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Creed
Image by The Lighter Side via Tumblr
A creed (Latin credo: I believe) is a general or precise set of religious beliefs which (apparently) are written in unambiguous language.
The philosopher of religion Thomas McPherson maintains that saying
I believe in God
is quite different from saying
I believe that God exists
The former statement, he argues, avows an attachment, commitment and basic trust in the subject matter. It’s a statement of faith. The latter statement is simply a neutral opinion or, if not perhaps neutral, it’s certainly a cooler, less emotionally involved statement.
By way of contrast, consider
I believe in my country
as compared to
I believe that my country exists
McPherson says these statements are similar to the pair of statements about God’s existence. But he also claims that saying you believe in your country doesn’t entail the same degree of involvement as saying that you believe in God.
McPherson’s claim that saying “I believe in God” reveals the most passionate of all beliefs is questionable. Dialectical materialists forwarding in the work of Karl Marx, for instance, sometimes seem tremendously passionate about their “faith” in the object of their belief.
Roland Barthes (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
A good example of a dialectical materialist who seems to “believe in” Marx’s ideas with great intensity can be found in J. D. Bernal, whose Science in History, Vols. 1-4. follows the Marxist ideology pretty closely.
But not only Marxists can get passionate about their beliefs. Social thinkers like Roland Barthes have argued that American patriotism, particularly during the 1950s, arguably had all the intensity of a religious faith. That is, the idea of the American Spirit connoted a intense set of beliefs about the superiority and moral goodness of America.
Related Posts » Doctrine, Dogma
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Faith and Reason
Faith and Reason united, with St Thomas Aquinas teaching in the background. Painting by Ludwig Seitz (1844–1908), Galleria dei Candelabri, Vatican - Photo by Marie-Lan Nguyen via Wikipedia
Many people see faith and reason as two approaches to life existing at opposite ends of the cognitive spectrum. It could be argued, however, that faith and reason are not always separate and (consciously or unconsciously) work together.
An example of faith and reason unconsciously working together could be found in those who make a god out of reason. These folks still come from a faith position, but their faith is placed in reason instead of God or some divine power.
On this point or, at least, on a similar point, the philosopher David Hume offered a now famous critique of causality.
Hume’s metaphysics, in particular his critique of the belief in cause and effect, remains an important challenge to our conventional way of seeing. All we can be sure of, says Hume, is that certain events occur one after another in a given region and for a certain duration.
In billiards, for instance, the white ball appears to cause the motion of other balls when impacting them on the billiard table. But here’s the radical part. Hume says that all we can truly know is that, in the past, the first ball impacted and the other balls moved. We cannot prove that the first ball’s impact will always be followed by movement of the other balls. And for Hume, there is no rational way to demonstrate a causal connection.¹
In most world religions, faith is said to be primary to reason. In Catholic theology faith is described as a supernatural virtue whereas reason is said to be a natural power. For Catholics or, indeed, anyone, both faith and reason are concerned with truth and need not conflict.
However, it seems that many insecure individuals who have been brainwashed by a cultic or even by some silly religious or scientific teaching desperately cling to a kind of misplaced faith by believing in things that are not true or, perhaps, egregiously facile.
Similarly, we find not a few self-professed thinkers who are hooked on their own faulty logic, colored by unconscious personal biases.
In their best form, faith and reason are potentially harmonious. We can live life by testing our pet hypotheses and by keeping our beliefs and theories open to revision. For many, however, faith and reason are often imperfect and discordant.
Thinkers like the Hungarian-born Arthur Koestler (1905-83) believed that clunky linkages between our human cognitive faculties (such as faith and reason) result from conflicting evolutionary additions to the human brain, additions that happened by chance instead of through any kind of grand, intelligent design. But this approach is no more subject to empirical verification than one that accepts inconsistency and inner conflict as steps toward integration and its corollary, integrity.
Related Posts » Faith and Action, Faith and Morals
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¹ http://earthpages.wordpress.com/2012/01/08/hume-david
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Faith and Morals
Morality by tdietmut via Flickr
Most world religions speak of an inextricable link between faith and morals.
