I appreciate your attempts at explaining what faith means to you. Although I may not agree with you, I do like to try to understand your position.
Thank you for showing the respect to attempt to understand the points I've laid out. As you've uncovered in citing that article from Stanford, which I linked to for another poster who was relying solely on dictionary definitions for knowledge on the subject of faith, there are many, many facets to understanding what faith means, and how it operates differently for people, even within the course of their lifetimes.
Faith as mere belief, or worse 'unfounded beliefs', is hardly adequate or realistic to describe what we see in how faith is held and practiced or understood by people. That's my hope in this is to perhaps open understanding beyond these negative and dogmatic views of what faith means.
Therefore, I took the time this morning to research what it is I believe you were attempting to articulate.
The following paper was what I read and am thinking #11 is how you are viewing faith.
"There is no single ‘established’ terminology for different models of faith. A brief initial characterisation of the principal models of faith and their nomenclature as they feature in this discussion may nevertheless be helpful—they are:
- the ‘purely affective’ model: faith as a feeling of existential confidence
- the ‘special knowledge’ model: faith as knowledge of specific truths, revealed by God
- the ‘belief’ model: faith as belief that God exists (where the object of belief is a certain proposition)
- the ‘trust’ model: faith as believing in (in the sense of trusting in) God (where the object of belief or trust is not a proposition, but God ‘himself’)
- the ‘doxastic venture’ model: faith as practical commitment beyond the evidence to one’s belief that God exists
- ‘sub-’ and ‘non-doxastic venture’ models: faith as practical commitment to a relevant positively evaluated truth-claim, yet without belief
- the ‘hope’ model: faith as hoping—or acting in the hope that—the God who saves exists."
You would have to read through the various models to exclude them as your position but if your position is close to the #11 model, faith beyond orthodox theism, at least I will understand where you are coming from.
Faith (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Yes, I would say the #11: Faith beyond (orthodox) theism, model summarizes my views. But that also relates to and embraces several of the other views. I'd say it's a more perennial view where it sees faith as the underlying impulse that finds expression as all of the above, depending on where that person is at. It's not defined at those levels, but is the impulse underlying them all.
It's existential in nature, and cognitive beliefs are simply ways in which the mind tries to create a mental framework with which hold and interpret these intuitions from faith. Those beliefs are structures or frameworks, and those can be magical in nature, mythological (gods and angels and whatnot), rational (scientific), pluralistic, etc.
There are several points from various philosophers within that category that I relate to, and some less so. I relate for instance with the thoughts of William James and Dewey...
Both Dewey and James defend models of faith with a view to advancing the idea that authentic religious faith may be found outside what is generally supposed to be theological orthodoxy. Furthermore, they suggest that ‘un-orthodox’ faith may be more authentic than ‘orthodox’ faith. ‘...
And James: ‘Religion says essentially two things: First, she says that the best things are the more eternal things, the overlapping things, the things in the universe that throw the last stone, so to speak, and say the final word…. [and] the second affirmation of religion is that we are better off now if we believe her first affirmation to be true’...
I also recognize some of what Solomon says about atheism as faith...
More broadly, some maintain that a meaningful spirituality is consistent with a non-religious atheist naturalism, and include something akin to faith as essential to spirituality. For example, Robert Solomon takes spirituality to mean ‘the grand and thoughtful passions of life’, and holds that ‘a life lived in accordance with those passions’ entails choosing to see the world as ‘benign and life [as] meaningful’, with the tragic not to be denied but accepted
There's far more to expand upon in explaining my views here, such as Tillich's view of God as one's "Ultimate Concern", and how that I see atheism as an expression of faith in that by rejecting dogmatic theistic concepts in favor of a naturalistic view of Reality. It's still faith, regardless of what beliefs one holds in mind to support that core faith.
That's my point in citing Wilber's very accessible view of 'faith as intuition', and how that is contrasted with 'faith as beliefs'. That 'faith as beliefs' model does not account for how the different beliefs across the world all source themselves in that same impulse; "They call him many who is one", expresses that. If one is grounded in beliefs, then one cannot take a challenge to those beliefs, as it threatens them existentially (their immorality symbols as Wilber put it). But when a person whose primary motive is faith has beliefs challenged, they take it all rather philosophically, that their beliefs can be changed or modified or discarded.
And hence why, atheism, particularly in the form of those leaving theistic beliefs to atheistic beliefs, have in my opinion, greater faith than the 'true believer' does. They intuited something was lacking on an emotional/spiritual level, and that is what
allowed them to entertain challenging their own beliefs. The 'true believer' those whose primary religious involvement is beliefs cannot do that.
Their weak, or virtually non-existent 'faith' does not allow challenges to belief. They must defend their beliefs tooth and nail. Belief is all they have. You also see that within Atheism for certain individuals. True Beleiversim, is not about the
content of beliefs, but the
role beliefs play in that person's existential grounding, be those belief in God, and the church, or beliefs in Science and modernity.
In short, there is a lot more to this subject than just dictionary surface definitions. If I have any 'agenda', as a poster just accused me of, it's to bring light to this. There are lots of different understandings of faith, and people in their own understandings may see it for themselves. I've just expressed how I have come to recognize it now after these many years of consider the nature of it. It's far, far more than just "bad beliefs". Thanks for taking the time to dig deeper into the topic. It's appreciated.
