Gopher,
Faith is crucial for belief and for our salvation, but faith doesn't have to be "blind".
Worship only counts if you base it on faith, not proof of god's existance?
by AdaMakawee 21 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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Gopher
Psacramento,
The point you bring up is controversial. I stand by my statement that there is a clear line between facts and faith.
If something is factual (such as water flows downhill into the sea or ocean), you do not need faith. Even though you may have never personally visited a delta where the river empties it waters, you KNOW it's a fact. But if someone tells you it will rain tomorrow, that takes faith.
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PSacramento
When Paul said that "faith is all you need", he said it to those that had seen his miracles and heard his preaching, there wasn't a question of blind faith, even Jesus showed the people that "God walked amongst them", "if you do not believe my words, believe my actions".
Faith in the NT doesn't equal belief with NO EVIDENCE to belive in.
I believe because I have faith and my faith is based on what I know and feel and experience by the touch of the HS.
"No one can say Jesus is lord unless by the HS".
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Narkissos
Hi Gopher,
What I tried to point out is that the religious value (cf. the title of this thread, "worship only counts if you base it on faith...") ascribed to "faith/belief" in Christianity (I must insist that this is a specifically Christian emphasis; in most religions "faith/belief" is secondary to practice, of both a ritual and ethical kind) is distinct from the cognitive sense of "faith/belief" (something like "strong opinion without proof"). And this religious value is ultimately dependent on the NT use of pistis, pisteuô etc. which doesn't correspond exactly to the ordinary use of "faith/belief/believe" in English and involves much more than the theoretical issue of the "existence of God" (which allows only three basic answers, "yes," "no" and "I don't know").
For instance, most people who are polemically termed "unbelievers" (apistoi) in the NT were definitely not atheists. They were either monotheists (non-Christian Jews) or polytheists (non-Christian Gentiles). "People of little faith" (oligopistoi) did not necessarily harbour more doubts about the existence of God than people whose faith is called "great" (pistis megalè) -- the latter being often Gentiles of polytheistic background in the Synoptic Gospels. Iow, the basic issue was not one of opinion about the existence of G/gods (which was taken for granted in most cases, with or without "faith") but of "existential" attitude. "Faith" in that sense, saving faith, was closer to trust than belief in the sense of intellectual opinion about an alleged "fact".
Interestingly, one of the NT texts which comes closest to a "cognitive" notion of "faith" is the epistle of James, which polemically opposes the notion of "saving faith" in Paul (especially Romans). "Faith" as mere intellectual assent (although not opposed to knowledge or proof, mind you) emerges in the almost "strawman" argument: "You believe (pisteueis) that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe (pisteuousin) -- and shudder". However such merely cognitive "faith/belief" (which in that case would not be short of knowledge, since demons are supposed to know there is one God) is not saving faith but dead faith which "saves" nobody (iow has no religious value).
We are of course in a completely different cultural context, where the existence of God (let alone gods) cannot be taken for granted anymore. This has displaced the emphasis of most Christian preaching to the slippery field of "proving the existence of God" (a topic which is hardly ever addressed in the Bible). The only remark I can make about this is: even if one was intellectually convinced (rightly or wrongly) that God exists this would not amount to "saving" faith in any 'Christian' sense.
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AdaMakawee
Narkissos, thanks for pointing out that faith is not limited to christianity. For instance, I am not a christian, and I would say I have faith, just not in the same flavor of the divine. I feel that proof strengthens and justifies faith, it doesn't turn you into a non-believer if you have seen something that proves to you beyond a reasonable doubt. Or does that make you a knower, instead of a believer?
I'm not sure that this argument can ever be settled, however, those that believe one way will never be convinced otherwise I suppose.
Ada
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Gopher
Narkissos,
I was concentrating more on the last part of the thread's title - "proof of God's existence". Maybe the controversy over God's existence wasn't a big issue in Bible times, although it seems Psalms 14 does take a poke at atheists when it says the fool has said in his heart there is no God. Maybe this is referring to "practical atheism", a term I heard when I was a JW. That term was intended to describe someone who may believe God exists but practically does nothing about it. (I don't know if that term has any currency outside of the world of JW's.)
In his dissertation in Hebrews 11, verse 6, Paul defined faith as having two elements - (1) believing that God exists and (2) believing that he rewards those who seek him. Since he wrote that part about "you must believe he exists" -- maybe it really was an issue in the first century. He was writing to people in the religious hotbed of Jerusalem, and still he had to remind them about that mental acknowledgement "God exists".
James adds that faith must be accompanied by works or else it is false. This is where it gets confusing, and comes to the point about rituals that you raised as central to religious practice. A person could do works or rituals and look "faithful" while really not taking God into consideration. Coming from a works-based religion like the JW's, I saw a lot of people going through the motions, and even felt that way myself a lot of the time. Does religious faithfulness really imply the kind of faith the Paul described in Hebrews 11:6? Does religious practice mean one is worshipping God?
