Like a bow with death for its arrow;
In Vain he searched for the final truth
To set his soul free of doubt.
Over the mountains he walked,
With his head bent searching for reasons;
Then he called out to God
For help and climbed to the top of a hill.
Wind swept the sunlight through the wheat fields,
In the orchard the nightingale sang,
While the plums that she broke with her brown beak,
Tomorrow would turn into songs.
Then she flew up through the rain
With the sun silver bright on her feathers.
Jacob put back his frowns and sighed and walked
Back down the hill.
God doesn’t answer me and He never will
Wittgenstein compared philosophy to a fly in a bottle. He said he wanted to free philosophy (the fly) from the epistemological dead-end it was in (the bottle). I’ve come to feel that way about faith, belief, and doubt.
Three words we think are synonyms, or certainly kissing cousins, in matters of religion. We use them peculiarly for religious purposes. We certainly use them there in a way all three words are not used anywhere else. But what do we mean by “belief”? Thinking something is true though you can’t prove it? By that definition I “believe “ in germ theory and atomic physics. I’ve never seen a germ or an atom. The proof of their “existence”* is my acceptance of assertions by others. I accept that the mRNA vaccine works because of genetics theory, but if schools taught it was the Force and ancient wisdom of Jedi knights, I guess I’d believe that, too.*
I haven’t proven the tenets of genetic theory. I haven’t proven the validity of atomic theory. I’m told quantum mechanics undergirds modern computing. How would I know? It’s an explanation. Is it true? It is unless someone convinces me otherwise. I trust the people who tell me these things.
Which is to say I have faith in them. Trust and faith are synonyms. I did not say I believe in the people giving me scientific explanations. I did not say I believe in science. I trust. That’s not the same statement as “I believe.”**
I might say “I believe I’ll have another cup of coffee,” but you wouldn’t challenge me to prove the existence of a second cup even if one wasn’t available. Nor would you challenge me if I said I believe in love; or even if I said I believe I’m in love. Two different uses of the word, but neither all that remarkable, or taken to be a claim I must justify.
If I say I’m a Christian, someone will challenge me to explain how I can believe in God. But if I say I’m married, no one asks me to explain how I can believe in love. How are we using the word differently in these two contexts?
And what about doubt? I can doubt a scientific claim, or a friend’s claim. My doubt doesn’t mean I’ve rejected science or my friend. But when we speak of belief and God, doubt is the corrosive that defeats belief, or at least leads us into error. It is the weakness that moves us away from God. But my doubt doesn’t move me towards losing my friend. So why does it threaten my faith in God?
Yes, I shifted terms there. But faith is not belief. And doubt is not the antithesis of faith or belief. Nor is faith an absolute which must be preserved against all challenge. Faith is trust; nothing less, nothing more. If I trust my friends (and if I don't, they aren't my friends), it takes a great deal to make me lose that trust. I may doubt them from time to time; be angry with them from time to time; lose contact with them for long periods of time. Do I doubt their friendship? Only if I'm given good reason to; and even then, I don't stop trusting them. If I doubt their friendship, have I destroyed our friendship? Only if it wasn't much of a friendship to begin with.
Trust is something earned, and something given. If you can't trust in God, if you're someone who thinks they're very clever like Ricky Gervais, and you have no faith in God and mock people who do, what you're saying is that your faith is in yourself. Fine; put it there. My point is not that Mr. Gervais is wrong (who am I to judge?). My point is that we all have faith in something, even if it isn't larger than ourselves. But to say you have faith in yourself is rather like saying you talk to yourself (raises hand). Then the question is: if you are talking to yourself, who are you talking to? And who's listening? If you have faith in yourself, who is it you have faith in? Who is it you are so trusting and so comfortable to put at the center of your existence? Is there a "you" that trusts "you"? How does that work? And to put the question in terms someone like Mr. Gervais always likes to direct at Christians (or maybe Muslims; I'm thinking Jews is too culturally inappropriate): how do you prove that you exist?
