| Part 1 The Theory of Faith | Hirohumi Hoshika |
While many people shy away from religion because it is something they believe in that is uncertain, there are those who reject it for a slightly stronger reason. It is a rejection of the tendency for religion to be associated with a certain kind of "madness" or "fundamentalism."
People who feel this way about religion may believe that being very religious leads to undesirable antisocial tendencies, and that religious beliefs are healthy when held in moderation and do not violate societal norms. In other words, with apologies to the religious leader, it is good for religious people to retain their common sense and to have a certain degree of worldliness.
Indeed, even within the church it is not uncommon for "devout religious" people to be difficult to deal with from a social and communal point of view. However, even if this is the case, the above understanding of faith is not appropriate.
For those who feel that religion is unhealthy, I would like to consider a few things about healthy faith. First, about the distinction between knowledge and faith.
In Greek philosophy there is a concept called "the knowledge of ignorance". This means being aware of one's ignorance, in other words, being able to distinguish between what one knows and what one does not know. This principle gives Plato's portrayal of Socrates' speech a wholesome impression, but what if we think about faith in the same way?
If we can always clearly distinguish between what we know and what we believe, then our faith can be considered sound for the time being. Whatever is believed, if one is aware that it is merely a belief, it is not fanaticism.
When a person says that he "believes" in the existence of God and that while it may be an uncertain knowledge he "knows" about the historical Jesus, his faith is seen as sound. However, when he reverses the words "believe" and "know," saying "I know God" and "I firmly believe in the existence of Jesus," it gives the impression that there is something disquieting about his faith.
If these statements do not seem strange to you, and you do not see any difference from the previous statements, then I think you may have already lost sight of the distinction between knowing and believing.
To us, both God and Jesus are uncertain, but the nature of that uncertainty is different.
Common sense would suggest that God is a being beyond our ability to perceive, while Jesus, who was once with his disciples, is a being we can perceive. His uncertainty for us today is merely the uncertainty of all historical figures, and this is not limited to Jesus.
Therefore, seen in this light, it is appropriate to say that about God we "believe", about Jesus "know".
So if we can maintain this distinction throughout our faith, then our belief will be very clear and will not come to a point where it is seen as unsound. In practice, however, this distinction does not hold well. Two factors seem to be responsible.
First, the Bible describes events that seem neither heavenly nor earthly, making it difficult to make a definitive judgment about them.
Miracles of healing, such as Jesus' raising of Lazarus from the dead, and natural miracles, such as Jesus' calming of storms, no matter how astonishing they may seem, should be understood as earthly events, since they were recorded as things experienced by people at the time.
But what about the choir of angels at Jesus' birth, the voice of the Holy Spirit at Jesus' baptism, the appearance and ascension of the resurrected Jesus, and the visions of Jesus that appeared to Paul? Some of these things are of a nature that they were not witnessed by everyone who was there, and some of them are actually recorded in the Bible as such. It will not be easy to sort through all this and draw the line somewhere between knowing and believing.
Second, as a result of the above, the distinction between knowing and believing will be perceived differently among us, and as one might expect, it is difficult to determine which Christian believer or denomination's boundary setting is correct. When what one person considers to be a belief is another person's experience, no one has any standard for determining which is appropriate.
I once asked a pastor from a conservative church who is part of a denomination known as a "charismatic church": "Do you teach that the 'baptism of the Holy Spirit' is something that if I received it, I would believe that it happened to me, or do you teach that the 'baptism of the Holy Spirit' is something that you can clearly see happening to you?"
As a foreigner, once he understood the meaning of the question, he answered without hesitation: "The 'baptism of the Holy Spirit' is not something you believe you have received, but an experience where you actually know it has happened."
Although I could not seek the "baptism of the Holy Spirit" as taught in that church, I thought the pastor's faith was "sound". This is because, although the criteria for what is faith and what is experience are different there from mine, the distinction between faith and experience is not lost.
At the same time, however, I also witnessed members of the church groaning for the "baptism of the Holy Spirit" and trying to believe that some kind of experience constituted such a thing. I had an "unhealthy" impression of it. For what should have been a clear experience was being provided for by faith.
From this brief consideration, there are some principles that can be extracted about the “soundness” of faith. First, acknowledge that it is difficult to establish objective criteria for distinguishing between knowing and believing. Second, even so, the distinction between knowing and believing must be maintained for each believer.
It is OK for your understanding of what it means to believe and experience to differ from that of other people, and for your understanding to change over the years. However, in the distinction that you understand at any given time, you should not try to compensate for one with the other.
When we are taught that the "baptism of the Holy Spirit" is an experience, it is dangerous to try to believe that it has come true for us. Alternatively, out of the belief that God is good, it would be inappropriate to believe that everything that happens to you is good and to look for a positive reason for each occurrence.
In these cases, people seek consistency between faith and experience, trying to be convinced by believing in things that should be experiences, or trying to guarantee what they believe through experience. However, this is more psychological manipulation than faith and could potentially undermine one's mental health.
Furthermore, while it is a fundamental premise of Christianity that Jesus was a real person who existed in history, in that case, the historical uncertainty about Jesus must be filled by some kind of knowledge, and it must be understood that faith such as a confession of faith cannot make up for that uncertainty. My experience with the Apostles' Creed in 'Chapter 1 - Essay 1' was about this sense of discomfort.
However, this is sometimes fostered by a misunderstanding of Jesus' words: "Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe." (John 20:29 RSV) This teaching, which is often spoken in churches, does not teach that it is important to believe anyway, even in the absence of any evidence.
The context in which these words were spoken is important here. The disciple Thomas to whom Jesus said this had already heard testimony about Jesus' resurrection from the other disciples, and Jesus was telling him this in response to Thomas's disbelief in their testimony.
Therefore, the primary meaning of Jesus' words is that if you hear, even if you do not see, believe it. This does not mean that we are taught that "it is honorable to believe without seeing or hearing." As Paul said, "And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard?" (Romans 10:14 NIV)