In the religious sense, to have faith is to try to please God and this involves making the right moral choices. At least, this is one approach to faith. Another approach is that you can do whatever you want and God will forgive you—providing, most would add, that a sincere attempt to stop doing the bad thing is made somewhere down the line.
Any discussion of faith and morals will likely include a section on laws. In the Old Testament the Jewish people are faced with a variety of laws, said to be from God and also to preserve and enhance one’s relationship with God.
In the New Testament, Jesus really only speaks of two laws—love God and love one another.
In liberal democracies today, laws are said to be based on natural reason. However, their impetus arguably is supernatural—that is, an awareness (based on faith and informed by grace) that morality is essential to the human condition.
So the supposed separation of the “supernatural” and “legal” realms could be seen as somewhat artificial. That point aside, one could also argue that this kind of distinction is not necessarily the same as the separation of “Church” and “State,” mainly because organized religions by their very nature contain not just supernatural but also political dimensions, as does any kind of social group.
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Faith
Faith by hannahclark via Flickr
In secular usage “faith” [Latin fidere = trust] refers to believing in something or someone. “I have faith in the system” the man or woman on the street might say when asked about societal problems.
In a non-denominational, spiritual sense it refers to believing in a loving, supernatural power or God and that things will eventually work out. That is, it’s a view of optimism.
In the general religious sense, faith in part refers to believing in a fixed set of teachings.
The Hebrew term for faith (emunah) originally meant trust in God but in the Middle Ages it came to mean believing that God exists and that the Jewish dogmas were correct.
In Hinduism faith generally means a belief that things will eventually work out and that justice will be served – for the good and the bad – as a result of the law of karma.
In Christianity, faith generally refers to the belief and acceptance of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior—a perfectly loving and good, omnipotent, omniscient eternal Being belonging to the Holy Trinity.
In Catholicism faith is understood as both an objective truth and a subjective virtue. The Catholic Encyclopedia says:
Objectively, it [faith] stands for the sum of truths revealed by God in Scripture and tradition and which the Church…presents to us in a brief form in her creeds, subjectively, faith stands for the habit or virtue by which we assent to those truths.¹
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¹ http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05752c.htm
Related Posts » Aquinas (St. Thomas), Duns Scotus, Faith and Action, Faith and Morals, Faith and Reason, Justification, Luther (Martin)
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Faith and Action
Praying Trappist Monk via Wikipedia
The relationship between faith and action raises some interesting questions, many of which are largely overlooked in contemporary society.
For starters, most religions advocate the necessity of action to keep faith alive. Action, in fact, is highly regarded in Western culture. But the meaning of the term ‘action’ is often loaded with cultural assumptions and, therefore, misunderstood.
We could say, for instance, that Trappist monks are more inwardly active than externally so. These monks, being one of the more contemplative sort, believe that their internal prayer life has positive effects on other people, just as the great saints believed that they interceded for other souls.
So if his beliefs are true, the Trappist monk is extremely active, but most of us don’t see it that way.
Faith-based action also takes a more worldly form, a form which everyone can easily understand and appreciate. Here I’m talking about charities and goodwill missions that serve the needy.
In most instances, it’s likely that a continuum exists between contemplative and worldly action. And it seems that those disposed to contemplation understand the good works of worldly folk but the converse is rarely true. This, perhaps, explains why in Hinduism the path of knowledge (jnana-yoga) is said to be more difficult than the path of action (karma-yoga). Active people often become hostile towards contemplatives. And sometimes they can even be abusive.
Along these lines, some orthodox and gnostic Christians, alike, interpret these words of Jesus Christ to his disciples as a warning to keep an eye out for vulgar materialists:
Do not give what is holy to dogs, and do not throw your pearls before swine, or they will trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces.¹
Mind you, no discussion of spirituality and abuse would be complete without calling attention to the opposite situation where charismatic gurus with an abundance of numinous powers swamp gullible disciples and, in so doing, are just as abusive toward individuals as vulgar materialists can be to potential saints. The abuse is different. But it’s still abuse.
In less extreme scenarios it seems reasonable to suggest that contemplatives and active individuals can keep each other in check, providing, or course, the rules of fair play are observed. By this I mean that some contemplatives can get smug, lazy, and authoritarian. And a good kick in the pants from an active person might, in some instances, actually help to realign them to their saintly calling (if not perhaps in the way that the active person envisioned it).
