theology and intellectual achievement, presents quite an obstacle for truth seekers who hope to remain accredited and to enjoy acceptance within the modern Evangelical structures.
In final analysis, in the end, after the lights have gone out, when we're standing alone; what is it that counts most to you? The decision made under these and other more excruciatingly difficult times of choice, are the decisions that define your's and my character. What is right and what is wrong really is a matter of conscience. And that conscience is built over years of making acceptable decisions. Of reinforcing good decisions and extricating the bad ones. It is a process that doesn't lend itself to philosophical and theological meanderings. It's hard and time consuming work. There are no easy propositional truths. Shall we do away with propositional truth?
While there is much more to discuss regarding Smith's study of the terms faith, belief and believe, and how they filter and contort our vision of truth, there is also the greater and haunting notion that these concepts have slipped out of the hands of those devoted to seeking truth at all personal costs, and into the hands of those whose major motivation is to continue to increase in stature. From this point the struggle gets tougher, more requiring of perfection, more requiring of love and forgiveness, and more reliance on God to determine right from wrong since none of is capable or such a task.
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Value Added
Submitted by bill on Tue, 04/18/2006 - 17:15.
Reido,
Not sure, but I think I understand.
Waiting for the Davidic kingdom and the restoration of all things (on earth) is the prison we build for ourselves. Fighting tooth-and-nail over theology is like struggling for control of the prison when we could just walk out the open door into the sunshine.
Is this close?
One of my grandmothers just put her old and very sick dog away. She spent thousands of dollars out of her meager living on Vet bills, medication and special food over a few years. But this was not just a dog. This was her companion. The sick old body and the being are not really the same.
It's enlightening to talk to old folk in their 90s. They have a different view of what's important. From God's perspective we are just dust in the wind, yet we are like the frail old four legged companion—a being.
bill
» reply
You Understand Well
Submitted by reido on Tue, 04/18/2006 - 18:08.
Bill
Quote:
Waiting for the Davidic kingdom and the restoration of all things (on earth) is the prison we build for ourselves. Fighting tooth-and-nail over theology is like struggling for control of the prison when we could just walk out the open door into the sunshine.
This says it much better than my clumsy, confusing language. I think that fact illustrates well what we are up against...theology and religion (which really is just one expression of theology)is trying to describe a God who admittedly cannot be described. If I attempt, it becomes clumsy and hard to understand...theologians use that as currency don't they? But you just said it by comparison very simply and accurately. Jesus did the same, perhaps not so much to conceal the Truth, but to simplify it by expressing the Whole of Life by illustrations from part of life.
We have a dog like your grandmother's. Blind, old, getting feeble, but still able to share meaning with us. When he can no longer do that, it will be time.
God tears down and builds up, creates the seasons of life, wrecks temples and brings new ones. All divine process. What use are microscopic beings like us in such an immense universe? Same as that old dog.
reido
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Unnaming God
Submitted by bill on Tue, 04/18/2006 - 22:12.
My son had a spelling word today: Jehovah. He asked why we use that name. So, always ready to answer more than the question, I started with YHWH at the burning bush, through adding vowels, to Bible translations and ended with an explanation that we cannot describe God, much less name him.
Then he asked about Jews and Jesus being a Jew. Again, willing to answer more than the question, I described how the Jews and Judaism came from those few from the tribe of Judah (and Benjamin?) who returned from Persia to rebuild the temple, etc..
In the end, I learned—or relearned—more than he did. There is one God. All others are man-made. Religion is man-made. Theology is man-made. Heresiology is man-made. Heresy is in the eyes of the heresiologist. Arguing with a “cult specialist” who evidently never reads original sources but gets his ammunition from Dr. Professor who needs to publish periodically and what better topic than the topic that keeps the seminaries contributors up nights worrying about their shrinking roles while the urban, heathen, young and energetic youth ministers/pastors are packing 'em in.
Maybe I'll just study every recorded Christian heresy and create a new post-postmodern movement to spread heterodoxy and heropraxy across the world.
bill
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Oops!
Submitted by bill on Wed, 04/19/2006 - 11:45.
Rene',
Oops!
That's supposed to be "heteropraxy" which may not even be a word. I'm just combining "hetero" for many or other, and "praxy" for practice.
Or, "heropraxy" could be the pracitce of heros (champions). Imagine: "Wheaties! The Praxis of Champions." In which case it is edible.
Or, maybe I was just checking to see who was paying attention.
bill
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Currency in Trade
Bill
I agree with Smith's take on the shift in meaning due to Modernism.
You ask what the future bodes for Christianity, if the veil were lifted?
This will sound dark, but here goes:
I see PMi as not really solving any of the puzzles of life any more than any other line of thought ever did...but one thing it is doing and will do...is not leave one stone standing upon another. I believe it is the essence of the God of Being to inevitably reveal the temporality of all the deities man has and will enshrine. God demonstrates Himself in Process...that is, "life in the ages" is the unwritten but demonstrated history of all things being what they are. In the end, all things will be discovered to have a place in Process, because the process will always be.
This all sounds very dire, but any other view of life is not real. Consider the whole of man's existence: What do we do? We go to school to get good jobs, to make money so we can build a strong house to stand against nature, buy good health insurance so the doctors can be the very best, blah, blah. On and on, until we reach a point where we face the inevitable process of life. We will return to God, all things must do so because all things exist in God.
In the end, when the lights are out, I believe we will all find our currency has been invented with the hope of buying something that cannot be bought, but was had freely all along -- a life in God.
I regret that I have not had time to respond to these great blogs. My lunch hour now is a hasty trip to the house to let the aging blind dog out (he's on diuretics now).
reido