Faith, Certainty and Understanding

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smkolins

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It seems to me that no one gets to faith without some understanding. But how much and of what kind?

I don't have an answer, just the question hanging out there....

I do have a couple thoughts but need to pull them together...

Among them is that the details evolve among the three - faith, certainty, and understanding.

Anyone?
 
not sure what you mean by certainty but without faith, we are going nowhere. even with waivering faith we will still be tossed around & go nowhere, as we can see the world is today.

understanding actually takes a little more effort in my opinion than faith & comes later.
i think one can have faith but lack understanding & be ok. but eventually we will grow into understanding because we really believe & want to understand it better.

all this stuff works together, but for sure it starts with faith. i think it helps to be around those who have learned to walk by faith too.

But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.
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what do you mean by certainty?
we cant be certain until after faith either, or so it seems to me.:)
 
i feel certain of only one thing: God exists. this for me is faith, which is based on reason by my understanding of what i see around me. understanding in what sense do you mean? in a very general sense my faith is based on understanding......yet understanding of faith, or religion, that comes by hard work, lots of thought and study, and presumably one needs an interest at least to put that effort in. certainty? about which is the right path? i wish i had it....i would be a lot more relaxed if i did, yet strangely enough it is often the people who seem most certain who worry me most :(
 
Interesting. I think faith is the starting point- not blind belief, but rather a faithful action in seeking after God.

As Flannery O'Connor said, "'Lord, I believe; help my unbelief' is the most natural and most human and most agonizing prayer in the gospels, and I think it is the foundation prayer of faith."

It isn't that we never doubt or question, but that we bring our doubts and questions to God.

Personally, I only have faith in God. The rest is belief. Stemming from faithfully seeking God, we gain experience of Him, and this provides some certainty. I do not personally seek certainty in anything but God Himself- the rest I choose to think of as a work in progress, and an attempt to understand the mystery.

Understanding, or wisdom, is I think a natural desire stemming from faith and experience. My experience is that we can receive wisdom from God through various means, but it is an ongoing process. I believe the purpose of wisdom is to guide us in ethical thought and action and to give us a framework by which to express our experience of God, as well as to help us understand our place in this life and world.
 
Hello, Peace--

path_of_one said:
It isn't that we never doubt or question, but that we bring our doubts and questions to God.
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Amen.

InPeace,
InLove
 
Sometimes there is a tight relationship between a question and an answer. Much of graduate work is to narrow down a question until it can be answered - but that tends to cut the value of the answer because the grand answers have implications beyond those of the question.

But a grand enough answer has almost no relationship to a question - in humor, the Hitchhicker's Guide boils "Life, the Universe, and Everything" down to "42". "God" can be said to be like that, I think.

Mythology, imagination and such wander between certain answers and vague questions.... I think of movies where people aren't told what's "really" going on until the end of the movie, which then permeates back to the begining. But in real life we can have ecstatic moments where the answer is more than obvious, and then we have the answer after death, perhaps.

Inbetween birth (by whatever means, ie physical birth or the birth of faith...) and death (I suppose equally subject to definitions) we get to struggle and search and find something.

I'm still trying to put this together - I had an idea for an entire book but I'm still trying to keep to original idea, which also includes the mystery of paradoxes....
 
Perhaps the key is not what we believe itself, but our dedication to find the truth. Surely if we always wish to find the truth error will be cleaned out? But if we hold to what we have heard surely we only err?

Faith, certainty and understanding. Will not the rocks cry out?!
 
smkolins said:
Perhaps the key is not what we believe itself, but our dedication to find the truth. Surely if we always wish to find the truth error will be cleaned out? But if we hold to what we have heard surely we only err?

Faith, certainty and understanding. Will not the rocks cry out?!
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i am sure i will err til the day i die, but that wont stop my faith & search for more truth. i think i have just about heard it all (so to speak), & i dont want the rocks to cry out- so faith & understanding bring certainty? we dont want to be certain too soon, but certain just enough.

of course at some point we must decide "what is truth?"
 
Bandit said:
i am sure i will err til the day i die, but that wont stop my faith & search for more truth. i think i have just about heard it all (so to speak), & i dont want the rocks to cry out- so faith & understanding bring certainty? we dont want to be certain too soon, but certain just enough.

of course at some point we must decide "what is truth?"
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Indeed and as in another thread, as individuals must decide for themselves what truth is, so must the decide what it is to be convinced - what is the evidence we accept?

