{"id":3029,"date":"2015-08-14T06:20:59","date_gmt":"2015-08-14T10:20:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/sermonsfromthemound\/?p=3029"},"modified":"2015-08-14T06:20:59","modified_gmt":"2015-08-14T10:20:59","slug":"faith-and-belief","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/sermonsfromthemound\/2015\/08\/faith-and-belief\/","title":{"rendered":"Faith and Belief"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Many Pagans will tell you that they do not have faith and belief, because they know by experience that the gods exist. Here they are using the words in their modern sense of \u2018assent to a creed\u2019. Other Pagans will quite happily use the words faith and belief, because they mean something different by those words. What is going on? What do the words \u2018faith\u2019 and \u2018belief\u2019 mean? Has their meaning changed over time? Yes, according to Karen Armstrong:<\/p>\n

\u201cFaith\u201d has its etymological roots in the Greek pistis<\/em>, \u201ctrust; commitment; loyalty; engagement.\u201d Jerome translated pistis into the Latin fides<\/em> (\u201cloyalty\u201d) and credo<\/em> (which was from cor do<\/em>, \u201cI give my heart\u201d). The translators of the first King James Bible translated credo into the English \u201cbelief,\u201d which came from the Middle English bileven<\/em> (\u201cto prize; to value; to hold dear\u201d). Faith in God, therefore, was a trust in and loyal commitment to God.<\/p>\n

~ Brian McGrath Davis, Religion is not about belief: Karen Armstrong\u2019s THE CASE FOR GOD<\/a><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Similarly, Alan Watts, a writer who popularised Zen in the West, regarded faith as an attitude of openness to mystery and uncertainty:<\/p>\n

\u201cFaith is a state of openness or trust.<\/p>\n

To have faith is like when you trust yourself to the water. You don\u2019t grab hold of the water when you swim, because if you do you will become stiff and tight in the water, and sink. You have to relax, and the attitude of faith is the very opposite of clinging, and holding on.<\/p>\n

In other words, a person who is fanatic in matters of religion, and clings to certain ideas about the nature of God and the universe becomes a person who has no faith at all. Instead they are holding tight. But the attitude of faith is to let go, and become open to truth, whatever it might turn out to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

~ Alan Watts<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When we view faith and belief as meaning trust and\/or the humility to admit that we don\u2019t have all the answers, or even know what all the questions are yet, then they seem like much more attractive ideas. As Karen Armstrong says, they don\u2019t involve assenting to a set creed, and bending your reason out of shape, or leaving it at the door, in order to \u2018believe six impossible things before breakfast\u2019 \u2013 rather, they are about opening yourself to experience.<\/p>\n

\"Otter<\/a>
Otter in Alaska, photo by S Chucke (public domain). Pixabay<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Everyone knows that being open to experience without trying to come up with a theory to explain it can lead to more experiences of the same kind. Tania Luhrmann referred to this phenomenon as interpretive drift. I would prefer a more neutral term, such as openness, as her terminology (and indeed her study of magic users) was based on the premise that everyone starts out rational and then shifts, or drifts, towards a belief in magic. Whereas I do not think that a belief in magic is irrational, or incompatible with science. Pagans have a variety of ways in which we reconcile our theories of magic with the materialistic world-view of science<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I have always said that I don\u2019t have a fixed belief (in the sense of assenting to a creed); instead, I have working hypotheses to explain my experiences<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Sometimes, we Pagans tie ourselves up in knots trying to avoid the problematic terminology we have experienced in\u00a0evangelical and\/or fundamentalist Christianity that some of us have experienced in the past. But sometimes it is worth trying to find out what these terms originally meant, and reclaim them for our own use. People have similar issues with the terms \u2018worship\u2019 and \u2018prayer\u2019, but that is a topic for another post.<\/p>\n

Faith<\/h3>\n

So, if you have faith in the gods, it means you trust them. What are the implications of that? Well, if you trust your friend, it means you believe they have your best interests at heart; that you can confide in them; that they will not let you down in a crisis. So maybe you don\u2019t have that kind of faith in all<\/em> the gods, but rather with the ones you have a special devotion<\/a> to, or a special relationship<\/a> with. Or maybe you place your faith in Nature, and your relationship with it.<\/p>\n

This faith \u2013 this relationship<\/em> \u2013 is what sustains you when you feel doubtful, depressed, or otherwise wobbly. It doesn\u2019t mean you never have doubts; it means that you keep on keeping on, even when you have doubts. You lean back into the water, and trust that it will hold you up, even when you don\u2019t know how deep it is.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s face it, even when we\u00a0have direct experience of the gods, or of magic, we still don\u2019t really know how it works, or what the gods really are. The face of the gods that we see is only one facet of their\u00a0nature, whatever that may be. The gods are vast ancient cosmic forces, and our personifications of them are their reflections in human culture. As Sam Webster<\/a> wrote recently:<\/p>\n

