faith colours experience,
experience risks doubt,
doubt undermines faith
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Gavin Marshall said
Nic – I think your statment is true when honesty is at the centre. Without it you never get to doubt, but end up with a very colourful experience. Perhaps it depends on how much faith one has in experience
I think faith has to do with expectation. It’s also linked to an expectation of consistancy and predictability- that certain things will work this way, or that certain people will act in a certain way. And then there’s the fact of change – all things change and nothing is permanent. So perhaps faith is a reaction to change – a clinging to the hope that some things are, in fact predictable. I think that’s what people really mean when they say that ‘God’ doesn’t change – it’s a clinging to the belief in something stable in the constant movement of life. But as you say – experience risks doubt, and doubt undermines faith.
Perhaps it all comes back to honesty – owening up to and embracing the doubt – accepting things as they are.
nic paton said
I think I’m looking for these circles/conundrums to not be closed or deterministic. I am loking to see what can break into the cycle. I’m seeking the sustaining power that prevents us from becoming mere doubt or mere failure. And as you say quite rightly, that takes honesty, and an integration not rejection of the negatives.
Without honesty, what is “truth”? Not much, I don’t think. Not just a conundrum, but a oxymoron – the “dishonest truth”.
Thanks for your willingness to wrestle.
fakeexpressionsoftheunkown said
Doubt narrows reality
Faith encourages unreality
Life experienced is the balance between doubt and faith
Nic Paton said
I like 1 and 3, but not sure about faith encouraging unreality. Doesn’t faith expand reality?
fakeexpressionsoftheunkown said
I was considering reality/delusion and faith possibly a cause of delusion. But I like what you saying and agree that well placed faith expands our experience of life.
So ….
Doubt narrows reality
Faith expands reality
Life experienced is the balance between doubt and faith
To quote John Caputo: “For faith is an elemental form of human life, a basic ingredient in our existence, as necessary as the air we breathe…”
To quote Jesus: “I came so they might have life, a great full life.” John 10:10 NLV
Nic Paton said
I like that – what do you call it?
fakeexpressionsoftheunkown said
Possibly..”Life in the balance”
andrew said
Faith is not certainty
Doubt repels certainty
Faith needs doubt
Gavin Marshall said
Interesting..
So does that mean you can never be certain of your faith?
fakeexpressionsoftheunkown said
I think that faith is certainty. But faith is certain of an expierence or event. Doubt is uncertain of the cause or source. Example: ” I know that someone hit me on the back of the head but I’m not sure who did it.” I have faith in the event but doubt the source.
Gavin Marshall said
Doesn’t faith only exist in uncertainty. If one is certain, then surely one doesn’t need faith?
fakeexpressionsoftheunkown said
This idea (a work in progress) of faith as a certainty allows for both faith and doubt to dwell together. However, the priority/ primary is faith not doubt. We start with a certainty and then the doubt follows. Therefore, I would suggest that doubt growth out of certainty. To go back to my earlier example… you won’t spend too much time questioning whether you have or have not experienced being hit on the head. The reality of the pain leaves you with no doubt. Here you have certainty. Now you turn around and there are two people standing behind you. This creates doubt, not in the certainty of being hit on the head, but who did it. You then notice that they both have hammers in their hands. Now you have doubt and confusion…… But what you have experienced you will have full faith in (not a single doubt!!)