And tied in from another angle on this question of faith, certainty and understanding is the question of being right, and of being wrong.

We seek to be right and seeking to be right can lead to careful weighing of evidence and lead to destiguishing for ourselves what we feel/beleive is right and wrong. As this progresses in a social context we may compare and contrast our ideas with those of others, hear their arguments, and criticisms, and evolve our ideas and beliefs.

But deciding what is right or wrong for ourselves can lead to an arrogance by inflection. As we decide something is wrong, we hold those who have that beleif to also be in error though in some circumstances we will allow for different beleifs or in keeping to our own we will not dwell on the failings of others, noting that we still have failings we are blind to.

When we find the basis of decision is our own, even as a divine affirmation, and that no beleif is conditioned on another, then we find that no argument *can* be ultimately persuasive, only what we accept or not. In otherwords, it is not the argument, nor the crafter of one or another argument which automatically causes acceptance. Acceptance is a choice, a step taken, voluntarily, even if indirectly. It is the step before faith?

We accept that teachers tell us the truth, even if we attempt to solve problems in math that demonstrate the truth. Once the truth is accepted it leads to other implications and we extend our experience and understanding.
 
My faith is in God and in the idea that if I genuinely seek Him one way or another He will bring me home.

I agree that at some point we need to feel certitude in the path that we choose to develop our relationship with God and with each other. However, blind faith is a dangerous thing.

So, in answer to the question, I agree that at some point in understanding one makes a choice about what, exactly, one has faith in. We can reach a certitude about the way we address, approach, nurture this faith, but I don't believe that we then stop questioning. We may again choose to stop questioning parts of our belief system, but if we totally shut off our brains in spite of new experiences and information, then we will stagnate, rather than grow in our relationship with God and our neighbor.

lunamoth
 
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lunamoth said:
Oh no, not that topic again. :D

lunamoth
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you are funny.:)
Jesus said it, not me. I only ask it like he did & let it fall wherever it falls.
 
smkolins said:
But deciding what is right or wrong for ourselves can lead to an arrogance by inflection. As we decide something is wrong, we hold those who have that beleif to also be in error though in some circumstances we will allow for different beleifs or in keeping to our own we will not dwell on the failings of others, noting that we still have failings we are blind to.
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i go by the best i can with what the bible is trying to say & that is my guide because so far it has never failed me.
i fail it, but i does not fail me when i get back on track.
i fail a lot, but i am not blind to them.

i have my thoughts on what some of the biggest mistakes are & one of them IMO is the individuality doctrine that started about 20 years ago. so what we have today is confusion & peoples values or lack of are just stepping all over each other on a daily basis because there are very few values left.

the things i hold as certain, i keep them to myself & may mention it only briefly & in passing or in a question & just let everyone believe whatever they want to believe. i am certainly not going to try to change or spend hours of time convincing.

one thing for sure about understanding- it is nice to be understood once in awhile & i think everyone needs that.
of course you dont have to believe like i do.:)
 
lunamoth said:
However, blind faith is a dangerous thing.


lunamoth
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i dont see faith as blind when it is in the bible & God. do you mean just in what people say, like theories & doctrines?
 
a book doesn't understand. It can be an expression of understanding, it can be a guide to faith, it can be a reason for certainty, but it *is* ink on paper.

Understanding, faith, and certainty are human experiences. Purity of heart, chastity of soul, and freedom of spirit are ways of getting the message of the Books of God.
 
Bandit said:
i dont see faith as blind when it is in the bible & God. do you mean just in what people say, like theories & doctrines?
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Hi Bandit,

Sorry I missed this post before now.

I don't think that faith in the Bible is blind as long as you are reading it for yourself and have your own understanding, not just going by what someone else (even one you consider an authority) has said that it means. So, I guess I am saying I don't think it's good to have blind faith in what people say. :)

Having said that, I do believe there is value in listening to what other people say about scripture and I don't think doctrine, or even dogma, is a bad thing. It can elucidate collective, time-tested wisdom and it can act to bring cohesiveness to the Body of Christ.

Always test the spirits. That's what I mean.

peace,
lunamoth
 
thanks for that post Luna.

how does this sound?...
i am certain that i understand i have/need faith.
OR
my faith has brought a certain amount of understanding
OR
i understand i must be certain in my faith
OR
understanding faith is certainly a good thing
something like that:)
back to the jungle
 
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