By the same token, the active person at times needs to be ‘toned down’ by the wisdom of the contemplative. For if a contemplative is truly focusing on God (and not some strange power), over time they should begin to accrue at least some wisdom that others could benefit from.
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Related Posts » Faith and Morals, Faith and Reason, Intercession
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Sikhism
Sikhism
A religious and cultural movement based on the teachings of the Indian Guru Nanak (1469-1539 CE).
The teachings of the Muslim Kabir and the spread of mystical Sufism in Northern India laid the groundwork for this new religion, which originally hoped to synthesize Islam and Hinduism.
Sikhism currently emphasizes the oneness of God and unity of all faiths.
It is believed that a succession of 10 gurus (Nanak and his nine successors) has spread the word of the true guru–namely, God.
The 10 Sikh Gurus by Larry Miller
The last Sikh guru died in 1708.
The sacred scripture of the Sikhs is called The Adi Granth, itself often referred to as a “guru.”
Sikh culture is highly distinctive; most choose to wear a turban within and beyond the borders of their Punjab homeland.
As with other world religions, the noble ideals of Sikhism are at times undermined by extremists, as evidenced by clashes at the holiest site of sacred pilgrimage, the Golden Temple.
On the Web:
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Adherents of all Religions
Adherents of all Religions It is difficult to get accurate figures for the number of adherents in each world religion.
Religion being a very personal issue, often central to one’s self-image, it’s conceivable that many people don’t wish to report their true beliefs to a proverbial Big Brother and thus will check “other” or “personal” on a government census.
Other people may live in tribal societies and are never directly asked what they believe–it is merely assumed that each individual adheres to the general beliefs of his of her group. A good example of this would be the Santals of India and Bangladesh, who according to a 1991 census are about 4.2 million strong. Among this significant population, the religious beliefs of only 23,645 individuals are officially recorded.
Another issue is the problem of defining religion (versus, for instance, a cult, a collective delusion, a myth or a pastime) and trying to assess who, if anyone, has the authority to define it.
On the issue of New Religious Movements (NRM) Eileen Barker says:
When social scientists have been pressed in a court of law to say whether a particular NRM is “really” a religion, they have not always insisted as clearly as they might that science cannot give the definition of a real religion. It is only when the court provides a definition, or we use the form “if by religion you mean. . ,” that we can say whether, according to that definition, the movement is “really” religious.
Eileen Barker, “The Scientific Study of Religion? You Must Be Joking!” in Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Vol. 34, No. 3, (Sep., 1995: 287-310, p. 306).
Having noted the above, the following figures should be taken cum grano salis.
2000 CE, in millions:
| Christians | 2,020 | |
| Muslims | 1,200 | |
| Hindus | 860 | |
| Buddhists | 360 | |
| Jews | 20 | |
| Sikhs | 24 | |
| Shinto | 95 | |
| Bahai’is | 8 | |
| Jains | 4 | |
| Parsees | 0.219 | |
| Tribal Religions | 100 | |
| New Religions | 138 | |
| Total world population | 6,260 |
Source: D.B. Barrett, ed., World Christian Encyclopedia (1982) in G. Parrinder, A Concise Encyclopedia of Christianity (Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 1998, p. 9).
On the World Wide Web:
- Adherents.com (an excellent site providing the reservations mentioned above are kept in mind)
Image Source:
- “Canada World Religion Day Stamp” originally uploaded by Kianoosh Raika at http://www.flickr.com/photos/djkianoosh/474556286/, Creative Commons License
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Agnosticism
Agnosticism In the strongest sense of the term agnosticism refers to the belief that we can never know if God, the afterlife, heaven and hell exist because all human experiences, including internal ones, are said to be subjective.
By way of contrast ‘weak agnosticism’ maintains a “maybe, maybe not” position that, until some kind of definitive proof comes along, neither denies nor affirms God, the afterlife, heaven and hell.
