On Belief

Waldmark, 19 June 2008

People often hotly debate their belief, precisely because many think it cannot be debated. This is unfortunate. In this Ipistle I aim to explain what belief is and how a person can direct it. I also indicate how the Oxford English Dictionary definition of the word 'belief' obscures its true meaning.

To the Editor of the Oxford English Dictionary, and to others interested in the meaning of the word 'belief':

Many people accociate belief with vague personal preferences, possibly linked to feelings or intuitions but certainly irrational. However, believing is not a metaphysical process. It is not about abstract reasoning nor an indication of the absence of logic. Essentially, it is applying a person’s will to a certain course. To believe in someone or something is a voluntary and conscious act, not a passive, accidental emotion.

I propose that when a person says “I can’t believe such and such”, he or she is not – consciously or otherwise – issuing a fair statement. Every person on earth has the ability to believe in whom or what one wants to believe in. The “I can’t believe…” statements are merely convenient excuses for people who have not found the time or the opportunity or the desire to investigate their own will. If believing really would require a certain level of intellectual capability, or if some people would merely happen to have certain beliefs and other people would happen to not have certain beliefs, then it would be unfair to hold belief in the Son of God the deciding factor in determining whether a person spends a happy time in eternity, or dies without hope. It would restrict the rewards of belief only to those who are smart enough or educated enough or lucky enough. Comparable to the situation in the Middle Ages, when the church taught that the rewards of belief were only for those who had enough money or status to buy a ticket.

Belief, therefore, is not a matter of reasoning or intellect nor of chance. Belief is dependent on the one thing that each and every individual on earth possesses in equal measure: a free will. A will is the ‘mental power by which a person can direct his thoughts and actions’ (Advanced Learner’s Dict.). With one’s will a person decides or determines what to believe or who to believe in; belief is a result of the will and it is not the other way round. Deciding what to believe in, incidentally, is not the same thing as deciding what is true, but rather as deciding what one accepts to be as true: if someone tells me that many boys went to the cinema with their girlfriends, but one boy led a young donkey colt and sat on it during the entire showing, it is my choice to believe or not believe whether I accept this event as having indeed happened, but whether the event did happen is entirely independent of whether I believe it did. The big mistake people make is refusing to accept that events can happen without their approval.

Now before continuing I need to make a short detour to the dictionary in order to point out that the noun belief and the verb believe have widely varying meaning in UK English, although in American English (Webster’s) the two are still related to each other [1]. In UK English, according to the Compact Oxford English Dictionary (Online), and to the Learner’s Dictionary as well, belief is a ‘feeling or an opinion’ (that something is true or exists), while the verb believe means ‘accept’ (that something is true or exists) (Compact Oxford Dict.). The philosophies of David Hume and Bertrand Russell, both avowed atheists and both revered and considered as belonging to the greatest thinkers in the history of mankind, have had a disastrous impact on the capability (and, consequently, on the willingness) of the English to consider as true or relevant or valid – or even existent – anything which one cannot perceive with the senses. Admiration, or should we say worship, of science and the emphasis on empirical knowledge as the exclusive source of legitimate certainty have shaped the world-view of modern day native English intellectuals by seriously constricting the boundaries of their thinking. Defining belief as a feeling is a result of these philosophies, and continues to be instrumental in further advancing the almost obsessive preoccupation of English philosophers with reason, logic, mathematics, and electrical currents in the human brain.

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Let’s turn to consider Belief and the Theory of Evolution

Most people living in the West nowadays believe in the veracity of the Theory of Evolution. In many countries it is even obligatory for schools to teach the Theory of Evolution. But although thousands of scientists have roamed the earth and thousands of publicists have researched millions of websites and libraries and museums trying to locate one! piece of evidence showing how a horse evolved from a pig or how both evolved from a common ancestor or how a man evolved from an ape, no-one ever has found any. Yet people who believe in the Theory of Evolution insist that man evolved from apes through a multi-million year long process of evolution triggered by a mechanism called survival of the fittest. Despite the entire body of science not having found a single piece of evidence for such a claim. How, then, do they manage to believe?

The answer is really simple: because they want to. Once someone has decided “this is what I want to believe from now on”, that belief, the chosen way of thinking, grows stronger. Which in turn leads to an inclination for being favourably disposed to articles and books from scientists and novelists and politicians who believe the same thing. It leads to a penchant for wanting to hear people talk who believe the same way; it leads to favour television interviews and conversations with friends and with relatives and with strangers who think alike; it causes people to attribute the status of ultimate authority on knowledge to documentaries from National Geographic and Discovery Channel and the BBC. It is comfortable to share with people the same beliefs.

