The bible has a definition of faith. It says:
"faith is the substance (substantiation) of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."
This isn't what we're used to thinking about, when it comes to the word. Here, in a book people object to on the grounds of not wanting to take 'blind leaps,' faith isn't spoken of as a vague feeling, or a belief or belief system. It's much more concrete. Faith is being presented as something which is connected with substance, reality and evidence.
There is a whole chapter of the bible about people doing stuff "by faith." It's an expression almost like "by the light of this candle." It talks about the various respected folk from the Old Testament, and how when they lived their lives and did those things that later made them famous, they really weren't taking blind leaps of belief. They were seeing that something was afoot, and though everything had not yet become clear to them, they "knew which way the wind was blowing," as it were. They obeyed God, trusted what they thought they were seeing, they went places, said and did and built things. Because they were wired in to what was going on. Faith is discernment. It's like a sense of what's not yet manifest, but is coming. Like Charlie Chaplin selling all of his stocks shortly before the stock market crashed in the 1920s, thereby preserving his fortune and his company, United Artists. The one thing faith isn't? Blind. It is about discerning real things. Something else it isn't? Wishing stuff.
You can read the "faith" chapter ("by faith Abraham..") and think of it as if it were saying something more like "by moonlight," "by using his car's GPS system," or "by calculating the perimeter of the property." Faith discerns. And like wisdom it both comes from God, and is what happens before action, rather than being some kind of "act" on its own. Wisdom and faith are not verbs. And they are about what is real, not about imagining stuff there is no evidence of. Faith is evidence. It is an indication of something for which all the evidence one could want is just starting to trickle into the present. (But we do like to gather to worship in temples erected to our capacity to believe the craziest things we're told, to choose things, to sacrifice joy to a god who apparently gets off on that. We like to revere people who gamble and make leaps.)
"faith is the substance (substantiation) of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."
This isn't what we're used to thinking about, when it comes to the word. Here, in a book people object to on the grounds of not wanting to take 'blind leaps,' faith isn't spoken of as a vague feeling, or a belief or belief system. It's much more concrete. Faith is being presented as something which is connected with substance, reality and evidence.
There is a whole chapter of the bible about people doing stuff "by faith." It's an expression almost like "by the light of this candle." It talks about the various respected folk from the Old Testament, and how when they lived their lives and did those things that later made them famous, they really weren't taking blind leaps of belief. They were seeing that something was afoot, and though everything had not yet become clear to them, they "knew which way the wind was blowing," as it were. They obeyed God, trusted what they thought they were seeing, they went places, said and did and built things. Because they were wired in to what was going on. Faith is discernment. It's like a sense of what's not yet manifest, but is coming. Like Charlie Chaplin selling all of his stocks shortly before the stock market crashed in the 1920s, thereby preserving his fortune and his company, United Artists. The one thing faith isn't? Blind. It is about discerning real things. Something else it isn't? Wishing stuff.
You can read the "faith" chapter ("by faith Abraham..") and think of it as if it were saying something more like "by moonlight," "by using his car's GPS system," or "by calculating the perimeter of the property." Faith discerns. And like wisdom it both comes from God, and is what happens before action, rather than being some kind of "act" on its own. Wisdom and faith are not verbs. And they are about what is real, not about imagining stuff there is no evidence of. Faith is evidence. It is an indication of something for which all the evidence one could want is just starting to trickle into the present. (But we do like to gather to worship in temples erected to our capacity to believe the craziest things we're told, to choose things, to sacrifice joy to a god who apparently gets off on that. We like to revere people who gamble and make leaps.)
I
am going to go walk down the stairs to go outside, in a bit. (I have to go sing to a street full of people at a festival) There won't be much gambling involved. I am going to use my visual sense
to discern where to put my feet. I am going to go down the stairs by looking, by memory and by the bright sunlight shining in the window at the bottom. When it comes to matters spiritual (or ones which are about to happen, but which haven't happened quite yet)
often faith is the sense that is used to find our way.
Of course, I am going to 'believe' my eyes. But that's not the
point. The point is that there ARE stairs, and that I also have eyes to discern
them with. Same with faith. The point isn't whether or not I believe what
faith makes discernible to me. It's that there IS something that I am
discerning with faith. You can believe any number of stupid, wrong,
silly things. Faith isn't like that. I'm not going to wish for (or imagine) stairs, and then create them with magic.