The word stems from the 19th-century British scientist Thomas H. Huxley who coined it from the Greek (a = not, not with) + (Gnosis = knowledge). Huxley’s original use of the term referred to only being able to gain knowledge of the so-called empirical world. » Atheism, Idealism, Theism
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Akashic Records
Akashic Records Derived from the Hindu (Sanskrit) and Buddhist (Pali) understanding of akasha (= ether, subtle space, the forms of space), the Akashic Records is a term used by Theosophy and Anthroposophy to denote a cosmic memory bank of all that ever was.
The term is often used uncritically by believers, not unlike any item of religious dogma.
Alleged psychics, intuitives and New Age enthusiasts often claim to be able to tune in and ‘read’ from the Akashic records.
Edgar Cayce apparently was gifted in a similar way, merely holding books to his stomach to automatically absorb their information.
Rudolf Steiner believed that he accessed the Akashic Records to learn about the legendary city of Atlantis.
Recently, the term Remote Viewing describes the supposed inner seeing of objects at a distance – that is, beyond the normal senses - by accessing a kind of ‘holographic memory bank.’
Somewhat like the Akashic Records, this holographic database is said to reveal the past, the present and future probabilities. The term probabilities is important here as scientific psi researchers like Dale Graff and Russell Targ maintain that future events may never be remotely viewed with 100% accuracy.
Some see the holographic mind (or holographic mind levels) as a metaphor or theoretical construct while others seem to present the idea as fact–the latter group perhaps having more in common with uncritical believers in the idea of the Akashic Records.
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Anselm, St. (of Canterbury)
Anselm, St. (of Canterbury, 1033-1109) The somewhat undisciplined son of a noble landowner in Aosta, Italy, who eventually took monastic vows and became the archbishop of Canterbury.
St. Anselm is one of the earliest and most prominent scholastics of the Middle Ages.
He is best known for defining the ontological argument, a theological proof for the existence of God.
Like most theological proofs, the ontological argument seems self-evident to believers but usually fails to convince unbelievers.
In the Proslogion Anselm writes that God is “something than which nothing greater can be conceived.” To be the very greatest thing imaginable, the thing conceived must also exist in reality and not just in the mind. Therefore, so the argument goes, God is the greatest conceivable being which by necessity exists.
This argument was rejected on purely rational grounds by St. Thomas Aquinas who nevertheless believed in God.
Rene Descartes used a similar ‘ontological argument’ to rescue himself from difficulties arising from his famous “I think, therefore I am” claim.
For Descartes, God would not deceive by presenting the mere illusion of an outer world – as opposed to actually creating an outer world which is perceived by the senses – because God is fundamentally good.
St. Anselm’s view of faith and understanding is noteworthy and, one could say, reverses worldly wisdom. Rather than believing in something because it is comprehensible in the first place, Anselm forwards two important phrases:
- fides quaerens intellectum (faith seeking understanding)
- credo ut intelligam (I believe so that I can understand).
The second is based on St. Augustine‘s teaching that one should believe in order to understand (crede, ut intelligas). Taken together, these suggest that one must first take a ‘leap of faith’ to better understand spiritual truths.
For many this is an illogical or non-intellectual approach but it may be seen as logical in two ways:
First, when we recognize the limits of worldly reason in understanding ultimate concerns, it arguably makes sense to, at least momentarily, cede logic to faith. Such an approach could possibly reap increased knowledge–and we would never know for certain unless we actually tried it.
Second, when one adopts a faith position, the inherent and indeed greater logic of God’s ways – if actual and true – should become increasingly apparent to our worldly reason as time goes by (see, for example, Isaiah 55:6-9).
If, however, the supposed greater logic of God’s ways does not make itself apparent after adopting a particular faith position, we then – after a reasonable amount of time – would have a logical, perhaps even scientific, reason to reject that faith position.
Put differently, this positions suggests that we try believing first. This either does or does not reap an increased understanding of God’s ways. And one would never know and not be embracing a fully scientific attitude unless one did, in fact, try this approach.
Interestingly, Carl Jung’s father was a Protestant clergyman who stressed that his son Carl should believe and not think. To his father’s dismay Jung replied, “Give me this belief” (C. G. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, revised, ed. Aniela Jaffé, trans. Richard and Clara Winston, New York: Vintage Books, 1961, p. 43).
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