How do we quantify "believe"?

[Mijoy2]

Isn’t the term believe, or belief, itself as relative term?

In terms of christianity, we (as a people), at least fundementally, define ourselves as believers or non-believers. We use terms as such as; Christians; Catholics; atheists etc. as buckets of people. In other words we bin people. This implies that, i.e. a Christian, believes in the Triune God how much? To what degree? An atheist disbelieves to what degree? Where is the threshold that will determine in which bin one is placed? What is the meteric?

If one is to be binned a believer, does he have to believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of the eternal God, Creator of heaven and earth equally to the degree in which he probably believes the ocean is composed of salt water; the sun will come up in the morning; the moon revolves around the earth, that he is wearing shoes etc etc.? There is a cetain degree of reason that accompanies my question. I hope I don’t get responses suggesting that the sun may not come up tomorrow or anything on that level of thinking for this would not address the point of questioning.

I ask because I cannot say I believe to that degree. I can say it, I can hope it, I can wish it but it is out of my control no matter how much I read, no mattter how much I pray to fully believe it. I find myself faced with a lot of moments where even a low level of belief is difficult to muster. I am never fully with or fully without belief.

How do I know that I believe enough to be binned a believer?

Personally I doubt anyone is fully on either side of the spectrum without some sort of a look beyond the vail. Maybe you disagree.

Does God consider me a “believer”? I wonder.

 

[davidv]

Isn’t the term believe, or belief, itself as relative term?

In terms of christianity, we (as a people), at least fundementally, define ourselves as believers or non-believers. We use terms as such as; Christians; Catholics; atheists etc. as buckets of people. In other words we bin people. This implies that, i.e. a Christian, believes in the Triune God how much? To what degree? An atheist disbelieves to what degree? Where is the threshold that will determine in which bin one is placed? What is the meteric?

If one is to be binned a believer, does he have to believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of the eternal God, Creator of heaven and earth equally to the degree in which he probably believes the ocean is composed of salt water; the sun will come up in the morning; the moon revolves around the earth, that he is wearing shoes etc etc.? There is a cetain degree of reason that accompanies my question. I hope I don’t get responses suggesting that the sun may not come up tomorrow or anything on that level of thinking for this would not address the point of questioning.

I ask because I cannot say I believe to that degree. I can say it, I can hope it, I can wish it but it is out of my control no matter how much I read, no mattter how much I pray to fully believe it. I find myself faced with a lot of moments where even a low level of belief is difficult to muster. I am never fully with or fully without belief.

How do I know that I believe enough to be binned a believer?

Personally I doubt anyone is fully on either side of the spectrum without some sort of a look beyond the vail. Maybe you disagree.

Does God consider me a “believer”? I wonder.

I think God wants disciplines, not believers.

 

[Mijoy2]

I think God wants disciplines, not believers.

Thank you for your response. Can you elaborate?

 

[davidv]

Thank you for your response. Can you elaborate?

My misspelling misled you. I meant to write disciples.
God wants us to follow the “Way, the Truth and the Life”. It takes some amount of faith to do so. And it takes great resolve to do so faithfully.

 

[kepha1]

“believe” cannot be quantified.

Religious faith in the reasonable and Catholic sense is an extension or application to the spiritual world of an ordinary intellectual process which all exercise daily, and without the exercise of which our lives as social beings would be impossible. This process consists in assenting to the truth of propositions on the testimony of others. We may acquire knowledge in two ways - either by direct observation (you see a man knocked down by a car in the street), or through the testimony of others (you read an account of the accident in the evening paper, or learn it from a friend).

The last intellectual operation, whereby we assent to the truth of facts (which are, perhaps, beyond the reach of our own observation) because other men testify to their truth, plays an incessant part in our lives. It is in this way most of our knowledge comes to us - on the authority of others. If you reflect on the method whereby people as a rule acquire scientific, geographical, historical, philosophical knowledge, or if you think of the part which books and newspapers play in our lives, you will, I think, admit the truth of what I say. We each of us investigate a very small portion of the earth’s surface on which we live - namely, the part traversed by the tiny track of our perambulations through life. All the other knowledge we have of the world - or of the universe - rests on the testimony of others.

