MenoSundays; Life Lived Lovingly - BELIEF

A miniseries of articles which are partly personal history, partly ramble, but wholly geared to prompt more thought...

I started, so I will finish. That's one of my beliefs in life. Having committed to something, I will see it through to the best of my ability. This noun is one of the oft-used words which kinda gets bandied about loosely. Like other words which actually have much depth and breadth but have, perhaps, become cheapened by inappropriate and over-use ... friend... should... love... That said, many in the world know very well that words carry weight if used in certain ways. This is what gives rise to advertising and political spin, not to mention the craziness that is (anti)social media.

Does that seem harsh? Well, it is also my belief that we take words for granted. We forget their purpose and power when we are giving them but can be oversensitive in receiving them. No pointing of fingers here. I can be as guilty as the next person of dropping my bundle and slackening discipline in the use of language.

Back to the purpose of this miniseries, which is to explore a few words more deeply and remind ourselves of context. Earlier we saw faith, trust and devotion. Different facets of the same jewel, one might say. Belief could be yet another. The words are often substituted with each other. Addressing things semantically, however, can broaden appreciation. We find that faith must arise from intellectual conviction, trust from emotional and physical intuition and devotion from humility and the desire to serve. What of belief?

Belief is a claim of knowledge. It is used in any context where we might otherwise use the words related to knowledge; "I know... I think... I am under the impression..." We might sometimes use it if we are lost for a description of something, such as the recent horror of shooting people at prayer - "it beggars belief". It can be used, also, as a term of hope - "it is my fond/fervent/dear belief that it won't happen again." In the first, descriptive sense, we understand that words genuinely fail in the situation. In the second, idealistic sense, we can find the use of belief as being somewhat fanciful, even more than the term 'hope', for which it was substituted.
Having said it is a claim of knowledge, how does it differ from faith? Is not the intellect equal to knowledge?

Consider the mortar and pestle. What use are they without the herbs or seeds to grind? They lie dormant until given this work to do.

We who can know/learn are the mortar (receptacle). Everything external to us is available to become known (seeds). Even when that which is to be known is placed before the knower (the seeds into the mortar) nothing changes until the process of grinding (pestle) takes place (thinking/intellectual process).

Knowledge is the product - the seeds may be merely crushed, or wholly pulverised.

Intellect, then, is a tool for processing information, not knowledge itself. How well we apply our intellect/'pestle' will give varying results of knowledge/understanding. The more adept our intellect, the more finely can the knowledge be 'powdered', and this can make all the difference to digestion and absorption.

Belief differs from faith in that we can state a position of belief without necessarily having applied our 'pestle'! More often than not, belief regarding something will be based on the thoughts and opinions of others rather than from our own intellectual process. This doesn't mean that intellect cannot be applied in developing belief. However, our belief can be more readily swayed than our faith. Belief requires less effort. Belief can be borrowed. Faith must be developed within.

This is a crucial distinction. It is what gives rise to the condition of 'blind belief' - not just in religious matters where it is most commonly applied, but also in the socio-political sphere. Doctrines and ideologies throughout time and around the globe have been used to lead societies and entire nations down specific paths.

Belief is something onto which we can grasp and not necessarily question ourselves, even less the source of our belief. Belief is malleable and fits more readily around our wants and desires, likes and dislikes, loves and hatreds. We can use belief to dig our trench and fight from it. Belief, then, leads very readily to dogma. I stress again, this is not necessarily in a religious context. Think about all the extremism in the world just now... the worst of it misuses religion. Hides behind it even, when it has nothing, in fact, to do with scripture or faith. Conversely, those who vehemently condemn any religious or political system, are as guilty of abuse and disrespect.

Yet, there is little that can be achieved in the world if there is no belief. We must believe that we are capable of carrying out our tasks each day. We must believe that all other things weighed, we will be safe and secure in the execution of our tasks. We must believe that the sun will rise on the morrow and the moon will follow.

Thus, for the purposes of my argument in this little series, belief is a valuable component of life but comes with the responsibility to ponder more deeply about our belief in this, that or the other and be strict and ready to drop or adapt the belief to improve ourselves or the situation around us.

In doing so, belief can develop into faith. In doing so, we can formulate a philosophy. Ahhh, philosophy. Let's get to that...