But it also induces people to persistently reject impulses to investigate the possibility of alternative explanations for the fact that man walks the earth. And so, fuelled by like minded beliefs and shielded from opposing or alternative explanations for the origin of life, a person’s belief in the certainty of the Theory of Evolution grows stronger and deeper rooted. Arguments contrary to the Theory of Evolution do no longer have any impact or chance of being heard. And when not even cold, hard evidence can convince a person that his or her belief might be wrong or unfounded, then belief seems no longer subject to a person’s free will. An indication for having ‘progressed’ to this stage is when a person no longer accepts his or her belief in the Theory of Evolution for what it is, a belief. This is when people deny that they believe in the Theory of Evolution; there is no need for them to believe anything, they maintain, because they only consider ‘facts’.

However, even though many scientists strongly believe in evolution there are still sizeable numbers of scientists who do not. Apparently, belief in evolution is not determined by the amount of knowledge one possesses. In fact, it is not uncommon for scientists to abandon their certainty in the veracity of the Theory of Evolution as science probes deeper, even though not necessarily subscribing to the alternative, as for instance Steve Hall illustrates in his collection of quotes from scientists on Evolution.²

I would like to point out that I feel sympathetic towards native English speaking people who strongly reject the notion of regarding the Theory of Evolution as a belief. Of course, I do not agree with them, but from their point of view and with belief being defined by the major dictionary of the world as a feeling, belief is diametrically opposed to anything that science is supposed to stand for. A person who treasures logic and reason simply cannot allow the Theory of Evolution being labelled a belief.

Nevertheless, the Theory of Evolution is a belief because belief is not, as Oxford would have it, a feeling but a wilful application of one’s trust and loyalty. As such also the belief in the veracity of the Theory of Evolution started with the will of a person and the decision that only said theory would be able to offer a valid explanation for man’s origin. If the same person had made another decision then he or she might have been convinced of the opposite of present beliefs. Consider that! If a person starts out with “I don’t want to believe in God,” he or she could end up being an atheist, but if that same person would have stated “I want to learn about God”, he or she might have become a Christian believer! What a responsibility for the will of a person. And what an interesting notion that both atheists and evangelicals shudder at the same thought!

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Belief in a Creation

Obviously, belief in the Creation account as found in the Bible is the opposite of belief in the Theory of Evolution but, strangely enough, the process by which a person arrives at belief in creation (God made the world and the universe and man did not evolve from apes but was deliberately made in God’s image) is quite similar to the process by which a person ends up believing in the Theory of Evolution.

After a person decides (a decision of the will) to want to believe in the biblical account of creation, then he or she will read books and articles supporting that belief, which in turn reinforces the conviction that the creation account is indeed the true account of how the world and everything in it and on it and around it have come about.

Many Christians and those who lean towards Christianity are not aware of this relationship between belief and a person’s will. Dr James Price, executive Editor of the Old Testament Section of the NKJV translation, writes in an email “I happen to believe that God…’ and then builds on this statement his defence for defining some old manuscripts as authentic and rejecting others for use as source text for the translation of the Bible (Watts 6). But of course he doesn’t! ‘I happen to believe’ is a devious statement and it deceives not just the people addressed, but also falsely reassures the person uttering it. Dr Price tries to convince people that he cannot be blamed for rejecting, as Executive Editor, the authority of the manuscripts upon which the 400 year old King James Version of the Bible is based because, he claims, he is not responsible: ‘I happen to believe…’. Well, one doesn’t ‘happen to believe’: what one believes is the outcome of a deliberate choice. Just as people choose to have faith in the scientists who write about the inner structure of molecules and the outer limits of the galaxies, so believers choose to have faith in the authors of the Bible, including choosing to have faith in the Most High God as the author of life or choose to have faith in the deliberations of 19th Century archaeologists who claim that the trusted manuscripts of the Bible are unreliable copies.

‘I happen to believe’ is the excuse that cowardly Christians employ to hide behind and to whitewash their own unwillingness to choose one or the other. Which is why the same Jesus Christ whom many of such Christians claim is primarily concerned about pouring out his love for mankind, tells the Apostle John to write down this explicit warning: ‘So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.’ Let this be a warning to every person who pretends they ‘cannot help’ being lukewarm or ‘cannot help’ their actions because they ‘happen to believe’ such and such.