Not Unscientific

Now, who will say that such faith, such willingness to accept testimony, is unscientific, or unworthy of a rational being? Who will suggest that it is not based on sound intellectual principles? It may not be easy for you to trace the process whereby you have come to believe without any doubt in the existence of Jupiter’s satellites, or of icebergs in the Antarctic, or of Hitler or Mussolini. The evidence has come through many almost imperceptible channels, but is such that it excludes all doubt from your mind. If you analyze the process, it comes to this: You convince yourself by direct examination or reasoning of the reliability of the witness; then you accept his testimony as true. Two things must be clear to you about the witness:
(1) That he had ample opportunity to learn the facts;
(2) that he is telling the truth.

In other words, that he is not deceived himself, nor wants to deceive you. In a court of law, the judge and jury must test these two points: Is the witness truthful? Has he knowledge of the facts? Once they are convinced of these two things, then they accept his evidence, and believe his statements to be true.

To a Catholic believer Faith is just this process. It is not conjecture, nor is it credulity. It means assenting to the truth of certain facts on the evidence of a reliable witness, the witness in this case being God Himself. That the facts (e.g., the Trinity, Incarnation, the Real Presence ) are beyond our ken and cannot be directly tested by us is no more a difficulty to our accepting them (when the evidence is sufficient) than my inability to investigate directly the murder of Julius Caesar or the execution of Mary Queen of Scots militates against my belief that these two eminent persons met with violent deaths.

Steps in the Process

The steps that lead to Faith are these: -
(1) I assure myself by reasoning and argument that God has actually spoken and communicated knowledge to mankind - that He is a witness to men of truth.
(2) I prove that this knowledge is still available for use, is actually preserved somewhere in the world, is in the keeping of somebody from whom I can obtain it.
(3) I learn the contents of the message, and accept them as God’s revelation, on His authority. This last mental act is the formal act of faith. The other two processes, for the carrying out of which we rely on our own intellectual acumen and activity (aided by God’s grace), are preparatory, and lead up to the formal act of faith.

Suppose you receive a letter from a friend whose word you trust implicitly. A glance at the handwriting and signature assures you that the letter is actually from this friend. You thereby establish its genuineness and authenticity, and even before you read the letter or know its contents you are assured that your friend has sent you a message, and that you have his message in your hands. This corresponds to the preparatory stages (the praeambula fidei, as theologians call them), described above. Then you read the letter and learn certain facts, which you accept as true on the authority of your friend. This corresponds to the formal act of faith.

By Rev. Albert Power S.J. 1960 (source no longer available on line)

 

[John7]

Personally I doubt anyone is fully on either side of the spectrum

There’s some sort of spectrum of faith

On one side there are those who are given the gift of faith, so that they have faith greater than others who don’t have the gift
1 Corinthians 12:7 But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal. 8 For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit; 9 To another faith by the same Spirit; to another the gifts of healing by the same Spirit;

On the other side there are those with not much faith
Matthew 14:31 And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him, and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?

don’t know how to quantify, I assume God would know how. The ‘amount’ of faith/belief a person needs to be saved is not given in verses like this
Romans 10:9 That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.Just neccessary that you believe, no mention of strength of belief needed for salvation or to be considered a believer. Don’t know if there are other verses that state you need relatively ‘such’ an amount of belief to be considered a believer

 

[Mijoy2]

My misspelling misled you. I meant to write disciples.
God wants us to follow the “Way, the Truth and the Life”. It takes some amount of faith to do so. And it takes great resolve to do so faithfully.

It wasn’t the spelling I just wanted a clarification of what you were conveying. This makes a great deal of sense to me (if I am interpretting what you are saying here correctly).

Let me try putting it in my words. You are suggesting that God is more interested in us following His teachings which come to us through His Revelation (the Word and the Word made Flesh) because our hearts which He designed to know this Truth inherently are polarized in the direction of this teaching. So He may be more pleased with our properly aligned actions towards this Truth then necessarily our believing fully where this Truth eminated from and how. Whew, long-winded. Hope I am on track.

I often find that I hope this is true, because I do feel that what the Church teaches makes tremedous sense yet I find I have doubts sometimes in just where this truth comes from. I hope this can make sense to at least some who read it.

