Andrew Meredith’s Reviews > Some New World: Myths of Supernatural Belief in a Secular Age > Status Update

"As it directly pertains to the issue of ‘belief’, it turns out that this is not just a straightforward matter of the West versus the rest. Our modern Western understandings of faith and belief have also evolved significantly over time. It is not too much of an exaggeration to say that first-century Jews, Christians, and Pagans had no conception of belief either, at least in our modern sense."

"In the first century, the philosophical traditions present themselves as competing ways of life. In so far as they have doctrinal content, that content is to be grasped within the mode of living prescribed by the relevant school. Christianity and Stoicism, for example, might seem to be offering rival truth claims about the world, but these are better understood, as C. Kavin Rowe has persuasively argued, not as ‘individual statements to be taken as true or false, as just justified or not, case by case’ but as ‘summoning people to a different pattern of being in the world’. It was not, then, a simple matter of weighing up rival truth claims, along with relevant supporting arguments, since the force of the respective truths becomes apparent only through the adoption of the prescribed way of life."

[The original Nicene Creed begins with "I trust in" not "I believe in." What follows are statements about the Triune God]

"Ritualistic verbal commitment, in a way, becomes a prerequisite for a deeper knowledge. In this sense, the vows of marriage parallel the sacrament of infant baptism, in which an infant is initiated into a communal setting which it is envisaged will provide the context for a more fully developed and explicit knowledge."

"Salvation was not a matter, primarily, of explicitly assenting to the right set of propositions, but of being incorporated into the body of the Church through the medium of the sacraments."

On the necessity of "implicit faith."
"In spite of my own inability to distinguish an elm from a beech, when I deploy the terms ‘elm’ and ‘beech’ I really mean elm and beech. Those meanings are determined not on account of anything that I know, but because I am a member of a linguistic community that includes those who can make the relevant distinctions. All of us, in innumerable everyday usages, implicitly defer to those whose knowledge suffice for us to make sense. This linguistic deference is endemic in normal discourse."

[For Augustine "belief" credo/pistis precedes knowledge. This is an axiom for him that he repeats often in his writing. Therefore "belief" can not rely solely on propositional assent, it is trust.]

"The condition for certain knowledge, or science, that Aristotle set out in his logical writings prompted a new conversation about the scientific status of Christian theology and the nature of faith."

"The shattering of the doctrinal monopoly of the medieval Church confounded appeals to ecclesiastical authority since there were now competing authorities offering divergent doctrinal prescriptions. It was no longer possible simply to reside trust in ‘the Church’ because there were multiple churches each with their own distinctive teachings. As a consequence, faith necessarily became a more personal matter, with individuals assuming for themselves the burden of understanding and assenting to sets of beliefs. The traditional resort to ‘implicit faith’ became increasingly suspect, and its critics articulated a new understanding of Christianity that required an explicit knowledge of, and agreement with, a set of doctrines."

To summarize in a lower key and add some thoughts:

"Faith" was originally a close synonym for "personal trust" or "allegiance". This premodern understanding evolved in the Middle Ages with the re-introduction of Aristotle and his definition of knowledge as justified belief. "Theologians" (to use an anachronistic term) felt pressured to "justify" the truth claims of Christianity and coordinate the doctrines with one another to smooth out perceived paradoxes (and thus they began to write the first systematic theologies).

This moved "faith" out of the realm of relational experience and commitment (both communal and personal) and placed it firmly in the realm of individualized intellect. It also had the side effect of radically weakening it. "The Faith" could now be attacked on explicitly philosophical grounds, and there could be a conceivable world where one chose not to hold to it.

Today the damage is done. Both "faith" and "belief" occupy a position far below "certain knowledge", even often contrary to certainty ("believing" often meaning assenting to despite clear evidence otherwise).

[Andrew's thoughts: Pistis as allegiance and trust maps well with a political understanding of "the Gospel." The Gospel is the announcement that Jesus Christ has conquered our former master, Satan, overcoming flesh, sin, and death in His wake, and is victoriously leading a host of captives out of darkness into the Regeneration.

Now, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Him, and He is summoning all ethne (nations/families) to swear their allegiance to Him, be baptized into union with Him, and obey His commands. Our mission is to extend this Gospel proclamation to all ethne until the Father's will is done on earth as in heaven.

Jesus is King of kings. He is Lord of lords. He is reigning now. So be wise, rulers of the earth and all who dwell here. Bend the knee now, because you will either bend it, or it will be bent.]