Belief is a choice

There really is no difference in the mechanics of belief between those to adhere to the Theory of Evolution and those who trust that the biblical account paints the real picture. Belief is making a choice and then ‘going for it’ and this is true for those who are loyal to scientific writings as well as to those who adhere to apostolic writings. But as long as belief is defined as a ‘feeling’, confusion will reign. One simply cannot discuss the issues of life when one’s vocabulary is ambivalent and uncertain over such a fundamental word (literally: belief is the fundament upon which world-views are built) which for one means ‘feeling,’ for another means something which one ‘happens to have,’ and for a third means ‘making a choice.’ As long as the English language remains unable to differentiate between these concepts – which it could effectuate by allocating different words to each (please consider this, Oxford) – we will continue witnessing this Tower of Babel-like Confusion between Christian believers and Secular Scientists on all the basic issues of Life and Later On.

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Conclusion

Belief is not the result of knowledge (belief interprets knowledge, it does not produce knowledge). Moreover, when one accepts the Bible as true, then belief in Jesus Christ is the only factor determining whether a person spends eternity in heaven or else and it would be unspeakably unfair or even cruel if such belief would be dependent on someone’s intellect or physique or job or purse or if a belief would merely ‘happen’ to someone.

There is only one possible conclusion to the issue of belief: any person’s belief is the sole outcome of that person’s own free will. One wants to believe in the Theory of Evolution? No one will hinder that person pursuing that goal. One wants to believe in the Creation Account? It is freely and readily available to anyone who cares to do so. People just need to make up their mind, or ‘come to a decision’ (Advanced Learner’s 621), and choose the option that one considers the most valuable in the perspective of eternity. Why, even the very issue of eternity itself is a phenomenon that people can accept as a reality to reckon with, or reject as a man-made fabrication. The beauty of it is that whether one accepts or rejects eternity, this does not in any way alter or chance whether eternity exists.

I would like to conclude in a you and me mod and urge you, if you haven’t done so yet, to think carefully about it this issue of belief. Go out at night, look up at the stars and ask yourself how it would impact the stars whether you believe the scientist who tells you their distance to the sun. How does it impact the stars if the scientist is right or makes mistakes in his or her calculations? What will happen to the stars if you accept as true or reject as uncertain any statements about their age or their distance to you or their colour or their mass?

Likewise, how would your accepting or rejecting the existence of God impact Him? How does it influence God’s existence whether you believe in Him? This is, of course, entirely consistent with the Most High God being superior to mankind. And with belief being the outcome of one’s own will it.

This, therefore, is the ultimate conclusion of the matter: one’s own belief only impacts oneself but does not determine whether the object of one’s belief does or does not exist. It is entirely possible that Evolution never generated life (even though millions believe the scientists who did not see it happen but maintain that it did) while it is similarly possible that God created life (even though millions do not believe the apostles who did speak with the Son of God about it). Either way, a person’s position it is not a matter of feeling but of choice.

Footnotes and References

¹ Oxford English
belief: ‘a feeling that something exists or is true, especially one without proof. 2 a firmly held opinion. 3 (belief in) trust or confidence in. 4 religious faith’
believe: ’1 accept that (something) is true or (someone) is telling the truth. 2 (believe in) have faith in the truth or existence of. 3 have religious faith. 4 think or suppose.’
American English
belief: ‘the conviction that something is true, esp. the teachings of a religion,’ whereas the definition of believe resembles the Oxford one.
It is telling to note the vast difference between England and America on this issue. Oxford not only provides feeling where Webster’s offers conviction but, tendentiously, stresses ‘especially without proof’. Conviction is a neutral description; to describe belief as a feeling and to emphasise that belief is especially without proof, implicitly advocates the view that belief is incompatible with reason and logic. Oxford’s position on belief is, of course, entirely compatible with the scepticism of David Hume and the present day infatuation with empiricism, but it seems a bit short sighted and unbecoming for an institute with such a reputation of academic rigour.

² Hall, Steve. “Scientists on Evolution”. Abounding Joy. Accessed on 19th June 2008. <http://www.aboundingjoy.com/scientists.htm>.

Compact Oxford English Dictionary of Current English (Online). 3 ed., Oxford University Press, 2005.
<http://www.askoxford.com/dictionaries/?view=uk>.

The Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English. Hornby, A.S., E.V. Gatenby, and H. Wakefield. 2 ed., London: Oxford University Press, 1963.

Webster’s Dictionary of the English Language. Bernard S. Cayne, 1991 ed., New York: Lexicon Publications, Inc., 1992.

Price, James. Email Correspondence of April 1996. Quoted in Watts, Malcolm H. The New King James Version, A Critique. Trinitarian Bible Society. Quarterly Record vol. 583. June 2008.

Tags: belief, believe, Bible Study, Philosophy of Religion, Theory of Evolution, Creation, God