 

[Mijoy2]

“believe” cannot be quantified.

This process consists in assenting to the truth of propositions on the testimony of others. We may acquire knowledge in two ways - either by direct observation (you see a man knocked down by a car in the street), or through the testimony of others (you read an account of the accident in the evening paper, or learn it from a friend).

The last intellectual operation, whereby we assent to the truth of facts (which are, perhaps, beyond the reach of our own observation) because other men testify to their truth, plays an incessant part in our lives. It is in this way most of our knowledge comes to us - on the authority of others. If you reflect on the method whereby people as a rule acquire scientific, geographical, historical, philosophical knowledge, or if you think of the part which books and newspapers play in our lives, you will, I think, admit the truth of what I say. We each of us investigate a very small portion of the earth’s surface on which we live - namely, the part traversed by the tiny track of our perambulations through life. All the other knowledge we have of the world - or of the universe - rests on the testimony of others.

The issue I have with this is motive. Our assenting to what we may read in the newspaper (not editorial but news) as being true (or at least mostly true) or what we may learn about George Washington being our first president from history bookks is primarily because we find no motive in this writing other then the desire to communicate to others.

The Revelation of God however is different. Let me try to articulate my thoughts. I characterize the possiblity (in my mind) of Gods Revelation as, perhaps, an unintentional gradule manufacturing of a story throughout many hundreds of years eminating from a perspective of wishful thinking and grandious imagination.

We have many examples of this throughout history. Good people with good intentions somehow crafting a story which ultimately is believed by many (in the case of Islam, perhaps a billion or more). When highly intelligent people attempt to disseminate this story to it’s root cause they find enough evidence to convince them it is so. That it happened the way it is currently taught. The Book of Mormon is another example. We can rip apart both of these examples (and do so when we practice apologetics) but this is not my point at all. My point is, I can prove (word used loosely here) that the point I am trying to make is a valid one via these two examples. That the “an unintentional gradule manufacturing of a story”, through the motive of hope and wishful thinking, can actually occur.

I claim that we cannot know, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that this did not occur in our case. The case of Christianity.

 

[davidv]

It wasn’t the spelling I just wanted a clarification of what you were conveying. This makes a great deal of sense to me (if I am interpretting what you are saying here correctly).

Let me try putting it in my words. You are suggesting that God is more interested in us following His teachings which come to us through His Revelation (the Word and the Word made Flesh) because our hearts which He designed to know this Truth inherently are polarized in the direction of this teaching. So He may be more pleased with our properly aligned actions towards this Truth then necessarily our believing fully where this Truth eminated from and how. Whew, long-winded. Hope I am on track.

I often find that I hope this is true, because I do feel that what the Church teaches makes tremedous sense yet I find I have doubts sometimes in just where this truth comes from. I hope this can make sense to at least some who read it.

You summarized well what I was trying to convey.

One of the guest priests on Relevant Radio within the last few weeks was commenting on the passage of the health care bill. In reaction to many who considered this a failure, he commented that God doesn’t demand success, rather He expects faithfulness.

Also, it seems to me that doubts are normal part of life. I believe that everyone, if they are honest with themselves, would have periodic doubts about their particular beliefs or lack thereof.

“I believe” is a not so simple statement. Pope Benedict in his book Introduction to Christianity, uses the first 100 pages or so, describing what this phase, can and should mean in the context of Christianity. I would highly recommend this book.

 

[Mijoy2]

You summarized well what I was trying to convey.

One of the guest priests on Relevant Radio within the last few weeks was commenting on the passage of the health care bill. In reaction to many who considered this a failure, he commented that God doesn’t demand success, rather He expects faithfulness.

Also, it seems to me that doubts are normal part of life. I believe that everyone, if they are honest with themselves, would have periodic doubts about their particular beliefs or lack thereof.

“I believe” is a not so simple statement. Pope Benedict in his book Introduction to Christianity, uses the first 100 pages or so, describing what this phase, can and should mean in the context of Christianity. I would highly recommend this book.

Thank you for this recommendation. Anything by Pope Benedict I have the utmost of respect and admiration for. This will certainly be something I read. Especially as it pertains to my quandry.