We're approaching Isaiah's cri de couer:
64:1 O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence--64:2 as when fire kindles brushwood and the fire causes water to boil-- to make your name known to your adversaries, so that the nations might tremble at your presence!64:3 When you did awesome deeds that we did not expect, you came down, the mountains quaked at your presence.64:4 From ages past no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who works for those who wait for him.
Isaiah is not just shouting for God to bring a fire from the skies; he's referring to Elijah:
So Ahab sent to all the people of Israel and gathered the prophets together at Mount Carmel. 21And Elijah came near to all the people and said, “How long will you go limping between two different opinions? If the LORD is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him.” And the people did not answer him a word. 22Then Elijah said to the people, “I, even I only, am left a prophet of the LORD, but Baal’s prophets are 450 men. 23Let two bulls be given to us, and let them choose one bull for themselves and cut it in pieces and lay it on the wood, but put no fire to it. And I will prepare the other bull and lay it on the wood and put no fire to it. 24And you call upon the name of your god, and I will call upon the name of the LORD, and the God who answers by fire, he is God.” And all the people answered, “It is well spoken.” 25Then Elijah said to the prophets of Baal, “Choose for yourselves one bull and prepare it first, for you are many, and call upon the name of your god, but put no fire to it.” 26And they took the bull that was given them, and they prepared it and called upon the name of Baal from morning until noon, saying, “O Baal, answer us!” But there was no voice, and no one answered. And they limped around the altar that they had made. 27And at noon Elijah mocked them, saying, “Cry aloud, for he is a god. Either he is musing, or he is relieving himself, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he is asleep and must be awakened.” 28And they cried aloud and cut themselves after their custom with swords and lances, until the blood gushed out upon them. 29And as midday passed, they raved on until the time of the offering of the oblation, but there was no voice. No one answered; no one paid attention.30Then Elijah said to all the people, “Come near to me.” And all the people came near to him. And he repaired the altar of the LORD that had been thrown down. 31Elijah took twelve stones, according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob, to whom the word of the LORD came, saying, “Israel shall be your name,” 32and with the stones he built an altar in the name of the LORD. And he made a trench about the altar, as great as would contain two seahsa of seed. 33And he put the wood in order and cut the bull in pieces and laid it on the wood. And he said, “Fill four jars with water and pour it on the burnt offering and on the wood.” 34And he said, “Do it a second time.” And they did it a second time. And he said, “Do it a third time.” And they did it a third time. 35And the water ran around the altar and filled the trench also with water.36And at the time of the offering of the oblation, Elijah the prophet came near and said, “O LORD, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that you are God in Israel, and that I am your servant, and that I have done all these things at your word. 37Answer me, O LORD, answer me, that this people may know that you, O LORD, are God, and that you have turned their hearts back.” 38Then the fire of the LORD fell and consumed the burnt offering and the wood and the stones and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench. 39And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces and said, “The LORD, he is God; the LORD, he is God.”
1 Kings 18:20-39
Nothing like a little visible proof, eh? But Isaiah is not asking God to prove God's existence. Isaiah is just asking God to turn the hearts of Israel back to the covenant, as Elijah asked God to do. The proof of God is no proof at all. John’s gospel displays it:
28 Father, glorify thy name. Then came there a voice from heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again. 29 The people therefore, that stood by, and heard it, said that it thundered: others said, An angel spake to him. 30 Jesus answered and said, This voice came not because of me, but for your sakes.
Some heard thunder, some heard an angel, and Jesus tells them the voice was for their benefit. So where’s the proof?
This is why you have to believe. Dese are de conditions dat prevail. God is not playing fast and loose with you. This is how it works. You hear thunder, I hear an angel (maybe), and who between us benefits? You don’t have to believe; but you have to believe. That’s the only possible proof. If I say I believe in God, and you say I believe in nothing, which one of us is wrong? And how do you prove it? The burden is on me? To do what? Prove that I believe?
We’re going in circles, aren’t we?
Faith is a wholly separate matter. I may believe in God, but do I trust in God? That’s a much more complicated issue. This is where doubt has a place. Do I believe in God? I do, or I don’t. If I doubt God’s existence, I don’t believe in God, either. But I can trust God, have faith in God, but still have doubts about my trust in God. The conflagration described in 1 Kings might have made people there believe in God; but it didn’t necessarily instill faith in God. Were I a witness to that, and not among the children of Abraham, I might be convinced Elijah’s God was real. But it wouldn’t lead me to trust that God.
