Believe or Be-live?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Skepticism is part of belief and belief is part of skepticism, so says Daniel Taylor in his\u00a0The Skeptical Believer. But what then is faith? He says it is\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2013\/04\/24\/believe-or-be-live\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Believe or Be-live?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Skepticism is part of belief and belief is part of skepticism, so says Daniel Taylor in his\u00a0The Skeptical Believer. But what then is faith? 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{"id":39412,"date":"2013-04-24T05:04:47","date_gmt":"2013-04-24T10:04:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/?p=39412"},"modified":"2013-04-24T06:25:55","modified_gmt":"2013-04-24T11:25:55","slug":"believe-or-be-live","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2013\/04\/24\/believe-or-be-live\/","title":{"rendered":"Believe or Be-live?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

$\"\"$ <\/a>Skepticism is part of belief and belief is part of skepticism, so says Daniel Taylor in his\u00a0The Skeptical Believer<\/em><\/a><\/strong>. But what then is faith? He says it is to \u201cassent to a claim\u201d or \u201cacceptance of a claim.\u201d But belief entails more than acceptance or assent. Taylor\u2019s point is well worth pondering. \u00a0Faith is a \u201clife-shaping acceptance of a claim.\u201d That is, \u201cOur creeds calls us to be-live something, not simply to believe something\u201d (15).<\/p>\n

The turn of phrase and subtle dropping of a single \u2018e\u2019 tells a truth about faith and belief that drive us to the center of our faith. Creedal affirmation is transcended, or deepened if you prefer, by \u201cbe-live.\u201d<\/p>\n

What advantages do you see in \u201cbe-live\u201d vs. \u201cbelieve\u201d? How do you deal with your \u201cinner atheist\u201d?<\/strong><\/p>\n

This subtle and helpful clarification though does not chase away the problem Taylor faces squarely in this book: the reality of doubt on the part of the believer and be-liver. So examines two kinds of atheists:<\/p>\n

The External Atheist and the Internal Atheist. He focuses in this book on the latter, but he offers shrewd comments about the former.<\/p>\n

External atheists \u201care \u00a0a dime a dozen.\u201d More: \u201cThese people claim not to believe in God, but in truth they are obsessed with God\u2026 Strangely, they organize their lives around something they don\u2019t believe exists. It\u2019s like spending your life guarding the world against a Martian invasion and believing you are being successful. If there\u2019s no God, then relax, folks, and find something to make yourself useful\u201d (20).<\/p>\n

The big problem is the External atheist is redundant. We don\u2019t need them, Taylor says, because we have an Internal atheist at work in our heads all the time. \u201cThis Inner Atheist knows me well because he\u00a0is\u00a0<\/em>me\u201d (20).<\/p>\n

Taylor has come to terms with his past as a \u201cproof monger\u201d and come to accept the subjectivity of all explanations. There are facts and there is an objective world, but our explanations partake to some degree in our subjectivity. \u00a0Not \u201cjust\u201d or \u201cmerely\u201d subjective but nonetheless subjective. So he confesses \u201cI made peace with subjectivity\u201d (22). My own work with historiography led me to the same conclusion: history isn\u2019t description of what really happened but a narrative of what happened and the narrative cuts a line into reality but only a line.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s made peace with his Inner Atheist by not feeding him so much. He hears him out; he listens; this deflates him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve also noticed that he gets quiet during stories\u201d (22).<\/p>\n

\u201cI let my Inner Atheist have his say\u2026. Then I go on believing. I go on trying to live my part in the story\u201d (23).<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"