Belief in a "fact"

On Wednesday, February 25, 2004, at 10:09 AM, John W Burgeson wrote:

> So -- what defines a person as a Christian?
>
> 1. Intellectual belief in one or more facts (or alleged facts)
> 2. Doing good works
> 3. Having an emotional experience (say -- like Pascal's)
> 4. Something else
>
A day or so later, my good friend Bill Hamilton replied:

1. Jesus Christ is God's only begotten son
2. He was crucified, dead and buried
3. On the third day he rose again
4. By his death he atoned for the sins of the world

"That in itself would make my answer in category 1 above. However, I
also have a relationship with him that began through his taking the
initiative and led to my praying to receive Christ, after which I
received an assurance that he had indeed moved into my life. So more
than belief in facts, it's a relationship."

Bill's conversion story is quite similar to my own, so I feel confident
that he will also understand what follows:

All of the four items above we may take as "facts in which we, as Xtians,
ought to believe."

Can we CHOOSE to believe tham? By an act of will, I mean? I suppose so.

What if someone CHOOSES to believe them, but has a nagging doubt about
one? Paul Tillich argued that doubts are a vital part of the Xtian faith.
I think he is right.

With any of the above items, indeed, with ANY item, we have three
options:

1. Believe it in full (may have to CHOOSE to do this).
2. Neither believe nor disbelieve it (99:1, 98:2, 97:3, ... 1:99)
3. Disbelieve it in full (I suppose that would be Dawkin's position)

If I don't CHOOSE position 1, I find myself (not always) in position 2.
That's just a fact; I'd like to occupy position 1 without the choosing; I
don't.

Partially as a result of this, I question whether belief in any "fact"
can have any particular relation to being a Christian.

Is John Spong a Christian? He is pretty close to position 3. I don't
know; I know that it does not appear to be my job to make that call, so I
accept him as a Christian.

Sorry for rambling on this. I have not yet formulated the proper
questions to ask.

I am terribly impressed by a writing of Karen Armstrong which seems to
apply. Here it is:

I found in the book EVERY EYE BEHOLDS YOU (ed by Craughwell (1998)
these words from Karen Armstrong (in the book's introduction):

"We tend to equate faith with believing certain things about God or the
sacred. A religious person is often called a "believer' and seen as one
who has adopted the correct ideas about the divine. Belief is thus seen
as the first and essential step of the spiritual journey. Before we
embark ... we think that we must first satisfy ourselves intellectually
that there IS a God or that the truths of our particular tradition --
Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu or whatever -- are valid. It
seems pointless to make a commitment unless we are convinced about the
essentials. In our modern, scientific world, this makes good sense. First
-- you establish a principle and then you apply it.

But the history of religion makes it clear this is not how it works. To
expect to have faith before embarking on the disciplines of the spiritual
life is like putting the cart before the horse. In all the great
traditions, prophets, sages and mystics spend very little time telling
their disciples about what they ought to BELIEVE. Indeed, it is only
since the Enlightenment that faith has been defined as intellectual
submission to a creed. Hitherto, faith ... meant trust and was used in
rather the same way as when we say we have faith IN a person or an ideal.
Faith was thus a ... conviction that ... our lives did have some meaning
and value. You could not possibly arrive at faith in this sense before
you had lived a religious life. Faith was thus the fruit ... not
something you had to have at the start ... ."

Burgy (off on still another tangent)

www.burgy.50megs.com/h4h.htm (A Habitat for Humanity story)

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Received on Tue Mar 2 13:12:52 2004