Then an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Get up and go toward the south[a] to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” (This is a wilderness road.) 27 So he got up and went. Now there was an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of the Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, in charge of her entire treasury. He had come to Jerusalem to worship 28 and was returning home; seated in his chariot, he was reading the prophet Isaiah. 29 Then the Spirit said to Philip, “Go over to this chariot and join it.” 30 So Philip ran up to it and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah. He asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?” 31 He replied, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” And he invited Philip to get in and sit beside him. 32 Now the passage of the scripture that he was reading was this:“Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter, and like a lamb silent before its shearer, so he does not open his mouth.33 In his humiliation justice was denied him. Who can describe his generation? For his life is taken away from the earth.”34 The eunuch asked Philip, “About whom, may I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?” 35 Then Philip began to speak, and starting with this scripture, he proclaimed to him the good news about Jesus. 36 As they were going along the road, they came to some water; and the eunuch said, “Look, here is water! What is to prevent me from being baptized?” 38 He commanded the chariot to stop, and both of them, Philip and the eunuch, went down into the water, and Philip[c] baptized him. 39 When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away; the eunuch saw him no more, and went on his way rejoicing. 40 But Philip found himself at Azotus, and as he was passing through the region, he proclaimed the good news to all the towns until he came to Caesarea.
The eunuch just reads, but that’s enough for belief. Belief, but the eunuch doesn’t yet have faith. “Faith seeking understanding” is the phrase. In this case it’s belief seeking understanding; and understanding leads to faith. But understanding can still generate doubt. Faith never eliminates doubt.
The Desert Fathers called it acedie, the “noonday demon.” They understood doubt in the life of faith. Acedie was not the crippling doubt of disbelief; it was the normal doubt of the rigorous faith they pursued. Acedie was the wavering of that commitment the hermits had made; the daily, hourly movement of the human heart. It wasn't the acidic solvent of doubt so much as human wavering. They were trying to live as closely and truly to God as humanly possible. Any weakness in that effort was a falling away from the Ideal they pursued ardently. So it wasn't the doubt that leads to loss of belief; it was just the doubt that betrayed the kind of trust (faith) they were seeking after.
Acedie is a problem every believer struggling to be faithful struggles with, whether they can name it or not.
Doubt in the life of the faithful is not failure; it is another of the conditions that prevail. But what about the acidic solvent of doubt, the kind that leads to a loss of faith, and a loss of belief? That doubt can lead to darkness; the darkness of a loss as serious as the loss of a loved one. Or it can lead to the loss of that which should be lost. There are beliefs that are better abandoned; even beliefs better to never have been held. I’m not speaking in generalities in order to be evasive. I’ve learned there are beliefs best left behind (“when I was a child…”, as Paul said). There are also beliefs best never taken up. What are they? Fundamentally, that’s personal. One person’s sound belief is another’s pernicious doctrine. I would say, broadly, whatever leads you away from humility for yourself and compassion for others is fundamentally unsound.
But that isn’t the question, is it? The questions here are “what is faith?”, and “what is belief?” William James ended his famous essay on the varieties of religious experience citing the definition of faith as “believing what you know ain’t so.” He accepted it as the common understanding of the term even among the educated audience he was addressing, and he only mildly refuted it, largely by reference to his essay and its efforts to address a larger picture of religion than prevailed in his audience. But it’s not even the right starting point. Faith is trust, not belief. And belief can’t be in what you know ain’t so. If you know science ain’t so, how can you believe in it? How can you accept any scientific ideas, without believing in them, or in the empiricism which provides the intellectual framework for them? Or even the philosophy of science, which is as much a part of science as any rational endeavor in Western culture?