(I know some people believe that we do create things by perceiving them, that if no one was there to perceive stairs, there wouldn't be any, and if you are there and perceive them, you bring them into being. I am not one of those people. Guess I'm just not that spiritual.)
(I know some people believe that we do create things by perceiving them, that if no one was there to perceive stairs, there wouldn't be any, and if you are there and perceive them, you bring them into being. I am not one of those people. Guess I'm just not that spiritual.)
Imagine if a small explosive
has destroyed the stairs. My eyes might tell me that those stairs
aren't there to walk down now. I can believe that the stairs are still
there all I want, but that's blindness, and not discernment.
When it
comes to the relationships which make 'spiritual' things practical, faith is about seeing what's going on,
seeing God's workings and dealings in things, and then working insightfully with Him
and being part of what's going on. It's knowing which side your bread's buttered on. Think of any important juncture in history: the stock market is about to collapse, the British are going to try to quell the American rebellion, the allies are attacking Normandy beach, or whatever. Something big is coming. Even though everything isn't fully clear, and even though many people don't actually have forensic photographs or anything, if they discern what is going on to some degree, they often make very important choices. And to call these choices "blind" is unfair. They were the opposite. That synchronicity, collaboration, cooperation,
clued-inness, is what makes us "look magic" when faith is telling us
stuff. But it isn't magic.
We don't move mountains with happy thoughts, or fly under nothing but the power of our own euphoria, as a handy plot device, like Peter, Michael and Wendy in Peter Pan, sprinkled in fairy dust. Our lord didn't say "oh ye of little optimism." When he criticized people for lacking faith, what those lacking faith actually lacked was discerning what was going on, what God was doing and is capable of, and what could be done about it all. It was that they actually didn't see and understand, not just that they didn't believe.
It was Australian rockers AC/DC who so memorably asked the question (about God) "who made who?" That's an important one. If there is a God and we live according to that, then we're being smart. If we've made him up, then we're bullshit artists (which is what we stand accused of by many.) When we live by faith (discerning something real), things make sense. But if we ever are just believing what we imagine and would like to believe, then that's not faith at all, even though it's belief. It's bullshit. At that moment, we are imagining our own reality and our own god and the like, and we are worshipping our own work. That's idolatry. We have to let God be, or not, on His own merits. (He's a big lad. He can stand on his own two feet. If he can't, he's not worth even discussing. We don't make him exist by belief. He doesn't need our belief. We do. We need to believe in something real, though.) Same with reality. It isn't up to us to make it up.
We don't move mountains with happy thoughts, or fly under nothing but the power of our own euphoria, as a handy plot device, like Peter, Michael and Wendy in Peter Pan, sprinkled in fairy dust. Our lord didn't say "oh ye of little optimism." When he criticized people for lacking faith, what those lacking faith actually lacked was discerning what was going on, what God was doing and is capable of, and what could be done about it all. It was that they actually didn't see and understand, not just that they didn't believe.
It was Australian rockers AC/DC who so memorably asked the question (about God) "who made who?" That's an important one. If there is a God and we live according to that, then we're being smart. If we've made him up, then we're bullshit artists (which is what we stand accused of by many.) When we live by faith (discerning something real), things make sense. But if we ever are just believing what we imagine and would like to believe, then that's not faith at all, even though it's belief. It's bullshit. At that moment, we are imagining our own reality and our own god and the like, and we are worshipping our own work. That's idolatry. We have to let God be, or not, on His own merits. (He's a big lad. He can stand on his own two feet. If he can't, he's not worth even discussing. We don't make him exist by belief. He doesn't need our belief. We do. We need to believe in something real, though.) Same with reality. It isn't up to us to make it up.
In the modern world, we would like to think
that "positivity" is what makes magic happen. We misquote
the verse about having 'faith like a mustard seed' so we can think that belief,
optimism, imagination are kinda like magic fuel that allow us to do
whatever we want, including move mountains, just 'cause.
We aren't able to do whatever we want. We don't routinely do the impossible, for no good reason. Not even Jesus did that, and he had stuff to prove. We
discern what's going on and what is possible, wise and practical, and
act according to it. If God wants someone helped or healed or dead (or
the rain to stop or whatever), it is our discerning this that is
an act of faith, not us saying "I am going to imagine I can walk on
water, and my positive, optimistic, unshakeable belief in this notion
will power me." We are Christians. We deal in reality, not
make-believe. We can make ourselves believe a whole lot of stupid things, to be sure. But that's not why we're here.
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