What is belief, and how do you know you possess it?

[gregoryphealy]

So I’m a recent revert, and I like to think I make a conscious effort daily to pray, read LotH, sometimes do the rosary, read to brush up on apologetics and philosophy that might make God more “tangible”,and generally shape my behavior around what I perceive God would want. But one sticking point I have is understanding what belief is. To me, it’s an intangible feeling/emotion/state of mind about an intangible intellect/creator/thing. I can’t really wrap my head around it. This may be a derivative of the “faith as a virtue” thread, but I find it hard to prove, even to myself, that my belief exists or just is. Maybe it’s because I’ve never experienced it, but it’s not like someone can show me belief. And I feel like being reductive and saying “do you believe 2+2=4 or that George Washington existed” doesn’t help since those are demonstrable in reality, so belief might not be the most appropriate word. So I suppose it’s hard to distinguish going through the motions from genuine, real belief. Anyone else ever been through something similar? Do you feel different now from then? Did you have some kind of epiphany?

 

[ProdglArchitect]

We can show philosophically that God exists. We can also look at the ordered nature of the universe and derive some evidence for God from it.

I know what you mean though, sometime the entire concept of God seems a little on the abstract side. I had a lot of trouble with it until I had an undeniable experience of God’s presence. The peace I felt is unlike anything I have ever experienced.

When you’re having trouble, just remember the prayer: “Lord I believe, help my unbelief.”

 

[Eric_Hyom]

Belief is the first step, but faith is the greater challenge. I can say, I believe parachuting is safe, because loads of people do it. But the only way I can have faith in parachuting, is to put one on, go up in a plane and jump.

If I jump once, then I have faith once, if I jump a hundred times, then my faith is tested a hundred times. If I have a close encounter with death, will I have the faith to jump one more time?

I have a real belief that the first sentence in the Bible is an absolute truth, ‘In the beginning; God created the heaven and the Earth’. Faith in God means you have to do things in life that prove to yourself the certainty of God’s existence. This is a journey always one day at a time.

 

[gregoryphealy]

If I jump once, then I have faith once, if I jump a hundred times, then my faith is tested a hundred times. If I have a close encounter with death, will I have the faith to jump one more time?

Can faith be perfected/attained though? If not, how do we know if we have it at all? I understand we have to rely on God’s grace in the end regardless, but sometimes I just feel hopelessly adrift as a result of not being able to know or feel faith/belief.

Edit: Or is faith purely something demonstrated as in your examples? Is the demonstration of my faith through being virtuous, praying, etc what faith is?

 

[Eric_Hyom]

Or is faith purely something demonstrated as in your examples? Is the demonstration of my faith through being virtuous, praying, etc what faith is?

I think faith in God works in more profound ways; when your best option is to put all your trust in our Lord.

A few years ago, I had tests done for cancer, about a month later the doctor phoned and said he urgently wanted to see me, it was non – Hodgkin Lymphoma, this was a name I recognised, our friend had this cancer, and died a few months later. I prayed for the wisdom, strength, peace and serenity to do God’s will, whether the cancer was a death sentence, or just an inconvenience. I can only say that from the moment of making this prayer, I have experienced a profound sense of peace, and the thought of cancer has never troubled me for a moment.
Cancer can be a truly worrying process, you wait a month or two for tests, you wait for the results, and you wait for more tests, but the prayer to do God’s will sort of handed the problem to God, and I have never had to worry. I have never once prayed for healing, at the age of 62, the prayer for healing was too complicated, it might or might not be my time to go. Recognising this profound sense of peace comes from God, gives me reason to be thankful.
I could not imagine this sense of peace without a faith and trust in God. I can say, from the moment of hearing about my cancer and making that prayer, I could talk about cancer in the same way as I talk about what’s for dinner?

 

[Eric_Hyom]

I think one of the ways our faith is tested regularly, is when we take the body and blood of our Lord. Can this bread and wine really be the body and blood?

What happens if the person before me in the line has some contagious disease; am I going to catch it; if I drink from the same cup?

This is where faith comes in for me, the body and blood of our Lord overcame death at Calvary, Jesus died for me. The thought of catching some contagious disease has no meaning for me.

 

[rstrats]

But can beliefs be consciously chosen? I know I have never been able to consciously choose any of the beliefs that I have, nor has anyone that I have asked ever demonstrated that they can consciously choose to believe things.

 

[Kei]

Perhaps one can see certain beliefs are chosen or not based upon will if we consider selective information theory, or confirmation bias.
Think of all those who are in big oil who do not believe in global warming. They don’t want to think they’re contributing to global disaster, so they don’t. Similar things can happen for other inconvenient things.

That said, I don’t think people are really arguing that you can consciously choose a belief, but that it is a matter of will ultimately for quite a few things.

In religious matters, faith is higher than belief and is a grace that can be worked with by the recipient.

 

[Seagull]

I remember Jesus saying to someone,
after answering a question from Jesus, correctly,
“You’re not far from the kingdom of God…”