“Faith” and “belief” are not strictly or simply religious terms. To "believe" in science is not to accept it blindly. But at some point you do "believe" in science because you have to accept its premises and conclusions. Bertrand Russell spent years working out a logical proof that "1+1=2." It sounds perfectly absurd, but I'm told there are no small number of valid points made in the resulting proof, valid and valuable. We accept the equation because we're taught it in school, even though we know that in biology 1 + 1 = at least 3, if not thousands (in the case of some amphibians, for example). The mathematical equaion, in other words, exists within a set of parameters that we accept without fully understanding them (the point of Russell's proof, in part). And yet none call that "belief," at least not in the same sense we apply the term to religion. But the distinction is an artificial one we also accept without examination, even as the use of "belief" when applied to religion is not the way we use the concept in any other context.
The old joke from pre-credit card days is: "In God We Trust; all others pay cash." The joke plays on two different meanings of the word "trust." But "trust" and faith are easy synonyms in terms of religion, even though we describe Christianity as a "faith" ("the Christian faith"), and describe religious belief as faith, too. But we also say, individually, that we have "faith," or "faith in God." And never once consider what what the difference is in each usage, or what "faith" means except something we can't quite explain and we even worry over when "doubt" seems to impede whatever "faith" is. If we say we have trust, it seems we've said something else; but why is that?
The fly in the bottle can't find a way out.
Faith is not some strange metaphysical or pietistically emotional state*** that I must preserve from rational attack, or especially from all-too human doubt. Faith is trust, and as such it is mine to give, and no others. Doubts are the reasonable response to changed conditions: I can doubt myself, I can doubt my faith, I can doubt my understanding of God. I can even doubt God. The Hebrew scriptures are filled with remonstrances about God's actions in human history, from the Psalms to Ecclesiastes to Job to the prophets. It's a rare prophet who doesn't describe God challenging Israel to come to "court" and put their case in contention with God's response. Israel questions God; "Israel" is the name given to Jacob because it means "struggles with God." Doubt is part of our nature, our difference from God. I doubt my wife, from time to time, and struggle with her (not physically, like Jacob and the angel) because we are two beings, not one. My daughter struggles with her puppy she is raising, even as she loves him. Her struggles remind me of our struggles raising her; because she is a separate being with her own desires and demands, and they come into conflict with ours, her parents. The struggle is real, the struggle raises doubts about whether we were doing right by her, teaching her the right lessons, treating her the right way. We doubted, but we didn't despair.
Despair is not doubt, but too easily we confuse doubt with despair. Despair is real, too; and sometimes the struggle leads to revelation, to vanquishing despair. Sometimes the struggle just ends in despair. It may be a spiritual struggle leads to abandoning trust, to abandoning belief. Is that because God? Or because your ideas about God were wrong to begin with? I don't mean to pronounce a judgment; the facts determine the outcome, not the principles, not the ideas. But faith is not simple and unitary; neither is belief. It can be; it can also not be.
In the song, Jacob reduces faith and belief to a single demand for certainty. He cannot live in the ambiguity, but ambiguity is where human life is lived. I can trust that my wife and my daughter love me; or I can drive myself near-mad seeking assurances, seeking knowledge I cannot have, that they do. At some point it comes down to trust; all human knowledge and relationships do. To withdraw from the struggle is not to withdraw from the effort. But it is to recognize which struggle is real, and necessary; and which struggle is just trapping you in the bottle.
*There's also the distinction of "What I believe" and "What I believe in." But this conversation is muddled enough already.
**And there’s the crowd that, if I did say I “believe in science,” would take offense at the application of such a “religious” word to the venerated body of knowledge (this is where I point out “science” is a synonym, and rooted in the Latin word, “knowledge.”) But science is a belief system as surely as religion is. No scientist has established every scientific principle and datum by personal experimentation and analysis. The vast body of science is taken on faith, which is to say, trust. And it is not to say, on blind, unthinking acceptance. The similarities between science and religion are actually stronger than the differences. It is, in fact, those similarities that make so many determined to emphasize the differences. Nobody fights like family.
***emotional states are almost forbidden because they are understood to be antithetical to reason. Yet love is one of the most valued (and commodified) emotions in Western culture, and if I just give rational reasons why I stay with my wife or care about my children, I'm a heartless monster with no feelings. If I say simply I love my wife and child, no one inquires further, or thinks me shallow and simplistic in my familial relationships. We really do preach it round and square.
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