Let us start with the Gods as we experience them. Much to my surprise, I am no longer convinced that the Beings we experience are the Gods Themselves. What we are experiencing is a projection of Those who are Gods refracted through our souls and the cultures we are a part of.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

We do not really know the full nature of the gods, so we are open and trusting towards them in order to experience more of their nature. We do not cling to our limited ideas about them, but are ready to open ourselves to more experience and insight.<\/p>\n

Belief<\/h3>\n

To believe in something in the original sense is to prize it, to value it, to hold it dear. Do you prize your Pagan practice, your relationship with the gods? Do you hold dear the culture and values of Paganism? Then you believe in them.<\/p>\n

The distinction between mythos<\/em> and logos<\/em> is important here. Mythos is metaphorical truth \u2013 something that rings true, that is an accurate\u00a0symbol for representing something. Logos is literal truth, such as empirical knowledge about how things work. Karen Armstrong explains the difference<\/a>:<\/p>\n

In most pre-modern cultures, there were two recognised ways of attaining truth. The Greeks called them\u00a0mythos<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0logos<\/em>. Both were crucial and each had its particular sphere of competence.\u00a0Logos<\/em>\u00a0(\u201creason; science\u201d) was the pragmatic mode of thought that enabled us to control our environment and function in the world. It had, therefore, to correspond accurately to external realities. But\u00a0logos\u00a0<\/em>could not assuage human grief or give people intimations that their lives had meaning. For that they turned to\u00a0mythos<\/em>, an early form of psychology, which dealt with the more elusive aspects of human experience.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is related to the concept of worship, which is about holding something to be worthwhile \u2013 a celebration of ultimate worth, as the excellent Abraxan Essay on Worship<\/a> by\u00a0Von Ogden Vogt has it. We value something, we trust it, we invest our time and energy in it \u2013 we believe in it. We still use this sense of \u2018belief\u2019 in everyday speech \u2013 \u201cI believe in you\u201d means \u201cI value you and trust you\u201d.<\/p>\n

Belief is reinforced by belonging \u2013 the more we feel part of something, the more we place our trust in it; and the two are mutually reinforcing: the more we believe and trust in something, the more we feel that we belong. This process is contingent on experience, however; if your community lets you down, it is hard to continue with that same level of\u00a0trust. Trust and belonging and belief are created by practice, which is why most religions place much more emphasis on practice than they do on assent to creeds. Karen Armstrong explains how religion is about practice<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Religious truth is, therefore, a species of practical knowledge. Like swimming, we cannot learn it in the abstract; we have to plunge into the pool and acquire the knack by dedicated practice. Religious doctrines are a product of ritual and ethical observance, and make no sense unless they are accompanied by such spiritual exercises as yoga, prayer, liturgy and a consistently compassionate lifestyle. Skilled practice in these disciplines can lead to intimations of the transcendence we call God, Nirvana, Brahman or Dao. Without such dedicated practice, these concepts remain incoherent, incredible and even absurd.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Reclaiming the words<\/h3>\n

So, let\u2019s reclaim the words faith and belief to mean what they originally meant, and not use them to mean \u2018assent to a creed\u2019. They mean far more than that; they are about creating relationship with the gods and\/or Nature; reconnecting with the sacred; re-enchanting the world. We believe<\/em> in the gods and spirits, Nature and the Earth and the \u00a0land, because we hold them dear, and value our relationships with them; we have opened our hearts to them. We have faith<\/em> in them, because we are relaxed in their presence, and have let go of our assumptions, and we trust them.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Many Pagans will tell you that they do not have faith and belief, because they know by experience that the gods exist. Here they are using the words in their modern sense of ‘assent to a creed’. Other Pagans will quite happily use the words faith and belief, because they mean something different by those words. What is going on? What do the words ‘faith’ and ‘belief’ mean? Has their meaning changed over time?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1320,"featured_media":3030,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[210,4],"tags":[519,285,518,523,13,524,522,525,521,54,74,78,520,112],"class_list":["post-3029","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-praxis","category-theology","tag-belief","tag-experience","tag-faith","tag-modernism","tag-pagan","tag-pre-modern","tag-re-enchantment","tag-reason","tag-reconnection","tag-religion","tag-sacred","tag-science","tag-trust","tag-worship"],"yoast_head":"\nFaith and Belief<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Many Pagans will tell you that they do not have faith and belief, because they know by experience that the gods exist. Here they are using the words in their modern sense of 'assent to a creed'. 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