It gets confusing because different religious teachers tell you differently, perhaps based on what they want you to believe, and even in the Bible there is the Paul vs. James approach to the subject.
So to clarify it in my mind, I simplify it by saying one who believes in an invisible, unprovable character like a God has faith. But they may not meet the requirements of faithfulness outlined in the bylaws of any religion.
Help me out here if you can. (I know it's the middle of the night in France, but I'll be interested in any thoughts you may have tomorrow.)
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Borgia
I don’t know about you, but why would anyone want to risk their soul in such a way? True faith shouldn’t need proof anyway.
So, why does Hebrew count Gideon as an example of faith, despite he demanded proof 3x .... AND GOT IT!!!!
Cheers
Borgia
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Narkissos
Ada,
I think I agree with your points. The meaning of words/notions like "knowing" and "believing" are not written down in marble anywhere, and throwing dictionary definitions (whether ancient or modern) at each other doesn't make much sense. In the end, every speaker/writer makes its own definitions, which can at least be gathered from their usage if they don't make it explicit; to some faith and knowledge are almost synonymous, to others they are opposed, and still others are inconsistent (nothing wrong with that imo).
As I briefly tried to point out in my last post, "saving faith" in the Synoptic Gospels is remarkably non-dogmatic (contrary to Paul for instance, where it relates almost exclusively to the, or rather his, "Gospel"). There is a recurring paradox: not only monotheistic Jews but the disciples are often described as lacking faith, while total strangers (especially Gentiles, the Syro-Phoenician/Canaanite woman, Roman officials, etc.) are ascribed great faith. There is of course a religious agenda behind (praising mostly Gentile Christianity over Judaism), but also a certain reluctance to enclose faith within too definite borders (otherwise the disciples would be by definition on the "good" side).
That the subjective experience of faith can become a basis for not absolute but solid knowledge, this is beautifully illustrated in the pericope of the blind man in John 9: "If he is a sinner I don't know: I do know one thing, I was blind and now I see."
Gopher
Atheism was not unknown in the Ancient world; we can construe it as implied by several schools of Greek philosophy, e.g. atomism (Democritus, etc.) -- rarely claimed though, because it was a criminal offence in Athenian law, cf. Socrates' trial and condemnation (although Socrates denied being an atheist, by Plato's Apology). However it was relatively rare, especially outside the Greek sphere, and I think the notion of "moral" or "practical" (vs. theoretical) "atheism" applies to Psalm 14 quite fairly. A book like Ecclesiastes takes "God" (or more abstractly "the deity," ha-'elohim) for granted but clearly disconnects him or it (apart from a few likely "pious" additions) from moral judgement and retribution. Interestingly the Sadducees (whose ideology was very close to Ecclesiastes) were often termed "Epicurean" by their Pharisaic-rabbinical adversaries.
Hebrews (which I think is not Pauline by any stretch, in spite of the Pauline-like addition in chapter 13, nor addressed to anyone in Jerusalem -- Rome seems to be a much more likely setting) reflects a very particular philosophical background, obviously influenced by the kind of middle-Platonism which is also evident in Philo of Alexandria. His "definition of faith" should not be extrapolated or absolutised as THE Biblical definition of faith I think.
To the author of Hebrews, faith is a kind of knowledge: knowledge of the invisible/eternal; and (there lies the common misunderstandings); his point is not that faith requires "evidence" of any kind: the very existence of faith and the actions it inspires (which is the point of chapter 11) is elegkhos, demonstration, evidence, warrant, proof, manifestation amongst the visible/temporary world of "shadows" of the very being or essence (hupostasis) of the invisible/eternal. The point of v. 6 in particular makes sense from this perspective (in the order of knowledge rather than in the order of fact according to the classical distinction): because (1) Abel and Henoch pleased to God (by the testimony of Scripture, not only Genesis but texts like Sirach 44:16 or Wisdom 4:10) and (2) without faith nobody can please God (the "logical" argument of v. 6), we know they had faith (which is the evidence for the invisible/eternal).
(I don't mean you or I have to agree with the rhetorics, only pointing out how it works.)
The works (pseudo-)James recommends have nothing to do with ritual (and hereby the pseudepigraphic author certainly departs from the "historical James"): they are consistently and exclusively "humanitarian" if you allow me this anachronistic word (cf. 1:27 and the context) -- a domain in which he finds post-Pauline churches, absorbed in debates around theoretical "faith" they deem saving, sorely lacking.
Hope it helps a little... :)
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angel eyes
hebrews 11 v1.
maybe that helps?
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Farkel
"He who lives on hope will die fasting." - Mark Twain
Farkel